to paris with love

[coeur_de_lion]

Alli's school is not a terribly interesting school. It is, as far as Alli is concerned, a perfectly boring and average school in all possible respects. But some alumnus went and made themselves a bunch of money, and apparently they think it's a good idea to spend some of this money on "improving the cultural exposure of today's youth". (Alli has never met the alumnus in question, much less heard them speak, but she persists in picturing this spoken with a haughty British accent.) What this means for Alli is that she and a number of other 'deserving students' are being shipped over to France for free for a week. Alli's not quite sure why she counts as deserving- because her mom's single, maybe?- but she's hardly complaining. It's a free trip to France, after all.

In her usual style, Alli packs an hour before she has to leave and ultimately makes it out the door only ten minutes late after forgetting at least three vitally important items (her eyeliner!). But she makes it through Pearson security with plenty of time... well, more like barely enough time. But the important thing is, she's safely ensconced in her seat when they take off.

Once she's gotten her bag stowed and her legs rearranged in a doomed attempt at comfort and generally considers herself suitably settled, she turns to her seatmate. "Is your brain doing an Eeeeee France! thing too?"

Comments

[hatchedplan]

"We can play something else if you rather."

[coeur_de_lion]

"Oh, I don't care. I'll switch if you like. Luck games are just nice cause then I have something to blame if I lose."

Or really, when she loses. Alli is not very good at cards. Luckily she does not consider that the point.

[hatchedplan]

"I'm good for a few more rounds of this and then I'll require variety."

[coeur_de_lion]

A few more rounds occur. Alli wins! ...once.

"What next?" she asks when it looks like they're running out of steam. "Different game, attempt to sleep, blatantly gossip? We could swap life stories, I suppose, I don't actually know much about you other than 'that May girl is way better at homework than I am'."

[hatchedplan]

"We can swap life stories. Do you want to know more about that May girl first or would you rather go?"

[coeur_de_lion]

"Merde, I don't care. I will say you just so we don't do the but no really I don't care dance for the next six hours."

[hatchedplan]

"So, fun fact, May is actually short for Mabel and I spell it like the month, it's not as Asian as it sounds. Though I know how to write 'Mei Mariko insert-Japanese-translation-of-swan-here' in kanji of my choice. I don't speak Japanese, let alone really read it, but I've picked up bits because every now and then my mother manages to be nearly as embarrassing about investigating her own cultural heritage as a white person who watches a lot of anime and eats sushi and I collect information by osmosis. Dad is more consistently assimilated and a few generations more native and is why I have the English last name. They got divorced when I was really little, too little to remember, and Mom moved with me to Toronto from an eensy little town in B.C., but I visit Dad summers, they get along okay and everything. I got my first chair when I was, I want to say six, but I could be off by a year either direction. It was an autumn, nobody wanted me to try to toddle around on the ice another winter. And I have had a fairly conventional schooling history except that my mother teaches kindergarten so I kept calling my first grade teacher Mom out of habit even though he was a man. There is not a lot of exciting narrative structure to my life to plump up this story, I do a lot of reading mostly."

[coeur_de_lion]

"Hah, what do you know, we're the single moms party. Though who knows where my dad's gotten to, we haven't seen or heard from him since I was little. My sister also peaced, actually, but she's in Québec and her I still see sometimes. Fun fact, Alli is short for absolutely nothing, though a hilarious number of people still try to call me Alexandra. I have no 'cultural heritage' to speak of; I'm some weird mix of Polish, Greek and French, but we've been in Canada since forever so noooobody cares. And I'm otherwise deeply boring. Born and raised in Toronto, I don't even have the B.C. thing going for me."

[hatchedplan]

"I like Toronto. The eensy B.C. town is - nice, I guess, very scenic, but there's nothing there."

[coeur_de_lion]

"Yeah, at least when I visit Jess there's stuff to do. But I've lived in the same spot in Roncesvalles my entire life. Related: why I am so excited for France. New places!"

[hatchedplan]

"French places. Mom made me promise to try awesome cheese."

[coeur_de_lion]

"I wonder if we can get away with trying French wine?"

[hatchedplan]

"Even in France the drinking age is eighteen. I am not eighteen yet. I also don't especially want to, but even if I did..."

[coeur_de_lion]

"I mean. You don't have to. But hey, worst that happens someone has to push you, right?"

[hatchedplan]

"Are you attempting to turn into a cautionary tale from a badly scripted anti-underage-drinking campaign on me, Alli?"

[coeur_de_lion]

"Merde! You have seen through my evil plot!"

[hatchedplan]

"I'm very insightful."

[coeur_de_lion]

"Hah, yep."

A mildly awkward pause ensues, while Alli casts for something to say. "Soooo. Go Fish?"

[hatchedplan]

"Sure." May shuffles.

[coeur_de_lion]

Cards ensue. Alli continues to be quite bad at them. By the time they're finished, it's late enough that Alli is falling asleep despite the airplane seat. So she apologizes to May, puts the cards away and curls up for however much of a nap she can get.

Upon their arrival, everyone is shooed into a waiting bus by the chaperone. He reminds everyone a few times to "try not to fall asleep, if you can stay up it will help you adjust". Most of them wind up napping on the bus regardless, Alli included; she's something of a jetlag zombie at the moment.

After a drive of an hour or so, their stuff is dropped off at their hotel. The chaperone doesn't let them off the bus. "No naps!" he reminds them. "We're going to spend the day exploring some local historical sites. Give you incentive to stay awake."

So, first stop: a nearby field, which apparently was the site of a battle or two during the Hundred Year War. There are various placards up indicating historians' best guesses at important locations, and some old weaponry (both original and replica). The chaperone herds them all off the bus. "Come on, everyone! Time to explore! Walk around, look at history, take it in! Just be back on the bus by noon, okay? Then we'll head to lunch."

Alli gets off the bus reluctantly. She was napping, damn it. But exploring time it is.

[hatchedplan]

A field. How stunning. May actually managed an hour's nap on the airplane, but that was it; she's running on very low sleep, lots of solitaire, and the promise of lunch.

Historical sites. Right. Great. Field! Yay. She wanders, sticking within line of sight of Alli for lack of any better source of field trip buddy, and tries to read placards.

She's wandered into the fieldier bit of the field after a while, going around a little knob of earth that was the site of the blah blah yada yada something, when she kicks something hard. She looks at her shoes; near her left foot is some kind of necklace. Seems like a good candidate for the lost and found. Responsible Guest Of France, that's her. She picks it up.

It shocks her.

[coeur_de_lion]

Alli is too brain dead to be paying much attention to anything, but she's been attempting to amuse herself by reading the placards in both French and English and looking for differences. She's heading towards May to read the placard next to her when she notices May start. She yawns and walks over. "You okay? Still have all your teeth?"

[hatchedplan]

"Yeah. If I fall over on the grass I should be okay, if grassy. And if I sit down in my chair now I'm just going to pass out and the teacher will have to push me, so." She pockets the necklace.

[coeur_de_lion]

"Don't we all wish we could do that." Alli yawns again. "Merde I'm tired."

[hatchedplan]

"Me too, I got even less sleep than you," May yawns.

This yawn becomes abruptly more intimidating when she suddenly turns into a dragon.

She's a smallish, low-slung thing, no taller than she normally is - just longer and more horizontal and sinuous. She's oriented so as to be hidden from everyone but Alli (and anyone who might imminently be about to emerge from or approach the porta-johns) by the little hilly bit they've gone around.

May snaps her jaws shut and makes a high-pitched alarmed noise and falls over, tail flailing, one wing trying to unfold but getting snagged on the edge of her horn.