fandomhighdorms | Third Floor Common Room; Monday Morning [10/07].

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Third Floor Common Room; Monday Morning [10/07].

The amount of grumbling that had gone on that morning when Wayne woke up was substantial. It'd been a while, after all, since the island went and had to make things a bit...different, and it had been nice, and Wayne would have been perfectly happy to just keep staying that course, but nope. He had to go and wake up that morning as a girl, which in and of itself wasn't a bad thing, realleh, it was just the principle of the thing, it was just impolite to go changing people like that, but fuck if the island cared at all, making people into birds or crabs or girls just whenever the fuck it felt like it.

But, well, it was Monday an' all, so....pitter-patter. He wasn't about to let something like this interfere with tradition, and even though he wasn't even sure if Nina was back yet, he couldn't risk letting all his grumbling about it lead to her beating him to the common room again. His clothes were going to fit a bit looser than before, but they still fit, that was the important thing.

He had been thinking out something to mix it up with breakfast that morning, just because, but ultimately decided that things were mixed up enough already, might as well stick with the basics, unless the island decided to go change that all up, too.

[[ open breakfast is open! and, yes, my main concern here was the plaid ]]

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Tradition was important! And Vette wasn't about to let her start on that new one go slack now. She could smell the food cooking already, which meant she wasn't even completely through the door when she started to cheerfully call, "Hey, Wayne! How ar-what?"

Sorry, tradition. Vette had tried.

And Wayne, who liked to think he could solidly stand by tradition no matter what sort of dysphoric nonsense was thrown at him, was determined to insist that absolutely nothing was wrong, it was just a normal Monday like any other, he just woke up considerably prettier than usual, and it would all be over by tomorrow, mebbe, or a few days, or, fuck, even a week, but the fact of the matter was that it would probably be over.

"Vette!" he grunted. Or at least tried to. It came out a lot less like his usual bark, actually sounded pleasant and noticeably friendly in its higher pitch. "How are ya now?"

Vette was still kind of blinking and headtilting, but this routine was familiar enough by now that she did, at least, manage a, "Good." A beat. "N'you?"

Wayne was pretty. And, you know. Shapely? Different-shapely. And Vette had been warned about this island pulling a lot of weird stuff before, heck, she'd been a little girl again for a few days that one time and she'd just recovered from a serious case of the bluebirds, but... this was Wayne.

Wayne was incredibly grateful for the fact that the one person who'd managed to actually consistently get it just right was adhering to the protocol now, too, because now was when these sorts of things became particularleh important.

"Oh," the usual drawl seemed a little more wistful, almost breezy, in his current form, "not so bad. Fix you up a plate?"

See? Nothin' to see here. Completely normal. Way ya go....

"Please?" Vette said, and then paused. Opened her mouth. Shut it again. Tilted her head the other way for good measure. Pursed her lips a little. And attempted to figure out just what to say, here. "You know," she settled on, "you're always going above and beyond on Mondays to keep us all fed. I feel like I should be offering something back as thanks."

That was kind of where she was going with that, anyway?

Oh god, she was so tiny and Wayne was bigger enough like this that she probably couldn't offer him any of her clothes. Maybe she could steal him a sports bra or something. Um.

"Well," said Wayne, stoutly...as he could, and just focused on piling Vette's plate up extra good. "It's tradition. N'you don't fuck with tradition. I don't expect anything in return, realleh, you know that. Defeats the whole purpose, if I'm jus' doing it to get something back."

"Well, sure," Vette agreed. "I mean, I know you're not doing this for anything back, I just thought it'd be..."

Nice?

Fair?

"Helpful?"

Oh, space.

"Oh, well," said Wayne, squinting a little at the wall in front of him as he thought, "if it makes ya feel any better, you can always help with dishes afterwards, especially if Nina's not here again this week. She usually does a lot of it, and, even if she is, well, more hands make less work."

"Dishes, I can do," Vette said, pursing her lips a little, wondering if she'd be doing Wayne any favors at all by kicking his denial in the face and just offering him some body-appropriate clothing. "I think I have enough time before Lady Ghanima's class, anyway, and if it turns out I don't, I can always come back."

A thought occurred to her.

"What classes are you in this semester, anyway?"

Because there were gym classes, and without a bra... oh no.

And Wayne was definitely in that gym class.

"Shop class," Wayne listed them off as if he were using verbal bullet points, "Phsy Ed, and Practical Life Skills, which is a misnomer, and it should be called Punching Things in a Tavern."

If he sounded offended by this, it had nothing to do with the punching part, he actually really enjoyed the punching part, but if you were going to have a class about punching things in a tavern, you should name it Punching Things in a Tavern!

Although he would admit, it was still a very practical life skill.

There was...a pause. And a squint.

"They're not so bad."

"Cool," Vette said, giving a small, slow nod as she reached for a fork. "Cool, cool. So."

She paused to consider that hair. That would probably be a liability in a shop, though it wasn't as though she had anything to help him with that.

"... You know, if you need anything to wear to Phys Ed or Tavernpunch class, you know, just to," not hurt yourself bouncing around, or smack yourself in the face with a boob or something, "mix things up a little this week?"

Hooboy.

"I could probably help you with that."

Edited 2019-10-07 12:57 (UTC)

There was...another pause. And another squint.

Yes, he'd come around to what Vette was driving at there. He had a sister, you know.

"...m'sure I'll be fine," said Wayne, who figured he could handle anything like that jus' fine on his own, anyway, especially since he'd imagine it'd be a bit awkward getting help from Vette or pert'near anyone in that respect. "Might not even need to mix things up before then."

Fuck, he hoped he didn't need to mix things up before then!

"Fair enough," Vette replied, holding up her fork in surrender. "There's no telling what tomorrow might bring, and all that?"

She was definitely going to flail around and require assistance once it was her turn, that was for sure.

At least in part because there was no way in hell she'd be able to fit into any of her clothes.

Well. Wayne had plenty of comfortable plaid shirts that could be fashionable no matter what your bits were, and he'd be happy to offer 'em if she'd be interested.

"'Specially around here!" said Wayne, with what he meant to be the firm conviction that whatever had gotten into him today would be well gone in the rear view mirror by then, but came out sounding oddly chipper and cheerful with his new voice, and that just made him grumble a bit, and at least the grumble hadn't changed. Thank goodness for small favors!

"'Specially around here," Vette agreed, and was she smirking a little bit into her pancake at that chipper sort of cheer? Maaaybe a little. "You seem to have everything handled, then. Good." A beat. "I'll still help out with dishes."

Since he'd asked and all.

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Still convinced that no one would really notice any of the changes Tisarwat had gone through that morning, not nearly as much as she herself had, she smiled at her big sibling and nodded a greeting, figuring they didn't spend nearly enough time talking with each other as they should.

"Good morning, Vette. How are you? Would you like some tea?"

"I," Vette declared, "will never say no to tea!"

A beat.

And then Vette was tilting her head a little and kind of processing that offer and that familiarity and those gloves? Before adding a kind of hopeful, "Thanks, Tisarwat!"

It was definitely one of those days. Her head felt like it was going to explode.

"I don't think I could trust anyone who would," Tisarwat remarked, laughing a little as she made a detour over to the cabinet to get Vette a mug before she got too settled on the usual spot she usurped on the couch. She filled on easily from her flask, topped off her own, and then closed it again before handing the mug over. "So, how have you been? I feel like we haven't had much of a chance to catch each other much lately."

"Oh, you know," Vette said, looking curiously at the flask before accepting the mug with a grateful nod and considering the contents of it, "I can't complain too much, now that things are..."

... Well, they weren't exactly normal, today.

"Less bird-shaped."

That would do.

"I didn't get any visitors the other weekend or anything and things have been pretty quiet since," what with Nina being off on some mission somewhere. "And, uh, how about you?"

Tisarwat, for all her usual control, couldn't help a small grunt of dissatisfaction at that question, even if she tried, but the roll of her eyes was completely by choice. "I did get a vistior the other weekend," she offered, "but it wasn't a very good one. It didn't even make any sense! I know it probably doesn't mean much to you, but a Presger Translation who has been working with my ship showed up, inexplicably, and I spent most of the weekend just trying to make sure she didn't eat all the spoons! She apparently went to speak with my instructors, too, but, thankfully nothing there seemed to have gone amiss, surprisingly. I'm glad that's over and that things are a bit back to normal again."

A bit.

Honestly, Tisarwat was thinking she sort of liked this body so far and it wouldn't be terrible keeping it. Maybe she'd even get a different one every few months or so! That would definitely keep things more interesting. Maybe she'd have to ask Breq about it, since she had experience with this sort of thing, too, but there was a small issue in that, as then she'd have to explain to Breq just exactly how she had experience with this sort of thing already, too.

Well, that got a blink out of Vette, anyway. She knew the humans around here sometimes joked about the things that she would eat without a second thought, but that one was new and weird even for her.

"Eating... spoons? Is that a normal concern?"

"No," said Tisarwat, firmly, emphatically. "Not unless you're dealing with the Presger."

And no one wanted to deal with the Presger.

"They're an alien race," she offered by way of explanation, although a bit cautiously, since Vette herself was quite alien, especially by Earth standards, "from home, and they are very different from humans. But, in an attempt make their interactions with humans less...awkward, they've developed translators who act as ambassodors to the Radch that look human for all intents and purposes, but they still act like Presger, and the result can be...disconcerting."

Like eating spoons.

And Tisarwat didn't even know about the shoe polish!

Sparkle was still screaming about the shoe polish.

Still, Vette seemed to relax a little when Tisarwat explained that the Translator wasn't human. Okay. That made much more sense, then.

"So what you get is a human face with the appetite and probably the understanding of human social mores of a... you probably don't know what a mynock is, but like a mynock," Vette translated. "And she was here to visit you and eat all your spoons, huh? Well. I'm glad the whole visit went down about as smoothly as it possibly could, then."

"If a mynock can eat whole fish and then have it come back up perfectly alive still," said Tisarwat, "then, yes, exactly like a mynock. But you're right. It did go much smoother than it could have gone, though I wish I could have figured out exactly how she got here...and exactly how she managed to get back."

Even after a week, the disappointment of not figuring that out and sneaking back to the Radch with the Translator still burned like a failure in her chest.

"Fish, probably not," Vette replied, "but they do eat the power cables and energy conductors out of starships. Fish aren't really to their taste, which is funny considering they're mouths with wings."

She shrugged.

"Hoping to get home again, huh?"

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