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

[nomoresportscars]

It was a new year, and with the new year came the new spring term, and Fandom High was all set to welcome its new students, along with those just returning from holiday trips home. It was a familiar setting for the latter bunch: there was the requisite bonfire, with tables and chairs scattered around it, as well as the buffet table with moddable warm food and drinks.

And of course, name tags and lists of Big and Little Siblings as well as roommates. Yep, the weather was okay (if snowy) for early January, and Fandom was all ready to celebrate the start of a new term.

[OCD up! This is part one of the picnic, specifically for meeting siblings, roommates, and teachers. The rest of the picnic is happening here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

Comments

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[not_a_moonie]

Alana still missed Danny and his amazing powers of dance, but she figured the cushy situation of having a room to herself wasn't going to last forever. So it wasn't with any disappointment that she spotted her name on the roomie list and leaned against a tree to wait for Celia, nametag affixed to her chest.

Celia looked like a girl's name to her, so she figured once she'd explained the whole Landfallians-have-wings thing to her the awkward part would be over.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

Celia was grateful that her new roommate hadn't taken to standing on a table and screaming her name as her sibling had, but it did take a little more legwork to find her, this way. She tried to be discreet as she hunted around for a girl bearing the correct name tag. (Alana was a girl's name, wasn't it? What if it wasn't? Oh dear god.)

She was so happy with her success when she did find Alana that she didn't even register the wings at first -- everyone here looked strange, anyway. "Are you Alana? I think we're to be roommates."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[not_a_moonie]

Similarly, Alana registered Celia's old-fashioned clothes, but didn't know how to interpret them. From her point of view, plenty of Earthlings dressed funny.

She beamed back at Celia, holding out her hand for the other girl to shake. "Hi, nice to meet you. Don't worry, I don't bite or anything."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"Celia Bowen. It's a pleasure," she replied, delicately shaking Alana's offered hand. She frowned a little, and added. "I don't bite, either. Is that something I need to worry about here?"

It wouldn't really surprise her, at this rate.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[not_a_moonie]

"No, it's just something people say," Alana rushed to reassure her. "I've never heard of anybody here chowing down on their roommate."

And then there was an awkward pause as she considered elaborating, but realized she couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't make it worse. She just shrugged. "So...."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"I've had a bit of a morning in terms of...surprises," Celia said, with a grateful little laugh, shaking her head. "It wouldn't shock me in the slightest if you were to warn me that on occasion people run up and attempt to bite you, and you must always carry...I don't know, a parasol and a socket wrench in order to fend them off. It'd fit right in with the other warnings I've been given, trust me."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[not_a_moonie]

"Oh, I know," Alana said, back on surer footing. "Your first day here is completely insane. It gets easier, and most days are pretty boring, but my first day -- I swear, they could have told me gravity worked backwards here and I would have believed it. What have you heard so far?"

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"I saw a boy floating his luggage using some sort of technology," she said, shaking her head. "Not magic, but some sort of generator. And there was a girl who came from the bottom of the ocean, and the man who drove the...well, it wasn't a carriage, I'm still not sure what that was -- anyway, he spoke in my mind. Openly. And he said most people here have gifts, and they just...use them."

Celia was at turns nervous and thrilled about this whole arrangement, and it probably showed on her face. She was amongst peers, finally, and without her father breathing down her neck and stifling her powers.

There had to be a catch. She was sure of it.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[not_a_moonie]

"Yeah, the underwater city thing is new but there are a ton of people here who do magic or whatever," Alana said, curious if her new roommate was one of them. Something about the way she mentioned "gifts" suggested more than casual interest. "I don't, but I'm from a different planet. I don't know if that's weird for you."

She turned slightly to the side, so Celia could see the profile of her wings poking through slits in her jacket. Just in case she needed to prove the point.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"A different planet? Which one?" Celia repeated incredulously. She forgot all pretenses of politeness, leaning in closer to look at Alana's wings. "You have wings! Can you fly?"

This morning, she'd woken up in 1884, in a dimly-lit theater dressing room. And now she was talking to someone from another planet, with wings, in the year 2014.

Celia was terrified she'd go to sleep tonight and find out it was all just a dream.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[not_a_moonie]

"The planet's called Landfall," Alana said, not honestly expecting Celia to have heard of it -- but then, sometimes people surprised her. (She didn't mind the invasion of her personal space; she was happy Celia seemed more intrigued than anything else.) "It's a long way away."

"And I can get off the ground, but not much more. I got wingbled when I was a baby, so I unless really work at it all they do is look pretty."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"Landfall," Celia repeated. "Amazing. I've never heard of it. Do you all have wings there?" She shook her head, blushing a bit. "Sorry. I don't mean to be rude, it's just...I'm from this planet, albeit a century and some change ago, apparently. I've never met someone from another one."

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[not_a_moonie]

"No, it's cool," Alana said. "All the natives have wings, but there's a lot of interplanetary trade so we really get all types. Not much like here. But for what it's worth, I don't think I've ever met anybody from -- seriously, more than a hundred years ago?"

Time travel was still weird to her.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

Celia nodded. "Or so says my big sibling. It's 2014, apparently? It was 1884 when I left. I've never traveled through time before."

It felt odd to say that. She'd never had to specify before.

Re: Meet Your Roommate [Spring 2014]

[not_a_moonie]

"2014 in Earth years," Alana nodded. It was something else back home, but that was so different it hardly mattered. "So, this is a stupid question but could you tell? Like, did going forward in time tingle?"