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

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!event: welcome picnic

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

The weather was warm, the food smelled good, and there was a good chance the new folks were a little extra glittery. What else could go into a perfect day for the picnic?

[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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Norman offered her a small smile. "I kinda know," he agreed. "I missed that last week, but there were a few that were... a lot."

A lot.

"Hopefully we'll all have a chance to catch our breath before anything else happens."

"I'm glad you missed it," Keyleth told him earnestly. "Really glad. It was pretty awful. But the last couple of weeks have been okay, so . . . here's hoping we've earned a decent break?"

"A summer like that, I think we kind of went above and beyond to earn that one," Norman admitted. "Professor Not-The-Dean Skywalker suggested maybe leaving the island for the last few weeks of each semester in order to miss the ugly stuff, and it kinda made me wonder why if it's so predictable people don't bother packing up and shipping off for those weeks more often."

There was a moment's pause, and then he added, "I'm really not a fighter. I was out of my league for most of the summer, there."

"I get that," Keyleth assured him. "Fighting's not really my thing either."

Though she was a little better at it than she'd realized, and kind of had fun with it sometimes, and that was something to think about.

"And . . . I don't know. That's a good question. I guess for me, at least, I feel like I have to stick around and be here for other people? I'd feel bad just abandoning them."

Norman nodded a bit.

"And up until this year, I never really felt like I was too far out of my depth," he replied. "But with the vampires, and then the whole summer...?" He sighed. "I thought about going home again, but I have one year left. What am I going to do back home, anyway? Nobody would believe my reason for going back."

"A little too weird for them?" Keyleth guessed. "Well, I'm glad you did decide to stick around. Even if you would've been absolutely within your rights to go home if that would've been best for you."

"Most things are a little too weird for them," Norman agreed with a small shrug. "They're still getting used to me, and I've been weird my whole life."

"Well, I don't think you're weird, if that helps?" offered Keyleth.

Keyleth, you were from a world where things like gibbering mouthers and gelatinous cubes exist. Your concept of weird was doomed to be skewed horribly from the start.

"It helps me," Norman decided, laughing softly. "I don't think there's much that can help them, though."

Sure, they were a little more open to making room for Grandma on the couch for family movie nights, but his dad was still prone to weirdly awkward attempts at being 'open minded' about whether there might be ghosts in the room to chat to, when just asking would have done the trick.

"Short of actually spending a few months here themselves, maybe?" Keyleth grinned wryly. "Unfortunately probably not."

"And nobody wants that," Norman said, gravely. "I'm pretty sure my dad would spend at least the first three months complaining about how ridiculous and impossible everything is, and my mom would spend it going around and comparing notes about interdimensional horoscopes or something."

Keyleth laughed a little bit. "So no chance it might end up being good for them, huh? You never know!"

Yeah, probably not.

"Well," Norman mused, "maybe some time around here would finally teach dad that you don't need a screwdriver in order to change a lightbulb."

... Perry Babcock was a special soul.

"That someone would not be me," Keyleth said, "since I didn't know that until just now either, but thanks for the free life lesson!"

"It's an important life lesson," Norman noted, "unless you like being electrocuted? It's kind of a wonder my father isn't a ghost yet, too."

Norman loved his family. He really did.

But he'd be the first to call them kinda dumb.

"There isn't really electricity where I'm from," Keyleth replied, a bit sheepishly, "so it's probably a really good thing you did tell me that."

Neither she nor Jules would likely be the best choices for the job if a lightbulb in their dorm room needed to be changed. The More You Know!

"Yeah, I can picture that going... not well," Norman replied, grimacing a little. "Tell you what... if you ever have trouble with any electric stuff, let me know. I might not always be able to fix it, but I should at least be able to tell you if something is a job for a professional if I can't."

"Sure! I mean, I don't know how often it'd come up, but I can do that." Keyleth flashed him a smile. "I'd really appreciate the help, too. The only thing I know about electricity is lightning, and I'm a long way off from being able to control the weather."

"You and me both, there," Norman replied, giving a bit of a lopsided smile. "With the weather thing."

Presumably, if Aggie had been able to do it after dying, he ought to be able to do it while alive.

But, uh, Aggie also had three centuries of pain and anger to work that stuff out with.

So...

"Wait, really?" And now Keyleth was staring at him a little bit wide-eyed, in an awed sort of way. "That's a thing you might be able to do?"

"I, um, I'm not sure," Norman admitted, after a pause. "Mostly I haven't gotten very far past making light and drawing summoning runes for ghosts I'm on a first-name basis with..."

Fidget. Fidget.

"But if I'm anything like this other person I knew who was like me, then maybe? Eventually?"

"That would make sense," Keyleth decided after a moment of thinking it over and chewing on her thumbnail. "It'd be so useful, too. If you ever figure it out, I'd love to know, okay?"

"I'll let you in on the secret if I ever manage to get that far past 'glowy lights,'" Norman promised with a little smile. "I'm not entirely sure I ever will, but... it would be pretty cool, right?"

Maybe?

"I'll be rooting for you," Keyleth said, with a double thumbs-up to emphasize it. "I'd offer to help, but I'm not sure how magic works differently in your world than it does in mine, and that could just get . . . messy."

"That's fair," Norman replied. "Better safe than sorry. I had a teacher actually from Earth for a while, but he's not living on the island anymore...

And 'living' was a pretty loosely-used term for what Bob did anywhere.

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

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