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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[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.