fandomhigh | BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge

Entry tags:

!event: newbie shuttle

BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge

So ... this was the East coast, huh?

Cosima wasn't sure what she had expected to see, and the bland nothing of an airport lounge wasn't giving her much of an impression of her new home yet. She felt a sudden twist of worry mixed with homesickness. Maybe she shouldn't have obeyed the impulsiveness that had led her to transfer to some tiny boarding school thousands of miles from home. Not that San Francisco was doing anything great for her lately, but at least she knew people there.

If she looked at it logically, she knew not to let her nerves wreck the experience. School would be fine, and if it wasn't, she could go home at the end of the summer -- or even sooner if she wanted. But logic wasn't the easiest thing to have when you were 16 and alone in a strange airport.

She lounged in a hard airport chair, earbuds in, and poked at her phone until she found a new science podcast to listen to. It was comforting.

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It occurred to Tali, as she stepped out of the portal (and it was a good thing for the poor unsuspecting employees at the Citadel Portalocity terminal that she hadn't had the time to grill them about how these things worked), that this would be the first time in several months she'd arrived in some new and unfamiliar place without Shepard and the rest of the squad to watch her back.

That . . . was mildly disconcerting. Then again, she didn't have mercenaries shooting at her, or docking officials giving her the runaround, or C-Sec agents trying to get her to leave, so that was a definite improvement over all the places she'd gone between leaving the Fleet and joining Shepard's team.

Her weapons and the few small possessions she'd accumulated during her time on the Normandy were all stowed away in a footlocker that bore a Systems Alliance logo, and while yes, it had been a gift she was still worried, out of habit, that someone might spot a quarian with Alliance property and assume the worst. Well. She'd been nervous about how humans on a pre-spaceflight Earth would react to her, but maybe it would work out to her advantage if the quarians' reputation hadn't preceded her here.

So don't mind the girl in the full body suit and mask, who apparently only had two fingers and a thumb on each hand, sitting in a chair in the corner with her head bobbing in time to some unheard music.

Oh, Lottie was totally minding the girl in the full body suit and mask who apparently had only two fingers and a thumb on each hand and was sitting in a chair in the corner with her head bobbing in time to some unheard music.

"What're you listenin to?"

Clearly she had on some earbuds in her cosplay space suit.

Clearly! Just, you know, future earbuds.

"Hmm? Oh, hold on, let me turn down the volume," Tali said. "It's a playlist of some club music I downloaded just before I left."

Which sounded not all that different from 21st-century club music, to be honest.

"And . . . hi. Are you here for the shuttle, too?"

Lottie nodded. "For Fandoh." What? The M was silent, right? The French left letters out of words all the time. "I'm Lottie. Do like black metal? I like black metal. Or funk is also good."

It could be silent for all Tali knew. She'd go with it.

"I'm Tali. I'm not too familiar with Earth music, sorry, but if it has a beat you can dance to, there's a good chance I'll like it."

"Funk, then," Lottie decided. "Do you listen to space music?"

"That's a pretty broad category. I mean, there's a lot of different kinds of music in the rest of the galaxy," Tali said slowly. "Do you want to hear what I'm listening to right now ~~now that I'm home and can poke around on YouTube~~?"

"Oooo, sure!" Lottie grabbed a chair next to her. "Do you have it on a space ipod?"

Yeah, she wasn't giving up on that 'broad category' any time soon.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

goforthe_optics - 2015-05-02 02:40 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

bestatmystery - 2015-05-02 02:48 (UTC) - Expand

So, Cosima could kind of make sense of the outfit as a religious thing, but then you threw in the facemask and the missing digits and ... there was really only one thing she could say.

"Hey, are you headed to the school? And that's about the best cosplay I have ever seen."

It wasn't a look Cosima would go for, and she couldn't quite place the fandom, but who was she to judge other people's hobbies? Besides, the brochure had said Fandom was supposed to be for weird smart kids; it made sense to her there'd be at least one person dorky enough to fly in dressed for Comic-con.

"I am. You're waiting for the shuttle too?"

Her translator program was a little stuck on the word 'cosplay,' and Tali was taking it as a compliment on her outfit in general. "Thanks," she said, nodding over at Cosima. "Wait. Does that mean you've met other quarians before?"

[OOC: Must go AFK for the next couple of hours, I'm afraid! Will pick up when I get home.]

"A couple, sure," Cosima lied through her teeth, because she didn't want to admit she didn't know what a quarian was. She could always Google it later. "From that Galaxy Quest revival, right?"

"I'm not familiar with that vid," Tali said, wondering if she'd guessed wrong. "Fleet and Flotilla, though, have you seen that one? Do they even get that here?"

Wow, she hoped so. She'd better be able to get her soap opera fix somehow.

"I haven't heard of it," Cosima admitted. "What's it about?"

Oh, Cosima, don't open that can of worms.

"It's my favorite vid ever," Tali said enthusiastically. "My friends and I used to watch it at slumber parties all the time when we were kids. Bellicus is in love with Shalei, but he's an officer in the turian military, and she has her obligations to the Fleet, and they think it means they can't ever really be together . . ."

It was even cheesier than that made it sound.

Okay, wow, this girl was really into the show. Like really into it. Cosima wasn't about to wreck that by saying it sounded cheesy.

"Do they end up together in the end?" she asked. "I mean, they kind of have to.It'snot a good story if they don't."

There was a alien here. And not the kind Wash had seen before. So, maybe this was the correct spot for the assignment and not some terrible joke.

Assuming the director was capable of making jokes, that is.

And that would be why Wash was keeping an eye and sensor over on the only other person wearing full body armor. Like it was the sensible thing to do.

Well, that was kind of a familiar sight. Tali looked up and waved cautiously at Wash.

"Hi. Are you going to the school, too?"

She had to check. Look, you never knew.

Okay, the waving wasn't expected. You know. For an alien.

"Apparently so." Possibly as a punishment, possibly as a test of his commitment to Project Freelancer. High school, the worst possible option. "Agent Washington."

She had perfectly functional arms! She could wave! (Which apparently was a fairly universal gesture. Unless you were hanar, maybe.) As the two people in this room currently wearing helmets they had a little bit of a solidarity thing going on.

"Tali'Zorah. What are you an agent of, if you don't mind my asking?"

Helmet bros, if you will.

"I'm a Freelancer." If that meant anything to her. It still had pull in the UNSC, at least. "I don't believe I've met someone of your... species? Before."

Well, she wasn't Covenant or Sangheili, so that was awesome. Go, you!

And he didn't seem like Cerberus, so that was a good thing.

"I don't think too many people here have," Tali confirmed. "The Fleet doesn't spend too much time in the Sol system. So a freelancer? You're like some kind of mercenary?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

worstofalltime.livejournal.com - 2015-05-02 11:43 (UTC) - Expand

Huh. Apparently the old man hadn't just been pulling her leg when he'd said this place had seen its fair share of 'biological impossibilities.'

Ada sidled over to the...girl?...giving her a frank appraisal. "H'lo. You headed to this Fandom place too?"

"Uh huh," Tali confirmed. Well, even with the curious looks she'd gotten so far, it was a much better reception than she'd gotten on Illium. "I'm starting to think I've come from a little bit farther away than most of the people here, but we're going to the same place."

"I don't know, how far away is far away?" Ada asked curiously. "If you don't mind me asking, I mean."

"The other side of the galaxy?" Tali offered. "This is the farthest I've ever been into Alliance space. Though technically I guess it isn't Alliance space yet."

Since humans in this century still thought Charon was a moon orbiting Pluto.

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