Fandom High Graduation Ceremony, Class of 2012, Early Saturday Evening (Part 2)

[bigdamnprincipal]

Were you all enjoying your graduation, children? Ingvar certainly hoped you were. It was so much fun, after all! Though... it could be a little more fun, couldn't it? It felt as if something was missing somehow. Something to really make it... fun.

Ingvar knew what it was.

And so, while the graduates were still on and around the stage, the earth began to rumble. Large black clouds of smoke pushed out of Ingvar's volcano and into the air, obscuring the sky and the moon. Soon, the air was covered in a thick black blanket of darkness.

The tune of the rumbling shifted.

Around the stage, clear protective walls sprung up. This was not Fandom's first tango on graduation day, thank you. She knew how to take care of what was hers.

Unfortunately, Ingvar knew its mother well. Moments later, it began to rain: a thick downpour of familiar plastic poppets in varying levels of creepiness, but also nice, brown, fluffy ...red-eyed, sharp-clawed teddy bears. And leading the charge, teeth-first--

"DROP BEARS!"

[OCD is up! Have at it! Audience | Grads: Fight! | Grads: Hide! | Aftermath | OOC 1 | OOC 2]

Comments

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

Dolls and assorted bears gone, Warren tucked his sticks away and couldn't help but grin a little. And then the grin grew.

Having to work for it kind of made graduating seem all the more official. He figured nobody would blame him if he threw his mortarboard in the air, spread his wings, and cheered. That was just what people did at these things, right?

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

"So, how long would you like to bask in your glory here," Lucivar asked with a smirk, "before I begin critiquing your performance?"

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

"At least another minute," Warren decided, still grinning pretty broadly. He hadn't lost any feathers to gnashing bear teeth, hadn't even bled through the ordeal. For the time being, he was considering that a win. "But just as soon as that's over, you can tear me apart."

Warren was so kind.

And alive! And graduated! See? See how graduated he was, Lucivar?

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

Lucivar clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll give you two," her offered magnanimously. "Mostly so I can laugh at how pissy the witchling's getting." He pointed to where she was still hemmed in (http://fandomhigh.livejournal.com/3105258.html?thread=190032874#t190032874) by Khary and Aaron.

"I see you had yours sticks with you. Well done."

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

"The sticks were kind of mandatory," Warren replied, doing an admirable job of not just bouncing right there where he stood. "They had weapons handy just in case, but I didn't see any point in putting my sticks away after we were done our training session this morning, and... well, I know Fandom."

He'd lived here long enough to know that graduation was generally... weird.

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

"So, this is one of those things that I can expect to happen next year, too?" Lucivar asked. Great. He'd be herding however many idiot boyos and witches along and then try to have to keep them all on a short leash while Karla got attacked by something.

The boyos would all want to leap in and save the day and the coven would want to jump in and have fun, too.

Maybe he could pretend to be sick?

"It must be a pain in the ass to carry those around all the time," he said, scratching his chin. "Not being able to just call them in and vanish them at need. Huh. Maybe this'll come in handy." And then there was a wrapped box being held out to Warren. "Happy Graduation," he said. "From all of us in Kaeleer."

Inside the box, Warren would find an exquisitely hand-tooled leather belt, soft and supple, made of calfskin. The design on the leather was in an abstract feather motif. Next to it was a matching sheath that had clearly been designed to hold a pair of sticks.

"You can wear the sheath far enough forward that it doesn't foul your wings," Lucivar mentioned. "I made sure of that."

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

Warren had managed to keep from bouncing on his toes long enough to accept the gift, and when he opened the box he couldn't help but run his fingers admiringly over the leather as Lucivar spoke.

"This is... it's amazing," he breathed, pulling the belt and the sheath out and looking them over. He could already picture both seeing a lot of use. Maybe not in Sunnydale, obviously, but in Kaeleer? Absolutely. "It's perfect, thank you."

It was... a concession to the fact that he didn't have Craft, but it was offered as a token of acceptance. As a gift, not as a condescension. Warren wasn't grinning outright any more, if only because he was too busy trying not to look too much like he was about to get all mushy, here.

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[offers-choices.livejournal.com]

"Everyone helped," Lucivar added, glancing up towards the sky to look for more drop bears and not because he was on the verge of getting all sentimental, of course. "Kalush sketched the design, and Mephis interviewed the leatherworkers to find the perfect one--" a more through grilling could not be imagined, at least two full grown men had left in tears, "--Chaosti adapted the sheath from something the Dea al Mon used, Saetan opened up a suit of rooms at the Hall for the leatherworker and her assitants, Hell's fire, that village of yours somehow found out about it and sent over the calf. I guess it was the first of the livestock to be born in the village and they wanted you to have it."

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

More reverent silence while Warren mulled over those words. Everyone had contributed. It wasn't just some belt picked out from a catalog somewhere. It was his, made for him, by his family in Kaeleer.

Right then and there, he draped the new belt over his shoulder, reaching down to unbuckle the one he had pulled on that morning. He had to be wearing this. He had to be wearing it right now, sheath and all, sticks tucked away where they belonged. How could he possibly not?

"I'll have to thank them all personally for this," he murmured as he worked the belt through the loops on his pants. "I... I don't even have the right words for this. I love it."

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[warren-jr.livejournal.com]

"Warren! Warren!" Any and all plans of how he was going to approach his son cautiously and get a feel for how their reunion would go was immediately throw out the window as soon as the barrier fell. "Warren, my boy, are you all right? Those...creatures...didn't hurt you, did they?"

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

"I... what... Dad!?"

Oh, come on, Warren. It wasn't like you didn't see this one coming after your father had showed up without fail each and every parents weekend since your arrival on the island.

Even so, he was taking a half-step backward and eyeing the old man warily.

"I'm fine. See? Fine. It was just some toys and a couple of... really messed-up koalas. No big deal."

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[warren-jr.livejournal.com]

"No big deal?!" Warren sputtered. "I'll have you know that is a very big deal!" Being upset at the evil, attacking toys was much better than thinking about how gutting the surprise in Warren's voice was. "You could have been hurt! Other students could have been hurt! What kind of preposterous establishment is this when things like that can happen at a graduation ceremony!"

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

"The kind of preposterous establishment that can't control what falls from the sky, Dad," Warren replied, as if that was plainly obvious. "Where stuff like this happens all the time, and we deal with it. What, you think the administration airlifted in a bunch of man-eating koalas or something?"

That had been the bunnies, the other week. Totally different.

"And then threw them into a volcano that just so happened to erupt to the tune of Teddy Bear's Picnic?"

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[warren-jr.livejournal.com]

"The fact that this wasn't some kind of planned occurrence just makes it even worse!" Warren huffed. "That means it's random! What if you weren't prepared! You're all children and someone could have gotten hurt!"

Warren was still grappling with that not-seventeen-anymore thing, yep.

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

"I'm twenty years old today!"

And going from calm and wary to actually raising his voice a little. The next step would be dead silence, and then menacing cold. Yelling, at this point, was mostly just the best that he had without outright throwing his father in the Atlantic or something.

"And if you can tell me what about that was more dangerous than the death trap you set up on Alcatraz a few months back, I'll even agree with you! Kids shouldn't have to fight, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the graduates who actually won't need to when they go home."

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[warren-jr.livejournal.com]

Warren Jr winced and stepped back a moment. Right. This was what Karla had warned him about before.

"It's not that I don't think you can handle yourself," he said softly, hoping that would convince Warren to lower his voice, too. But not back into dead silence, nooo. That was to be avoided at all costs. "I saw a bit of it back on Alcatraz and your girlfriend told me a little more. It's just that--I'm your father, Warren, no matter how you feel about that fact right now. And I want to protect you whenever you're in danger, whether you need protecting or not. One day, if you--when you have children, I think you'll understand. Healing factor or not, I can't bear to see you hurt."

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

That actually did manage to take some of the heat out of Warren's anger. It had been a matter of months for him, but he remembered like it was yesterday those foggy in-between moments where even he wasn't completely certain if he'd gone and scraped his wings clean off on the pavement, and how concerned his father had been for him then.

And thinking about that just reminded him of all of the other reasons he was angry at his dad, and remembering those just made him tired.

"I just... Dad, I can't..." Why the hell was his father so good at making it difficult to speak when he was normally so eloquent? "... What do you want?"

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[heromaniac]

And if he wasn't careful, he was totally going to be dragged into the air for a spinny swirl hug of "Congratulations and Happy Birthday!" by a super excited Blossom...

Are you being careful, Warren?

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

Warren was always careful! Always! Except when he chose not to be, and at just that moment? He was choosing not to be with a laugh and maybe the slightest bit of flailing about. Flying without using his wings to do so was not something that he had a lot of experience with, really.

"Thanks, Momoko," he laughed, kind of clinging for dear life.

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[heromaniac]

Please. Her job was carrying people who were flailing. She totally gave him another spin, very tempted to go higher and let him go so he'd have to spread those wings and soar like he should.

Buuut, she was being good (and his dad was in the audience... no giving his dad a heartattack!) so she returned him to the ground safe and sound.

"Happy happy happy birthday!" Someone was a bit hyper, yes. "Here!" She pulled a small present from her pocket. "You are TOTALLY hard to buy for, so you only get one present! I hope you like them?"

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

Warren took a moment to straighten his jacket before shooting Momoko another grin and accepting the gift with a thank you. He opened the little box, and then blinked for a moment while he registered what he was looking at.

"Oh, wow." And how a pair of cuff links could make Warren Worthington go breathless was anybody's best guess, but there had been so much thought behind them... "These are beautiful. Thank you."

He wasn't even going to wait. He was putting them on right then and there.

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[heromaniac]

She bounced HARD, she was that nervous. "I know you're going to go places where you can't always show your wings? So I wanted to make sure you had a pair that you can."

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

Oh, Momoko. Make Warren's eyes mist up a little more, would you? People seemed hell-bent on giving him gifts today that could do that, and the cuff links, coupled with that explanation...

She wasn't opposed to another hug, was she? Initiated by Warren, this time, with arms and wings both? Because words were kind of catching in his throat, and that seemed like the best way to say all the same things anyhow.

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[heromaniac]

Oh, GOOD! He liked them!

Momoko had no issues with the arms or the wings; hugs were always the best returns!

"Don't cry on your birthday!!" Yes, she'd noticed. "They're totally nothing like the real thing, but you're not you without wings."

Re: And then Fandom had enough...

[wwiii]

Curse your powers of observation, Momoko!

Still, Warren couldn't help but sniffle, just the once, before giving her one more tight squeeze and then easing off a little.

"I'm not crying," he insisted. "I'm just... there's some... drop bear drool in my eye."

Or something. Shush.