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 may have just been a coincidence that the weather was sunny now that Fandom was back home in Maryland, but no one was going to complain.

Okay, maybe they were going to complain a little since the sun meant it was in the high 90s ~~32C~~ outside, but that just meant there was a good excuse for all the ice cream on the buffet table of picnic food.

There was the usual second table set up as well, stacked with nametags and lists to help folks locate their siblings and roommates. Once the chairs were set up and the tables were glittered, it was time to welcome the new folks and start a new semester!

[OCD is 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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Every part of arriving on this island was unsettling for Faith.

First: traveling on the train like a person, in an actual seat. Second: the portal ride, which had introduced her to a form of travel she liked even less than traveling on the train. And finally: every last detail of how this place looked. It was surreal, like stepping into an old photograph.

After reluctantly putting on the nametag, she couldn't help toeing the grass with her sneaker for a minute, amazed by the way the little green stalks bent and folded in response to her touch.

Ada, being Ada, had no qualms about hopping up on the nametag table, cupping her hands around her mouth, and hollering "'M lookin' for FAITH!"

Mostly because she thought it was hilarious

Hilarious or horrifying, take your pick.

Faith jolted up from staring at the grass and found Ada. "Um, that's me," she said, taking a cautious step toward the nametag table. "Hi."

The idea of Ada looking for faith -- small f -- was both hilarious and horrifying, really. So we can go with both.

"H'llo," she said with a grin, sticking out her hand. "'M Ada, your school-assigned 'big sibling' t' help you adjust."

"Oh." Well, that sounded like it could potentially be a very helpful program. Faith didn't grin back, but she did reach her gloved hand out to shake Ada's.

"So could you tell me where this place is? I mean, geographically. This doesn't look like Cascadia."

"Is Cascadia Canadian?" Ada asked curiously. "Well, we're usually on Earth, just of th' coast of Baltimore in th' United States, assumin' th' island don't get it in its head t' go jauntin' all over time an' space again."

Nope, never mind, now she was way more confused than before. "I... don't know where that is," Faith admitted. She was surprised the court had sent her so far away for school. She'd thought they would at least want to keep an eye on her.

"Does everything in, uh, Baltimore-" she sounded out the name curiously, "--look like this?"

"Well, Baltimore's a city, so it got more big buildings an' stuff an' less castles," Ada said thoughtfully. "They got parks, too, but not as many it feels like. I usually only go with friends t' go dancin'."

Dancing. Picking pockets. Same thing.

"Huh." Buildings were normal. Faith could handle buildings. Castles and parks, not so much. "I didn't even know there were places that actually had this stuff. Parks, I mean. Weird."

Sorry, Ada, she was distracted by toeing the grass again.

"Cascadia don't got no parks?" Ada asked, genuinely curious. "Huh. Thought most places had at least one, even if they were super-tiny."

Faith shook her head. "Not in the city I'm from. It's very... white."

The landscape, that is. Not the people.

Looking up at Ada now, she added, "The buildings are different too. They're more like skyscrapers. Straighter and not as old." She eyed the school building narrowly. "Is that building even stable?"

"Pretty sure they carved th' damn thing outta solid stone," Ada said, making a face. "It's so solid, you can't even hear th' birds outside unless there's a window open. Solid like a tomb, more like."

"Huh." Faith wasn't sure she liked the sound of that, but at least it wasn't going to crumble apart. "Okay. Sorry, it's just all really new. This probably isn't what you were supposed to tell me about."

"There ain't enough hours in a day t' tell you everything," she admitted. "Why don't you ask me all your questions first an' then I'll fill in th' gaps."

Come to think of it, that was better than getting a whole prepared speech; Faith wasn't the most attentive listener when she was bored.

"Well, uh, there's a guy with a dog head?" she ventured. "Is that a regular costume thing you guys do?"

"Yeah..." Ada said, shrugging apologetically. "That ain't a costume as far as I know."

"Fandom's got a few more biological impossibilites than most places."

"Uh... okay." Faith tried to wrap her head around that one. "Do you mean people get sent here if they're born looking different? Like is this whole school kind of a dumping ground for people who don't, um, conform?"

She was having a hard time mentally linking the reason she was here to the reason that a man with a dog head might be here. Wild mass guesses were the best she could do.

"Sometimes," Ada admitted. "There's a lotta reasons people are here. It ain't safe at home, or they're too different in one way or another, th' brochure they got just made it sound like a prep school, or they ain't got nowhere else t' go."

"Th' island itself...well, it's magic. One day it'll rain candy, th' next, you're singin' all your feelings everywhere. Which, f'r th' record, is damn annoying. Sometimes I think it's smart, too, an' it's picking who comes here for reasons of its own."

...Maybe Ada had had the right idea after all, taking things slow up front.

"Whoa," Faith said, because seriously, she was going to need to process that. "No offense, but that's hard to, um, believe." It probably came out sounding a little offensive, but she didn't mean to! "You're making it sound like a little kids' cartoon."

Ada just looked at Faith and blinked. "He has a dog head and is a person," she said, pointing over at previously mentioned person. "And it's magic you're havin' a hard time with?"

"All stories got a grain of truth in 'em somewhere. Maybe we're just a slightly weirder truth than most."

"I mean, kinda," Faith said. "I mean, most people don't really believe in... magic stuff, right?"

But honestly, the dog head was a convincing argument.

"Maybe I have to see it to believe it?"

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

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