Combined Reserves, Preserve, Thursday After Classes,

[glacial_queen]

Older students might have been surprised when the handwavy email had gone out inviting anyone interested in joining any branch of the Reserves (Martial, Magic, or Support), should meet up Thursday afternoon in the preserve.

When they got there, they would see that not everything had changed; there were still tables set up with moddable snacks and beverages, including a plate of (lumpy and slightly charred) cookies that Karla was standing behind, wearing a proud smile.

"Welcome to the first meeting of the combined Reserves," she said, once it seemed like everyone had arrived. "As those of you who have been here awhile already know, sometimes the island isn't always the safest place to be. There are occasional attacks and incursions--some are tiny and almost silly, some are big and dangerous and possibly even life-threatening. The Reserves were formed a few years back for to help us prepare and train for these invasions; to work together as a group. Whether your strengths lie in the area of fighting with weapons, having powers, taking care of others, or even research, there's a spot for you here. No matter what your skills are, we'll probably see something that requires them to be defeated."

Taking that as a cue, Wesley cleared his throat. "As Karla mentioned, all sorts of abilities are useful," he continued. "The Reserves were formerly broken down into separate groups -- Martial as well as Magic and Support -- but we'll now be meeting together, with Karla and Dolf and myself leading subsections."

Pause as he took a sip of water and tried to stealthily sweep a number of suspicious-looking cookies from the table into a garbage can. Sadly for the teal deer, one of them missed and landed on the ground. Those poor, poor teal deer never had a chance.

"Er. My name is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. I'm from Southern Hampshire in England, I'm a senior, and I'll be running the, ah, martial branch. We'll go over weaponry, general strategy, and that sort of thing."

He looked to his fellow leaders to take over.

"And I'm Dolf Wega," Dolf said, giving everyone a bit of a wave. He looked somewhat more comfortable with himself now that he was leading a crowd again; his shoulders were relaxed. "I'm from Amstelveen in the Netherlands, which is across the ocean..." He'd encountered a few people who were from different universes by now, "...so sorry if I get something wrong. I'm leading the Support services and I have been for a while. We make sure that everyone communicates okay, that people get fed and taken care of and bandaged if something goes wrong, and everything else that doesn't mean beating people up."

He slanted a look at both Karla and Wesley.

"Which is important sometimes," he added. "You can't fix all problems by hitting them."

That wasn't meant as a malicious stab, though, and he was smiling through it.

"But today, we want to talk about what you can do, and not just us."

Karla grinned and nodded at Dolf's comment. "That's true, so after my introduction, we'll be turning the floor over to you. I'm Karla, a junior, and I'm from the Territory Glacia in the Realm Kaeleer--don't worry if none of you have heard of it. I'm heading up the Magic Reserves. That's a catch-all for anyone with powers of any sort--magic, mutation, spells, summons, materia--whatever. The three groups are going to be working together to form one integrated whole, so whenever something attacks, we can all work together as a unit, no matter what our personal skills are. Speaking of, please don't worry if you don't think you have any useful skills right now--we're here for learning just as much as practice and we welcome people to hang out and watch. Also, feel free to share only as much as you're comfortable with; we want you to feel welcomed and included more than anything else."

She gestured to the tables of food and smiled. "So, please feel free to help yourself to some snacks and things and let's talk about who you are and what we all would like to see from these groups, okay?"

[Co-written with the usual suspects. Please to be pretending this is in the right comm. *facepalms* OCD up!]

Comments

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

Warren loved Karla very much. And he didn't particularly want to see anyone lynch her today. So he was going to be hovering (not literally) near those cookies, attempting to keep an eye out for anyone who didn't understand that they were not good for you. In a very serious way.

Every now and again, he actually managed to nerve himself up to reaching for one or two.

My, they were conveniently crumbly if he held them too tightly, today.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[life_inshadow]

"Why does she keep baking?" Tara asked, in the lowest voice she could manage and with a few guilty glances to Karla. "And, uh. Hi."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"Hey." Warren attempted a little smile that fell just a bit short. Considering he was usually the one who wound up eating most of these, he was probably allowed. "I think..."

His voice dropped fairly low as well.

"I think nobody really has the heart to tell her to stop."

He certainly didn't. Baking made her happy. And a happy Karla made for a happy Warren, so long as he could get out of eating the results.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[life_inshadow]

"... yeah, if she figured it out at this point she'd probably die from embarrassment," Tara had to admit. "Everyone knows not to touch them, anyhow. So. Kind of doesn't matter. Uh. Hi. Sorry for criticizing your girlfriend's cookies?"

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"Nah, criticize away," Warren replied, shrugging his shoulders and ever so casually reaching for another cookie.

It was total coincidence that it just sort of crumbled in his hand and most of it fell to the ground. Honest.

"Really creative criticism might help me forget that there's probably cod liver oil or something in these things."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[life_inshadow]

"... where do you even find cod liver oil?" Tara asked, stepping away from the crumbs on the ground as if they might be radioactive. "M-maybe somebody should give her a cookbook. A really, really simple cookbook."

She took a cookie herself, but didn't crumble it; it went into her purse instead. She was sure she'd see a squirrel she hated later.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"The cookbook isn't the problem," Warren sighed. "She gets creative, or she substitutes things instead of running to the store to get more when there isn't any in the kitchen. Last time she made cupcakes, she used tartar sauce instead of cream of tartar."

Warren had spent the rest of that night eating nightmare cupcakes and trying not to sob.

"I think, if she thought that cod liver oil would be at all a good idea, she'd find some."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[life_inshadow]

Tara could only stare in terror for a few minutes. And then she neatly took two more cookies and put them into her purse, too.

Maybe she'd see three squirrels she hated.

"Um, well, we always knew she was ... special."

Just, usually that was a good thing.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"And that's why we keep letting her bake," Warren replied.

Yes. Yes, he was pouting.

"Because she's very special. And so we can kind of... forgive... this."

Oh, dear. That seemed to be another cookie, slipping between his fingers and hitting the dirt with a vengeance. Awkward claws, right? He was so still getting used to them.

"Or at least deal with it."

That slight shifting of weight wasn't Warren grinding the cookie into the ground with his foot, why would you think that?

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[life_inshadow]

Tara was about to say something on the topic under discussion, when her eyes dropped to the motion of Warren's hands, and --

"Wait. What's on your fingers?"

She hadn't really looked, before.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"On my..." Warren glanced at his hands, because, so far as he knew, there wasn't anything on his fingers. And then he realized what Tara was talking about and grimaced, shrugging his shoulders and letting his hands fall back into that habitual almost-fist that he'd picked up since the claws had refused to fade.

"It's... kind of a long story," he murmured. "A bunch of people on the island got sick this summer, and... stuff went kind of weird, and..."

Yeah. Yeah, words weren't quite happening, so he held out a hand for her to look at, hooked, black, almost feline claws and all.

"Not all of it went away."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[life_inshadow]

"Yeah, I heard about the sick part, just didn't know it wasn't completely cured." Her eyes went to his hands again. "I've been ... sort of inside my head, lately."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"It's cured," Warren murmured, turning his hand over, palm toward the sky, and flexing it slightly. "This is... like a scar, I guess. I've seen some people who still have points to their teeth, and some other claws. But we're not sick anymore. You'd know if we were sick."

And then, all at once, he was pocketing his hand and attempting another smile that fell short, again.

"Inside your head...? Summer still getting to you?"

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"I've been trying to dispose of as many as possible," Wesley murmured to Warren under his breath, spotting the subtle crumbling of the cookies. "Unfortunately, it may be too late for some of the squirrels."

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"Maybe we'll luck out, and the ones that eat them will be the ones who would have tattled on us otherwise," Warren offered, looking hopeful. "I don't think Karla would ever forgive us if she found out about this."

Maybe she'd give Warren a pass for eating at least his weight in these damn things ever since his first time seeing one of them?

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Probably not," he agreed. "She takes... really an inordinate amount of pride in them, given how corrosive they are."

No. Literally corrosive. He was pretty sure one of the ones he'd touched had left a permanent mark on his hand.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

See how fortunate Warren was to have a healing factor? Without it, he'd probably be dead a dozen times by now!

"I don't think she actually knows what they taste like," he sighed, pocketing a cookie or three to properly dispose of later. Probably with fire.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"Now, suppose one were to offer her a few of them," Wesley postulated. "Might that help at all?"

Not him, though. PLEASE GOD NOT HIM.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"I'm not going to be the one to do it," Warren replied, wide-eyed.

Better to be the one eating them! And didn't that say a lot?

"She'd probably accuse us of tampering with them or something!"

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

"But under controlled circumstances, surely," Wesley insisted. Poor idealistic Wes. "Perhaps if she was left to bake for herself and then someone, er, else were to come by and offer to share the batch...?"

Wes. Let it go.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"She'd probably insist that they get first dibs," Warren replied, sulking. "And then set a plateful aside for me, because she knows how much I like them."

The universe was a cruel place.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley nodded.

"Er. Right." Pause. "So we... shan't do that."

No, Wesley. You shan't.

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

"Thank you."

Warren might have had to make sad, sad faces at you until the end of time, if that had happened, Wesley.

"At least this way, we can kind of... You know. Oops."

And another cookie hit the ground. Jumped right out from Warren's fingers!

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wesleynotponcy.livejournal.com]

Wesley was in the middle of crushing some cookies of his own when a horrible thought occured to him.

"You don't suppose Karla gives these to, er, sick friends, do you?"

Re: Arrive and Mingle

[wwiii]

That would be terrible!

"What? No! No, she can't do that, she'd-" Warren bit his tongue to keep from having some sort of outburst that could be overheard by, say, Karla. "Heal them first, because she's a Healer. It's... way more important than cookies, you know?"

Yeah. That was totally a good save.