fandomhigh | SHENANINGANS, Wednesday, May 13th, 2020

Entry tags:

summer games

SHENANINGANS, Wednesday, May 13th, 2020

Good morning, Fandom! It was time for the start of the third annual Summer Shenanigans, and Anakin had been secretly prepping for this since last year! (If you think that means he had a stockpile of intensely ugly t-shirts, YOU WOULD BE RIGHT. Give yourself a prize.)

There were bleachers set up for watching the events, food vendors hoping to get you to eat a variety of things that may or may not have any business being deep-fried and put on sticks, and big screens showing various parts of the island, which was definitely a hint that the games today weren't just centered in the park today.

"WELCOME!" Anakin yelled through his bullhorn at the appointed time.

Yes, he knew how to use a bullhorn. He just preferred to make it boom and squeak like that because he was kind of mean.

"Today you will be put into four teams of seven," he said, "and you will be conducting an obstacle course around the island! When your name is called, please collect your t-shirt and briefly say hello to your team."

And complain about your t-shirt color names. Pretty in Spring Turquoise wasn't close to being turquoise and the rest of them were pretty much the same color with different names, so excellent quality control there, Anakin.

"Then you will spread out to the appointed areas. I will shoot off a flare that Beaker--" Beaker meeped and waved, "--had absolutely no part in testing, and that will be your signal for the first group to begin their task. Fastest team back to the park here wins."

There was a pause.

"You win nothing but bragging rights because we've all learned from the fish incident two years ago. If you're new, well, just trust us. No one needs to win a fish." He coughed. "Anyway! Names! Listen up!"

Team Sweet De Crocus
1. Cait
2. Grog
3. Shuri
4. Beaker
5. Alluka
6. Astrid
7. Kitty

Team Fresh Eggplance
1. Nina
2. Stark
3. Wayne
4. Juillene (and Camden)
5. Sabine
6. Alara
7. Ulysses

Team Lake of Aluminum Crab
1. Duke
2. Elli
3. Liam
4. Alexis
5. Summer
6. Freya
7. Tahani

Team Pretty in Spring Turquoise
1. Mae
2. Julius
3. Iris
4. Amaya
5. Shunsui
6. Rosa
7. Rey

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The best part was, the poison hadn't even been meant for her. It had been meant for her foster sister. And was also how they'd found out Arsinoe was, in fact, immune to poison.

"Why would your family try to kill you?" she frowned. Sure, tradition dictated that Arsinoe and her sisters had to fight until there was one Queen standing, but tradition also meant no one on Fennbirn really considered the triplets to be each others' family. "If you don't mind me leaning on you on the way back to the dorms," she said with a resigned sigh. "I'd appreciate it."

"Oh, never actually kill me," Julius assured her. "Mom would get really mad about that."

Only Bethesda was allowed to kill a Heartstriker. Or Chelsea, at Bethesda's insistence.

"Also, I could just carry you? Or, like, piggy-back? I don't think you should be straining yourself right now." He furrowed a brow. "Did you feel like this on Monday, too?"

"Oh, because that makes it so much better," Jules shot back.

"Just leaning on you is fine, really," she shook her head. "Monday was manageable." She'd at least been able to make it back to the dorms fully under her own power, at any rate. But compounded with today...

Now who was being prideful?

Julius was still frowning, neatly eliding over her observation. "Sure, Monday was manageable, but adding that to today's...you sure you just want to lean?"

Oh, she was, absolutely. That was the war-gifted side of her, for sure.

"Yes."

Camden, from her spot at Jules' side, pulled her lips back in a snarl and directed a low growl in Julius' direction.

Edited 2020-05-13 19:14 (UTC)

"Whoa, hey, I was just checking!" Julius said, hands raised in the air. "I wasn't going to insist so long as you were sure! But you know yourself best and that's fine."

“So long as we’re clear,” Jules said. After all, she’d both signed up for Anakin’s class and stuck around to participate in... whatever this was.

And then: “Sorry,” as Cam calmed back down.

Edited 2020-05-13 20:19 (UTC)

"Crystal," Julius assured her. He reached out a hand to help her up. "Want to throw your arm over my shoulder or did you have something else in mind?"

“An arm around your shoulder’s just fine,” Jules said, smiling as she took his hand. Look, Julius very much wasn’t her type (and even had he been, she wasn’t looking to get involved in that way, even casually), but she wasn’t blind. More to the point, she’d also seen how some of the other girls- and guys- had been eyeing Julius, and she absolutely wasn’t above flaunting just a little.

People were eyeing him? He was flauntable? It was a good thing Jules didn't say that out loud because he might have dropped her.

"Whenever you're ready," he said, helping her to her feet and easing her arm around his shoulders. "We can go at your pace, too."

Had you looked in a mirror, Julius? By human standards you were absolutely flauntable.

“Let’s go,” she said, once she had her arm sling around his shoulder, Cam pressed up against her side.

That was just the Heartstriker coloration! Golden brown skin, black hair, and bright green eyes was a dramatic combination. She should see the rest of his family!

"Let me know if you want me to bring you anything from the common room," he offered, setting off at a deliberately slow pace so Jules wouldn't feel rushed. "I'll help you up to your room, then bring you something if you're hungry."

‘Just’, sure. Suuuuuure.

She was about to say that he needn’t go to any more trouble than just seeing her safely to her room when she reconsidered.

“If I order a pizza, will you meet the delivery person at the door to the dorms?” she asked. Then she could be sure to foist some off on him as a thank you! So there.

"I can do that for you!" Julius said, honestly just sounding happy that he could help out. "I'll get you upstairs and then head down to wait. Err. What's your room number again?"

Yeah, Julius was not only way too nice to be a dragon, he'd have a terrible time anywhere on Fennbirn with the possible exception of Wolf Spring. There was a lot of scheming and backstabbing (of both the literal and metaphorical sort) when your system of governance relied on ritual murder.

"That's real sweet of you," she told him. "I'm in 308."

That was his exact problem, yup.

"I'm in 320!" he said with a smile. "Floor buddies!"

...Julius. Julius no.

"Floor buddies?" she echoed, biting her lip and trying not to laugh. "Is that a thing?"

"I...don't actually know?" Julius admitted. "Never been to school before, remember?"

And he'd moved as far away from his other siblings as possible as soon as he could leave the hatchery.

"But it could be? Maybe?"

"Right," Juillenne said sheepishly. "Though you're more familiar with this world than I was when I arrived, so you've got one up on me there."

"Except this world is about seventy years behind me in history," Julius admitted. "All the big stuff I know about with how the world works? It hasn't even happened yet."

“Did things really change that much in such a short period of time?” Jules wondered. Seventy years ago... well, she hadn’t been alive then, but there had only been three Queens in that time, all of them poisoners.

"Oh yeah," Julius explained as they made their slow way up to the school. "Uhh, in about fifteen years, a huge comet's going to slam into Canada. That - somehow - brings magic back into the world. Spirits come back and magical creatures stop hibernating and the world kinda explodes with magic and tech. It's the singularity, pretty much."

Okay so that was... Juillenne kind of lacked a frame of reference for a lot of those things, honestly.

“Canada?” she asked. “And what’s a ‘singularity’?”

"The country to the north of here?" Julius said. "Wait, hang on."

He paused for a second, digging his phone out of his new jeans and toggling the AR view to public. "Map of North America in 2020," he commanded aloud and the phone's AI projected an image of the continent in hard light in the air in front of them. "Highlight Canada," he ordered and a yellow line outlined the country. "That's Canada," he explained as he started walking again. "We're in America - highlight America." This time, the line was red. "And we're in Baltimore."

Another command and the Baltimore area was highlighted in blue. "And I'm from New Mexico," he added, as another part of the map lit up in the same green as his eyes. Heartstriker green. He hadn't set the colors; the maps just did that now, outlining known dragon territories in their signature color.

Yeah, don’t think she missed that, Julius. Her gaze slid from the map, to his face, and back again.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Is that,” she nodded at the map. “Magic, or technology?” When she’d first arrived, nearly everything had seemed like it was magic, but now... well, she had a basic grasp of things like the television and cell phones, anyway.

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