Second Floor Common Room, Sunday Morning

[endsthegame]

Ever since the broadcast on Monday showcasing Daala's brutal violent response to slave uprisings, Ender had been busy: busy writing emails, busy coordinating with his people in Ben's universe, busy privately worrying about where all of this would lead - with or without him.

But eventually he'd run out of things to do, as impossible as it had seemed at the start of the week. Somehow, that message hadn't quite reached his brain, for he still felt jittery and concerned; keeping a lid on it around Ben had just made it worse.

So in an effort to calm down, he decided to hit up the common room for breakfast today. Got two packages of microwavable pancakes out of the fridge and opened them up, using his deft microwaving skills to produce a stack - mostly in hopes of luring in someone to talk to.

Unlike certain people of his acquaintance, he didn't actually care much about the taste of his breakfast.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[dressedinblood]

You might regret this decision, Ender. There might be hockey on. Or that show about the models. But Anna decided that, "Oh, I wouldn't want to bother anyone." It was fine when she was the first person around, but with so many people here it didn't seem right to just decide. "You made pancakes?" she asked, gesturing to his plate.

[endsthegame]

"Microwaved them, actually," Ender replied wryly. "I'm not much of a cook. Sure you don't want one?"

She was a quiet one. Not that he couldn't appreciate that.

[dressedinblood]

Anna tilted her head a little to one side, confused. "How do you microwave pancakes?" Then she hastened to add, "No, I'm really not hungry. But thank you again."

[endsthegame]

"You take them out of the packaging, put them in the microwave, and type in the requisite amount of minutes," Ender supplied. "Not used to microwaves?"

She wouldn't be the first.

[dressedinblood]

"No, we didn't have one." You know. When she was alive. Because they hadn't been invented yet. "Pancakes come packaged here?" That seemed preposterous to her.

[endsthegame]

"The terrible microwavable kind that I'm told doesn't taste like anything," Ender agreed, "But I'm not a picky eater, and pressing a button on a machine is about as far as my cooking talents go."

[dressedinblood]

"But...it's not like pancakes are hard." Although she hadn't made them in more than fifty years so she didn't know how well she'd do, either. Though she did remember how.

[endsthegame]

"Oh, I know some people who wouldn't have any trouble messing them up so badly, they could be classified as a weapon," Ender assured her. "I'd rather not take my chances."

[dressedinblood]

Anna boggled a little. "Pancakes?"

[endsthegame]

"Pancakes," Ender agreed. "You'd be surprised."

He leaned back. "So when are you from?" he asked. "If it's not too intrusive a question."

[dressedinblood]

"Oh, I'm from Canada," Anna said. "Thunder Bay, in Ontario? And you?"

[endsthegame]

"North Carolina, the US," Ender said. It wasn't technically where he was from, but it was the easiest since OSC never explained anything beyond Ender being from 'the city' before the move to NC. "About two centuries from now."

[dressedinblood]

Anna stared for a moment, then said, "Tara said something about that, but I don't know that I really believed her." Despite Anna's own situation. Sure, she was a ghost, but she was still a ghost from the present!

[endsthegame]

"Welcome to Fandom," Ender offered wryly, "Where the impossible is made possible. Or I assume that's our motto."

[dressedinblood]

"Yes," Anna said with a smile, "I can see how it would be." Since they also had a ghost in their sophomore class. "Oh, I've been rude. I'm Anna," she said. Her hands remained folded in her lap, though; she wasn't going quite so far as to offer to shake or anything. The coolness was rather notable.

[endsthegame]

Ender took note of it, and wondered if she was shy, or whether shaking hands simply wasn't common to her time period, whatever it might be.

He chose not to press it.

"I'm Andrew," he offered, "Though some call me Ender. I've been here for about four years now."

[dressedinblood]

"Which would you prefer, Andrew or Ender?" Anna asked. "And...I guess that would make you a senior? You must know all the ins and outs, then."

[endsthegame]

"Either is fine, but let's stick with Ender, if I have to pick one," Ender supplied. "I do, and I don't. Fandom has a habit of changing its ins and outs frequently."

[dressedinblood]

"Ender, then," Anna said. It seemed like it could be rather a depressing nickname, but she guessed it didn't have to be. Maybe her perception was colored by her own 'nickname.' "I guess with things being so...unusual, it would, wouldn't it?"

[endsthegame]

"I prefer to think of it as whimsy most of the time," he admitted. "But what it definitely is is unpredictable, though there are a few patterns."

[dressedinblood]

"I'm not very good at whimsy," Anna said. This might seem like an odd statement from a girl wandering around the dorms in the dead of winter in a white cotton lace-trimmed dancing dress from fifty years ago and no shoes, but. She hadn't even been very good at whimsy when she was alive. "What sort of patterns? Tara--she's my big sibling--said sometimes there are weekends when people think they're someone else? Like that?"

[endsthegame]

"Like that," he agreed. "Weekends when we have children, weekends when we are children, weekends when men are women and women are men-- and days, week days, where candy falls from the sky and cocoa comes from the taps. It's mad, but that's our benign stuff."

[dressedinblood]

Anna stared at him for a moment, then said, "You're serious, aren't you?"

[endsthegame]

"I'm not really a joking man," Ender replied. Well, he was these days-- sometimes-- but not intrinsically, and certainly not maliciously. "So sadly, yes."

[dressedinblood]

"I can't imagine how that would work," Anna said. At all, but her postmortem status threw an additional wrench into the mental works. She ventured a small smile and said, "I guess I don't have a very creative imagination, though."