coeur_de_lion | to paris with love

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?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

hatchedplan

"As you like." May does put the bag on her chair to haul it into the room. "So what color are my nails going to be?" And when the door is closed behind her: "And will this carry over to my, apparently, claws?"

From:

horsefeathered

Jenny grins and holds out a hand. It folds into a hoof with rather faded nail polish flowers decorating it.

From:

hatchedplan

May laughs. "Okay, let's see what colors you've got and hear your version of the summary."

From:

horsefeathered

"Oh, you don't actually have to. I need fancy new flowers, but they are totally optional! It is just my new favorite euphemism for talking about critters."

She plops herself on one of the beds and starts digging through her backpack in search of her toiletries kit. "So. Critters! There are lots of us! Really anything you think is a 'mythical creature' is probably a critter somewhere, except dragons and unicorns cause they both went extinct in the war. People like us-" she waves around the room. "-have medallions. That means we can look like humans. We can also do midform! Whiiiiich is anything and everything combining your natural form and your human form."

As she mentions 'midform', her clothes rearrange themselves to make space for the enormous grey feathered wings that just sprouted from her back. She giggles. "Like so." The wings retreat. "There's critters that don't have medallions, they cannot look like humans, it sucks, they are stuck in hiding. 'Hiding' in civilized places means in a critter town. You know, like Little Italy or Little Portugal? There are Little Critters. Which are totally called Avalons and not Little Critters, but you get the idea."

She frowns. "Errrrr, trying to think what else. It runs in families? Don't change in public? I probably missed things."

She places a small pile of nail polish colors on the floor. "Sorry, I didn't have space for more, your color selections are as follows. Or no polish, no polish is still totally an option."

From:

hatchedplan

"Eh, I like that blue, there, I'll let you do my nails if you want. You probably don't want me to return the favor, I'd drop the brush. How many Avalons are there? How many kinds of critters? In what way does it run in families? How do I get the hang of midforms?"

From:

coeur_de_lion

Alli snorts. "You get the hang of human, first. Till then, 'midform' is just 'merde I dropped out of human again'."

From:

horsefeathered

Jenny beams, and drags the desk chair over next to May's chair so she can start on her nails. "There's lots of Avalons! Most big cities have them. Smaller places just collect in critter-only towns. Like, I think there's some islands in Greece full of harpies? That sorta thing." May hand: retrieved. "I don't know how many kinds there are. Looooots? I mean, how many mythical creatures are there, anyway? Different kinds in different places, too. Asia has a totally different set than we do." May nails: slowly becoming blue. "The family thing's easy. Critters have critter babies. Medallion critter kids (or grandkids or whatever) all look human, though, up until the kid picks up a medallion."

From:

hatchedplan

"So at least one of my parents is also a secret critter."

Edited Date: 2015-01-08 02:55 am (UTC)

From:

horsefeathered

"They could not know! It could be your great great great great grandpa married a human and didn't tell so no one's gotten a medallion before you," Jenny hastens to reassure her. "But... yeah. At least one's a critter. And one is definitely- whatever you are? Did you say?"

From:

hatchedplan

"I found about this literally today and there were no mirrors and I'm more of a Shakespeare and occasionally Victor Hugo person than I am a - a Tolkien person," says May, which isn't quite I don't know but also isn't a lie. "I will want books. Lots of them."

From:

horsefeathered

Jenny looks at Alli questioningly.

From:

coeur_de_lion

"Don't look at me. I've never seen one of her before," Alli says with perfect honesty.

From:

hatchedplan

"I'm exotic. I do know I'm blue," says May. "I don't want to change in here, though, I will not fit in my chair and I'd certainly knock everything over, possibly including the wall, flailing around."

From:

horsefeathered

Jenny giggles. "Oooooh yes, I know the feeling. You saw how big just my wings are! These rooms are not built for pegasi. You can show me later if you want, maybe I'll know what you are."

From:

coeur_de_lion

"She has to practice staying in human form," Alli points out reasonably.

From:

horsefeathered

"Well, it doesn't have to be soon! But don't you want to know what you are?" she asks May.

From:

hatchedplan

"I will learn what I am from books," says May. "For all I know there are racial politics more complicated than being Asian involved. ...And now that I've said that I'm certain there are."

Edited Date: 2015-01-08 03:39 am (UTC)

From:

coeur_de_lion

"Meh. It's not usually that complicated. Humans are way more intricate about it. Critters still mostly stick with the 'who can beat up who' approach."

From:

hatchedplan

"Oh, so I know I'm at the bottom of the pecking order, then," snorts May.

From:

coeur_de_lion

"It's okay. I can beat them up for you," Alli says. She just barely manages to say this with a straight face.

From:

hatchedplan

"So your kind of thing is a scary thing?"

From:

coeur_de_lion

"Depends how you mean? We don't go around being scary at people or anything. We have a whole code devoted to not doing that. If you break it, you are in trouble, we take your medallion, and so on so on. But we are still scary for existing, probably, we're large carnivores with super strength and invulnerable hides? We are the human equivalent of being really really tall and jacked."

From:

hatchedplan

"Invulnerable? Is it very rude of me to wonder about the details?"

From:

coeur_de_lion

"You're a newbie, you can get away with a lot. In general it's- not rude, but also still weird? It's just not the sort of thing people get asked much, so they would be confused." She hums thoughtfully for a second. "The short answer is that the only thing that can break through my hide are the claws of a Nemean Lion."