fandomhigh | BWI - Portalocity Lounge [Saturday Morning]

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!event: newbie shuttle

BWI - Portalocity Lounge [Saturday Morning]

It had taken two and a half pep talks from her father to get Miley to be at least sociable today, the last half of which she was currently reading over text messages because her father couldn't figure out how to send messages that were greater than the character limit. Still, "sociable" was a far cry from her normal bubbly self. But she still had to be nice and talk to people, and she would, even if that talking to people was occasionally interrupted by texts from Lilly. (Hey, she had to read those! They could be important!)

She took a seat under the "Fandom High" banner in the airport lounge, with her three glittery pink suitcases and matching cosmetics bag all laid out on the floor in front of her. There. She could do this. If she could maintain a double life for four full years, she could survive boarding school. And maybe tonight, the president would call her back and manage to get her back into Seaview somehow!

...Hey, a girl could dream.

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Ryan only had a large duffel and a backpack, but she was still struggling to carry her luggage as she entered the lounge. The instructions she'd gotten from the doctors after being discharged from the hospital said that she should avoid strenuous activity. She never would have thought carrying her bags through an airport would count as "strenuous."

Spotting the banner, she dumped her bags on the ground and slumped into seat, taking a moment or two (or three) to catch her breath.

Miley leaned over, mildly concerned.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked. She even closed her phone as she asked the question, her brow furrowing.

"Oh, I'll be fine," said Ryan, brushing off the other girl's concerns. "Probably shouldn't have packed so much stuff, I guess. Now I see the appeal of all those bags with wheels."

She was starting to feel better once she sat down, anyway.

Miley grinned. "Yeah, they come in pretty handy," she agreed, gesturing to her own wheelable bags. "When we head to the bus, you can hook your bag over the handle of one of mine if you want," she offered.

"Thanks," said Ryan. She glanced over at all the glittery pink bags. "Nice color. I bet it stands out on the conveyor belt."

"Yup," Miley agreed. They also had the name Hannah Montana monogrammed on them somewhere, but her father had been very careful to cover that up with If-Lost-Please-Call stickers. "I kinda travel a lot," she added by way of explanation. "Made sense to get stuff I wouldn't lose or accidentally forget."

"I travel a lot, too. But pretty much everything I own is a hand-me-down, so there's not much of a loss if I lose anything," said Ryan. "Usually it's a lot of bus travel, though we do take planes when my parents decide to switch continents."

Miley nodded. She had never had to have hand-me-downs, of course -- bleh, inheriting something from Jackson; could there be a worse fate than that? -- but she could sympathize.

"Uh-huh," she said. Then, curiously: "Like, where have you gone before?"

"My parents are missionaries, so they go wherever they can find the poor," explained Ryan. "We built a church in El Salvador, dug latrines in Ecuador, and built a school in Kenya. That was a pretty cool place. My parents are headed back there now."

Oh. Huh.

"Neat," Miley said, smiling. Okay, so those weren't the most interesting places ever, but whatever. "Was Kenya your favorite place you've been?"

"Kenya was interesting just because it was so different," said Ryan. "But honestly, I liked the South American rainforests a lot better. Everything was so lush and tropical, and you felt like you were the only one who knew about all the places off the beaten track."

She had serious doubts that she would like living on an island off the coast of Maryland. But she was in for a surprise there...

Miley nodded. She still wasn't, you know, interested, but she could pretend.

"I've never been anywhere like that," she offered. "Just big cities and stuff. Although I am from Tennessee originally, so I know a little bit about off the beaten track."

"Are you ready for a school in the middle of nowhere?" asked Ryan. "I think the map I had was out of date because I couldn't even find this island on the map."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle!

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Re: Wait for the Shuttle!

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Re: Wait for the Shuttle!

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Re: Wait for the Shuttle!

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Re: Wait for the Shuttle!

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Quick assessment for filchable items: not much, and not 'til whatshername could breathe. Kenzi tilted her head. "You gonna pass out?"

"Not really, but I think I'm going to write a sternly-worded letter to the guy who designed this airport for making it so difficult to navigate," said Ryan, still sounding just a little bit breathless.

There wasn't much worth stealing in her bags. Missionaries didn't have a whole lot in terms of worldly possessions, and Ryan had picked up the same attitude from her parents.

"Go you, with the exercising of freedom of speech and consumer criticism," Kenzi said, punching the air without otherwise moving. "Isn't this weekend some big deal for you American people?"

Ryan chuckled. "Fourth of July. Actually, the past two weeks have been the longest I've ever spent in this country," she said.

"Really?" Kenzi lifted her head, now more mildly interested. "Jet-setter? Military brat?" She held out a hand, wondering if she could snag the girl's watch. "Kenzi. Canadian. Unwilling prisoner of the system."

"Ryan. Yeah, it's a weird name. I think my parents were expecting a boy," she said. "They're missionaries, actually. They've traveled all over South America to spread the word of the Lord and help care for the poor."

Ryan was probably just a step above the poor herself from the looks of her watch...

Which, why steal from the poor when there were rich around? Kenzi just settled for a hand-shake and asked, "Seriously? Did you have to give out pamphlets and explain how Jesus Saves and all? Dude, I would've bailed out early. I am so not the good works type."

Ryan smirked. "The pamphlets were kind of useless since few people could actually read. But I did teach kids how to read using the bible. But my parents were nothing like the televangelists you see on TV."

She'd watched a few of them during her recent hospital stay and was shocked at what she saw. Ryan was willing to bet than none of those flashy TV preachers actually listened to God.

Which would explain why Ryan had such a Mickey Mouse watch without it being real Mickey Mouse. Whenever Kenzi preached the Good Word, there was cash involved. "So for your reward, you get to go to boarding school in Maryland?... actually, that sounds about fair."

"It seemed to make the most sense to my parents. They were starting to worry about how I was going to get into college if I stayed with them," said Ryan. The reality was that they wanted her close to American hospitals in case her health got worse. Ryan didn't care very much for this plan at all, but she promised to at least give it a try.

"College. Nnnnghhh." Even more school, God. "I hear that's good for partying. So, you going to go to Bible school and do the missionary thing too?"

Hmm. Note to self: Change life story to somewhere not in South America. Ryan would probably pick up that Kenzi's (alleged) parents hadn't actually gone there.

"Actually, I want to become a doctor and that takes college and medical school. Though I'm sure it allows for some partying," said Ryan, amused. With any luck, she might even finish medical school and go back to treating the poor before her disease claimed her life. If there had been more doctors in the jungle, she never would have gotten sick in the first place.