Third Floor Common Room; Monday Morning [05/24].

[white_oleander]

Well. It was bound to happen eventually.

At some point in the night, or maybe it was early in the morning, she had no idea when these things actually happened, but the ingredients Astrid had gotten last night to make breakfast with this morning had all, somehow, been either transformed or replaced with nothing but boxes of Pop Tarts.

On the bright side, there was absolutely no lack in variety to the Pop Tarts, as it seemed every single flavor was present and accounted for, including the discontinued ones and some that clearly never made it to the market...at least not in this dimension.

Astrid might have been shocked by there being so many absurd varieties if it weren't for the fact that she actually worked in a grocery store and was already well aware of the excess of unnecessary flavor choices in certain brands.

(Looking at you, Oreo).

But...at least this made her job pretty easy today, and the clean-up would be a breeze, and there were even toaster strudels for anyone who wanted to feel a bit fancier about the whole thing, too.

[[ pop tart breakfast is open! ]]

Comments

[desertwolfcub]

Oh hey, someone finally realized she could do more than hide in her room in between classes.

Or maybe the coming full moon was making her restless.

Either way, Malia was actually out in a public place without an obligation to be there, and sniffing suspiciously at a pop tart.

". . . Why does this smell like weird meat?"

[white_oleander]

"Probably because it is weird meat," Astrid offered, pushing down the toaster to warm up the icing-less strawberry ones she'd picked out for herself like the monster she truly was. "I'm pretty sure some of these aren't even technically acceptable for human consumption."

And she wasn't even talking about the weird ones, either!

[desertwolfcub]

"Then why do they sell them for humans to consume?" Malia pushed the suspicious meat-smelling ones away. And sniffed cautiously at one that smelled like weird chocolate instead. "Are they trying to poison people?"

[white_oleander]

"I'm not sure anyone did technically sell any of these," Astrid shrugged, shaking her head a little at the few boxes on the counter, knowing how many more lurked in waiting behind the closed cupboard doors. "They just kind of showed up..."

There was a pause, as she remembered that this was one of the new kids, she was pretty sure.

"That happens around here," she added. "Sometimes. There's usually a lot more pancakes and bacon and eggs at breakfast, but all my stuff got switched out with these," she held up a boxes of S'mores flavored ones, "instead."

[desertwolfcub]

Malia wrinkled her nose. "That's dumb. I'm pretty new to all this -- like, being human, not just being in Fandom. But I thought one of the points of being a person and not an animal was that if you get something to eat you get to keep it."

You know, that was why there were stores instead of people fighting over fresh kills!

[white_oleander]

"Generally speaking," Astrid offered, "that is how it goes. Most places, though I guess Fandom isn't the only exception there. It is probably the only exception where the food you planned to make into something else turns into other things, though.

"On the flip side," she then added, "we could just order something from town, and there's a good chance we'll get way more than we need and there will be leftovers to last us the entire week...."

That last part trailed off with a thoughtful tilt of her head at Malia.

"Which...probably doesn't help much with getting used to normal human things." Her own nose wrinkled, but it was an apologetic sort of expression. "Sorry."

[desertwolfcub]

"There are teenage boys living here, right? Doesn't that usually mean there is no such thing as too much food?"

She'd spent just enough time in Beacon Hills before heading to Fandom to figure that part out, at least.

[white_oleander]

"You're clearly underestimating what I mean when I say 'way more than we need,'" Astrid said with a small breath of a laugh, "although maybe if there were more than just five of them, you'd have a good point."

The size of Wayne's breakfasts in the previous years and how there rarely seemed to be leftover with those were suddenly put into perspective for her, though.

[desertwolfcub]

Malia nodded. That was fair, she probably was underestimating it.

"Is it weird? Having more girls than guys at a school?"

[white_oleander]

"All the other schools I've ever been to besides this one," Astrid said, as her Pop Tarts popped up from the toaster and she carefully plucked them out to put on a plate, which was probably way fancier than they deserved, "have been pretty big, so it's kind of hard to tell if it's common at smaller ones like this. I'm kind of inclined to say that there's really nothing normal about Fandom High, though."

Adjusting to going back to a full day of classes, five days a week, in classrooms almost too filled with kids, when she attended Fairfax last year was an experience.

[desertwolfcub]

"There were plenty at Eichen House, but that wasn't actually a school at all." Malia shrugged. "And I guess there were a lot at Beacon Hills High, but I didn't really count them. I was just trying to get my sister's doll back."

[white_oleander]

There were a few things about that response that Astrid felt was worthy of being explored...especially in a round-about way of getting to that whole new to human thing, but what sort of stood out to her the most was:

"Some high schoolers took your sister's doll?"

Although, really, considering how low her opinion had been of the kids she went to Fairfax with, she could honestly see something that stupid or childish

[desertwolfcub]

"They were trying to use it to track me down in the woods."

That didn't answer anything for you, did it, Astrid.

[white_oleander]

Nope!

Astrid nibbled on the edge of her Pop Tart.

The most obvious question here was why.

But what Astrid went with was:

"And instead, you tracked them down to the school."

[desertwolfcub]

"Tracked the doll, yeah. Almost got killed doing it."

Oddly enough, people didn't react well to a large coyote breaking into a high school during the day.

[white_oleander]

"Almost," said Astrid, "but didn't."

Although she supposed she could be wrong there. She could be talking a ghost right now. A really well-done reanimated corpse. A figment of her imagination.

"Did you get the doll back?"

[desertwolfcub]

"Yes, that's what I said," Malia said. Was she not speaking clearly? "And yeah. When one of the guys realized why I wanted it, they gave it back."

[bookbeltof_love]

"They're horrifyingly fake cardboard masquerading as food," Nina said dismally. "That they smell gross is is really just par for the course.............."

She was not eating any of them.

[desertwolfcub]

“Why would anyone make fake food?”

Oh. Oh Malia.

[bookbeltof_love]

Oh, that was just... tragic.

"Convenience, mostly," Nina said after a moment to throttle her urge to rant about all the fake crap on the market. "Why bother with the real thing if you can make a fake one that people will buy for half the cost???????????????"

Nina cast a scornful look at all the pop tarts.

"Apparently it doesn't matter how awful all the fake food is for people............ so long as it sells.........."

[desertwolfcub]

“But . . . It’s not food.”

Malia was offended by the very idea.

[bookbeltof_love]

"Right?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Nina said, delighted to meet a kindred-spirit in this. "Like, if you go shopping for food the only aisles that mostly have real food are the ones on the outer rim----most stores keep their meats, veggies, and dairy products along the edges!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But in the middle is a lot of fake stuff----some real stuff, too, especially if you want things like pasta, but most of it is so fake it's just unreal in the worst of ways!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[desertwolfcub]

Malia nodded very seriously. “That’s good to know. I’m not very good at getting food at stores yet.”

[bookbeltof_love]

"No?????????" Nina asked curiously. "Nothing like them in your world???????? Or......????????"

A beat.

"Also, I'm Nina, by the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[desertwolfcub]

“I’m Malia.” Malia flicked her a small smile. “My world has lots of stores. I just never spent much time in them.”