Second Floor Common Room, Wednesday Evening

[stringstothesoul]

Erasmus had ordered Chinese takeout for dinner, but the delivery guy had brought...way too much. Like, way too much. So he'd decided to eat in the common room, where maybe he could foist some off on someone else, and there was always the refrigerator for leftovers.

While he shoved fried rice and mushroom chicken into his mouth, he'd started flipping idly through the channels on the TV, and wow, this dimension's TV programming was weird. Where were all the nonhumans? Where was that popular crime drama about a warlock detective and his vampire partner, who the whole internet agreed should make out and Erasmus totally hadn't written half a fanfic about, really, he swore? Where was--wait. He flipped back a channel.

"Oh, thank Gaia, Interspecies Habitat." A popular home design show about refitting homes to suit the needs of romantic partners from two very different species? He'd take it. This week's pair were a siren and a yeti, so it ought to be interesting.

(Open common room is open!)

Comments

[what_big_teeth]

Eleanor had been here long enough to know what it likely meant that she could smell the undeniable aroma of Chinese takeout from her room. And with all the pressure she'd been putting on Luma to be social without doing much of it herself, she figured it seemed like a good idea to fix that.

"Hi," she said, popping her head through the door to access thr situation and noticing the person on the couch. "Mind some company?"

It was amazing, really, how she could already hear Luma's voice: It's a ~common~ room, Eleanor. If he minded, then it's his own fault for being there in the first place. So that prompted her to step in.

"I'm Eleanor," she offered, "by the way."

[stringstothesoul]

"Oh, hi!" Erasmus exclaimed. People casually greeting him: still kind of weird! "I'm Erasmus. Please, come on in. Do you like Chinese? There seems to have been some kind of a mix-up..." No, Erasmus, that was just how it went here.

[what_big_teeth]

"I thought that might be the case," Eleanor nodded, with all the confidence of a person who was well-aquainted with the particular idiosyncrasies of the island, as she went to inspect the food in question. "It's a thing, sometimes, with the restaurants here. They like to send extra food when you order from the dorms. I guess they just like to make sure we're well-fed up here."

Or it was an easy and convenient catalyst for interaction! Two things could be true at once!

[stringstothesoul]

"Huh," Erasmus said. "I guess that explains why he didn't make me pay more for it. Would you like some? There's plenty."

[mindofageneration]

"Hey," Riri said, waving with a pair of chopsticks. Because, for a dorm, it was pretty empty feeling and meeting other folks made it better.

[what_big_teeth]

This was probably the liveliest this common room had probably been ever since Eleanor started here, really. She smiled, lifting a hand instead of chopsticks because she was absolutely eating with a fork.

You're welcome, Fosse.

"Hi," she said. "New students, right? My name's Eleanor, it's nice to meet you."

[mindofageneration]

Fosse was up there with the Moose on things that made Riri sigh so hard.

"Riri," she said with a nod of agreement at the new student thing. "Nice to meet you too. I was starting to think this place was a ghost town."

[thatsmysword]

Henry had been... out, reacquainting himself again with the reality of having hands and feet, as he had done for the days since he'd been. Well. A pony.

This time around, he'd picked a few flowers out in the park, to press and add to his really-you're-still-alive-and-not-dreaming journal.

... but then he smelled food. Strange food, but food, still, none the less. "What's that?" he said, his gaze glancing off the too-bright screen and falling on the food.

[stringstothesoul]

"The show?" Erasmus asked. "Or the food? The show is Interspecies Habitat; it's popular back home. My momma watches it. I'm not sure what all the delivery guy brought for food, but it's Chinese. You want an egg roll?"

[thatsmysword]

"The food, the thing makes my head hurt," Henry said, resolutely still looking at the food. "Which ones are the egg rolls? I don't see any bread."

[stringstothesoul]

Erasmus slowly stopped chewing. Right. Medieval times. "This is an egg roll," he said, holding one up where Henry could take if he wanted. "It's got a filling of, uh, I don't know. There's cabbage in it? And then it's, you know, rolled up. I assume an egg is also involved at some point."

[mindofageneration]

"Hey, you're Erasmus' roommate, right?" Riri said. Being from the past was somehow less weird than some of the other stuff going on here. Which. You know. Was nice for a change.

[thatsmysword]

"Ah, I suppose so." It was a fairly new arrangement, and 'roommate' wasn't necessarily a word that translated well. "I'm Henry," he added quickly. "From Skalitz."

[mindofageneration]

"Riri Williams. From Chicago." Which meant oh so much to him, right?

[mindofageneration]

"You sharing that?" Riri asked. Because she was starving after spending half the day looking for a good place to set up a lab that wasn't near the out of place Stark building on island.

[stringstothesoul]

"Help yourself," Erasmus told her with a vague wave of one hand toward the food. "They sent me way too much. Eleanor says it's a thing here."

[mindofageneration]

"Nice problem to have," she said, immediately digging through the containers to find some chow mein.

[stringstothesoul]

"It definitely beats not sending enough," Erasmus joked. "I mean, I tried to order enough to have leftovers, but they went above and beyond. It's pretty good, too," he said, and shoved half an egg roll in his mouth.

[even_bigger_teeth]

Eventually, Eleanor could steal her seat back after Luma took it because Luma was getting up to approach Riri with a friendly smile (which generally meant no teeth).

"Hello!" she said. "You're Riri, aren't you? My name's Luma, and you're the last of the new students I've got left to meet, so I decided to come over and change that."

She sounded very proud of herself, and a little smug, because now Eleanor couldn't say a thing about her not being more social with new people.

[mindofageneration]

"It's a pretty short list," Riri replied with an exasperated little chuckle. She was going to take some time to get used to small town life. Small town life with weird glitter and people turning into ponies apparently. "Nice to meet you, Luma."

[even_bigger_teeth]

"I was a part of the last short list," Luma informed her, "so it does sort of feel like a passing of the torch, as it were. It's strange, but somewhat exhilarating to no longer be one of the new ones anymore."

[even_bigger_teeth]

"Well, well, well," said Luma, scanning in despite questionable availability, "if it isn't just a little party going on in here!"

She moved immediately toward the chair where Eleanor was sitting, nudging her a little to make room so she could sit with her and steal pieces of her food, and then giving her a look when she saw she'd either picked something with only vegetables or had eaten all the meaty bits already.

[what_big_teeth]

Eleanor rolled her eyes a little, having scooted over, and then decided to just relinquished her food to Luma and get up to get some more.

[stringstothesoul]

"Hi!" Erasmus greeted her. "Help yourself, there's plenty of food."

[even_bigger_teeth]

"Oh, good," Luma said, eyes bright and eager. "Thank you. I've just come back from a run a little bit ago, so I'm famished. And I'm also Luma."

She'd offer her hand, but, because of said run, her nails looked terrible.

"You're one of the new students, aren't you?"

She was still reveling in that title no longer applying to her.