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

[bigdamnprincipal]

There were chairs and tables set up all across the lawn; some were by the bonfire, for the people who wanted to be warm and central to everything else at the picnic, and some were set farther away from the action, for the people who wanted more peace and quiet.

There was no escaping the glitter though. Sorry, but not really.

[OCD is up! This is the picnic post for general mingling. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are all here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

Comments

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

"I should do that," Kaylin mused. "I usually just put stuff in my pockets, but a bag would be so much better."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

"Way less likely to end with grape jelly oozing down your leg," Sparkle shared, picking up an apple and tossing it at her in a low underhand. "And I'm even getting more organized, lately. Plastic bags inside the bag."

Because it wouldn't do to have chocolate in the cold cuts. Or cat hair in either.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

She tucked the apple into one of her pockets. "I mostly take things like bread and cheese and fruit," she admitted. "Not any of the real squishy oozy stuff."

She remained a little skeptical about a lot of the squishy oozy stuff anyway.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

"Even fruit can be squishy and oozy," Sparkle pointed out. "Ever try to pocket a handful of blueberries before? It ends in tears. Tears, and purple pockets."

Which was kind of hilarious, too, granted.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

"I don't believe I've ever tried blueberries, though yes, berries in general would be squishy. Unless they were in small hand-sized pies. Why don't they seem to make those here?" Some things were just a puzzlement to Kaylin.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

Sparkle gave his shoulders a shrug.

"I dunno," he replied. "Maybe nobody ever suggested someone do it? It'd probably be pretty easy. Something bigger than a tart and smaller than a full pie, right?"

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

She nodded. "Back home the bakers sell them in the streets, right out of the oven. They fit in your hand and you can eat them right then, all hot and juicy, or save them till later."

Not that she usually had the money to buy them. At least not when they were hot.

"I mostly end up getting them near the end of the day when they're trying to sell the last of their stock. If I have any money that is."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

Heh. Like lack of money would have stopped Sparkle.

"One thing I have to say about this place?" He picked up a brownie from the table and waved it around a little. "Money is overrated. Nice change of pace."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

Before she became a Hawk - well, technically their mascot, blech - she wouldn't have been stopped by that either. But there weren't bakers like that in the fiefs.

Not any who were dumb enough to sell their wares out in the open without a lot of protection. Which didn't mean that she and - that she had't managed to still steal from them, just not some of the good stuff like that.

"It is nice to not have to worry about it," Kaylin admitted. "Most of the time back home I'm out of money halfway through the week."

Because she couldn't stop betting on things. She needed to find a place here where she could do that."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

"I know how that goes," Sparkle replied, nodding a little and contemplating whether or not he wanted to stash away a whole platter of cheese. "Money never does go far enough. Why should it? The people who need it the most, nobody cares if they have enough. So, you have to make do."

Yeah, he was so taking that cheese.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

"The things the wealthy waste money on," Kaylin said, also eyeing the platter, though she was only looking to take some of it. "They could feed all of Elantra for months with what they spend on foolishness in one day."

Especially down on Elani street with all the charlatans selling fortunes and love potions and all the rest.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

"Toronto would be doing pretty okay too," Sparkle mused, popping a cube of cheese into his mouth for good measure. "But hey, there's the rich for you. Unless they had to work damn hard to get that way in the first place, they don't give a fucking fuck about the worth of the money they're spending. Just that it's theirs, and who cares about the little guy?"

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

"I just wish they'd give money to help take care of the children at the Foundling hall," Kaylin said. "No one will let me ask people to give money. They say I'm not very tactful."

"Which," she admitted, "is probably a good idea. I'd most likely end up insulting them and threatening them and getting myself and Marrin in lots of trouble."

Tact and Kaylin usually lived on different continents.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

Sparkle just laughed at that.

"Yeah, when people like us start asking for money, they expect us to keep our heads down and our hands out while sitting in a gutter waiting for handouts. Not my style, either."

He much preferred the more direct route, with the pickpocketing and so on.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

"I've done that, too," Kaylin admitted. "When I was a kid. We didn't have an adult to help so, we learned how to beg. It's a skill. Like picking pockets - not that many people had much to steal in the fiefs."

At least not the unarmed ones.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

"Trick then is finding enough people to steal from without getting caught," Sparkle shrugged. "Really not a problem around here, since food is frigging everywhere. But like hell I'm going to let myself get rusty before graduation."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

"You practice still?" Kaylin asked, more than a little jealous. "I would but... going to be part of the police, so it would be a bad thing now."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

Well, that got her a side-eye.

"Yeah, I'm not seeing myself ever getting along with the cops back home. Might as well keep up on what I know gets me by."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

"There weren't any in the fiefs. I hated them for that." She looked down at the ground. "I envied the people in Elantra who had people to protect them. Even if they would have been protected from people like me."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

That... sounded familiar enough. Sparkle pursed his lips a little and nodded.

"That's the trouble, isn't it? The cops serve the people with the money, and the rest of us are the undesirables. We're the not-in-my-backyard crowd that lowers property values and smokes out behind the shed and they get scared, so scared, that just breathing our air means their kids are going to drop out of school and start doing drugs and stealing and it's all bullshit, isn't it? We're them, we're just smarter and hungrier and we fucking hate them for thinking they're better than we are."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

"The fiefs are outside the Emperor's rule," Kaylin said bitterly. "The fieflords have all the power there. And they don't give a tinker's damn about us. They figure we'll all either starve to death or kill each other soon enough. The Hawks would love to go in and help, but they can't. I didn't understand that when I was little."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

"So, these Hawks. They're what you want to be, are they?"

They sounded... cop-like. Or something. The ones who were supposed to do things about stuff, but only where the people with money told them to do it.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

Kaylin nodded. "Because they take care of everyone, not just the 'important' people. Even... even street kids, Sparkle. Kids that most people think are nothing. They ever take care of them."

She should know. It had been the first thing she'd done with the Hawks. They'd even been willing to listen to her - a less than nothing attempted assassin - to save them.

"Nobody gave a damn where I grew up. I thought it was true in Elantra, too, but it wasn't."

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[myownface]

"Huh..." Sparkle actually kind of sounded impressed, there. A little. He was trying not to be too taken with the idea, though. He'd learned to take that sort of thing with a grain of salt. "Sounds like one hell of a place."

A place where people cared? Really? Almost too good to be true.

Re: General Mingling [Spring 2015]

[notamascot]

"Some of the Hawks are stupid, just like anywhere else, but.." she tried to think carefully of how to say it. "The Emperor is a dragon and... and Elantra is his horde. All of it. Every last person and thing. And he doesn't like anyone messing with his things. So the three Halls of Law protect them."

Totally lacking explanation of 'horde' and one which might just get her eaten if she ever expressed it that way to a dragon, but still.