Fandom High Dormitories

When Graham woke up and realized that the walls were gingerbread, naturally, he had to break off a piece to give it a try, taking it (and a few spare pieces stuffed into his pockets) with him on his way outside. But as he was chewing on it thoughtfully, thinking what a wonderful idea houses made of gingerbread and sweets might be, he suddenly stopped in his tracks as an odd, odd feeling fell over him.

Something like a memory, but not of anything that had happened yet. A premonition? A warning? It was the strangest thing, but he almost felt as though something was telling him to not get in the habit of eating buildings made of food...

Consequently, the taste of the gingerbread seemed to turn dry and sandy and chalky and unpleasant in his mouth. He spit it out with a wave of disgust and confusion, wondering if suddenly his tongue had broken. Should he go get it checked out at the clinic? Was he cursed? Was it the island just ensuring he didn't eat all the gingerbread buildings on the island?

Were all the buildings gingerbread?

And if the other buildings were gingerbread...

A dire thought struck him.

"Oh, no. Triumph!"

He immediately started running for the stables....hoping that they'd even still be there by the time his trusty steeds was done with it!

[[ open! Feel free to catch him en route or when he's arrived! ]]

In case you hadn't heard, either via the flyers that had been plastered around the dorms, the text messages sent out that morning, the radio or the announcements being made from the desk yesterday, there was a party in the dorms that day! Down by the pool, specifically! With no classes to attend to, all that was left to do was come on down and have a good time!

There were decorations! There was pizza! There were drinks in coconuts, and some music pumping, and none of them had anywhere school-related they needed to be! Time to celebrate another successful semester in the books.

Water you waiting for? Come make a splash!

That morning, Graham was visited by a tiny little "vampire" who demanded (albeit very politely! She was a princess, after all, and remembered her etiquette classes, so she'd added a please and thank you!) that he make her some choco-chip pancakes, and who was Graham to refuse a little vampire princess? Especially since choco-chip pancakes were his specialty, and it would apparently get her talking, although Graham had a feeling he was starting to piece a few things together, just based on the "vampire" princess thing alone.

Apparently, her name was Princess Genevieve of Daventry, and she really was a vampire, really! She was just a special vampire who could also eat choco-chip pancakes, as well as blood. But not just choco-chip pancakes, but also jellybeans and empanadas. Her father was the king, and she thought Graham was her father because he had her father's adventuring cap, but now she wasn't so sure, because her father was big and strong, and this Graham was kind of scrawny and stringy, but maybe the proof was in the pancakes? And, of course, her other father was the King Consort, and he was the one who made the empanadas, which was, of course, Daventry's national dish.

It was all honestly kind of fascinating to hear the little girl talk about this apparent future, while he whipped up some more pancakes and tried to decide if it would cause a whole fuss to point out that vampires couldn't go out in the daytime, could they? But, then again, Genny did say she was a special vampire! He shook his head and wondered if he should send a text over to Guillermo, he was probably going to get a kick out of this, too!

[[ open common room is open, y'all, for all your kids having kids (or not!) needs! ]]

Now that Graham had been eventually armed with the knowledge of what exactly this day entailed and after a presumably incredibly awkward departure/escape from the common room, he was struck with another thought that almost had him not continuing on his way to the stable to get to his training with Triumph, but, instead, toward town.

There was mistletoe that wanted people to kiss each other to the point of violence. It was Tuesday. Charlie usually worked on Tuesday, and so if Graham just so happened to find his way to Groovy Tunes, and the mistletoe found its way there, too...

But Graham didn't take more than two steps in that direction before he instantly felt terrible for having had this thought, and he firmly kept the trail toward the stables, though he wasn't there to do his usual training session with Triumph anymore, but, instead, to have a much needed heart-to-heart.

"...because that's not a very good, nice thing to do, is it?" he was telling Triumph, who listened patiently. They were tucked comfortably in Triumph's stall, despite having pretty much full reign over the place, Graham leaning against him comfortably, as they often did when Graham was troubled and just needed to talk through some things. "To kiss one person and then turn right around and go kiss someone else, too? You shouldn't be kissing more than one person at a time, or at least not so soon after each other, right? Besides, what if Charlie doesn't know about the mistletoe? Then that's not good, either, if I know, and she doesn't, for me to talk advantage of that, you know? I'd feel terrible. Even if it would be really nice to kiss her. It was really nice eventually kissing Guillermo, too..."

Triumph made a few encouraging grunts and squeaks in response, the last one lilting up in a question and Graham, despite himself, and feeling his face flood with red again, had to chuckle.

"Oh yeah," he informed Triumph confidently, "definitely a big fan. Kissing is great. I would definitely not be against doing more of it!"

Just maybe not when it was all because some enchanted mistletoe was insisting on it...and maybe when he was a little less confused about who he should or could be kissing, too.

[[ open stable is definitely open! ]]

Last night, the topic of pillow forts had come up between Graham and Kurt, and now it was clear that Graham could not rest until another epic pillow fort was brought into the world. And, sure, pillow forts were fine by yourself, but the more, the merrier! So every door in the dorms had a nice little bright Post-It note slapped onto it:

Pillow Fort EXTRAVAGANZA!

Come to the second floor common room,
And make your pillow fort dreams a REALITY!

B.Y.O.B.&P.
(that's blankets and pillows!)

See you there!

And once that was done, he went back to the room to grab as many blankets and pillows as he could carry (which was a lot), making sure to double-check that Gray wasn't wrapped up and sleeping in any of them, and drag them all to common room to get this pillos fort started!

[[ open pillow fort building is open! Come make Troy Barnes proud! ]]

There had been an awful lot of talking (and chewing!) around pies and pizzas and empanadas lately, and Graham was fairly certain that he was not likely to be bereft of any of those things any time soon. But it did get him thinking that it was a bit selfish, wasn't it, to not sometimes provide something back? The only thing was that the only thing he really knew how to make was his signature choco-chip pancakes....and so, clearly, this morning, choco-chip pancakes for the whole dorms (or, well, for anyone who showed up that morning or for anyone who raided the leftovers after the fact) it shall be!

It didn't take much to gather up the ingredients and get to work, and he'd almost thought about having Triumph make the trek up the stairs to join him for something like this, but Triumph was having a bit of a lazy day, so Graham decided he'd just bring some down for him later, and, whistling and humming some idle, random tune as he did so, he got to work on seeing just how tall of a stack he could make before anyone showed up. Maybe he could even get it to the ceiling! He'd probably have to work pretty fast, though, and you couldn't rush a good choco-chip pancake!

[[ open common room is open! ]]

With blacksmithing class and the atark realization that his noodly arms were in no position to be even pushing a wheelie bin, Graham knew that he'd really better atart hitting the gym more often if he wanted to be in fighting form to be fit for a knight! And so that was what he did, bright and early on a Saturday morning and pumped to get pumped!

He was going to do laps! He was going to do push-up, sit-up, chin-up and pull ups! Maybe some weights from the equipment room! He was going to hit it and he was going to hit it hard and make that first step on the road to buffness!

And he did manage it....for about the first ten minutes.

And thrn he collapsed, exhausted, on the floor, with a hand over his over-exerted, deeply breathing chest and groaned, to no one in particular, "I might be a little out of shape..."

[[ i just like using this icon. Open gym is open! ]]

Even with all the excitement of his arrival yesterday (or perhaps, actually, because of it), Graham was still buzzing a little over the prospect of his new school and the potential adventures that awaited him. As such, he spent his morning exploring the island a little bit more with Triumph and, after getting his mighty mount something to eat before returning him to the stables, realized he himself should probably get something to eat, too. He'd managed to find a pie at the picnic yesterday and had stowed it away in his cloak, but he wanted to hold onto that for safe keepings. And even though a lot of the equipment in the kitchens in the common room were unfamiliar to him, he was intrigued to figure them all out, and so he decided to make some breakfast.

Of course, there was really only one thing Graham knew how to actually cook, and that was choco-chip pancakes! He didn't see any choco-chips in the common room, but he found some at the store, along with a big bag of jelly beans, which he'd pick all the popcorn flavored ones out of later for himself.

In the meantime, though, it was all about figuring out the stove and marveling at the refrigerator and wondering at what sort of arcane vessel the microwave could possibly be in between flipping pancakes and popping jelly beans.


[[ i'm pretty sure new students + breakfast foods is just a requirement for me by now, and I'll be stuck at work today, sooooo...open common room is open! ]]