fandomhigh | BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday Morning

Entry tags:

!event: newbie shuttle

BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday Morning

Celia had had a trying morning, thus far.

She'd boarded a train in New York at the crack of dawn with a large trunk that she was pretending to struggle to carry. Hector had given her a cursory pat on the top of her hat and a tug to one stray curl, accompanied by a stern look that Celia knew meant Don't make me regret this. She'd fallen asleep on the train, and the conductor had awoken her...here. She'd not expected Maryland to be quite so much...brighter, or louder or confusing -- and in fact, Celia had been to Baltimore before, once, and she was very sure that this was unsettlingly different. She'd stumbled off the train, been ushered through a security checkpoint filled with people dressed strangely and giving her even stranger looks and now she was...here.

If not for the glittering sign bearing the name 'Fandom High,' she'd think she was in the wrong place.

Celia slumped gratefully into a chair, dropping her trunk on the floor beside her, and let out a sigh. Then she immediately straightened up. It wouldn't do to have her new classmates think her a lazy slob at first meeting.

[YAY NEWBIE SHUTTLE.]

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And mingle with your brand-new classmates!

Wait for our illustrious chauffeurs, please!

It's like LJ doesn't even understand that it's newbie shuttle day.

*prods at it*

Jonothon wasn't going to yell. Jonothon was going to speak, nice and calmly, to anyone waiting in the Portalocity lounge. He didn't even have to open the doors to the bus for that. He would, of course. It would be difficult to get people on the bus otherwise. But he didn't have to.

//All aboard for Fandom Island.//

It was entirely possible that he was perfectly fine with being temporarily demoted to bus driver if it meant that he could break new students in to Fandom's little quirks... gently. Talking was gentle, wasn't it?

Even odds that it understands perfectly well and it's just being spiteful.

*pokes it with sticks*

Celia immediately started, looking around in confusion.

"...I heard that in my mind," she ventured, looking to the man on the bus doubtfully.

She was willing to believe it. But she had to be sure she wasn't hallucinating first.

When Elsa had asked Gerda, one of the palace's few servants, to arrange for her to spend some time studying abroad, this really hadn't been what she'd had in mind. Gerda had done her best, of course, but even for a Princess of Arendelle, there were only so many schools that would take a new student in on such short notice. She'd arranged for Elsa to travel via a sort of magic gate, provided by Portrollocity, which had been advertized in the school advertisement (Arendelle edition) as a minor subsidiary of something called Portalocity. Truth be told, the entire blurb had been enough to make Elsa's head spin when she'd gathered by the mossy stones and listened to the troll representative's attempts to upsell an extra vacation package to somewhere called 'Bedrock,' half-price to royalty, frequent portallers, and sentient shrimp.

Gerda had politely declined, and Kai had assisted Elsa in getting her luggage - one trunk packed with her study materials and several changes of clothes - through the... baggage check.

Elsa was looking perhaps a touch out of sorts by the time she arrived in the Portalocity lounge, having had a stopover in a little village called Kakariko and watching a young boy get swarmed by vengeful chickens before she caught her connecting Portalocity portal, finally arriving here, her luggage somewhat jostled, her hair a bit mussed, and just about tempted to turn around and head straight back to Arendelle.

Finally. Another person who looked -- well, if not Celia's absolute definition of normal, then at least similar enough in dress to make her feel a bit better. "Are you also bound for Fandom?" she asked, offering the other girl a small smile.

//Good,// Jono replied, looking vaguely amused at the observation. //That means that we've achieved communication. It's useful for things like telling new students to get on th'bus, I've found.//

He was teasing, but it was a gentle sort of tease, punctuated with a slight raise of his eyebrows and the faintest hint of a smile somewhere around the corner of his eyes.

//Didn't startle you, did it?//

Edited 2014-01-03 22:35 (UTC)

"So I've been led to believe," Elsa replied, a game little smile toying at the corners of her mouth. "I've been run around enough of creation at this point that I have to wonder."

She raised one gloved hand and attempted to straighten her hair some, clearly a bit flustered.

"Travel these days really isn't quite the same as I remember it."

Celia considered her answer carefully before deciding in favor of honesty. "A bit. I just haven't met someone who could do it that well, before."

She'd met so-called magicians who could make you believe they'd spoken in your mind. But it was all smoke and echoes and angled boxes, in the end. She suspected that this man's gifts were like her own, however -- completely real.

Where had her father sent her?

"I agree," Celia said, glancing over towards the door. Beyond it were people in ridiculous clothing, rushing by and talking to themselves while clutching their ears. She'd been nearly knocked over by several of them, earlier. "Getting here was difficult and confusing enough, and it's not even noon. Who knows how many wrong turns I could manage in that time?"

Edited 2014-01-03 22:53 (UTC)

//There are people out there who are much better at it than I am,// Jono offered, looking at her curiously before offering her a hand with her trunk. //And plenty else, besides. It's not unheard of, where we're headed.//

"If it's half as many as I think I've managed to make, I'll be impressed," Elsa decided, just giving up on her hair completely. She wasn't likely to get any less unkempt until she could at least get to a mirror. All she was really accomplishing at this point was the random rearranging of a few stray locks. "I think at this point, our best bet is probably to stay where we're at until somebody comes to collect us. We're both headed to the same place, so it... might be safe to assume that if we've met up, we're on the right track?"

A pause, and Elsa frowned a little, thoughtfully.

"Unless we're both just that lost."

Celia could have lifted her trunk by herself and then had it fly around her head, but she wasn't quite ready to show what she could do. She accepted the offered help gratefully, staring at Jono. What he'd said was much more interesting than her powers, anyway. "It's common there?" she asked, incredulous. "Telepathy is?"

"Then if I must be lost, I'm glad it's with company," Celia decided, smiling at her. She extended a gloved hand of her own. "I'm Celia Bowen, by the way. And I think we must be in the right place, anyway -- look at that absurd banner. Hard to mistake its meaning, I think."

//Powers in general, mostly. Telepathy is somewhat less common than it was when I was a student at the school. At least, so far as I'm aware.//

Seriously, he could have thrown a rock and hit a telepath of one persuasion or another back in his student days. Jean, Dinah, Emma, Sookie, Spock, Karla, Cable...

He hefted the trunk into the undercarriage of the bus with some effort - he was starting to miss the muscle mass he had even just a few weeks ago - and then dusted his hands off on his trouser leg.

//That won't be a problem, I hope?//

Celia stared at him for a long moment, then smiled and shook her head swiftly. "No, not a problem at all. It's just...different from how home is."

No one was this open about it. Ever.

It might still be a trick. She had to be careful, still.

"Mostly what I've been able to gather from it is that they really must like things that sparkle," Elsa noted, glancing up at the sign and... well, pretending to be so invested in the sight of it that she simply didn't notice the hand that was being offered to her. Hand? What hand? Even if Celia's was gloved as well, she wasn't exactly comfortable taking it. Especially not with the way it felt like little half-frozen butterflies were flitting about inside of her. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Celia. I'm Elsa, of Arendelle."

Was she leaving out the fact that she was a princess there? About as certainly as she was avoiding looking down at Celia's hand, yes.

//We hear that a lot, too.// Jono stepped back to the door of the bus, and shrugged his shoulders a little. //It's fairly different from where I come from as well. Hell, I'd prefer to keep my powers completely under wraps-// Ha. //- except I don't have much choice. I can't speak, otherwise.//

Celia watched Elsa for a moment, but didn't comment. As soon as she realized Elsa wouldn't be shaking her hand, Celia retracted it. She wasn't sure where Arendelle was -- Celia considered herself well-traveled and well-read, and she still couldn't place it. Canadian? -- but she was worried it was considered rude to shake hands there. She'd only met one person, and already she was committing a faux pas. Perfect.

"And you as well." Like the polite young Victorian lady she was, Celia pretended nothing had happened, and looked up at the sign as well. "I'm not sure I've seen that much sparkle in one spot outside of a music hall," she commented.

Celia raised her brows, her eyes darting towards his wraps before she carefully trained them back to a more neutral portion of his face. "Do you perform?" she asked, curious. Hector wouldn't have sent her somewhere where she couldn't prove herself before an audience, she was sure.

"I've been in a ballroom that would have a difficult time measuring up," Elsa offered, along with a tiny smile, thankful that Celia was as willing to ignore the refusal to shake has as she was. "It's been some time since I've been inside a music hall, though."

There was a ballroom in the palace, but the music hall, not so much, and Elsa didn't tend to get out much, these days.

If Celia thought the rest of the people in the airport looked strange, the kid who entered next probably looked even stranger still. Maybe it was the form-fitting clothes with their plastic-y trim. Or the shiny carbon-fiber crutches and leg braces. Or maybe it was his luggage, a rugged plastic and metal box which floated along behind him supported by a blue glow.

For his part, Joker had had a fairly pleasant trip, if you didn't count the hour or two waiting in orbit for a shuttle down. It was kind of fascinating the way they'd done up the whole spaceport here to look quaintly prehistoric.

"Hello, new classmates!" he called out, lifting a hand from the handle of its crutch long enough to wave. "What's the over-under on whether those airplanes out the window are real?"

"I've made a sort of career of touring them," Celia offered lightly. "Music halls, theaters, taverns -- my father is a traveling performer. Ballrooms, however...I've never spent much time in those, unfortunately."

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BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday Morning

Wait for the shuttle

The trip to Fandom!

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