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

Entry tags:

!event: welcome picnic

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

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!]

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Eleanor hadn't been sure what to expect, but it wasn't that. It was ... awe-inspiring.

She nearly reached out a hand to touch the scales, just to see what they were made of, before realizing exactly how tasteless that was and jerking her hand back.

"But that's incredible," she breathed. "Are those ... is that for defensive purposes? Do the scales protect you? How did you do that?"

Raven shrugged. "It's just what I do. I can look like anything I want, but if I want to really relax, I'm blue and scaly." She held up her hands, flexing her fingers. "I don't think they're very defensive. But I don't really get cold, so they might at least be insulating."

"So is that ... were you born like that?" Eleanor asked. She hoped it didn't sound crude; she'd already upset someone today by asking blunt questions when tact was required. She was rather new to conversation with strangers. "Or did something happen? Your family, are they also blue?"

"I've been this way as long as I can remember," Raven said, which wasn't really an answer, but was the best she could do. "I never knew my birth family, so I don't know. But my brother -- foster brother, technically -- he says we're 'mutants'. Humans with genetic mutations that give them extra abilities. He's a telepath, and I'm a blue shapeshifter."

"Genetic mutations," Eleanor said, nodding to herself. "They occur in nature all the time, though usually less dramatic. It's lucky you've found him, so you can help one another. I can't imagine it's easy, since most people ..."

She let that trail off. She could imagine only too well how people would react.

"If someone ..."

She hesitated, but it had been brave of Raven to show her this. She shouldn't be frightened, about letting some of her own guard down.

"If ... someone ..." The words were still hard, however. It was like pulling taffy to bring them out. "What about people who ... if there was a way to cause genetic variations. To splice someone's genes into another form. Would that ... person count, as a mutant?"

Raven shook her head with a small shrug, shifting back into her standard blonde facade as she did. There were still rather a lot of people about not that far away, and she didn't want to press her luck. "I'm not sure. Charles might -- he's my brother. He's studying genetics. Or some of the folks here from my world's future. When I'm from there are only a few of us, but apparently there were more and more over the course of the 20th century." She folded her hands, leaning forward. "Why do you ask?"

She had her suspicions, but didn't want to assume.

Eleanor bit her lip. All right, actually saying it might be harder, but Raven already knew, didn't she? And she had that unbelievable blue skin.

"That's ... what Little Sisters are," she said, very carefully. "They take you and change you and warp your mind so you don't know any different. My mind was healed, but ... I'm different, now."

She closed her eyes. "They can't undo that part. There's something ... fused with me. I look the same as everyone else, but when I look in the mirror, I know."

"That's horrible!" Raven pressed one hand over her mouth. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I wish I could say I couldn't believe it, but -- I know how cruel people can be. No wonder you hated the name of the mentor program."

"I'm sorry," she said, quickly, feeling oddly exposed. "I shouldn't have panicked like that."

She swallowed past the growing lump in her throat.

"I only just escaped," she added, in a softer tone. "I broke out, and then we healed the little ones. Mother's looking for me. I thought ..."

Silly, really. It was a common enough name. But she hadn't been thinking rationally.

"You don't have to apologize. You went through something terrible, of course you were scared. If anything, the world should be apologizing to you."

Eleanor shook her head. "The world doesn't owe me," she said. "It'd be too easy to think like that. To go around demanding revenge. But suffering just causes more suffering."

Father would be proud of her. There was the dull ache in her chest, again, but Father was in the past, now, and this was her future.

She bit her lip for a long moment. "It's ... left me with some ... abilities," she said, very carefully. "Not like yours, though."

"Can I see?" Raven asked. She disagreed pretty much entirely about the demanding revenge thing, but figured it wasn't the time to argue about it. "If you're comfortable with showing me."

Eleanor flushed, finding herself oddly flattered by the request. "All right," she agreed, smiling a touch shyly.

She positioned herself so that most of the crowd could only see her back, then held one hand out in front of herself. She pointed one finger up towards the sky, concentrated, and a lick of flame curled up from the tip, as though her finger was a candle.

Incinerate was always showy.

She turned her hand over, palm-up, and curled her fingers in, letting the fire spread from her index finger to the rest of them, engulfing her palm. The flames licked higher, and as she focused, a rounded sphere started forming itself.

A ball of flame, just about the size of a baseball, hovering just about her burning hand.

"Oh my gosh!" Raven exclaimed. "And it -- it doesn't hurt you? It doesn't burn?"

"No," Eleanor said, a giddy laugh escaping her. "It's real fire, though. I could fling it at someone else and they would burn."

There had been people who didn't want Eleanor to escape. Fire had helped to convince them.

"I can also teleport, some," she added, in an undertone, "and I can pick up large items and fling them around. And I heal quickly. If this was burning me, it wouldn't matter."

"That's very impressive." And might be very useful for her, here, at least on occasion. "If I could do things like that, I'd never let anyone boss me around at all."

"I don't any more," Eleanor said softly. It was possible Raven had been joking. Eleanor wasn't.

Raven hadn't, actually. She got the feeling this was something that Eleanor didn't want to talk much more about, though.

"Is there anything else you want to ask about?"

"I think I'm all right, for now," Eleanor said, still trying to absorb everything that had gone before. She extinguished the flames and brought her hands back inside the sleeves of Jono's jacket. "May I ... am I allowed to bother you again, should more questions arise?"

"I'm pretty sure it's encouraged," Raven said. "And I wouldn't turn you down even if it weren't. I'm in room 306 in the dorms, and I can give you my phone number. They have portable phones, now, so you can reach me on it any time you need to."

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

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!

Re: Meet Your Big/Little Sibling [Spring 2014] - NFB please!