fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

"Oh, you'll have a devil of a time being rid of me, then," Alice said cheerfully, munching on one of those little popovers. Very nice. "Do you mean the school itself seeks out people to attend? I've no idea how anyone would have gotten my name. Dr. Wilson said there wasn't time to send a letter, but if you're not the sort to chase after unexpected letters, you'll never have any fun at all. Already this is a vast improvement on the asylum."

Alice's conversational style was very much a babbling brook, hitting every turn and bend that occurred to her.

Ah. Asylum. Probably fed her worth shit there, too. Poor kid. At least being sane wasn't high on the priority list of whatever great mystic force voodoo junk brought people here.

After all, look at him.

"Fandom picks up people from all over. Different times, different worlds, I think it likes the variety. Maybe it gets bored, or whatever. That'd explain the fact that it decided to go vacationing off the coast of Greece, lately."

"The school goes on vacation?" Well. She hadn't had a proper vacation herself in ages. She hadn't had much of anything in ages; a week wasn't all that long to catch up on several years, after all. Reno would have to excuse her manners; she was too enraptured by the food to pay much attention to basic etiquette about not speaking with one's mouth full. Horribly unladylike. Her mother would scold her, were she not dead. "That must be difficult to arrange. Packing all one's things and renting out a new schoolhouse. A breath of fresh air, though, and if you can manage to go to Greece, why not? I've never been to Greece. Nor Virginia, before this."

Reno? Worried about manners?

If Reno could read narrative, he'd be amused by that notion. A lot.

"Wasn't too hard, really. Seniors had their graduation thing, and next thing we all know, the whole island's been relocated to Greece. Nice place, once you get your head around dolmades. Pretty weird place what thinks it's a good idea to wrap rice an' meat up in a freakin' leaf, you know?"

Yes, he thought this was an important point, here.

"The island moved to Greece?" Alice considered that for a moment. "My goodness. And here I didn't even realize islands could move about. Perhaps they do it all the time when we're not watching, and no one knows since it's not usually quite so drastic. A few feet here or there, and no wonder so many ships are lost at sea. But Greece, that's bound to raise a few eyebrows. Are we still in Greece? I was wondering how I managed to cross an ocean by train. False advertising, was my theory. It calls itself an ocean to not feel quite so bad about being a lake."

"From what I heard, it had somethin' to do with fairies or whatever." Reno shrugged and grinned a little. "I'm pretty sure we're still in Greece. Kinda forgot to check this morning. Woke up, and decided I'd better take off to check out the newbie situation. Never quite had to stick my neck out for so many at once."

Yes, he was making it his personal mission to help out every newbie he could find. Why?

"So, you're from across the ocean, or wherever? I'm not too familiar with the geography of this place. Been told that I should get to know it all better. I figure, why bother? I ain't from this world, anyhow."

The girl seemed like the sort that wouldn't have too many problems with the universe-hopping concept, he figured. Time to test that notion.

"We should set up a system," Alice nodded, brushing crumbs from her fingers. Those little pastry things with meat in them were incredible, but messy. "Someone wakes up each morning and checks to see where the island is. If it's moved, they alert the rest of us, however that's most convenient. It would be a bother to have to knock on doors and pass the message along. Maybe we set up a chain of command, for that."

She tilted her head curiously at Reno. "I'm from Oxford, England. The Atlantic Ocean's between that and Virginia, except when Virginia relocates to Greece. What world are you from? I've been to Looking-glass Land, their writing's a bit hard to read."

She'd also managed to become a Queen there, but that seemed rude to brag about on first meeting. Besides, she wasn't sure how much of that was the Red and White Queens amusing themselves at her expense, which made it poor boasting material indeed.

"You know, they got the radio broadcast every night to tell you what happened on the island all day. That's helpful for keepin' up on what's goin' on, but doesn't really tell you where you are when you wake up, yo. For real big, important things, the principal or the dean or whoever usually makes announcements, too. Word of mouth travels pretty quick around here, unless you're makin' an effort not to hear it, I find."

Reno was going to help himself to a few of those cookies. Just heap 'em onto his plate and he'd be good to go. There were plenty. He could hoard them.

"World I'm from is called Gaia. Maybe a little more advanced, technology-wise, than this world, with some magic and monsters thrown in for good measure. People like to try to blow it up lots." Because people were stupid. Stupid people.

Edited 2008-05-09 18:15 (UTC)

"And whatever might a radio broadcast be?" Alice asked, politely, nibbling on another of those excellent cheese danishes. If she kept on in this manner, she would be terribly obese before the week was out. She could let her dress out a few sizes, couldn't she? "We've neither magic nor monsters in Oxford, although either might be hiding rather well out of plain view. So I suppose I should say I've no evidence that we have either. There were beasts aplenty in Wonderland, but no magic per se. Just oddities of time and space. Why do people try to blow up your home?"

Oh. Duh. Reno had asked where she was from, totally forgetting that being from Earth didn't necessarily mean being from now.

"Radio is... kinda like a little box that... echoes sound over distance. So whatever's sent to it from one place will be able to be heard from wherever someone is listening to a radio on the other end. Every night, someone reads the news for the day, that way. Saves on newsprint, zoto."

... They did have newsprint when she was from, right?

He hoped?

"And as for blowin' up my planet? Kinda boils down to environmentalists and momma's boys who take their lots in life too damn serious. We get by, whatever." See. Totally water off a river chocobo's back.

"Like a megaphone of some variety?" She imagined someone shouting into one end of a very thin little tube and creating echoes to anyone with a box. That might get annoying, depending on who had tubes. Perhaps they confiscated them to prevent mischief in the wee hours. "I shall have to ... get a radio box."

Except that she had nothing to her name. She tried not to show concern. Somehow, she'd find money, or make herself a radio box. She could get by, as well.

"It sounds dangerous. I hope no one's managed it so far. Planets seem awfully huge to be blowing apart and putting back together again."

"Tell you what, I'll get you one. Call it a housewarming gift. Havin' a radio really helps out for the first little bit when you're new around this place. How else are you gonna know when the place has been invaded by angry bears with knives?"

... That had sounded saner in his head, really.

"Planet's still the way it was when I came here. Hurtin', maybe even dyin', but not dead. 'S gonna have to do, for now."

"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly," she said quickly, rocking on her heels again. "Please don't on my account. I suppose it's not likely to be much of a secret, if angry bears are stomping around outside."

She hesitated, unsure of the proper way to express one's sympathy in this manner. "I'm sorry," she settled on. "That your planet is sick. I hadn't realized planets could take ill."

Reno just shrugged a shoulder. The plan had been set. Alice was going to have a radio before the day was through, come hell or high water. No point protesting. He'd write instructions or whatever, even.

"Takes someone to make it sick," he explained. "Gaia hasn't really had the most responsible caretakers lately."

He should know. First-hand. Dammit.

"One hopes it gets better ones, soon," she nodded. "One would imagine that's likely to stir people to action, a planet being sickly. Not something one can ignore and go about one's day."

"Yeah," Reno agreed, and his attention was suddenly very thoroughly on the cookies that he had pilfered from the table. "Plenty of people willin' to go to drastic measures to save the planet, or whatever."

"There's no use worrying, then, is there?" Alice asked, setting her chin. "If there are a lot of desperate people trying rather hard to save your planet, then one would imagine it will be saved. Reassuring thought."

"Some people got a real funny idea of how to go about doin' the right thing," Reno ventured. "Savin' the planet's a great idea. But I think I'd like it better if they didn't think they had to do it by killin' everyone on it, yo."

Alice frowned. "That's a bit self-defeating, isn't it?" she asked. "What's the point to saving the planet if you've killed everyone on it? No one's going to live there."

"Planet rebuilds itself, or somethin'," he responded, scowling at the cookies for a moment before giving a shrug of his shoulders and looking up again. "I try not to follow that kinda logic. Too busy keepin' 'em from killin' every livin' thing on Gaia to bother with it, yo."

"It's all very well and good for the planet to rebuild itself, but none of us would be there to see it," Alice scoffed.

The point of environmentalism peered down at Alice as it sailed cleanly over her head. Perhaps it waved?

"You destroy them?" she asked, nodding a little. "The ones who would destroy everything."

Reno's cookies were totally forgotten, now. Set on the table so that he could ball his hands into fists. And his fists would go into his pockets, like so, in order to prevent him from breaking them against convenient nearby trees.

He was going to have to find a flower bed somewhere just to step on it. That would help his mood. Motherfuckers.

"Whenever I saw a chance to rid the planet of a few enviro-terrorist fuckwipes, I took it, zoto."

Splat.

Alice didn't follow many of those words - 'enviro-terrorist' was not in her vocabulary, nor was 'fuckwipe.' But the gist was clear.

"Well done," she said, clasping her hands behind her back. "Have they stopped?"

"For now."

That, really, was good enough for Reno.

"S'just a matter of puttin' it all back together, now."

Some things weren't going to ever be fixed.

"Then I'd say you succeeded," Alice said crisply. "Hard to put anything back together when the world's been demolished."

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)

Re: General Mingling (Summer 2008)