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

Entry tags:

!event: welcome picnic

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

There were tables and chairs set up all around the lawn. Some were in the sun, where folks could soak up that precious vitamin D, and some were in the shade where folks could stay cool.

All of the tables had at least a little glitter on them though. It was a welcoming gesture to get glitter someplace you didn't know glitter could go!

[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!]

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Jalian's instincts told her she was being stared at, but in this place it was more likely to be curiosity than danger, so she said nothing and didn't move while she determined the source of it. Ah - a new person. She nodded pleasantly at the girl.

Ringo started suddenly as she found herself caught staring, but that pleasant nod was enough to relax her. So she smiled and offered an abbreviated bow back.

And then, deciding to take a chance, she approached, managing a smile. "I'm sorry for staring," she apologize. "But I like your hair."

"Thank you," Jalian answered. She shrugged. "Everybody's will be like this if they get old enough, though," she pointed out. She stuck out her hand. "I'm Jalian. You just arrived?"

"Ringo Noyamano," she responded, bowing politely at the waist before reaching out to take Jalian's hand. "And, yes. I get the feeling that I'm kind of obvious about it."

"This is a small place; if I don't recognize somebody, they're new," Jalian explained. "You're from..." she remembered the name of the place, "Japan? We have some students here from there."

"Yes. From Tokyo," Ringo answered with a smile, oddly pleased to have had that recognized. "And I suppose that makes sense. Even with all these people here, I suppose only a handful of us are actually new, huh?"

"And," she grinned suddenly, as something hit her, "I suppose that the fact that there's a welcome picnic gives the whole 'new people are here' thing away."

"It does!" Jalian agreed, grinning. "And there are new classes starting, so there are usually new people. What brought you here?" Literally or figuratively.

"Hmm..." Ringo chewed her bottom lip as she considered how to answer that. "I suppose I just needed... a change of pace? I wanted to go somewhere where no one knew me, just for a bit?" See what it was like to be normal.

...this was not the place for normal. Sorry, Ringo.

Jalian nodded. "Sometimes going to a new place helps. A 'fresh start' they call it."

"Yes," Ringo smiled, nodding firmly. "That."

"It's not that I hate my old friends, or my family," she said quickly. "Just that... well, like you said. A new start."

"Sometimes it's harder to find who you are, with everybody knowing who you were," Jalian said a bit ruefully. "That was one of the reasons I left my clan."

"Oh." Sort of a kindred spirit, maybe. "Has..." Ringo hesitated for a moment, then pushed on with her question. "Has it worked?"

Jalian thought about it. "A little, I think. I was supposed to be doing something very important, and I haven't been able to, and I've had to find other things to do. Now I have choices. It's harder," she confessed.

Ringo's shoulders slumped ever so slightly, as if a weight had been taken from them. "Choices." She smiled. "That sounds... nice."

She took a deep breath and nodded. "I... think I can imagine. I've spent most of my life doing 'something important', so... that sounds like a nice change."

"Choices are good, but difficult sometimes," Jalian said, shrugging. "What sort of important?" she asked curiously.

"I led a..." Ringo frowned, not sure how much of this would translate. "I lead a Storm Rider team back home. It involved... a lot of fighting. People getting hurt." Ringo wasn't really happy about that.

She shrugged, feeling awkward about the whole thing.

"Do you really ride storms, or is it a clan name?" Jalian asked curiously. "You don't like fighting?"

That question, the reminder that here, at least, no one knew what storm riders were, made Ringo smile just a bit. "I suppose you would say it is a sort of clan name, maybe? Storm rider were originally just AirTrek teams, getting together for fun, but... at the highest level it became a fight for dominance."

She stared down at her feet. "And, no... fighting is sometimes necessary, but so many people get hurt."

Jalian frowned in confusion. "Like football here? A sport with teams, but everybody tries to be the best, and sometimes they're hurt?"

"More like... I guess you'd call it a street gang? But with ATs, everything is... more dangerous." Way more dangerous. "During the last big scramble, there were a couple of deaths, and a lot of hospitalizations..."

"So, more like clans back home. Are resources scarce? Is that why you fight?" Jalian paused. "I'm curious. I'm told it's sometimes rude, so you don't need to answer if you don't want to."

"I don't mind the questions. They just..." Ringo smiled sadly. "There are some bad memories there, is all."

She shook her head. "And I suppose scarcity of some things is part of it? Most of the fighting is over the Regalia, and there are only eight. Or maybe nine, depending on how you count."

A frown crossed her face as she contemplated her own role in all of that.

"Regalia - like official clothing?" That didn't make sense, but it was the only meaning of that word that Jalian knew.

"Maybe? Sort of. The Regalia are... they are symbols of authority, I suppose, but mostly they are tools used to exercise that authority. The Regalia are... a source of power, I suppose."

She sighed unhappily. "And power is one of those things that humans seem to always be ready to fight over."

Jalian made a disgusted noise in agreement. "Always, yes. Although," she said, thinking about it, "there isn't much fighting here. Not among ourselves. Sometimes things attack, though."

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