Third Floor Common Room; Monday Morning [09/02].

[howareyanow]

Wayne supposed he probably could've done a better job at tellin' the new kids about Monday morning breakfast. There weren't much he could do about it now, though, except maybe hope that the girls had managed to spread a little bit of it by word of mouth, and trust in the ventilations system in here to take all those delicious aromas of a homecooked meal and spread it conveniently through the halls of the dormitory building. It'd be nice, to have some new faces join in on the tradition, realleh, so maybe he'd have to try to mention it if he wound up talking with any of them through the week, especially with classes and everything.

The fact that everything he'd picked up yesterday that he'd need was still there and exactly as it should be was a bit of a relief, and Wayne got to work, making sure each and every pancake was the fluffiest, that each slice of bacon had just the right amount of crisp, that there was more than enough coffee ready to go in the pot, and that there were more'n enough eggs to make however a person might like 'em...though he felt an odd reluctance to make too many of 'em sunny side up.

And so it was breakfast time, a good hearty meal to get yer day...and yer semester...started!


[[ and it's open, of course!!! ]]

Comments

[raisedbybooklice]

Elisabeth had been up for a few hours now, learning the ins and outs of modern plumbing and then searching for wherever the kitchens were for breakfast. She just happened upon the third floor common room and lingered, uncertain, in the doorway.

On the one hand, there was food and if there was anything she'd learned at the library, it was that an apprentice who wasn't willing to grab food whenever possible ended up going hungry.

On the other hand, this didn't appear to be official breakfast, but rather a group of students, so it was possible she was intruding on a private thing.

So she was going to lurk quietly for a few minutes, as much as a girl over six feet tall could lurk.

[howareyanow]

And it may look like Wayne was entrenched pretty heavily in his pancake flipping and his bacon frying, but he always had a corner of his eye on the door so he could know what was about to come in and who might be a little reluctant to do so.

"Now, if I'm not mistaken," he said, eschewing the usual greeting for exceptional circumstances such as this, "you look like you might be a new student. So's you probably don't know yet, but Monday morning breakfast in the third floor common room's pretty much tradition now. Come on in, if yer hungry, or, heck, even if yer not. More'n enough for everyone, and who doesn't love more company?"

[raisedbybooklice]

"I am," Elisabeth said, shuffling into the room a little further. She gave Wayne a pleased smile, though her attention kept slipping over to the pancakes. And bacon, mmm, bacon. "New. And hungry."

She hadn't figured out the food situation by the time she'd gone to bed last night, so Nina's cookies were the last thing she'd eaten. "Do we all take turns cooking for people?"

That made sense. if this place didn't have cooks, setting up communal meals would probably be the easiest way to ensure that the students didn't starve.

[howareyanow]

"Not particularleh," said Wayne. "S'mostly just me, at least on Monday mornings, and that's alright, I don't mind. It's just tradition."

One more flip and he slid that pancake onto a new dish. "Fix you up a plate? What'cha like?"

[raisedbybooklice]

"I don't think there's anything I don't like," Elisabeth admitted. "Back home, it's eat what you're given or go hungry."

And was a growing girl - okay, maybe hopefully not still growing - she couldn't afford to skip meals just because she was fussy.

[howareyanow]

"A bit of everything it is, then!" Wayne declared with a note of decision, especially since that was easily the best way to go about it, and he was pretty much an expert at this point at loading up a plate perfectly with the right amount of pancakes and bacon and fruit and eggs to fit without trouble.

"Name's Wayne, by the way," he offered, and, with it, the plate, nodding as he held it out for the new girl to take.

[raisedbybooklice]

"Hi, I'm Elisabeth," she said, taking the plate in one hand and offering Wayne a shake with the other. "Pleasure to meet you. And thanks for sharing your food with everyone. I mean, mostly me, but it's real nice that you do share with everyone."

[howareyanow]

"Oh," said Wayne modestly, turning back to the stove now that he had relinquished the plate, since it looked like he was going to have his cooking cut out for him this morning, "ain't no reason to get excited. Used to make breakfast up at the farmhouse, and, so, well, it's tradition. And the most important meal of the day."

[raisedbybooklice]

Elisabeth nodded. "Need a big breakfast before you get started on the chores in the morning," she agreed. "Though I'm more used to porridge in the mornings. Sticks to the ribs." She grinned at him. "This is better."

[goldfishontherocks]

"Oh, hi!" And there was Keyleth, waving . . . very enthusiastically in her direction, because she could totally be a good big sibling and help introduce Elisabeth to dorm life here! "Come on in, have some food. It's a thing Wayne does."

[raisedbybooklice]

"Oh good," Elisabeth sighed. "I forgot to ask where we go for dinner last night."

And so had missed it completely. And there was a lot of her to feed.

Also, had she mentioned how much she really, really loved standing near Keyleth? She was the only other girl she'd met who'd come close to matching her in height and with the antlers, she looked even taller.

It was nice. She might not be the first person picked to get something off the highest shelf!

[goldfishontherocks]

And Keyleth did occasionally have a tendency to fall all over herself (sometimes literally) to be helpful, so the odds of that were pretty decent.

"Oh! I can show you to the cafeteria later, if you want," she offered. "The common rooms are a pretty good bet a lot of the time, though. For some reason, sometimes people order food from town and end up getting a lot more than they actually ordered, and they're pretty nice about sharing when that happens. Or you could just go into town and get food, but that's a little pricier."

[raisedbybooklice]

"Oh," Elisabeth said, deflating. "I don't have any money."

Why should she? Summershall provided all the apprentices' basic needs, and since it only took orphans and foundlings into its ranks, very few of them ever expected anything more than that.

"Do all meals cost money here?"

[goldfishontherocks]

"Only the ones you get yourself, in town," Keyleth said, looking a little guilty for bringing it up now. "The cafeteria's free, and I've never heard of anyone here trying to charge people for sharing food in the common rooms. Though, speaking of town, there's a lot of us who have a couple of shifts at one of the businesses or another, just to have a little spending money. I know I didn't either, when I first got here. So that might be an option?"

[raisedbybooklice]

Elisabeth nodded. "I've never worked anywhere but the library before," she confessed. Not that she'd ever done much of anything but in the library before. "But I know my way around a kitchen a bit, and scrubbing floors, and laundry and such."

It took a lot of work to keep an edifice the size of a Great Library going and before she had been allowed to assist with the work of apprentice, she'd helped with all of it.

[goldfishontherocks]

"There's a few students here who work at the school library!" Keyleth . . . might have been beaten to the punch on this one, but she still seemed excited about having the thought at all. "Maybe they have a spot for you there?"

See, if anyone would be interested in what a Great Library and the work that went into maintaining it entailed, it would be Beauregard, which would be (foolishly) assuming that she'd admit to it. Which was why Keyleth didn't think to suggest it.

[raisedbybooklice]

"I should go and see," Elisabeth said. "Perhaps today after class!"

You know, assuming she didn't get horribly lost in the castle which is my excuse for not pinging to the library today.

[legionqueen]

Keyleth's greeting to Elisabeth caught Jules' attention, and so naturally she wandered over herself.

"Elisabeth, isn't it?" she checked. "I'm Juillenne. Jules. Keyleth's my roommate." Best to provide an explanation as to why some random stranger knew her name.

[raisedbybooklice]

"Oh!" Elisabeth said, giving the other girl a smile. "Hello. Wow. People are so friendly here."

If it hadn't been for Katrien and Stefan, Elisabeth would have gone whole days between speaking to the other apprentices.

[legionqueen]

"They really are," Jules nodded. "You get used to it." Her own upbringing had been a curious mix of those who doted on her due to her status as something of a prodigy, and those who shunned her because her best friend was the awkward, abrasive Queen Arsinoe. "I'm glad you made it, though. I was afraid Keyleth was going to wear a rut into the floor between our room and yours with all the back-and-forth."

[raisedbybooklice]

"It was a really long carriage ride," Elisabeth said, a little shamefaced. "Even worse now that I hear I missed out on a picnic."

It sounded like it was almost a festival! With free food!

[legionqueen]

"Well, the good news is that those picnics apparently happen at the beginning of every semester," Juillenne informed her. "So you stick around, you'll be sure to be able to take advantage of the next one."

Also now that they were in the school year proper, there would be dances and things. Not that Jules knew that.

[raisedbybooklice]

"Have you been here long then?" Elisabeth asked. "What's it like here?"

So far, all Elisabeth had gotten was 'drastically different than Summershall.'

[legionqueen]

"Camden and I," she nodded to the large mountain cat currently making headway through a plate of bacon and back bacon, "arrived at the beginning of the summer. Which," she made a face, "I'm told was particularly strange even for this place. I think the biggest difference, for me, was the electricity. They've figured out how to use lightning to automate nearly everything, it seems."

[raisedbybooklice]

"I saw a lantern whose wick burned without oil at a festival once," Elisabeth said, nodding. "And I thought that was an impressive bit of magic. But it's nothing like all of this."

Had she spent a ridiculous amount of time flicking the switch on and off in her room last night?

Absolutely yes.

And then, "Errr, so is that your pet?"