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

[bigdamnprincipal]

The benches in this section were a little further from the bonfire than the others. If people were sensible, they might want to keep all their clothes on over here, but Fandom, of course, has never been graced with an overabundance of sensible people.

[Please wait for OCD! OCD is up! This is the SECOND post for general mingling. Use this post if your browser can't handle the comment load of the first mingling post. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

Comments

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[bitten_notshy]

Jack shook his head. "No -- I was adopted when I was small, she grew up with our parents. She's past 20 now."

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

"Maybe that's why," she mused. "Resents your guardian, because you didn't grow up with her, or because she didn't get taken away. Sorry, I probably shouldn't speculate on your family, considering I don't know them."

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[bitten_notshy]

"No, I don't mind," Jack reassured her. "I love to speculate about people I don't know, and if I minded I wouldn't have told you. You need to add in that she likely feels guilty about it -- she was older enough to see herself as my protector. Also jealous, since she's a servant, and I'm -- a servant in nicer clothes."

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

"Gossip's one of my favorite bad habits," she said, offering him a grin. "So she's jealous of your nicer clothes, and guilty that she can't watch for you any longer. Why doesn't she have a guardian of her own?"

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[bitten_notshy]

"Well, because I was sold for a servant. I was five. Pretty. Young enough to learn new ways, old enough to obey orders," Jack said, blue eyes betraying no emotion. "She would have been 11 or 12 -- a bit old for indentureship, in my world. She says my parents meant to keep us all, but we had this horrible habit of eating and my father was ill by then."

So it went, sometimes.

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

"The choices you're left with at that point are rarely pretty," Elena nodded. "I would have thought five was young for a servant. You'd think you'd tire quickly, at that age."

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[bitten_notshy]

"Strong enough. They didn't so much need us for physical labor." Jack's pale skin colored slightly. He'd been a pretty serving boy in a vampire whorehouse; the point was not how many pounds he could lift. "It wasn't pleasant, but my guardian rescued me."

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

At that, Elena also flushed. Stupid. She'd known of similar goings-on in the slums; they just hadn't called the children involved servants. She cleared her throat quickly.

"Kind of him," she said. "Though I see where your sister might have a different take on the matter."

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[bitten_notshy]

"I'm alive," Jack said, following her reaction enough to know she'd understood. "And he never laid a finger on me when I was young. He didn't buy me first -- that was someone else who passed me along like an unwanted pet."

Jack had not made an especially good servant, as it happened.

"But yes," he conceded, "I see where she might not understand that."

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

"I'm glad he wasn't a ... former client," she said, for lack of a better word. "That would be particularly unsettling."

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[bitten_notshy]

"Mmmm," Jack agreed, and laughed a little. "I'm sorry. I don't usually drop all of this on people. Tell me more about your sister -- older or younge?"

Re: More General Mingling [Spring 2010]

[findingelena.livejournal.com]

"Older," she said, laughing a little herself. "It's fine. I grew up in the slums, so most people weren't sitting around playing Happy Families or anything. I went into the Academy looking for a way out. When one presented itself, I jumped."