BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday Morning

[midichlorianfail]

The glittery welcome banner had been hauled out from storage, by now looking decidedly worse for wear, which made it a good match for now fairly battered Jedi robes Theron was wearing as he sat under it, trying to meditate.

Master Till'in hadn't quite kicked him out of the enclave with nothing but the (donated) clothes on his back, but the whole detachment and lack of worldly possessions gig meant they hadn't had much to spare either. Especially for random strays without connections to the Order like they were still selling Theron as, and among the practical skills Master Zho had taught him was enough financial sense not to waste his limited creds on replacing perfectly serviceable clothing just because he wasn't actually entitled to it.

At least no one where he was headed was going to recognise them for what they were.

Comments

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

"Blithe Hollow. It's a small town in Massachusetts," Norman supplied. And hey, he was kind of famous (or infamous) there, himself. He could kind of appreciate that. "And you?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[squidpiddge]

"Malifaux," Molly said with a shrug. "It's in New Jersey."

It absolutely was not in New Jersey.

"Not a place real fancy or anything. But it's home. Or, at least it was."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

Huh. Norman blinked. Squinted a little. It must have been a pretty small town, too. Maybe a neighborhood or something...?

"Was? You don't have somewhere to go back to there after you graduate?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[squidpiddge]

"Well, home is where the heart is, you know?" Molly said. "So, wherever I am, that's home. New school, new home."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

"Oh. I guess I never thought of it that way." Norman looked down at the brochure again, frowning thoughtfully. "I think maybe I'll hold off on calling it home at least until I've seen the place, though."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[squidpiddge]

"How bad could it be?" Molly asked, a beaming smile on her face. "I mean, it can't be as bad as home!"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

"Those sound a little bit like 'famous last words,' to me," Norman replied with a little smile. "It's boarding school. Who knows how bad it's going to be?"

If it actually turned out to be horrible, maybe Grandma wouldn't be too disappointed in him if he came home before the end of the semester?

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[squidpiddge]

Molly shrugged, her 'what, am I gonna die again?' only said in her head. "I like to think of things as how good they can go, not worry about what bad stuff might happen."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

"Well..." Norman pursed his lips a little in thought. "How do you want things to go once we get there? I mean, is there anything you'd like to happen?"

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[squidpiddge]

"Learn a lot, make friends, have the best possible school year I can?" Molly said. She wanted to say 'best life', but she couldn't even say that as a lie.

"Adventure. Excitement. Mysteries."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

"Mysteries? At school?" And now Norman was grinning a little in spite of himself. "That's not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of school, but it sounds exciting, at least."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[squidpiddge]

"A good reporter can always find a mystery," Molly said. "And then it's their job to make it no longer one. Like, say, a strange school no one's ever heard of before. That's a pretty big mystery to solve."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

"Well, someone must have heard of it," Norman pointed out. And then he held up the paper in his hand and smiled faintly. "There are brochures."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[squidpiddge]

"Right, but until you had that brochure, had you any idea about it?" Molly said. "Back home, it was like... an portal opened, and suddenly there was a whole new world on the other side."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

Norman kind of blinked.

And blinked again.

"I mean, there are tens of thousands of high schools in the United States," he pointed out. "I kind of just figured this was one of them."

It wasn't even in his home state. He barely knew the names of the schools the next county over. Wouldn't know them, in fact, if it wasn't for his sister being a cheerleader back in her own high school days.

"... A portal?"

That part was weird, though.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[squidpiddge]

"Metaphor," Molly said quickly. "Just... out of nowhere, boarding school. Like a portal."

A totally normal metaphor.

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

"That's... a strange metaphor," Norman hedged, after another moment's pause. "I don't think I get it."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[squidpiddge]

"It's a New Jersey thing," Molly said quickly. "Sorry, guess that hasn't made it to Massachusetts yet."

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Portal jokes. Just a thing you do."

Re: Wait for the Shuttle

[always_someone]

"Right. Ha..."

Okay, Norman was making a dubious note to himself, now: Jersey was weird.

Which, really, anybody probably could have told him already anyway.