Fifth Floor Common Room; Sunday Afternoon.

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

It was kind of surreal, really, thinking about the fact that she was back in her own body but it still felt weird because she had started getting used to Viki's body. Turtle had spent the morning stretching and getting used to her own again, and had kicked almost everything that wasn't moving in the room to revel in the fact that her kick was back, in a way that didn't deeply wound either her boyfriend or his dog.

They did, however, need new desk chairs.

Kicking done, Turtle then went to experience snacking in her own body, grabbing lots of things bad for it so she wouldn't feel guilty for giving someone else bad cholesterol or a toothache, and then plopped on the couch to watch a little TV, still occasionally getting up to stretch and shake out her limbs and, perhaps, a little, lament the fact that she was back to being relatively flat chested, but that was okay, because that was her.

She wondered if there were any stretches someone could do to help with that, since, clearly, puberty hadn't helped her out there.

[[ common room is open, of course! ]]

Comments

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Good to see you, too!" Turtle smiled happily back. "And it's been great! Really, no complaints that I can think of." Not at the moment anyway. "I don't even have my parents nagging me this summer about how I never come home and visit! How about you? Starting to get used to the place at all? The good old step past newbie and into acceptance?"

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of things," he said with a nod. "I mean, that whole demons and Sphinxes thing kinda made me wanna hide for an hour but it went away so I'm okay. The classes are more interesting than anything I've had before and people talk to me so it's kind of surprising in one of those good ways."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

The last comment got a wry sort of smile out of Turtle; people were definitely nicer around here, for the most part. But these were people who voted a girl like her to be homecoming duchess, and something like that would have never happened at Westingtown High, so she was pretty cool with this student body.

"So which workshops are you taking? Gotta admit, you'd be pretty hardpressed to find a summer camp with courses like these, much less a school."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"There's one on shopping or more practical shopping," he amended. "Not that I shop practically or impractically. I just don't shop at all really so I figure I should learn how. And I'm in one on how to do bad things responsibly. That's not the name of the class but it's the gist. We played a drinking game with drinks that didn't have alcohol in them last time."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Well," Turtle mused, "if you always shop at Turtle & Canary, it's always practical, by nature! And, I guess if you're going to do bad things, it doesn't hurt to do them responsibly," she added with a thoughtful frown, "I'd rather not do them at all, to be honest, but...yeah. I tried a drinking game once, and am proud to say that I stayed good and sober for a good long time before I had to start drinking anything."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"I did too!" Ned said proudly. "I took one drink the entire time and it was at something I couldn't help doing when I was a kid. I tried drinks with alcohol for the first time last night."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

That got another smile out of Turtle; it was good to know that, finally, someone around here had a decent moral compass and had their priorities set straight. She was even beaming a little.

"Yeah? Where was that at? My first taste was at the radio station, because the squirrels are evil enablers."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"There's a girl who works at the bar who thinks I look like her brother," Ned told her, "so I went there and had two fruity tasting drinks and tried to talk to her. She's kind of mean."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle's head tilted. She tried to think of who worked at the bar these days, but she didn't keep very good tabs and it seemed a different person half the time on her radio day, although usually the old man. "Who was it?"

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Jaye," he said. "She calls me not Aaron because I guess that her brother's name. She's prickly."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Ohhhh, Jaye," Turtle said, in a knowledgeable way with a nod of her head, although, really, she didn't think she knew Jaye all that well, if at all, outside of radio. "Yeah, she can be. But, I bet if someone came around looking like my sister, I'd probably call them Not Angela, too. And Not Aaron isn't so bad; someone should tell her that Ned is much more efficient, though."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"I don't know if she'd listen," he said and laughed. "She's kind of...stuck in her ways, I think. I mean, I get that calling me not Aaron is a way to tell us apart but I wonder if we're so alike that she really has trouble with that."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Has she told you much about her brother?"

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"He's a comparative religions major," he said, reciting one detail he remembered from last night. "Not that I know much about that but she said it makes him not care about much."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

Turtle's nose just wrinkled a little. "Comparative religions?" she echoed. "That sounds exciting..."

This coming from the girl who did tax forms for fun.

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Is it what it sounds like?" asked Ned, who led the most sheltered life ever, apparently. "Just spending hours comparing religions? Are there that many?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I've no doubt that there's that many," Turtle said, shrugging slightly. "I mean, I'm even from a mix-religion family, and imagine if you knew about a place like this and had all the religions from different planets and worlds to add to it. And I've no doubt that it is exactly what it sounds like. Which has got to get kind of boring."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Huh." Ned needed to go to the library. "Well, anyway, my life is boring save for identical not twins. What classes are you taking?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"I've got my usual two important ones and one just for fun. The one for fun is Childhood Games, and the Important ones are Karaoke for Fun and Profit and the Right Tools."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Karaoke?" Ned asked, almost smiling. "Getting graded for singing?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"And profit!" Turtle chirped, with a small, excited sort of bounce. That was, after all, the important part. "Mister Cannon said that if I can find a business to sponsor it, we can have a competition for actual money, and, of course, that's easy, because I own a business that can sponsor it!"

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Competition?" Ned didn't pale because hey, he didn't have to enter but he'd sure as heck go and watch. "Singing competition? For anyone?"

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Um, I think just for the class," Turtle said, thoughtfully. "But I could talk to him about opening it up more if you'd like! I think that could be fun. Would definitely up the stakes a bit."

[death-and-pies.livejournal.com]

"Oh no, no singing for Ned," he said, waving a hand. "That's certain doom for all involved."

[stocksgrrl.livejournal.com]

"Awww, come on!" Turtle said with a laugh. "It can't be that bad. I'm no songbird, myself. And I don't think anything can beat the awful karaoke we had to listen to last week, oh, man."