fandomhighdorms | Fourth Floor Common Room; Sunday Evening [ 04/10 ].

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Fourth Floor Common Room; Sunday Evening [ 04/10 ].

It had been a long, arduous ~~handwavey~~ weekend of questing (unsuccessfully) to discover and help with the source of this strange invasion on the island, and, eventually, through battling turtleducks and those funny squat little creatures and whatever else was out there, Alexander realized that someone must have figured it out, since everything went away. He let out a proper huzzah! and, grateful that he had not seemed to have incurred any damage, headed back to the dorm. All that questing and adventuring made a lad hungry, and so he took to the task of making a celebratory meal for anyone who may have been more victorious is discovering the cause and obliterating it.

Call him crazy, but, really, he felt the occasion called for a nice bit of turtle soup...

Ahem.

[[ oh hay, look who still exists! Open common room is open and thinks its very funny ]]

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Elphaba followed her nose, not necessarily because it smelled appetizing, but because it was so curious.

"Oh, hello Alexander," she said, when she saw him in the common room. "What are you making?"

"Hello, Elphaba," Alexander gave her a nod when she came in, and a faint smile. "It's turtle soup; it seemed rather appropriate for the situation."

Elphaba's face twisted a bit, but she bit back her reaction to that.

"I suppose it is good that things seem to be getting better, at least," Elphaba said. "It was very... vexing to say the least."

Wesley wandered in some time after the gloating of having actually helped started to wear off. Helping was tiring, apparently. This was news because -- well, he'd never helped before.

"Hello," he said, making a beeline for the soup. "I'm famished. What are you making?"

He didn't know it was turtle. He would regret this decision.

"Ah, hello, Wesley!" Alexander gave the other boy a smile while giving the large pot a bit of a stir. "It's turtle soup; shall I get you a bowl?"

"That certainly does answer my question as to whether or not you dared to venture out," Alexander noted. "I'm quite disappointed that I seemed to have wandered on completely the wrong track as far as figuring things out, but it was rather...interesting, I must say."

Oh.

Turtle. Soup. Soup made of turtle.

And he'd already said he was hungry.

Bugger.

"Certainly," he said as brightly as one possibly could when told that there would be turtles for dinner. "That would be lovely, thank you."

"It made me wish I was a proper witch," Elphaba said, making conversation. "Able to fly about, above all the bother. But instead I kept getting bumped into by those brown stumpy things."

The first time, she'd made the mistake of trying to talk to one.

Alexander gave Wesley a suspicious glance at that level of brightness, but decided to dismiss it as it being a strange weekend for everyone and dished out a bowl.

"It's a bit of a specialty of mine, to boot," he offered encouragingly. "Sometimes, one must use what's available when times are difficult..."

"Just be glad I wasn't able to tell quite what those were to make a soup in their honor," said Alexander, who figured that being an improper wizard hadn't helped much, either. "I couldn't interest you in a bowl, I suppose?"

Oh. Oh, no, did that mean... was this Bowser soup?

"So this came from one of the invaders, then," he said, just to clarify, spoon paused in mid-air.

"Oh, no," Alexander assured Wesley. "I am not quite that cruel. Or desperate. It is just regular turtle."

Because that was much better.

Oh, yes, much. Well. At least it wasn't poison.

Probably.

"Lovely," he said, doing his best to put on a convincing smile. And then -- because he was British and had tasted far less appetizing things before -- he took a spoonful.

Oh. That was. Yeah.

"And how is it?" Alexander asked, since it was always nice to get thoughts from someone whose response, if they disliked it, wasn't likely to be killing you.

Elphaba shook her head. "I feel dreadfully sorry for the turtles, as it is," she said. "Not the mean ones that were about, I mean. Just... well, if you enjoy it, I won't say anything more."

She was getting better about that sort of thing.

"But it's not for me," she added.

"It's..."

He swallowed. Well, you know, it was interesting. Definitely flavorful!

"It's not bad," he said truthfully.

Alexander nodded. "I can understand that," he said. "And that's fine. More for me, right? My father would say that there's nothing like an adventure to whet a man's appetite, and I feel, this time, I definitely have to agree with him."

Before, he had trouble really understanding because he was always hungry then.

Alexander chuckled a little. "Your first turtle soup?" he guessed.

"Yes," Wes conceded. "Why, do I not appear to be a connosieur?" he teased.

"Either that," Alexander reasoned, "or my work is actually much more terrible than I ever expected, and I refuse to believe after as much practice as I've had, it would be that horrible."

Although, now that he thought about it, it would make sense if Manannan had bad taste in food as well as everything else in his life.

"Oh, it certainly isn't horrible," Wesley hurried to assure him. "Different, certainly, from what I'm used to, but it's actually quite good. Once one gets over the initial guilt over having a pet turtle as a child, of course... but really, it's very good."

He wondered what it would be like to practice making turtle soup as part of his profession. Probably not fun.

(Really, Wes? Being enslaved to a wizard wasn't fun?)

"Well that's just biology, isn't it?" Elphaba said. "You're being active, so your body needs to replenish its energy... Adventure's just like exciting exercise."

Alexander's head quirked with interest. "A turtle as a pet? Truly?"

Although, really, come to think of it, with some of the odd pets he'd heard some nobles kept, he shouldn't be so surprised, but he'd been fairly certain Rosella made most of those up to test his gullibility.

"'Just biology,'" Alexander repeated with a grin. "Well, that just takes all the fun and excitement right out of it, now, doesn't it?"

"For a brief while," he admitted. "And a parakeet as well. Or rather, I tried to keep both of those as pets, though I was met with, ah, parental opposition. But I had the turtle for about a week!"

At the age of six. The turtle had been named Quincey, and made some of the most terrifying hissing noises Wes had ever heard.

"And how long for the parakeet?" Alexander wondered.

Well. The parakeet had been a whole different story, mainly because it had been dead when Wes had found it.

He was a weird child, okay?

"Five hours," he admitted.

"....zounds," said Alexander. "So, once more, the turtle wins the race."

"I've found a lot of studies do that," Elphaba said with a little cheeky smile. "Suddenly things that seem like magic are perfectly simple. Though... it does make magic that much more special."

And that was the best joke ever. No, seriously.

"I suppose," Wesley said, smiling. "That is a way of putting it, yes."

"Yes," Alexander mused. "It is easy to see why broth and carrots and potatoes make a stew when combined together, but, try as I might, I find it a bit harder to discern exactly what it is about a concoction of cactus juice, a bit of lard, and precisely two drops of toad spittle with a little bit of fancy poetry and the aid of a wand allows me to manifest myself as invisible.

But Alexander did have to spare a glance toward the pot, and think of how that race did not end quite so well.

"Did you find yourself very heavily involved in the strange on-goings of the weekend?" he offered, feeling guilty enough to try to sway the topic.

That was true. Instead of going out for celebratory drinks after winning the race, the turtle had ended up in some soup.

Decent soup, though.

"I did, actually," Wesley went so far as to admit. "I assisted in the rescue of the children this afternoon, in fact."

"Oh!" Alexander now wished he had something more celebratory than turtle soup himself. "Well done! I'm afraid I found myself quite off the proper path of helpfulness, but it is assuring to know there are plenty of people here who can pick up such slack. How did you manage it?"

Elphaba instantly was wishing she had a pen and paper. "I don't suppose you know what the poetry was, do you? Or perhaps you have the book it was from, originally? I'd really like to look at it, if you do."

She was a little eager.

"I don't know if I should say even if I do remember," said Alexander who, of course, recalled every word. It wasn't as if he could write these things down for Manannan to find on his person one day. "What would you be planning to do if you were to render yourself invisible, Elphaba?"

Well... uh... George had thrown a shoe. And Stephanie had jumped on things.

And Wesley had fired ineffectually with a gun. So. There was that.

"I did my part," he said vaguely. "Supplied weaponry and went after the, ah, turtle monsters."

"I... well, that I don't know," Elphaba said. "Mainly I'd just do it to see if I could. I don't have have any particular desire to be invisible."

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Fourth Floor Common Room; Sunday Evening [ 04/10 ].

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