fandomhigh | BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

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!event: newbie shuttle

BWI Airport Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

Malia had never been out of California before. Or Beacon County, for that matter. She'd barely been out of Beacon Hills proper, and that was mostly as a coyote hunting for food.

So this was new and exciting! Or, you know, new at least. She was going to school. One that didn't, as far as she could tell, require her to learn math. So right there it had one up over BHHS. It also didn't have Scott or Stiles, which was not a point in its favor, but in the end, she'd decided that not having to struggle through eleventh grade math beat out getting to have the few people she knew around, especially when Scott agreed he could try to teach her control over the internet.

So here she was. Her ears still felt stuffed full of cotton from the plane, and the whole airport smelled like cleaning fluid and anxiety, and she was managing to claw tiny holes in the upholstery with claws that didn't want to stay hidden away like they were supposed to, but hey. At least she was having an adventure?

[IT'S NEWBIE SHUTTLE TIME! Up early-ish because work has been dumb this week and I might be slow.]

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Clare had never left Northern Ireland, never been on airplane and never spent more than a weekend away from home in her life.

So this was already a LOT.

She was lugging her backpack and the world's heaviest hard-sided suitcase and finally just stopped, panting. "Please tell me this is the right spot," she said, words tumbling over themselves, "because I'm absolutely knackered in I have to move one more step, I'm going to burst right into tears."

Hopefully someone could hear through all of the Irish accent there and help her.

Malia had very little idea what this short blonde girl had said, but she could recognize someone struggling with something heavy when she saw them, so she got up (making sure she wasn't actively showing claws or anything) and came to over to wordlessly pick up the bag she seemed to be struggling more with.

Malia would manage it like she was picking up a teddy bear.

"It's the right spot," she said, mostly to avoid tears. "If you're going to Fandom High, anyway."

"I am," Clare said. "My friends back home are terribly jealous. Hello," she stuck out her hand to shake. "I'm Clare."

Malia got most of that. At least enough to work out that there was a name in it, and also some reference to other people.

She shifted the heavy bag to her other hand (still holding it up like it was stuffed with feathers) and shook Clare's.

"Malia. My friends back home are . . . probably fighting something evil that wants to eat them."

And thus maybe a little jealous, as well.

"...something evil that wants to eat them?" Clare repeated. "Metaphorically?"

She'd spent a lot of time only half paying attention in Mass.

Right, that was one of those things normal people didn't say out loud, wasn't it.

"Sure," she said, shrugging. "Where are you from? You sound like a character from a fantasy movie."

They watched those sometimes, back at Eichen House. Someone had had the idea that people who didn't always have the best grip on reality would enjoy movies that didn't resemble reality much at all.

"I'm from Derry," Clare said. "In Northern Ireland?"

It was a good thing she clarified there, because Malia definitely didn't know where Derry was.

"Oh," she said, bobbing her head in a little nod. "Are there, like, fairies there?"

"Not unless you talk to Orla for too long," Clare said. "She's not altogether right in the head."

". . . She turns people into fairies?"

Look, it wasn't the weirdest thing that Malia, a werecoyote most recently from a mental institution where she spent time with banshees and lost her viriginity to a guy possessed by an evil kitsune, had ever heard of.

"Och, no, it's her aunt who might be a witch on account of telling her aunt to drop dead at a wedding and the aunt obliging her," Clare said. "Orla's just peculiar and still believes in fairies despite not being ten any more."

“That’s. . . something only ten year olds do?” Malia had never been a human ten year old. “But killer witches are totally a thing.”

There was no judgment in her tone at all. Or irony. She was actually trying to work out what was normal where Clare was concerned.

"Well, killer witches aren't generally a thing, but best to be careful there, just in case," Clare said.

Re: Wait for the shuttle

desertwolfcub - 2021-05-07 20:45 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Wait for the shuttle

craic_killer - 2021-05-08 01:10 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Wait for the shuttle

desertwolfcub - 2021-05-08 01:19 (UTC) - Expand

"Fandom?" Harry guessed. He was pretty used to deciphering accents by now.

Well, she was a bit like an over-excited female Seamus, if that would help at all. "Fandom!" she confirmed, smiling. "I didn't know it was co-ed!"

Oooh.

Harry looked around, noted that he seemed to be the only boy so far.

"If it's not this is probably going to go badly for me," he realized.

"Maybe it's a new trend," Clare mused. "My school back home had just the one English boy too. Are you called James?"

"No, that's my dad," he told her. "I'm Harry."

He'd feel better when he heard more English accents there.

Now Clare was under the impression that James was just a hugely popular name in Great Britain. "I'm Clare. Hullo."

"So what brings you to Fandom?" he asked, immediately realizing he was going to have to come up with an answer to that question himself.

"Oh, well, I applied," Clare said. "President Bill Clinton came to visit our city on account of the Troubles being over and all and so me and my friends, we wrote to Chelsea Clinton but never did she write us back, which was really quite rude, but while we were looking up where she lived, I came across the school and I thought maybe I should just try out America myself and maybe figure out what was keeping Chelsea so busy that she couldn't write us back?"

That. That was a lot of information, Clare.

And coming from 1996, Harry didn't see a single weird thing in any of that. Well, he did, but the timeline seemed pretty solid.

"So you're here for Chelsea Clinton."

Clare nodded. "I looked on a map and the White House doesn't seem that far away!"

American geography: not a priority at Our Lady Immaculate.

"It's good to have goals," Harry said. It didn't sound exactly right but be figured security would kick her out anyway.

Oh, she would definitely get kicked out and not just because Chelsea Clinton hadn't lived there in 20 years.

"I always think so," Clare agreed chirpily. "What brings you to America, Harry?"

As an exchange student. A million fanfics had been written about this.