fandomhighdorms | Behind the Dorms and Beyond, Tuesday Afternoon

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Behind the Dorms and Beyond, Tuesday Afternoon

Today, one of the two men in charge wasn't bothering to look the other way whenever the other strayed into his vision. Arthur, it seemed, had decided to declare himself Past That for no reason at all. "Afternoon, students," he called, "Today, there is no time to fool around. We'll be mapping the shoreline by foot, in twos and threes. If you have the means to venture out onto the water, today or this week, I ask you to do so as well. We will continue to gain oversight over the island and its structure." A pause, in which he failed to seek out Ino in the audience. "Next week, you will be facing one another in a mock battle. Bring practise weapons."

Noting that Arthur had decided to make an effort, Leto saw no reason not to do the same, and so he did acknowledge his presence, even if he didn't address Arthur directly. "And for those of you who were here last week, you are welcome to hand in the reports on strategy," he continued, then shot a glance at Arthur, to check if he had anything to add.

"For those of you who are still looking to gain some fighting skills, you can come to Leto or myself," Arthur continued, shooting Leto a glance from the corner of his eyes to see if he agreed with that, "Or find a willing teacher now, before we disperse. If you are new, you may speak up now to let us know what your skills are, so everyone will be thoroughly informed in the event of an emergency."

Leto gave a nod in response, but had nothing more to add. He found himself a little relieved that things were a little less tense than last week.

[~~wait for OCD~~ OCD has been up for a long time and I forgot to edit.]

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"No, but --" Gabrielle didn't get as far as the end of Dinah's question. "As in the mother of Artemis and Apollo? She's here?"

[[XD XD XD]]

Dinah paused. Then broke into hysterical laughter. "Hang... on... funny story... one sec..."

After a couple minutes, she got a grip on herself, and said, "Okay. That explains something. Um, no. Leto's a guy, he's from another planet, but, uh. He did turn into a pregnant lady who claimed to be a goddess a couple months ago." Heeeeeee.

[[ XP iz dead]]

"Oh." Gabrielle blinked. "Well, that's a relief. I'd hate to have to apologize to a goddess for that whole mess with some of her family a while back."

"You keep breaking my brain." Although not as bad as Fiona, saying she was Lucifer's daughter last night. "Do the gods and goddesses from your world just show up for coffee every Tuesday, or what?"

"I'm given to understand that's not so common for most people." Gabrielle didn't mean to imply that she was special that way; she just hung out with someone who was larger than life. "Look, how was I supposed to know that freeing the Titans was going to make a big political mess? And it wasn't like I meant to do that either!"

"...."

Dinah suddenly knew how some other people back home might feel like talking to her. "I'll bet," she said, mouth quirking upward. "'Cause you were trying to do-- what were you trying to do?"

Gabrielle sighed. "It was a Dorian chant, that was perfectly obvious, and this girl was reading it in Ionian rhythms, so of course I had to show her how to do it right. How was I supposed to know the chant was going to do that?"

. . . you could have thought about what exactly the words you were saying meant, Gabrielle. Honestly.

"You are so not allowed to play in the library Special Collections," Dinah told her. "'Cause that just can't end well. Sheesh." She couldn't help but grin at someone who was more Disaster Girl than she was, though. "Anyway. Leto's the shorter, dark-haired guy, Arthur's the tall blond guy, they both kick ass, and try not to be find them intimidating." She looked at Gabrielle again. Then grinned. "Never mind. Go bug them. I want to watch."

Sometimes Dinah's inner Evil came out in weird ways.

"Intimidating? Ha!" Gabrielle waved a hand in an exaggeratedly casual way, and the 'I laugh in the face of your intimidating' smile that went along with it was just as exaggerated. "They're not so tough. I've seen tougher. You want intimidating, try dealing with a warlord who just got duped into buying a whole bunch of talcamite weapons for his army right before a rainstorm! Them?"

Her voice went up to a near-squeak of mocking inquisitiveness. "They're no big deal."

See, Gabrielle, this is how you end up doing things like accidentally releasing the Titans.

"Talcamite?" Dinah had to ask. "And were you the one doing the duping that time?" She grinned. "No, wait. Xena, right?"

She looked over at Arthur and Leto, and then back to Gabrielle. "They will haaaate you if you say that. Fair warning!"

"It dissolves in water," Gabrielle said by way of explanation, then proceeded to look slightly offended. "Please. Xena and I --" listen to her say that as if she had that much of a say in the matter, at least when it came to warlord-related strategy issues -- "have better things to do than con people. That was all Salmoneus."

Dinah shook her head. "Okay, sometime later? You have to tell that story from the beginning." She grinned. "You up for mapping today, though?"

Gabrielle was actually pretty decent at that, and unlike certain other short talkative green-eyed blonde girls in the general vicinity didn't think there was anything wrong with or primitive about this sort of cartography technique.

"Absolutely!" Her face fell slightly, though. "I didn't bring any scrolls with me, though."

She was going to have to get used to not having Argo and his convenient saddlebags ~~of Holding +2~~ around all the time.

~~*dies at icon*~~

"That's cool, I brought a notebook, I always do," Dinah said, rummaging through her bookbag. "We can transfer what we map onto something bigger later, I think." She squinted up at the sun, and then pulled out a compass as well, albeit one of those tiny, tacky ones stuck onto the end of a pen. "Remind me to bring a real compass next time, if we're going to be fighting the others in the Preserve."

Gabrielle had been about to reply when she was distracted by Leto's introduction, after which she came scurrying back to Dinah looking apologetic and gobsmacked all at once.

"Sorry, sorry -- what were we talking about?" she asked breathlessly.

"Mapping the beach this-a-way?" Dinah said, bemused. "What were you and Leto talking about?"

"He hadn't seen me here before and wanted to say hello. His ancestors are from Greece," Gabrielle said, awed. "From even longer ago than I'm from!

"Oh, that's right," Dinah said, remembering talking about it with Ghanima. She grinned at Gabrielle. "Most people focus on the future thing, but I guess the history part would be more interesting to you, hunh?"

"All of it, but especially that," Gabrielle replied. "Although okay, the future part's a little bit more of a downer than I like to write about, but I can work with that."

Dinah's grin widened as she started off down the beach. "You're going to write it down, make a new story out of it? And how's the ending a downer?"

"The abandoning Earth part." Gabrielle frowned. "I don't even want to think about that."

She picked up her pace a little with the practiced keep-up stride of someone who constantly had to follow along after someone with much longer legs. "Why exactly are we mapping the island, anyway, and why does this Reserve thing exist in the first place?"

"I guess it could be," Dinah mused. "But it's so far away, and it's not a sure thing, as I understand it. There's all kinds of pasts and futures here. I don't think of Leto's future as absolutely guaranteed, you know?" She didn't slow down, but did grin as Gabrielle caught up. "Oh, right. I guess I didn't explain it that well... Um, you got told about how this place gets invaded a lot, right?"

Gabrielle blinked. "Nooooooooooooooo. Nobody mentioned that part to me, but it would feel a lot more like home if it did!"

Honestly, people just shouldn't be that upbeat and matter-of-fact about this sort of thing.

"Maybe that's what Xena meant about this being a good place for me to brush up on my fighting skills?"

Chortling, Dinah said, "Really? Most people would not include that on features of their home base that they miss. Ha!" She grinned at the mention of Xena (again), and said, "Okay, maybe on the combat? God knows I've learned enough in the last four months." She took a breath. "There's been three invasions in the last four months while I've been here. Harpies, zombies, and alien shapeshifters. So, the harpies were this total surprise, nasty, came out of nowhere, and it was only a couple months since most of us got here, and we weren't exactly prepared."

"Harpies?" Gabrielle pulled up short and just stared at Dinah. "There were harpies here? And . . . zombies? Aliens? Not that I knwo what those are except that I've learned most aliens don't necessarily have spots, but really? That's a step up from your run of the mill warlord or bandit attack. Wow, I must be getting good."

Oh, honey, no. Well, maybe a little.

"See, this is what I mean!" she blustered on. "You have to stay on your toes when you're always getting attacked. And I'm a big fan of peace, don't get me wrong, but it's not very good for my learning curve."

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