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

[bigdamnprincipal]

Even if a new term wasn't starting soon, today would be the perfect day for a picnic. The weather was calm and warm, the food table was full, and there was a respectable amount of glitter on the decorations. There might have been a bigger party going on somewhere else, but here it was time to celebrate the start of summer!

[We're going OCD-free! Have at it!]

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[what_big_teeth]

Well, it was sort of hard to ignore a big plasterboard with one's name on it. She didn't imagine there would be a whole lot of other Eleanor Zarrins going to this school, so she made her way over, set her suitcase down and her plant on the table, and sit across from the boy who was there sleeping, being careful and quiet as to not wake him up, as she apparently found where she was supposed to sit and continued to curiously watch from there.

[napking]

If Gray had been awake, he would have assured her there was no need for quiet. He could sleep through a battle. No, really. It had happened before.

After a few minutes, he woke up, yawning and rubbing at his eyes, and noticed her. "Oh, hi," he said on another yawn. "You must be Eleanor." Please hold for another yawn. "I'm Gray. The school assigned me to be your big sibling. Did you read the note? Uh. Can you read English? Do you speak English?" Might as well start with the basics.

[what_big_teeth]

"I do speak English," Eleanor assured him, with a soft, faintly amused smile for this obviously very sleepy boy, though she still kept her guard up. "And that's right. I'm Eleanor. It's nice to meet you, Gray."

She studied him, just a moment longer, before asking, "Is a big sibling like a school mentor, something like that?"

[napking]

"Yeah, that's right," Gray confirmed for her. "I'm supposed to show you the ropes, you know, break you in gently if it's a lot. Uh. It's a lot for some people. Next question, did you know you were coming here or was this morning like, 'Surprise! Welcome to boarding school'? Because I guess that happens."

[what_big_teeth]

"I knew I was coming," Eleanor informed him with nod. "I can see how that might boarding school can a little shocking if you weren't expecting it, though."

She hadn't wanted to be sent to St. Brigid's, but at least she knew she was being sent.

"I'm also mostly here because I want to be," she added, since that seemed...revelent, with this line of questions. "And I've been to boarding school before."

She gave his a rueful, almost ironic smile.

"Pretty easy job for you, then, I guess, right?"

[napking]

"Oh, that was just us getting warmed up," Gray warned her. "Before we go any further, I have to warn you that if I fall asleep while we're talking, it's because I can't control it. I have a...thing." They'd get to that.

He paused, then said, "So this island sits on some sort of...interdimensional meeting point, and all kinds of weird things happen here as a result. And people from all different universes and time periods and whatever end up here. Like me. I'm a Nephilim, if you know what that is. Not everybody does. And like some of the teachers are from space. One of the other students is from medieval--I think--France." Another pause. "This is not hazing."

[what_big_teeth]

Eleanor was about to ask if it was some sort of narcolepsy thing, but when Gray kept talking, she had the feeling she should listen and pay attention, with an...odd sort of feeling creeping inside of her (well, odder than usual, anyway) as she did.

She eyed him suspiciously, for a moment, especially since saying it wasn't hazing made her wonder if it kind of was (just what she needed, another boarding school where everyone just wanted to make her life difficult....), but then her expression went....speculative.

"Well," she said, watching his reaction carefully,because she didn't exactly plan on coming out with this straight through the gates, but if he was going to say all those wild things, she'd meet him with one of her own, and maybe determine if he was lying based on how he responded.

After the last few months she had, none of that was really all that...odd, after all.

"I come from a family of werewolves."

[napking]

"Oh, cool!" Gray said. "I know some werewolves back home. And we had a sort of a thing a few weeks ago where people were turning into animals? People were calling them werecreatures, but they weren't, really, or at least not like the werewolves that I'm used to, which I guess might be different from the werewolves in your family." Weird to think about. "Actually, I don't think anybody was a wolf. I was a sloth, which is funny because--I'll get to that. Anyway, that's over now, but you should know that also just sometimes people randomly turn into animals. Not...like that." He was doing a very poor job of explaining this. "Just because. Or you're the opposite biological sex of the one you usually are for a few days or something like that. Because...Fandom."

[what_big_teeth]

"Because Fandom," Eleanor echoed, staring at Gray maybe just a little and shaking her head as she tried to not only follow all of that, bit also wrap her mind around it.

"I never could manage to actually change into a wolf," she noted, a bit wistfully, especially now that she understood why, while she just processed the information, and still wondering if Gray was pulling her leg, and just incredibly good at acting so casual.

"So..." she ventured, trying not to sound as uncertain as she felt, "are you telling me that this place is..used to strange thing? Unusual things?" She glanced over toward her poor wilted plant. "Odd things?"

[napking]

"It's pretty much strange and unusual things all the way down," he confirmed. "And...some ordinary people who end up here and have to figure out how to cope with it. But like..." He found Graham and Triumph across the lawn and gestured toward them. "That's my roommate, Graham, over there. And Triumph, his noble steed. He's a great nap buddy," he confided to Eleanor.

He considered. "Would it help if I showed you my wings?"

[what_big_teeth]

Eleanor followed Gray's gesture for a moment; she had sort of been wondering about that. A kid in medieval clothes riding a giant....rodent, of some kind?....sort of stuck out a little, and then her attention turned back to him, brows lifted slightly.

Looking him over again for further signs of subterfuge, she was thinking that she actually would like to, but, at that same token, if anyone asked to see what she could do...

When she shook her head, it was with a small shiver. "No, that's alright," she said, careful to keep her tone light and measure. "You don't have to..."

Still...

"But wings?" she asked, eyes now generally toward his shoulders. "Really?"

[napking]

"I told you." Gray pointed at himself. "Nephilim." Did they not have Nephilim where she came from? Tsk. "Oh!" He pulled the envelope off the sign and opened it. "You don't need the note now, obviously, but there's a gift card in here to the pizza place in town. My brother insisted. He runs it...and will probably just give you free pizza anyway." Because Raiden.

[what_big_teeth]

They might! But Eleanor had never heard of them; the Zarrins weren't exactly...erm, religious.

"Oh, I didn't even notice the envelope there," Eleanor admitted, "just my name. But....thank you. That sounds...useful, actually."

[napking]

"I hope you enjoy it! I mean, I'm just assuming you know what pizza is," he realized. "Some new arrivals don't. But Ray'll be able to tell you more about that than I would." Way, way more. "What else, what else...oh! Cell phones, do you know about those?"

[what_big_teeth]

"I know pizza," Eleanor assured him with a nod. She hadn't had it much, but it was always a popular food in the cafeteria t her last school. "But..."

She frowned a little.

"Cell phones?"

[napking]

"Oh, boy. Forgot all about that one. Okay, so the date in local time is May 6, 2023." Might as well start there. "When is it where you're from?"

[what_big_teeth]

There was a pause, a suspicious sort of look, and then a reminder that different time periods had definitely been mentioned to Eleanor a couple times thus far.

"...definitely not that," she said, "unless you all use a completely different calendar system, anyway."

[napking]

"I don't know if we do or don't," Gray pointed out. "Uh, okay, let's see..." He pulled out a pen and scribbled a list on the back of the envelope. "Here," he held it out to her. "Check off the ones you're familiar with."

The list read:

phones
television
radio
drunk squirrels
computers
cars
airplanes
electric lights
indoor plumbing

With 'drunk squirrels' scribbled out but possibly still legible.

[what_big_teeth]

And the drunk squirrels was definitely catching Eleanor's attention as she looked it over, because almost everything looked familiar to her. She meticulously checked off everything except the drunk squirrels and the computers, and, when she handed the list back to Gray, she had ask.

"Does the scribbled out one say 'drunk squirrels'?"

[napking]

"Uh, yeah," Gray admitted. "They spy on us and then someone reads all their weird squirrel gossip on the radio the next day. It's--it's a thing. Okay, so no computers, no cell phones. Got it." He pulled out his phone. "This is a cell phone. You're gonna want to get one. It makes calls, like a--you know, land line, plugged into the wall phone does, but it also does all sorts of other things like take pictures and let you watch anime." The anime was very important. To Gray, who gave Eleanor a handwavey demo of the basic capabilities of your average smartphone.