Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===The Picture Show===


The convoy pulled up outside the small hotel that Roberta had booked for the morning, and the group piled out, as a few paparazzi near the entrance were shooed away.  The five travelers filed in, and were immediately beset by the Royal Daughters who had remained on (or recently returned to) Earth.

Venus lurched backwards as she was nearly tackled by Farah.  “Venus!  Great to see you again!” Farah proclaimed, wrapping her cousin tight.

Venus hugged her back.  “Farah, I’m so glad we caught you!” she said, pecking the ever-tousled blonde on the cheek.  “We have so much to show you from the trip!”

“I bet!  Come on up to the ballroom Roberta rented, we got a projector,” Farah said.

Gairwyn paused Freya as she walked in.  “Do you want me to be here, or do you want to see your cousins alone?” she asked quietly, in Juvjk.

“Be here!” Freya replied in the same tone.  “We’ll get little enough time to see each other before we take off.”

“True.  Very well,” she said, following her boisterous daughter in.  Freya promptly pounced on Miranda for a ferocious bear hug, nearly lifting the diminutive psyker off the ground.

“Miranda!  You’re back too!  This is great!” Freya squealed.

Miranda shook herself loose, breathless.  “Yeah, Carshim was fun…I brought holos too,” she managed.  She turned to offer a hug to Remilia too, and broke into a beaming smile.  “Remilia, welcome back,” she said, squeezing her cousin around the shoulders.  “You’re faring much better.  You can rest easy again,” she said in the faintest whisper, regarding the spiritual matter to which her father had attended prior to Remilia’s departure.  Her eye glowed faintly behind its bandana as she said it.

Remilia felt a weight lift as she heard the news.  “Thanks,” she said under her breath.  Louder, she continued.  “So how was the resort?”

“Manufactured, but very comfortable,” Miranda said.  “I’ll show you upstairs.”

Alex and Jake wandered around, being welcomed by the Royal Daughters who knew them, until Roberta poked her head out of a stairwell and spotted them.  “Guys, the room is ready,” she said.

Upstairs, the last of the caterers were making their exits as the girls emerged from the stairs.  “Oh, awesome,” Venus said, taking in the vaulted room.  “Where do we set up?”

Roberta pointed at the little table where a projector was sitting.  “Just get all the pictures on the same vox and pipe them in there,” she said.

“Here, I’ll do it,” Remilia said.  “Pass me your voxes, people.”  Those of the Daughters who had something to show handed their voxes over as Freya and Venus made discreet exits to change.

Jake and Alex drifted over to the table where a small buffet had been set up, both taking a headcount as they did.  Miranda was there, as was Roberta, Farah, both of the Twins, Isis, Faith, Victoria, and Venus, Freya and Remilia of course.  Angela was also there, as were Morticia and Kelly, but Cora, Petra, Hana, Furia, and Lyra weren’t.  Most of those girls whose parents could attend had them there, as well, though it was mothers-only for all of them, which suited the boys fine: the Seagers especially were looking somewhat overwhelmed.

Isis ambled up to where Jake was standing.  “Hey, Jake, glad you’re back,” she said.  “How was military food?” she asked drily.

Jake shook his head.  “I’d tell you if we had any.  We ate with the Captain nearly every day on the ship, except for breakfasts, and we just ate out on Nocturne.”

“And the Fang?” she asked, her curious orange eyes shining with good humor.  “No restaurants on Fenris.”

“Heh.  We ate in the Fang, so that, I’ll grant you, was pretty good,” Jake admitted.  He smiled back at Isis.  “Glad Julius is okay.”

“Me too!” Isis said emphatically.  “He wanted to go see his mother’s resting place before he came home, though, so I won’t see him for a long while.”

“So I hear.”  Jake coughed lightly.  “Forgive me, hmm?” he asked.  Before she could say anything, he leaned forward and hugged the much shorter girl.  “I’m glad you didn’t have to say goodbye to him, after what happened,” he said quietly.

“Thanks, man,” Isis said, stepping back with a bashful look.  “So…pics.  Show me.  Nocturne, the ''Tide'', all of it.”

A few minutes later, the projector wheezed to life as the girls and the few boyfriends and parents who wanted to stay found their seats.  Remilia picked up the remote for the projector.

Morticia glanced around.  “Are we not waiting for Freya and Venus?” she asked.

“They’re around,” Remilia said.  She brought up the first one.  “’Kay, here we are in front of the bar in the O-Club on the Iron Tide, the Salamander patrol ship we took.  That guy back there serving the fighter pilot is my new best friend, Chuck Kines,” she said, deciding to omit the details.  “Pro tip for when you find yourself on a warship: befriend the bartender, if you can find one.”

They moved on to the later trip, including a still from the sparring match with Isaac and Venus, to which the other cousins made the appropriate catcalls and sounds of appreciation.  Jake snorted as Farah gave him a playful nudge.  “Does she wear that around the house?” she teased.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Jake shot back smoothly.

The pictures advanced to Nocturne, and Venus in her formal uniform giving the speech.  Just as the image came on, she emerged from the restroom with the folded uniform in hands, having grabbed it when she had ducked into the head to change into civvies, and Remilia paused the show to let her display it.

“Nice outfit, Venus,” Roberta said, running a hand over the thick leather sleeves.  “Is that real drake?”

“Of course,” she said.  She showed where the weapons would holster on the hips with a gesture.  “Couldn’t really be asked to unpack the hardware or the crown, though,” she said.

“Oh, yeah,” Freya said, emerging from the bathroom in her Fenrisian robes.  “It’s shiny, sure, but if you want that rustic feel, well…”

The others looked up to see her in the full outfit, dagger and all.  “Wow, that’s really pretty,” Morticia said, fingering the pelt on the hem of the hood.

“Thanks, Morticia!” Freya said happily.  “Can’t get this on a store rack, either, this is real wolf pelt,” she said.  “And check the gloves.  Bjorn got them for me,” she said, holding her hands out.

“Bjorn…the Eldest?  Your father’s lieutenant?” Farah asked.  “Too cool.”

“Yeah, it’s great,” Freya said.  She put her hands up.  “But I don’t want to stop the show.”

Alex coughed lightly.  “Want me to drive for a spell, Remilia?” he asked.

“Would you?” she asked.  “Thanks.”  She ducked into the head to strip out of her travelling clothes into everyday wear as Alex picked up the remote.

“All right…here we are on…oh yeah, that was your birthday party, wasn’t it?” he asked Jake.

Jake nodded, a tiny bit uncomfortable being the center of attention from the Royal mothers.  “Yeah, that was the party,” he said.  “That poker set got broken in at record speed, too.”

“Hell yeah it did, much to my immediate profit,” Freya snarked.

“Dream on,” he Jake shot back.

The trip images took them over the remainder of the Nocturne excursion, until the last Nocturne picture appeared on the screen: the five of them standing in front of the Skarokk castle.  “And that was Nocturne,” Alex finished.  “Man, that was a wild trip.”

“So, Jake, show us your honorable war wounds,” Farah said.  Jake stood to show the shaggy part of the back of his head.

“Not very honorable, but hey,” he said.  “I mean, can you even see it?”

“Nope,” Farah said.  “Oh well.”

The door at the back of the room opened, and a few more people filed in, but Alex picked right back up with the trip to Fenris.  “So once we got there, we didn’t take as many pictures since we were staying in the Fang for the most part, but we got a few cool ones,” he said, showing them Venus’ pictures from the top of the basalt pillars.

They paged through several more, including one of Jake and the girls at the firing range, and one Alex had taken of the other four outside the hot spring.  When they got to the pic of Jake and the three Daughters watching the holo, Jake very deliberately crossed his hands behind his head and leaned back, to the laughter of most of the girls in the room.

The last few pictures of the Fenris trip were of the Fang’s interior, those parts that Freya thought the Wolves wouldn’t mind being photographed.  One was the inside of the rooftop hangar bay.  “I don’t get agoraphobia, but man…if I did, that room would have ruined me,” Jake remarked.  “You could park a Cobra in there, easy.”

“Really?  Wow,” Roberta said.  “Think they’ll build a ship in there someday?”

“Someday?” Freya asked.  “They HAVE.  One of the system patrol boats.  Never again, though.  What a mess it left.”

“Impressive,” Roberta said.

The slide show ended with a brief video clip of the five of them out in the wilds of the planet with Leman Russ, showing the boys how to construct a lean-to.  When the clip ended, Alex snapped his fingers and the lights rose.  “Man, what a trip,” he said.

“I know.  Can I show mine?” Morticia asked.

“Oh, of course,” Alex said, stepping aside.