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.

[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.

[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]

"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?"

[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."

[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."

[thatsmysword]

"Egg and cabbage," Henry said, taking the roll. "Seems simple enough."

Weird, though. It looked so weird.

He took a bite.

He chewed. Meditatively.

[what_big_teeth]

"Definitely one of the nicer perks of living here," Eleanor said with a smile. "And sure. Thanks. Hard to say no to free food, really."

Especially when your insides were a bottomless, fathomless void of presumed nothingness...

Eleanor took a moment to purview and pick a few things before going and bringing it with her to sit in a nearby chair, tucking her legs under her as she got comfortable.

"You're one of the new students this semester, Erasmus, is that right? Where do you come from?"

[stringstothesoul]

Erasmus watched him chew while he considered the rest of the food. "Do you know what a chile pepper is?" he finally asked.

[stringstothesoul]

Erasmus swallowed his mouthful of rice before he said, "That's right. I'm from southern Mississippi." The accent kind of gave it away. "Uh, kind of a different one from other folks around here, though, I think. I haven't met anyone else whose universe has Fairy Law, and only a few people who have, you know..." he waved a hand vaguely. "Werewolves and witches and all that." And some people whose universes had really different necromancy. "What about you? What's it like where you're from?"

[thatsmysword]

Henry swallowed.

It was all right.

"The thing in the hot pot that sets your mouth on fire?"

Look, progress.

[stringstothesoul]

Pascagoula wasn't big enough for Korean barbecue, but, "Uh, probably. Don't eat that or that if you didn't like it," he advised, pointing at the containers in question with his chopsticks.

[what_big_teeth]

"Well, my sister is a werewolf and my grandmother was a witch," said Eleanor, who couldn't help being a little amused that those were the specific things Erasmus had picked out as examples. "No Fairy Law, though," she looked almost apologetic, "at least not that I know of. And I'm from Maine, originally, and it's 1976 back home, so there's that, too, but I've actually spent more time here in Maryland. Well, not here, exactly. I've only been here for a few years now, but before here, I went to a different boarding school on the mainland."

Aaand now she was going to be taking a big bite of noodles because apparently she'd come on to talk his poor ear off!

[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]

Finally, someone besides Arden who came from a normal world, although given what Arden had said about her world Erasmus was gonna have to reserve judgment on just how normal Eleanor's world was. "I was homeschooled," Erasmus told her, and did not explain why. "So this is all really new to me, but I bet you have it down pat. And Maine, huh?" He shuddered. "Too cold for my blood."

[thatsmysword]

"You know a lot about the food around here, then, do you?"

He was scurrying over to the rest of the food, to pick through it. "Suppose you're fitting in easy like."

[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]

"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.

[stringstothesoul]

"Well, I'm not a pony any more," he said, "so...things are looking up. I never properly appreciated my thumbs before, it turns out."

[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.

[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.

[mindofageneration]

"It's free food," Riri said like that made it instantly better. "...and what the hell is on TV?"