It wasn't that Eleanor didn't appreciate being able to live out history. It was cool and everything except for the fact that things were trying to kill her and there had been a protest that she'd just barely avoided and she'd basically stolen all her clothes and food. She'd managed to get some money, so she was going to buy herself something good to eat today.
She walked the city streets, far more observant than she had the day before, not wanting to run into any more crazy people when she spotted a familiar face walking the opposite direction. That wasn't… Was it? It was!
Forgetting that she wasn't meant to act weird, she went running up to her friend. "ALEXIS!!!" she shouted on the way, before hugging her. Right. The advice she'd received about not attracting attention had at least been heeded until just then?
How many more days was this going to go on? It felt like they were at about a million days so far, and Alexis was over it. Oh, don’t get her wrong - she really appreciated Lois and Jaina’s skills and she was glad she had arrived with them. They’d managed to find a room to pay for (at least for a little while) so they had a roof over their heads, coins to buy food (acquiring that coin wasn’t always ethical, shall we say) and a brand new bar of soap. That soap was a luxury and she was going to use it slooooooowly because it smelled amazing, like milk and honey, and while they didn’t have any hot showers the bathtub was perfectly fine to soak in whenever they got to use one.
After getting caught stealing, however, she was trying to lay low. Wandering around the city with her face on display didn’t seem wise - so when she thought she wasn’t like, potentially a wanted criminal she put on her usual dress and wrapped up in a shawl to do some shopping. Later, she’d meet up with the ladies again and see how far they had gotten at acquiring new things - pool their resources, and...
Oh. Someone was coming at her. And it was definitely Eleanor, blonde bestie she hadn’t seen in forever, so immediately she dropped her ability to be a sneaky-sneak and rushed at her friend in turn. “Eleanor, hey!” Alexis hugged her fiercely, it was totally a sapphic moment in the middle of the street. Aww. “Are you okay??”
"Alexis, this is the bad place," Eleanor whined. "We got here and things tried to kill us, and then on our way to the city, things tried to kill us and Bela had to save my life, and then we got to the city and everyone stared at us and I thought they were going to try to kill us and now I have to wear this ugly dress and I ate the worst bread I've ever had in my life last night."
Wow. She was whining. But this was the first time she'd met up with someone she knew and it wasn't just anyone, it was Alexis. Who could probably deal with that whining, even though now that she was done Eleanor realized she was going to have to pull herself together.
"Sorry, I'm okay. I just really hate this place and things trying to kill me." Especially now.
“Oh no!” Alexis let her get it all out, patting Eleanor’s back, a comforting sort of there, there gesture - because this was totally the hard knock life. Like the kind they read about in history books - now she knew how Cullen and others from medieval times felt when they suddenly landed in modern sci-fi fantasy aesthetic Vallo, and couldn’t differentiate which end was up. It was jarring - especially because they had never been here before (clearly) and didn’t understand the terrain, the geography, or how anything worked.
So completely fish out of water. She would try her best to be more welcoming to those who got dropped into Vallo from ‘past times,’ whenever she got back home. Home (still weird to think of it as home, but whatever - that was a whole other story).
She rested her hands on Eleanor’s shoulders, squeezing gently. “It’s perfectly valid to hate this place. Especially when we don’t have magic or like, superpowers,” she pointed out. Usually Alexis was okay with herself in that regard, not measuring up because she had other talents, but right now none of those talents were any sort of use. No one cared that her haircare game was so on point, Kirsten Dunst had once been jealous of her bangs.
“What should we do?” she asked. “See how many coins we both have, and get ourselves something filling to eat? I have some money too. I’ll share.” Of course she would. That wasn’t even a question.
"Tell me about it," Eleanor said. "If I had magic I could fight better." It wasn't that she didn't try. It's just that she wasn't any good at it.
Finally stepping back from Alexis, she nodded. "Okay, but let's go somewhere safer to look. I think I have enough to feed myself a couple times." She'd stolen a coin purse from someone who hadn't been careful with their money, and hadn't yet had a chance to look through it. She felt bad, but it was that or eating bread and mush again and she just couldn't stomach any more bread and mush.
Besides, this had purse seemed heavy and the man she'd stolen from had more than one. So did it really matter? If you stole coins in an ancient city and Chidi wasn't around to lecture you on moral philosophy did the theft even count?
"Warm and filling."
Something warm sounded amazing, honestly. Alexis had been trying to budget and to ‘scrimp and save’ or whatever - and that included consuming a lot of bread that was on the more stale side and like, pickled vegetables because those kept for awhile. They tasted disgusting but she wasn’t about to complain - it was better than scraping bark off a tree in order to get some nutrients. “Let’s try and find a tavern?” she suggested. “I bet they have like, ancient Viking stew or something.”
That would definitely fit the bill for warm and hearty. Her arm wrapped around Eleanor’s, keeping a hold on her so they wouldn’t get separated and off they went. The layout of Civitas was sort of familiar by now - better than when they’d first been dropped into this time period and didn’t know where anything was. God, that’d been disorienting. “So how are your people back home? Are they okay too?”
A tavern sounded amazing and she said as much out loud. Even whatever might pass for alcohol here sounded fantastic. Wine? They had to have wine, right? Eleanor wasn't about to be picky. "Mostly it's Jason back there? By himself? I don't even know, I'm scared that we're going to get back and half the apartments will have been blown up." Though that was going on the assumption that they were going to get back home.
She refused to think any differently, letting Alexis guide her.
"Hey look," she said, pointing up ahead. "The Drunken Hen has to be tavern, right?"
Alexis refused to believe that they’d be stuck here indefinitely - she just didn’t belong in this time period and she didn’t want to pretend otherwise. The thought that Jason might blow up Morningside made her giggle a little, however - it was a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy existence, so she was grateful for the laugh.
The Drunken Hen also gave her a chuckle - well, that was a name. “Sounds good to me,” she nodded, eagerly heading toward the entrance with a spring in her step. She wasn’t certain what they’d find (it was maybe technically a taverna? Like in really, really ancient Greece maybe?) - was it going to be one of those drinking parties where the room was splashed with perfumes, everyone wore garlands and lounged while drinking fermented grape juice?
No. It was a lot different. Spits for broiling meat and a whole bunch of jugs, a cooking bell (it was made of iron - the kind of thing placed over another iron plate to bake stuff in), and chipped plates and bowls. Smelled homey, at least. It would be just fine. “Stew time,” she decided, settling at a table. “And wine - god, I hope they have wine.”
They did. So she asked for two cups of the stuff - black wine (red, technically) and could probably cure any sickness. “Cheers,” she toasted. “I guess this part of the time traveling experience is okay? I still feel like I’m in a weird Doc Brown movie though.”
"Alexis," Eleanor whispered. "I think we're in Game of Thrones." Which wouldn't bode well for them, except the city didn't really have that full GoT vibe going for it so that was probably good. Even so, the idea of warm stew sounded heavenly even if heaven was really the good place and this definitely was not it.
And the wine? The wine definitely wasn't going to hurt. "Cheers," she echoed, taking a long, overdue drink. Oh fork that was strong. Wait why was she thinking in good place swears?
"That's definitely potent," Eleanor said. Maybe she wouldn't need a second. Maybe she'd still get one anyway. "We deserve this," she mused, staring at the glass. "It's been a long few days."
“We do,” Alexis agreed - sure, lots of other people had their magic and stuff to help them, so they were fine. But how could she be expected to live without Prada boots or dry shampoo? It wasn’t fair - though she couldn’t exactly whine about it either, because anyone else would just tell her to suck it up. So instead of whining out loud she usually just did a pout in her head, counting the hours and minutes and seconds until this nonsense was over.
Whenever that would be.
But she noticed Eleanor was kind of dejected, and maybe it didn’t have to do with the current sitch. “What’s wrong?” she asked her friend, nudging gently under the table. The wine might loosen lips and, besides, if fro-yo bestie needed to get anything off her chest, Alexis would listen. “You seem down.” If she didn’t want to talk about it that was fine too - but the offer was there regardless.
Eleanor glanced at Alexis and then drank down a huge gulp of wine. "Oh you know. I've just been in the middle of a minor existential crisis. Because I'm pretty sure if I leave Vallo, I cease to exist." Or if she died here, which had made the entire series of attacks all the worse for it. But she played it off with her facial expressions, just indicating that all of that was not great.
"And again, Jason might be setting half of normal Vallo on fire by now. Who really knows?"
It was entirely possible that Jason had set half of Vallo on fire by now, yeah. Alexis wouldn’t pull any punches about that. “We might have heard about it in the journals if he did?” she grinned a little behind her cup, taking slow sips of the wine. Because it made her feel that all-over, warm and tingly thing - nice and toasty. She’d eat good tonight and sleep good tonight, because wine also helped with attaching sandbags to one’s eyelids.
“But back to this existential crisis thing,” she sat up straighter, tossing her hair over shoulder. “Why would you think you cease to exist? You’re still - in the afterlife, aren’t you?”
The Good Place. The actual Good Place. Eleanor didn’t deserve torment, or fire and brimstone.
Eleanor almost instantly regretted saying anything. There was nothing she could actually do to change anything other than attempt to stay alive. Which she was doing. She felt better now that she was in the city and trying to keep a (relatively) low profile. But still. This was a lot and she'd only now run into one of her best friends which made her feel relatively safer.
"I am, except I maybe might be right about to walk through the last door when I go back which is the end of my existence because in my new memories I was perfectly content after all this time in the Good Place?"
She'd watched it on the show before, but now? Now she'd lived it overnight which was definitely not enough time. Like maybe if she started reliving it now and made her way from ancient Vallo to modern Vallo that might be enough time but one night? Not enough.
"Anyway, it's not that important. Really, I just want a shower."
“It is important,” Alexis protested. “You’re important. And maybe the ‘you’ there was totally ready to walk through that door or whatever, but it’s okay if you now is scared about it or doesn’t think you’re ready. Like, stuff changes depending on the circumstances.” Time in Vallo had shown her that - here, she had people she’d never even know in Schitt’s Creek. Like Cullen, and Cleo, and Eleanor - her other friends and the people who had came and went, but she was still grateful she knew them for the time that she did.
They all had people and places to fight for, to want to be present for - that was why they weren’t going to just roll over and let the ancient era take them away, into an existence of unwashed taverns and pooping in the woods.
She sighed, hands curled around her cup o’wine. “I’m just saying - whatever you feel about it is valid and your own feelings anyway. There’s no right or wrong.”
Eleanor was definitely going to need a second glass of wine, even if she ended up regretting it later. But she appreciated Alexis, because somehow she seemed to understand exactly how she was feeling without her having to try and vocalize it.
"Thanks, bestie," Eleanor said. "I'll feel better when I've eaten something other than bread and mush too. This place is insane. How did anyone ever live like this like… every day?" She didn't really want to dwell too much on what awaited her outside of Vallo. But she did want to think about getting back to modern Vallo. "What's the first thing, outside of a forever long hot shower, that you're gonna do when we get back?"
Alexis nodded, reaching over and patting Eleanor’s hand. “Totally get that too,” she grinned a little. Basically, she was chomping at the bit to return to the correct time period and sometimes made a list of things she wanted to do whenever she touched feet-that-desperately-needed-a-pedicure back on home turf.
“So like, definitely a shower,” she agreed. A reeeeeeally long one. With plenty of the Apothecary’s products and actual shampoo. She wanted all the dirt and grime from her hair, and to be sparkling clean. And maybe she lived in Skyhold, which had a very medieval aesthetic, but at least there was electricity. Plus running water - they’d upgraded. “Also am going to blast my music really loud from my phone and dance around, probably go grab the biggest iced coffee or a smoothie and something fattening, like a red velvet cake pop - then watch a lot of Netflix.”
All of that sounded heavenly. She was practically drooling at the thought of sustenance that wasn’t, you know - this. Even if the stew that arrived looked plenty good - it was boar stew, with plenty of garlic and herbs and vegetables. Potatoes. Carb overload. She didn’t care, because she’d earned these carbs.
“Now eat up, bestie,” she encouraged, with a wave of her wooden spoon. “Gotta keep the powerful lady strength going.”