fandomhighdorms | Magic Reserves, Wenesday Afternoon, The Preserve

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Magic Reserves, Wenesday Afternoon, The Preserve

When people began arriving at the meeting today, they would see that things were a bit different than usual today. For one thing, the snack table has it's usual assortment of warm beverages, but was missing the normal variety of snacks and there were a ~~handwavey~~ number of wooden chests piled off to the side, each one sporting a heavy iron padlock on the front.

"Greetings," Karla said, looking a bit more composed than she had at the last meeting. "We've got a fair bit to do today, so we should probably get started quickly. First, we have a talk from Tara, who was kind enough to volunteer this week," she paused to give Tara a grateful smile, "and then, we have an activity."

Merlin nodded and stepped forward. "Inside these chests is... pie." Oh, it was so spooky and magical sounding. "But, as you see, they're rather firmly locked up. So, the exercise today will be to get the contents of the box--unharmed--using whatever skills you have at your
disposal."

Mmm, pie. "Fresh-baked," Tony added. "And if you get one out, it's all yours."

Karla was really regretting that the three of them hadn't had enough time to bake the pies themselves, but hopefully J,GoB pies would be an acceptable substitute. "So, let's give Tara our attention--and a pie of her own for volunteering--and then we'll see how well your pie-retrieving skills are."

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"Wellll, maybe. I mean, I don't have any better ideas than the ones you guys come up with," Dinah admitted frankly. "It's not like half of us aren't in Fight Club or training on our own too; it's supposed to be a teamwork thing. I thought the three-legged race wasn't too bad for that." She shrugged then. "But. Maybe steal a page from Tony & Merlin & Karla's playbook, and have people get up and talk about their armies each week? I dunno." She grinned. "How's everything else going? Did you have a fun Halloween?"

"What's a Halloween?"

Blinking. Dumbfounded staring. Zack kinda failed at Earth Things, here.

"You didn't see people dressing up in costumes?" Well, he worked, and of course, worked out, and was usually pretty busy. Not impossible to miss. "It's a tradition, you dress up, then go around and ask people for candy by saying 'trick or treat' on Halloween night. I wasn't here, or I so would've grabbed you to go get sugar."

Awww. Zack missed Candy Christmas!

"Oooooh. That explains why there were little candies following me around that day," Zack mused, tilting his head the other way and laughing. "They weren't very good, but they looked all sad..."

"There were candies following you?" Dinah asked, eyes huge. "And you ate them?" Boggle, boggle.

Edited 2009-11-04 22:32 (UTC)

"They were kinda just... candy!"

It made sense to Zack! Sorta! If you squinted.

"It's easier if you think of it like eating really, really sugary chicken," he offered.

"... were they chicken-sized candy?" This just got weirder and weirder. Although Dinah was a little freaked out that she was wondering how they would taste.

Zack blinked some more. It was a blinking extravaganza!

"I don't think I could put a whole chicken in my mouth at once," he pointed out.

"Right! Right," Dinah said, a little relieved. Although she had a mental image of little sad candies jumping up and down to be eaten now. Little legs waving as they went in Zack's mouth. Okay, not asking if they had legs. Or faces. Fandom. Just go with it. "So, yeah. Halloween. Usually the candy isn't so mobile. But I'm glad you... enjoyed it?"

"I had a stomach ache the next day," Zack laughed, shaking his head. "Too much candy. If I'd known about the holiday, I probably would have just done the door-to-door thing like everyone else. There's always next year, huh?"

"Yup!" Dinah grinned, and said, "So I guess you didn't go to the Samhain feast if you had a tummy ache. I heard that was fun too."

"I called in sick to work, too," Zack replied, sighing. "I was better in time for Fight Club, though."

And then he had to take a moment to kind of scuff his toe against the ground, frowning thoughtfully.

"What's a Samhain?"

Doomed. He was doomed.

Dinah pointed over at Merlin. "It's more his and Tara's holiday. Harvest festival. Everybody got drunk and danced around a bonfire, from what people have said." She grinned at him. "We have a lot of holidays, I know. Do you have any coming up?"

"Ummm..." Zack wrinkled his nose, trying to think of... well... of anything, really. "There's a festival they have in Midgar every December, where ShinRa brings a tree in from out of town, and then lights it up in the park. But that's about all I can think of, really."

Sure, the residents of Gaia were big on celebrating, but they kind of seemed to fail at holidays.

"No presents or anything? That's part of our Christmas holidays, the lit-up-tree. But everyone's supposed to give presents to each other too. Along with carols and foooood." Dinah was always a fan of that. "There's Yule and Hannukah around the same time. They're for all different religions, they just have big winter celebrations at the same time."

Which reminded her-- maybe she should send more winter holiday stuff to Midgar for Reno to give out to little kids, if ShinRa wasn't even around to do the tree thing.

"Christmas?" Zack was attempting to absorb all of these new words, and about the best he was achieving by this point was that he was getting horribly, terribly confused. "No presents, no. Just the one tree and some lights on it so that people can see it. Midgar's kinda dark otherwise. Especially in the wintertime, when the daylight... haze... is kinda shorter."

Midgar was not much for sunlight, no.

"Presents are for birthdays," he pointed out, grinning faintly.

"Yup yup! It's supposed to be Jesus's birthday-- he was alive about two thousand years ago-- so, everyone celebrates it with presents." She grinned. "Hannukah was about, um, resistance? If I remember right. And eight nights of outlasting the Roman guys who sucked. I don't know what Yule's for, maybe just midwinter, that's another Merlin one." Dinah laughed. "And before all those, Thanksgiving at the end of this month. Which is all about the food. And football. And family."

Zack was now completely lost.

"All of this stuff is marked on the calendar, right?"

Because if it wasn't, then he was absolutely not going to remember it all. Ever. Try though he might.

"Yes! Promise," Dinah said, nodding hard. "Kwanzaa and Solstice and New Year's too." She grinned. "We sound like we party through the winter so we don't notice how cold it is, hunh?"

"Kinda, yeah," Zack laughed, scratching his head and putting his other hand on his hip. "You guys celebrate all of that? Really? Are there any days this winter that you won't be celebrating a holiday?"

"Lots of them overlap, or people celebrate Hannukah, but not Christmas, or vice versa, or similar stuff with Solstice and Kwanzaa," Dinah explained. "Once we're past New Year's it's just cooooooold and no fun for ages." She grinned at him. "But that's another couple months away. Fun before then!"

Staring. Staring in awe.

"...But... How do you keep track of them all? I mean, can you celebrate two things at the same time? What if you put up the tree for the wrong holiday, or give presents when you're supposed to be eating, or... Um."

Wow, he needed a nap.

"Something?"

Dinah blinked, then petted his arm. "Nobody would get mad or anything. And... I swear, this is all on the calendars. Don't worry about it 'til it gets closer, hunh?" Maybe telling him all that was a little tiny bit of overload? Maybe?

Yeah, she was going to leave out Veteran's Day and Pearl Harbor Day and the other stuff, while she was at it.

That would probably be a good idea, yes.

"... It was easier not knowing about it all," he chuckled, shaking his head and smiling sheepishly. "They're not really my holidays anyhow. But I'll try to catch on in time for the next one, at least."

"Thanksgiving. I'm going home for it, back to New Gotham. You're welcome to come back and stuff your face too," Dinah said, smiling. "Or I'll bet there's a big feast here. We'll get classes off probably, so it'll be hard to miss."

Magic Reserves, Wenesday Afternoon, The Preserve

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