Third Floor Common Room; Monday Morning [05/17].

[white_oleander]

A few people had shown up for breakfast last week, so Astrid saw no reason why she shouldn't just keep up the tradition at least a little bit longer, especially since there'd been some interest, at least from Miles, at other people helping out, too. She wondered if she could do something to make it even more communal and take a lot of the work off of one person with a sign-up sheet or something like that, but for now, she was just sort of focusing on getting the food ready and improving her own techniques for making a bigger breakfast for more people than just herself a little easier.

If anything, she appreciated the distraction. Still no call from Susan, no word on when she might get a chance to talk with her mother. She was trying to not get worried about it; she understood that both of them were likely playing cat-and-mouse with her, trying to fool her into thinking she was the mouse when, really, she needed to remember that it was the other way around.

With that in mind, a few of the pancakes were made to sort of resemble cats' faces (a frequently occuring theme, after all, in the oeuvre of Astrid Magnussen), but they were too complicated so she mostly went back to just regular ones.

[[ open breakfast is ooooopeeeennn! though a little slower this week, more'n likeleh ]]

Comments

[notfinishedyet]

As Enola left her room the smell of food was too inviting for her to pass up. "Oh! How lovely," she exclaimed as she came into the room. "I had hoped someone would continue to provide us food on Mondays. Wayne was so nice about that."

[white_oleander]

"He really was," Astrid agreed, passing a smile over to Enola. "And he asked, so, I figured, I could at least try to keep up the tradition as long as people seem interested or hungry. Go ahead and help yourself." She nodded to the slowly building spread out on the table. "I've got more pancakes on the way, too."

[notfinishedyet]

"Glorious," Enola said as she started to pour herself some tea and looked over the offerings before her. "Is this pancake meant to look like a cat? It's adorable."

[white_oleander]

"I wasn't sure if anyone would be able to tell what I was going for," Astrid admitted, with a small laugh and a grin that went a little sheepish about the whole thing. "I think I might have finally met my match with pancake batter as a medium, but maybe I was just being too harsh of a critic."

So maybe the next batch will be cats, too, why not?

"So," she asked, "how's things?"

[notfinishedyet]

"Well. My roommate seems to have found his long lost love and brought her here to live with us," Enola said trying to find the most polite way of expressing the matter. "Unfortunately his companion is a mannequin."

She took a sip of tea and stifled a sigh.

"I would say it's rather odd but on this island I believe this would be considered commonplace."

[white_oleander]

There were...a few things to unpack there.

"....who's your roommate?"

That seemed a good place to start.

[notfinishedyet]

"Five," Enola said with a sigh. "For the record he's not completely horrible to me as he might be to Belle but the mannequin is still disturbing."

[white_oleander]

Astrid had to think for a moment who that was. She didn't get put nearly enough, but at least it helped that there weren't many boys at this school in general.

"I haven't actually talked to him much," she admitted, "but that does kind of out it in perspective how surly he was during our three minute date. Obviously, we were all too lively and animated for his tastes..."

She'd been maybe in love with a cat-faced girl, so she felt she didn't have much room to judge.

"This mannequin probably has a name, right?"

[notfinishedyet]

"Delores," Enola said taking a sip of tea. "And... It's strange. She seems to have a restraining effect on him. Or at least he thought she was telling him he was being rude."

Enola sighed. "Either he's insane or he sees something we don't."

[white_oleander]

"Both are pretty valid options," Astrid reasoned, after a moment to think about it, "and they don't have to be a mutually exclusive, either."

She shrugged. "If it works for him, though..."

[notfinishedyet]

"I suppose so. As a woman from the Victorian era whose options are strictly limited by gender inequality, I should not judge Five on his own..."

She frowned, trying to find the right words.

"-preferences. I will however continue to judge him on his personality."

[white_oleander]

"And that," Astrid agreed firmly, "is totally fair."

She did sort of wonder if it was bad that this conversation almost made her want to interact with Five more.

She also felt like there was plenty out there to support that those in the Victorian era were definitely not strictly limited by gender inequality, they just had to get a little more creative about it or at least not nearly as good at hiding certain proclivities as they thought they were, but, then again, she hadn't lived there, so....

And tempting as it was to hear Enola disparage her roommate and his love life some more, she decided to sway the conversation toward a more expected 'second week of a session' direction.

"How are your classes shaping up?"

[craic_killer]

"I haven't discovered any aliens yet," Clare informed Astrid as she came in, "but I'm on the lookout!"

[white_oleander]

"Have you been asking around?" asked Astrid, who managed to catch...most of that. The parts that counted, anyway. "A lot of them don't really look it."

But speaking of that....she realized something and her brows furrowed with thought as she flipped another pancake.

"...aren't you in Sidon's class with me, though?"

If 'giant shark prince from another world' didn't count, she was really curious about Clare's parameters for qualification...

[craic_killer]

Clare had kind of blanked out at Sidon's explanation and had just filled in "Atlantis" in her brain.

"Yes, the giant shark who talks," Clare said. She paused. "Ohhh. I was thinking green with antennae?"

[white_oleander]

Astrid gave Clare a bit of a rueful smile. "Yeah," she said, "you're definitely not going to find those. At least I still haven't seen one of them like that. We did have a couple blue ones, though, and one of them had these long blue....not quite tentacles, but I guess that's the best way to describe them...she was actually dating the giant shark who talks. And we briefly had a giant rat girl, but she didn't stick around for long. I had a good friend who had a cat face, even though she didn't see it that way....The student body now is almost shockingly human-passing compared to when I started, actually..."

[craic_killer]

Clare was going to blink at her, wide-eyed, for a long moment anyway. "This isn't just an elaborate hazing ritual?"

[white_oleander]

Astrid's smile soften as she shook her head. "It's not," she said. "I promise. Even if it sounds like it. And it definitely takes some getting used to. I think it took me at least a year before I started to really accept any of it, starting with realizing that Sidon's actually not just a guy really dedicated a costume. So it's definitely fine if it takes a while, but you've got a good start. I mean, you've got a giant talking shark for a teacher and a class that has us using portals already, and that's only Monday!"

[craic_killer]

"And then I hide in my room for a few days to get over it," Clare admitted.

[white_oleander]

"That's kind of how I was, too, for a while," Astrid let out a small breath of a laugh and a smile hse hoped was reassuring. "Only instead of my room, it was the pool down in the basement."

It still was the pool in the basement, really.

[craic_killer]

"I really need to do more exploring," Clare admitted. "There's a pool down there?"

[white_oleander]

"That," said Astrid, shaking her head, "is what everyone says."

Which was almost enough to make a person wonder if they'd been crazy this whole time.

Maybe the pool was her mannequin.

[craic_killer]

Ohhhhh, don't go down the mannequin route. That way led even deeper madness.

"Have other people seen the pool?" Clare checked.

[white_oleander]

"There was at least one pool party down there once, I think," Astrid offered. "I think the last person I saw down there, too, was Ulysses. He graduated, but I think he's still around if you wanted to verify."

[craic_killer]

"I know it's a bizarre question but given everything and him by the water and all...he's not the Greek myth Ulysses, right?"

[white_oleander]

"If he is," said Astrid, after she worked that out, "he's pretty good at hiding it, and that would be a very interesting interpretation. But as far as I know, he isn't.

"That's a very good question, by the way," she added, with an impressed lift of her brows as she finally finihed that pancake and went to start the next. "I think you're starting to catch on."

[craic_killer]

"And it only took two weeks," Clare said proudly.

[notfinishedyet]

"Are you sure?" Enola asked. "I was pretty sure some of our students and teachers already were. Have we met? I don't believe so. I'm Enola Holmes."

[craic_killer]

"I'm Clare. Devlin. From Derry?" Clare said. "And I'm sure there here. I just haven't met any!"

She had, she was just extremely unobservant.

[notfinishedyet]

"Oh! I'm from Shropshire," Enola replied. "Though I'm from the year 1885. I know I've seen a few aliens. I'll be happy to point them out to you if you are interested."

[craic_killer]

"...1885?"

[notfinishedyet]

“Yes. You were aware that there were people from other times, yes?” Enola asked worriedly.

[craic_killer]

"Och, I'm apparently from another time," Clare said, "but I wasn't expecting the 1800s. I thought you just liked to dress like a china doll."

[notfinishedyet]

"Yes, the Victorian style is something I'm comfortable with," Enola chuckled. "However I am finding that jeans and the lack of corsets very liberating."

[craic_killer]

Clare made a face. "I cannot imagine a corset," she said.

[notfinishedyet]

“Truth be told, I’d rather not wear one unless I absolutely have to,” Enola replied. “Even then I don’t wear it as tightly as most women do. It did save me from getting stabbed once but all in all they are very much a nuisance.”

[craic_killer]

"You got stabbed?!"

[notfinishedyet]

Enola frowned. She had gotten used to so much of the weirdness here that she forgot how it could be for someone new. “It was just a small altercation,” she said trying to sound like it was a trivial matter. “I was investigating the circumstances around my mother’s disappearance and ran into a brute of a man.”

Who was hunting for the Viscount Tewkesbury of Basilweather on the orders of his Grandmother, the Dowager of Basilweather, to stop the equality vote. But that might be too much for Clare, so Enola was going to try and keep the conversation light.

[craic_killer]

"How terrifying," Clare said, eyes wide.