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

Entry tags:

!event: welcome picnic

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

In order to give people a place to get away from the traffic jam of the buffet and information tables, most of the chairs and tables for guests were set up further out on the lawn, under a tall blue and gold tent. There was plenty of room for everyone to sit down and enjoy themselves, but it might not have all been dry. Did we mention being grateful that it was just water falling from the sky?

[OCD is up! This is the FIRST post for general mingling. Please use this post first, if your browser can handle the comment load. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are all here and there's more room for mingling here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"...That could work, if you had a small enough pond," Kenzi said thoughtfully. "But. Okay. Why's it so hard to see what's true from what's not?" She had a bet with herself about how many five-dollar words he might slip into the explanation there. And if so... geeeeeek!

If by 'geek' you meant 'guy with his finger on the trigger of a world war', sure, but Peter - no matter how hard he wished he could brag that up openly - wasn't going to go into that. "Because there are so many crazy stories flying around that are actually true," he said. "Who's going to notice if you fabricate something?"

Hmmm. Only one, fabricate. Okay, so... Maybe he was being straight with her? About this, anyway. Kenzi squinted at him, taking an absent bite of potato chip. "Like what, besides the gremlins?" She paused. "Wait, is this like the vampires that Wes told me about?"

There was more?

"Hey, all I've heard are the stories," Peter said, holding up his hands. "Besides the mechanical spiders that attacked us the other week, and the fairly paranoid ideas of my post-apocalyptic zombie survival class. My professor has been known to simulate zombie attacks." A beat. "They're not exactly fun."

Kenzi choked on her potato chip, hacked, coughed, swallowed and got her breath back. "Please be hazing me. I'm really okay with this if you're messing with my head. I don't wanna be chased by zombies!"

Peter shrugged. "I'm sure you'll be fine," he said, "As long as you didn't take zombie class this term."

He was also registering this little freakout in the back of his head. Hey, it always helped to know what terrified people.

Not having re-met Killer Bartender Woman yet, Kenzi had an entirely healthy sense of... okay, fear, on the topic of zombies. Even if the one she'd met had been super-nice and didn't eat her brain.

"I don't know what my classes are yet," she said, mournfully pushing her food around. "The parentals didn't tell me. Crap. Ask for cupcakes, get zombies." She took a breath and noshed more Cheetos to get her equilibrium back, still not sure where this Peter guy fell on the Cool/Threat scale. Hard to read. Very. Hmm.

Like comfort food, kleptomania was great for calming any anxiety. Kenzi did a routine check to see where his wallet might be. "What are you taking?"

Peter's wallet was stuffed in his pocket and shut away from the world with a zipper. There were some things he wasn't too paranoid about - maybe he should be, really. "Creative writing," he said, "That's the one I picked. My parents think they're hilarious, and got me Cooking and Teambuilding class. Gotta love those folks, they're a chuckle and a half."

Okay, so he might have picked Teambuilding himself if it didn't have the 'for dummies' thing on there. If he was going to lead large scores of people, he should probably get some education in that corner... meh, he'd be able to figure it out on his own, too.

A geek choice, but then a totally normal response to 'team building.' Kenzi's nose wrinkled up at that one. Team building. Team responsibility. Team credit. Sharing. Seriously, bah. Kenzi's scope was pretty much limited to herself and whoever she met. And that sometimes only for as long as they were in her presence. Peter's ambitions to rule zillions of people would've had her blinking. A lot. And then possibly enthusiastically applauding his chutzpah.

On the other hand, there was money to possibly be had. Kenzi leaned forward, the plate in hand, her other hand concealed beneath it, free to see if she could caaarefully free up that zipper, maybe. "More cake? You know, cooking might be decent, if I got that. I mean, food. I'm all for it. And there could be fire."

Edited 2011-07-05 06:50 (UTC)

"I don't even need it," Peter complained, "You can get food at the tap of a button back home anyway. Why bother?"

He had as of yet not noticed any inching towards his pocket-zipper. Ender was the guy who did all that military physical stuff that made you ultra-aware of yourself, not him.

Edited 2011-07-05 06:54 (UTC)

Privilege gave Kenzi hives; she had finally pinned down what it was about Peter setting her preservation-sense off, and that made her happy. He wasn't stupid, and he didn't seem mean. But that clue (and being unaware of his luckiness) had her reaching for that zipper, iiiiiinching it down as slowly as possible while keeping her eyes fixed on Peter. "Seriously? Just a button? Can you have anything you want, or is it, like, limited to healthy shit?"

Edited 2011-07-05 06:58 (UTC)

Really, if Peter knew that she thought he didn't seem mean, he'd have patted himself on the back for a ruse well-maintained. He was doing so much better at this stuff these days.

"Practically anything," he said. "Joys of not being from a backward time, I guess. Though my little sister's tried baking once or twice - now that was a disaster."

"Dude, that is awesome," Kenzi said with unfeigned envy, in order to cover up two nimble fingers carefully dipping as fast as she could make them. Backward, hunh? Wait. "Backward time person says what?"

Let him gloat a little, if it got her an explanation of that remark. Now she was really curious. And maybe, it felt like, just about there--

Peter grinned. He thought it looked disarming. "I'm from the 22nd century," he said. "A hundred years and a half or more away from most of these s-- people."

S-what? Slackers? Snakes? Hunh? It didn't really matter, 'cuz now there was a wallet concealed under a plate, so Kenzi could grin at him in awe.

"Whoaaaa. You're shitting me. Right?" She leaned forward, staring at him hard as if trying to pick up a lie (which she was) ... so he wouldn't notice that now she was eating with two hands again. "You've traveled in time? To here? How come? Is this place that..." What the hell *would* the word be for this place? Kenzi gestured with pizza to fill in the blank that her imagination couldn't come up with.

Suckers, actually. Beneath all that carefully-faked friendliness, classy ol' Peter Wiggin still lurked, arrogantly sneering at the world.

"Insane?" Peter asked, snorting. "Yep. The first thing I heard when I got here was that not only was it centuries ago, but apparently an older version of my little brother used to go here. Which my parents would've loved to know about."

Kenzi would have sympathized. Even as she objected to being put in that category. Wallet! Under a plate!... not that she'd be able to use futuristic credit cards.

"Ow," Kenzi muttered, trying to work that out, and winding up with more confusion than she expected. "Okay, wait. Your little brother used to go here... but you didn't know that?" Which would've been normal-ish in her family, but not everyone tried to escape when they were ten, so... "Hey, did your little sister who baked go here too, or was that somewhere else?"

"Oh, she went here, too," Peter said, "Just not the one I grew up with - both of them were older than me, apparently. Go figure that one out-- that's going to make for awkward family dinners if they ever show up again."

Kenzi was quiet for a full minute, eating, studying Peter, and carefully working that out, and arriving at.... "So you've got little siblings, who are older now, who ... wait, is this science fiction shit where you wind up with fifteen clones and some of them want to kill you?" That had been an amazing movie! Jet Li kicked ass. His own ass!

Edited 2011-07-05 08:04 (UTC)

"It definitely feels that way," Peter agreed, privately classifying her as 'ditzy'.

He wasn't wrong, entirely. But he was also out a wallet. It evened out.

"Cooooool." Kenzi nodded at him, then grinned sincerely. "Thanks for coming by to orient me, dude. My big Sib's okay, but he has a stick up his ass the size of a two-by-four. Or a 4x4."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]

Re: General Mingling [SS2 2011]