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

It might have been the start of the fall semester, but it was definitely still summer in Fandom. The sun was shining and the temperature was already starting to get high, even as the NPC crew set things up for the day.

Luckily, the school knew how to take care of folks on days like today. Beneath the blue and gold streamers and balloons, tables had been set up with cold drinks and food, and an entire section devoted to offering up different ~~moddable~~ ice cream flavors. As always, there was a stack of nametags set down next two signs: one listing the Big Sibling/Little Sibling pairings, and one listing rooms and roommates for the new students.

With everything set up and the crew out of the way, it was time for the picnic to begin!

[~~Please wait for OCD!~~ The OCD is up! This is part one of the picnic, specifically for meeting siblings, roommates, and teachers. The rest of the picnic is happening here and here, in an effort to keep browsers from breaking for as long as possible. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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"Yeah, no kidding!"

Oh, that was nasty. Maybe they'd used too much mustard...

"That taste is never going to leave."

"I'm sure there's a mint around here somewhere..."

"You'd be pretty much my hero forever if you could find one," Zack informed her, trying to keep from flailing too incredibly much, because- and he had to spit again, here- ew. "Man, this is why I don't cook."

And why the dishes at Fina had never let him try.

And who could resist being a hero forever?

Maladicta wandered away, leaving him to his pain for a few minutes as she hunted down what promised to be mint flavoured. Gum. Right.

"I'm not really sure what this is."

Zack didn't care what it was. He'd lick a battery before he'd eat another one of those cookies, and it probably showed clearly in the grabby-hands he was giving, there.

"It's good enough! It's good enough!"

Pressing it into his hand, Maladicta kindly kept her snickering to a minimum. "A lesson well learned?"

And the gum went right into his mouth! Ah, relief.

"And how. And thank you, by the way." He gave her a sheepish smile. "I'm Zack."

"Maladicta," she replied with a grin. "A pleasure to really meet you."

"I try to be pretty approachable," Zack said, laughing a little and shrugging. The gum was making things way better right now. "But meetings can be a little hectic, making certain people are getting the hang of things. We get as many people with experience there as we do amateurs, after all."

"Amateurs can be just as useful," Maladicta pointed out. "They tend to approach things from a different angle."

"Oh, I don't have anything against them," Zack amended. "They seem like they're trying harder, you know? So sometimes they see things that I might take for granted. But I don't want them pushing too hard with a weapon they can't handle, or anything like that."

"That's where a good commander comes into play."

That got a crooked little grin out of Zack.

"Kennedy and I aren't doing a good job?"

He would have said 'and Jak,' but they were kind of down a Jak, now.

"I think, I see things in a more military manner these days."

Zack considered that, tilting his head at Maladicta thoughtfully.

"Well, what would you do?"

"I think an order of authority might help keep people from getting hurt. If they know who is in charge, they know whose job it is to keep them safe."

Zack blinked a little at that.

"But isn't that us? I mean, Kennedy and I?"

"There are, but who is in charge of who? Where is the chain of command?"

"Well, we're sort of..." Zack blinked. That was a good question. "Equals, I guess. I mean, I have seniority or something, maybe? But she's got just as much say in the whole thing as I do."

"A democracy?" Yeah, that was crazy talk.

"Not really that, either," Zack replied, shrugging. "I mean, we kind of appoint one another, we're not voted into... office or whatever."

Everything he knew about democracy, he learned from the joke that was the mayor back in Midgar. Righto.

"It's the leaders of the group, and then everyone else. It's a really simple chain of command, but it makes sense to us, anyhow."

Maladicta hummed thoughtfully. "Perhaps it does. I'll have to see it more, I suppose."

"Stop by more often," Zack agreed. "If you keep coming up with suggestions like that, we might have to offer you a position at the top, too."

He was only kind of joking.

Maladicta snorted in amusement. "To replace the man with the... ears." He hadn't tried to eat someone, so clearly he wasn't an elf.

"Who, Jak?"

... Actually, yeah. Even Zack had to admit that Jak had one heck of a set of ears on him.

"Well, we will need to find someone to take his place, I think. This whole reserves thing is easier to manage with a few people at the top, keeping their eye on stuff."

Stuff like the toxicity levels of the cookies, for example.

Re: Meet the Reserves [Fall 2010]

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