Fandom High Dormitories

After all the candy and sugary treats devoured when most of the island's inhabitants were transformed into children, Raven was very careful to provide a lot of healthy snacks for this meeting of the Reserves. There were fruits and veggies and whole grain goodness, but in the end she'd caved enough to provide some sweets as well.

"We are celebrating the end of the semester," Raven said to begin the meeting. "We have survived not only our classes, but everything that Fandom -- and our own worlds -- have had to throw at us. We thought we would take this time to take a break from the stress of finals and relax among friends, though perhaps we can also speak of what we have faced over the past several months and what we learned from it, about ourselves and our companions and our abilities."

"I think the most important thing I learned," Tara began, "and this might sound cheesy, is -- trust yourself and trust your friends. I've seen people do amazing things. Things they, they would have sworn they couldn't do if you'd asked. But stress people out enough, and bam. Magic happens. Not just literal magic, either."

"But there are always consequences to your actions," Karla added, sounding a little subdued. "And those consequences can have much further-reaching effects than what you might expect. Be careful of those around you, especially your friends. Just because they are likely to forgive you doesn't mean you have the right to treat them poorly, even for the sake of the 'greater good.'"

"Sometimes you owe your friends more than that," Dolf piped up. "Sometimes the 'greater good' is your friends, and sometimes you need to just look out for them to get the right things done." Not that he had any idea what Karla might have been referring to, but it had been his experience. "So we want to talk about it, and help make this part of the preserve a nicer place for today. Just to talk about the things we have done this year, and what they mean. Because everything means something, and everything we fight for is something important."

The boy was really ridiculously earnest.

"For my part, I have learned much the same as Tara has said," Raven said. "No matter how frightening something is, no matter how ashamed you are of something that is happening to you, you should not keep it to yourself and deal with it alone. The friendships forged in Fandom are strong, and our unique abilities and upbringings may bring valued insight into one another's problems. None of us are alone here."

She smiled and looked around at each of the students attending the meeting. "And if you have any words of advice for new students that will be arriving in Fandom, we would like to hear those as well."

[Co-written with the fabulous glacial_witch, life_inshadow, and swordsandsoccer.]

It wasn't Hawaii, but it was in the mid-50s today, so Magical/Support reserves was meeting outside to make the best of the warming temperatures. There was a table of the usual snacks, including quite a few lovely cakes with various tasty frostings (with all organic ingredients, of course, since Raven had procured them).

Unfortunately, the cakes had drawn some attention in the form of gremlins who were in search of a sweet treat. Said gremlins also didn't care about long-winded speeches, so when Raven stepped forward to begin to speak on the day's topic, a piece of cake suddenly came flying through the air right at her head.

Raven frowned indignantly as she scrubbed frosting from her cheek. "That was not very nice," she scolded.

"Really not," Tara agreed, frowning hard at the space the cake had come from. "Guys, if you don't want to come to the meeting, you don't have to, but you shouldn't act like preschoolers while somebody is --"

And that was where she got cut off by a gooey slice of chocolate cake splatting against her chin. Apparently, the gremlins didn't like lectures any more than they liked long-winded speeches.

"Stop that!" Dolf roared, grabbing at his belt for his bread knife and... finding he hadn't brought it this time. Stupid school weapons locker rules-- "Stop it now or I will stop you--"

Splat.

Karla, still slightly off-kilter from her dream last night looked from the gremlins to her leaders and back. Clearly, words weren't going to work. All right, fine. Fire with fire, then. Taking what was left from her plate--what? she'd been hungry!--she threw it back at the gremlin who'd flung cake at Dolf.

Her victory was short-lived as two more slices when flying towards her face. And then, the air was full of flung cake and frosting, lobbed at anyone and everyone.

Cake fight!

[Co-written with the delicious glacial_witch, life_inshadow, and swordsandsoccer.]