fandomhighdorms | Second Floor Common Room [Late Morning]

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Second Floor Common Room [Late Morning]

After his first class, Ned had come back to the dorms without much in mind as to what to do to pass the time until his class later in the day.

After talking himself into and out of it several times, he'd finally gathered up some things he'd purchased over the weekend and trundled everything down the hall to the common room. It was empty for the time being.

Before he could talk himself out of it once more, he started baking for the first time in years. A pie, of course. A simple apple pie but it felt good to be baking again. It'd been awhile.

[Open CR is open. He'll share, of course.]

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"And do you plan on doing this," Turtle nodded toward the pie, "often?"

"When I can," Ned said, nodding. "I'm pretty good at it."

It was his one allowed moment of ego for the day.

"And when I have supplies."

"Oh, well, then," a little impish grin broke out on Turtle's face. "You are definitely welcome to the best floor in the place! I'm Turtle Wexler," she announced, holding out a hand. "Room 210. I'm also the co-owner of Turtle & Canary in town, so, if it means you frequently providing the floor with pie, I might even throw in some special deals for you whenever you need to resupply."

Ned saw the hand and stared for a moment before holding up both hands and hoping they were flour covered enough to ward off a handshake.

"I w-would," he said, clamping down on the flaring nerves, "but I'd get your hands all stained with flour. But, thank you. I'll remember that. You like apple pie? That's what this one is. It's going in the oven shortly."

"Oh." Turtle blinked a little, retracting her hand. "Good point. Although, I wouldn't really say they'd get stained, but flour is a big pain in the butt to wash off. And I love apple pie! It's one of my favorites!"

Ned smiled, relieved at getting out of the handshake and that she liked apple pie. Would've been a big downer if she didn't.

"Me too," he said, reaching for the top of the pie. "That and pumpkin. This is the first one I've made since getting here. Thought I'd start easy."

"Need lots of whipped cream for pumpkin," Turtle said, with a nod, because it was true, you did, and she bounced a little. Prospects of constant pie to be had in the common room were flashing gleefully past her eyes. "First one since getting here? Did you make them a lot before?"

"No," he said, keeping his eyes carefully focused on the pie and making sure the top was even and no filling would slip out. "Well, not since I was really young. I used to help my mother. She taught me. And then I didn't make them for awhile."

To cover that little bit of information up, he said, "I'd be a bad piemaker if I didn't include whipped cream."

Turtle gave a slight smile to that, but, really, it wasn't that good of a cover-up. Not when the statement seemed to make Turtle feel a little sad; it was hard not to, really, but there was pie, and it was a crime to be sad when there was pie involved.

Not a formal crime, mind you, but it possibly should be. Being sad when you had pie seemed a heck of a lot more logical as a crime than something like...oh, she didn't know, truancy, or something...

"I'm glad you're making them again, then," she offered, a bit more brightly. "I mean, well, I'm sure I will be once it's finished. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that the pie won't be terrible."

"It won't be terrible," he assured her, showing rare confidence. "It'll be good. If it's terrible, I'll owe you a favor. Whatever you'd like."

Turtle snorted a little at that. "You must either really be new," she commented a little wryly, "or really good at making pies to open yourself up to the possibility of owing me a favor."

"Really new," he said, frowning. "Is that bad, owing you a favor? I'm not going to end up..." He dropped his voice, looked around. "Naked, right? People like taking clothes off here."

Turtle gave a little displeased groan at that, rolling her eyes a bit. "Yes," she muttered, shaking her head. "They certainly do..." But, of course, while she was not a fan of nakedness herself, she realized that Ned had planted a seed of something he feared into her head, which meant it was ripe for the manipulation.

"So you might," she told him with a nod, despite that it was highly unlikely. "It's a possibility. It's just that I'm kind of a powerful person at this school, and you should never put yourself in a position of owing a powerful person something, because, if they felt like it, they could ruin you."

She felt like explaining that she was actually a good person and probably wouldn't ruin him unless he tried to ruin her first, but there was just so much appeal in trying to put a slight bit of fear in some of the newbies. Just so long as it wasn't overpowering, so she'd have to be delicate about it. Especially if he was in the same class as she was. A fear vote was still a vote, yes, but not the kind Turtle preferred.

"Powerful," Ned said, just barely preventing himself from blanching and looking like he was about to flee. "You're powerful and I'm not."

He looked at the pie that was just now going into the oven.

"I won't cross you," he promised.

Which...indicated that Turtle's tactics had worked just a bit more than she had anticipated. Her eyes widened a little.

"Nonono," she said quickly, not wanting to seem tyrannical. Not too tyrannical. A gracious tyrant, she was. "It's not that you're not! I mean, you make pies! Believe me, if the pies are good, you'll have quite a bit of power around here yourself. People on this island love their pie. It's just...you know, about balances. After all, the best place to get the stuff for making pies is my store. Without my store, you can't make pies, or, at least, you'd have to go through a lot of trouble to make them, and, therefor, you power, in a way, is directly effected by my power. However, it's the people buying things from my store that gives me power, so if you're not buying things from me, I start to lose some of my power, and..."

She trailed off a little, tilting her head. "You see what I mean?"

"Oh." He didn't but he could try. "Oh, yeah. So, you're not...a monarch of this island or anything?"

"Oh! Definitely not!" Turtle's hand rested over her chest, as if to calm her distressed heart at the assumption that she was. "I am a firm believer in democracy, Ned. All my power has been rightfully attributed to me by the votes, voices, and confidence of my fellow Fandomites, I assure you."

"Oh." He smiled, took a quiet breath of relief. "Oh, good. Good. You mentioned you have a store?"

"Yup! Turtle & Canary, in town!" Turtle chirped, preening proudly. "You can't miss it. It's the second most prosperous business in the town, and we sell everything, as well as being home of great prices and amazing deals."

"What's the first most prosperous business?" Ned wondered but made a mental note to visit Turtle and Canary for ingredients.

"Caritas," Turtle said with a slight wrinkling of her nose. "People here loooooooove their booze, oh man."

"I don't drink," Ned said, making sure she didn't think he was going to be contributing to that. "At all. I'd get sick if I tried."

He didn't know that but it seemed a good thing to say.

Again, Ned seemed to inspire a distasteful groan out of Turtle; her hand went to her stomach, but she looked as though she'd only done so because it couldn't hold both her stomach and her head at the same time. "I'm the same way," she muttered, frowning. "I try to avoid it, but you have to be careful. Squirrels have no souls, and if you have a fruity drink around them, they will be mean and put rum in it and get you drunk anyway, so you make a complete fool of yourself to the entire listening population and, even worse, you boyfriend."

Pause.

"Or, well, not your boyfriend. Not that there's anything wrong with it if you do have one, though, of course."

"I don't," he said and blushed. "So, I should stay away from Caritas or just from fruity drinks in general?"

"I would say fruity drinks in general," Turtle said, with a firm nod, after a bit of a thought about it. "The drink in question was actually picked up at that bar with the swings in Bali Hai, so..."

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