fandomhigh | BWI Airport | Portalocity Lounge

Entry tags:

!event: newbie shuttle

BWI Airport | Portalocity Lounge | Saturday Morning

Madison was not pleased when she pushed open the door to the lounge with the Fandom High sign on the door. Like it wasn't bad enough that she had to deal with being dead, now Ron decided to send her to some lame summer camp so Kairos and Nakita couldn't find her.

She slumped in one of the chairs near the door. There was a black suitcase decorated with stickers sitting next to her and a dirty yellow and black backpack at her feet. Her eyes were glued to the door in search of any danger that might be incoming - in the form of dark reapers or new classmates.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It might have been the sharpness of her teeth when she smiled at him, tipping the hat back to give him a better look. "It seems everyone save for me was expecting to arrive here."

Were those...?

No. Couldn't be. Alexander figured it was just a trick of the light, or simply that not everyone had as naturally straight and perfect teeth as he did.

"You are here unexpectedly?" he asked, his intrigue growing. "Was it the work of an evil wizard?"

Because he knew how that went, did he ever...

~~Twas a trick of the mullet!~~

"A wizard?" They were too busy eating more than anyone needed and lazing about, weren't they? "No, I think it was more a wrong turn somewhere."

A very, very wrong turn.

"Oh," said Alexander, not exactly knowing what she meant, but trying to understand all the same.

"Then you're lucky there wasn't a pit down that turn. Or some other surprising trap..."

Even as he said it, though, he trailed off slightly, looking suspiciously toward the shuttles outside with new eyes. It was entirely possible, he supposed...

He was interesting, at least.

She offered her hand, posture perfect as she stepped away from the wall. "Maladicta."

Zounds, he'd done it again! Forgotten to properly introduce himself to a lady! He could just hear Rosella tittering and making fun of him in his head.

"O--Of course!" Alexander said, straightening up almost as if to match her posture as he stepped back enough to take her hand, lift it slightly as he bent stiffly to kiss it, a gesture that could clearly use more practice. "How foolish of me! I am Prince Alexander of Daventry. It is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Maladicta."

It was only after he said the name that he noticed how it had that particular evil flavor to it, but that might have just been his bad experiences with magicians named with Ms and all that...

"That's a very...distinctive name," he couldn't help remarking, because those experiences did tend to run down family lines, and he was suddenly suspicious that this was going to turn into another one of those adventures.

"One of many," she assured him. "My family was rather fond of the... old traditions when it came to names."

Which tended to make one sound like a villain in a B horror movie.

Well, wasn't that reassuring. Alexander looked a bit pale all of a sudden.

"Your family?" he managed to get out. "Tell me, have you many brothers, Maladicta?"

Please no, please no, please no! Alexander did not want to have to turn any more people into animals for doing things like enslaving and impoverishing him or shrinking him and sticking him in a jar....

"Several," Maladicta replied, giving him a once over at the sudden paleness. "I am a Black Ribboner, Alexander. There's no need to worry."

At least that did sound less foreboding than the Society of the Black Cloaks, but it still wasn't helping with the lack of color in Alexander's face at the moment.

"What's a Black Ribboner?" he asked, sounding a bit like he was wishing he hadn't.

"The Überwald League of Temperance?" The umlaut made it friendlier. like a smiley face.

"Err, sorry," said Alexander, a little less pale now, but a lot more sheepish. It was true about the umlaut. The word temperance probably did a lot, too, to ease him out of thinking that this was something terrible. "Doesn't ring a bell."

"Not one drop," Maladicta replied with maybe a little forced cheer. "I have given up blood in order to join the disc in this great century."

Alexander still wasn't sure he was quite on board with understanding exactly what Maladicta meant, but the general gist of it, he felt, was pretty clear. He basically took it to mean that there'd be no killing of any princes who may or may not have turned any of her brothers into cats.

You'd think that'd be comforting. But it wasn't, not really. Manannan wasn't going to kill him until he was sixteen, after all, and Mordack just put them in a jar and promised to do horrible, non-killing things, so...

"Well, good for you!" said Alexander, smiling and hoping that he sounded like he meant it. "That sounds like a noble approach to things."

"So you haven't anything to worry about with me." Unless he tried to do something to her coffee. In which case, all bets were off.

She'd make him wish she put him in a jar.

Alexander frowned a little as he looked at Maladicta, clearly wanting to believe her but obviously having his reservations. Still, he was, despite everything, a trusting fellow, and so if she said he didn't have to worry, he believed her for the most part.

Evil in his world tended to be much more obvious about it, after all.

"Well, that certainly is very good to hear. I've had a few bad run ins, you see, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm a bit apprehensive."

"Where is it you're from?"

"It's a land called Daventry." Alexander figured that was the easier answer, even if he'd spent more of his life in Llewdor. "You mentioned a place called Uberwald," but, alas, Alexander was too lazy for the umlaut. "Is that where you are from, Maladicta?"

The umlaut was important, Alexander. Important.

"Borogravia, actually. It's not far from there, though."

"Borogravia," Alexander repeated, as if testing it out and thinking of if he'd ever heard it mentioned or read it anywhere. He hadn't, that he'd known of, so that was a little bit encouraging. "I've never heard of it. That wouldn't be anywhere near the Land of the Green Isles, would it?"

Hey, it was a shot in the dark, but you never knew.

"Between Ankh-Morpork and Genua," she replied helpfully. "Though this confusion as to where we are seems to be commonplace."

"Mmm," said Alexander, unable to help feeling disappointed even if his hopes were never really that high to begin with. "I've never heard of those, either. But it seems new lands are always appearing that I've never heard before."

"The adventuring sort?" You know, the kind that ended up staying in castles at the behest of the lords of the regions and then promptly falling for their daughter and defeating whatever evil was nearby?

...generally a vampire.

Alexander smiled. "You could say that it sort of runs in my family."

And, to be fair, it was more often or not magicians and witches when it came to this bunch, and it wasn't daughters they fell for, but either women they saw in mirrors in random towers somewhere or princesses captured by aforementioned wizards and forced into slavery unless she agreed to wedlock. Often both.

That sounded about right!

"I think you and I will get along swimmingly then."

Re: Waiting

daventryprince.livejournal.com - 2010-07-03 19:40 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only