fandomhigh | BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

Entry tags:

!event: newbie shuttle

BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

Billie perched on top of a pile of luggage that looked suspiciously like it could have come out of the back of an upscale garage band's van. (It . . . kind of had. She'd managed to pack a few non-musincal essentials, but they were all shoved into the corners of the various road cases. She had her priorities, okay?) She had her phone out, scrolling through her latest playlist, when a video call request came in and she grinned.

"T!" she greeted.

"B!" said Thea from the phone. "You landed!"

"I landed!" Billie agreed. "I am so totally in Baltimore, dude!"

"You're so totally in Baltimore!"

They proceeded to run through everything that had happened to each of them since they last talked -- about an hour ago, before Billie's flight landed.

"I know it's totally too early to call," Thea admitted eventually.

"Dude, I was so totally going to call you." Billie grinned. "How cool is it that we're both on our own epic adventures?"

"It is most, most egregiously nonbogus," Thea said. "Oh! That's the opening bugle. I gotta go!"

"Yo, I cannot believe you moved to the Alaskan military school."

"That's the Alaskan musical conservatory, thank you!"

Billie laughed and nodded. "Right, right, excellent!" They both gave each other a one-handed air guitar. Which anyone walking by would somehow be able to hear.

You're welcome, passersby.

"Talk to you later, T!"

"Talk to you later, B!"

Billie deflated slightly as she hung up with her ~~soulmate~~ ~~other half~~ best friend, then went back to tooling around on her playlist, one ear of her massive, audiophile headphones slid back so she could hear if/when anyone else came to join her in the lounge. Or when the shuttle eventually arrived.

"Righteous," she muttered, bopping along to the music on her headphones. "First day of grad school playlist complete." She kept bopping, then looked around at her stack of luggage in the otherwise empty lounge. ". . . Now what do I do?"

[open! And a little earlier than normal, perhaps, because I managed to completely forget that I have an event tonight. :P]

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Did you get here in time for the air guitar?

Eh, there will be plenty more where that came from.

Who wants to play roadie with all of Billie's luggage?

Other than needing to lighten my icons (ugh), I am STUPID excited to be playing this girl

Erasmus's Pops had sprung for a business class seat for him on the flight from New Orleans to Baltimore. This had been entirely unnecessary, of course, except for how it had been: as Nikodemus had argued, it meant he only had to buy one extra seat to guarantee no one would kick up a fuss about being seated on the same row as a necromancer, as opposed to the two it would have been in coach.

He was still about two-thirds convinced he was going to arrive at Fandom University only to be told this was all a terrible mistake and they were revoking his enrollment, or else happy to accept him as an online student, provided he went back to Mississippi and far away from normal folks, but well, here he was, with his suitcases and his backpack and some charms he couldn't believe he'd gotten through the TSA.

"Dude!" Billie greeted. Having no idea that he was a necromancer or that such things were considered a lower caste in some universes, she had no reason not to be enthusiastic in the extreme. She shoved her headphones the rest of the way off her head (the music was tinnily audible through the earpieces and very good, thank you) and beamed at him. "Fellow student? Welcome to the BWI Portalocity Lounge for the Fandom University shuttle!"

Somehow she managed to make that whole description sound like a wonderful place to be. Instead of a generic waiting area stuffed with too many road cases.

It was a skill, okay?

Riri had really been banking on MIT taking their time in revoking her access to TRVOR and all that. At least giving her enough time to get back to Chicago.

But that had not happened. Instead, that janky piece of crap had to cut out midflight and sent her crashing to the ground. Luckily the armor was good enough that she was left with only some normal bruises and a wounded pride. But not much of an idea of where she'd been dumped. So there she was, hauling what pieces of the armor she could, looking for a way to keep going.

Pay no mind to any of that being out of the ordinary.

"Oh hey!" Billie said. "I know a robot that looks kind of like that! Are you from 2720 too?"

Not because Billie was from then. But that was when Dennis Caleb McCoy, the time traveling death robot, was from.

[let me know if you'd prefer the pieces not be THAT identifiable as robotic ;D]

Riri looked down at the pieces she was both able to salvage as necessary for rebuilding and could actually carry without toppling over. Someone out there was going to be so confused by what was left behind on the side of the road.

"Uh, pretty sure it's 2025," she said slowly. Because, alas, the only known death robot was that one who attacked Sokovia. Or maybe that Vision guy. But that was pretty fuzzy. "You good?"

[all good!]

"I am most copacetic, thank you for asking," Billie said cheerfully. She hopped off her road case and offered her hand. "Wilhelmina 'Billie' S. Logan. New grad student!"

Was...was she talking to him so enthusiastically? Felt fake. "Hi," Erasmus said slightly awkwardly. "I mean, yes. Hi. I am going to Fandom University." Allegedly. "I'm Erasmus." He kept his hands at his sides rather than offering one to shake or anything like that.

"Whoa, are you all right?" Erasmus asked. While not rushing to render aid or anything, since Riri probably wouldn't welcome that from the likes of him.

She juggled the armor a little to get a hand out to shake. "Riri Williams. New grad student?"

Did she seriously crash in another college?

"Yeah, it looks worse than it is." Which was like she'd crashed into a street. In armor. Which was totally okay and fine and don't judge her life choices here, stranger. "You wouldn't happen to know where this is, right?"

Her phone was... toast. So checking via the usual methods weren't on the table.

“Wilhelmina ‘Billie’ S. Logan.” She didn’t do air quotes, but she did inflect them vocally to indicate the nickname. “It is most excellent to make your acquaintance, Erasmus!”

The enthusiasm wasn’t fake. And would not fade. Suck on that, culture of oppression.

“Excellent, excellent,” Billie said, assuming that Riri was agreeing she was also a new student rather than trying to confirm that Billie had called herself one. “I’m really excited. Fandom sounds like an extremely diverse and stimulating learning environment.”

"I'm sorry, I don't think I've heard of Fandom," Riri said, hoping to get more information on it. Because someone wasn't even aware she was enrolled. Because ~~Mephisto~~ the devil works fast, but the narrative worked faster!

“Really?” Billie tilted her head not unlike a confused dog in a sitcom. “Then why are you here?”

"It's the Baltimore airport," Erasmus told her. "You're in the lounge for people going to Fandom University."

Erasmus eyed her outstretched hand warily for a moment before ever so slowly bringing his own hand forward to meet it, giving Billie plenty of time to yank her hand back and go, 'Sike!' No? No? Was she sure? Okay, her hand was getting shaken.

Felt weird.

"Erasmus Boone," he told her. "New...freshman, I guess."

Edited (Now in the right place!) 2025-08-29 18:53 (UTC)

"I'm a little lost," Riri replied with a little sigh, shuffling over to find a place to set down her load of busted tech. "And my phone is in pieces, so I can't even say where I'm at right now."

Also having money to get a plane? Hell no. A bus was more likely.

Oh just wait, kid. The weird was just beginning.

“First year!” Billie. How did you have this much energy after flying from California? “Exciting. Do you know what you want to study?”

Riri nodded, letting that sink in. "Bus only goes there?"

Because a bus was probably what she could afford right now. Plane ticket? Ha! And since when did trains get so pricey?

Billie winced sympathetically. “I would be lost without my phone too. Hard to believe they’ve only been around for like, thirty years!”

She was one of a rare breed of young adults who was familiar with phone booths. That plus all the time travel made her extra aware of the march of technology through her lifetime.

“This is a lounge for people going to Fandom University.” She held up her phone. “Where are you trying to get to? I could get you an Uber!”

"That's kind of you, but--" In no way could she pay her back. Since she was hauling around the pieces of what any money she had went into. "I'm trying to get to Chicago. So that's one hell of an Uber ride."

But the expression on the driver's face would be pretty hilarious.

"Maybe the administration has something to help out. Right?"

"I was planning on getting a business degree?" Erasmus said awkwardly. "I want--" Well, it wasn't so much a matter of what he wanted. "I'm going to be going into business for myself, so." He shrugged.

No one had told him that actual classes on necromancy were an option yet.

"What about you? What are you planning on studying?"

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BWI Airport, Portalocity Lounge, Saturday morning

Arrive and Mingle

Trip to Fandom

OOC

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