|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 7, 2010 7:49:00 GMT -5
The Volkswagen zoomed up the Interstate the day after New Years'. The heater was blaring, and so was the music; Jaymie had decided to drag out an old Aqua CD and sing along. A printed-out brochure taped to the dash had instructions to find a small park next to a certain building in Sacramento. This was a pretty strange way to get to school, he thought, but then, changing into a bird was pretty fucking freaky too.
He had loaded what he was sure would be far more stuff in the van than he would need, just in case; he just hoped this old castle had space in the parking lot. He wasn't looking forward to having to park on somebody's lawn or something for four or five months.
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 7, 2010 8:01:15 GMT -5
Aura propped her bare feet up on the dashboard, her shoes kicked haphazardly into the back seat into somebody's laundry basket. Hopefully hers. If she had kicked them into Jaymie's and managed to get something dirty, she might never hear the end of it.
Aura was reasonably happy that she would be going to a new school, particularly one in a castle. She was nearly ecstatic that, being a boarding school as it was, she would get to be away from her family for long stretches of time. But mostly, Aura was thrilled and relieved that she wouldn't need to wear a hat -- nice hat though it might be -- just to go out in public.
Of course, she still hadn't figured out what to do about the mysteriously "acquired" items. Something told her the school would be far less receptive to that. Fucking raccoon spirit.
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 7, 2010 8:09:55 GMT -5
The song finished, and Jaymie turned the volume down.
"I'm boooored. We've got two more fucking hours. You hungry?"
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 7, 2010 8:17:49 GMT -5
Aura glanced over at Jaymie, plucking the ear-bud out of her ear. Just because Jaymie was her friend didn't mean she had to like his music -- and Jaymie's music tastes tended to be rather strange.
"Hungry?" she repeated. "What did you have in mind?"
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 7, 2010 8:22:51 GMT -5
He shrugged. "I want some chips. God knows what they'll have at a castle made into a high school."
"I think I'm just restless... but it's like, ten miles to a gas station. Or whatever, not picky."
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 7, 2010 8:27:21 GMT -5
Aura paused thoughtfully, looking at the signs as they passed them.
"I'm craving cheeseburgers, and the thought of eating a cheeseburger from a gas station kind of grosses me out," she replied. "Maybe we could find a little diner or something? Or we could run through a drive-thru." She peered over at the dashboard. "Though if you think you need to refill the tank, we might as well go to a gas station while we're at it."
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 7, 2010 8:41:15 GMT -5
Jaymie glanced at the meter. It was still hovering at somewhere around three-quarters full. "Nah. Cheeseburger sounds good, we'll stop."
He turned the volume back up and passed a car going 65, keeping one eye on the signs on the side of the road. It didn't take too long before a burger place showed up. He turned onto the exit and rolled in.
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 7, 2010 8:47:56 GMT -5
Aura pulled her hat back over her ears, checking the mirror to make sure that she looked sufficiently normal. Or, well, at least like a person who probably didn't have a pair of over-sized furry ears hidden under her hat. She mostly looked like a hipster, which was probably the best she was going to get.
"Are we going in or driving through?" she asked, turning around in her seat and digging through her things until she managed to find her wallet.
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 7, 2010 8:53:16 GMT -5
"Going in." Jaymie pulled into the parking lot and stopped, turning off the van and leaping out as quickly as he could manage. He then spent a couple of minutes stretching seemingly every muscle in his body.
"Whoo. God I hate long drives. Chips now." He smiled brightly at Aura. "One of those days I'm gonna get pulled over and you're gonna have to grab that thing before the cops notice that bump in the front seat is a person."
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 7, 2010 8:56:34 GMT -5
She rolled her eyes. "And you can tell them there's an anime convention or something," she replied pointedly. She grinned. "Besides, if you didn't speed, I don't think we'd have to worry about getting pulled over."
Aura dug her shoes out of -- her laundry basket, thankfully -- and shoved them on, lacing them up quickly before hopping out of the car.
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 7, 2010 9:06:06 GMT -5
"Good point! If I see a cop car, I can just go faster." He grinned ear to ear and headed in the door.
There were a surprising number of people for mid-morning, January 2nd- two families and a couple of old people. Jaymie hopped over to the menu board and looked it over. Burger, burger, chips ♥, how about a nice salad or something? that one has oranges, ignore the little voice in his head... damnit, now a salad sounds delicious. Or fish. Fish was acceptable. Raw fi- shut up or I'm getting a bacon cheeseburger, he said to his 'conscience'.
"Hmm." He realized the counter guy was looking at him funny.
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 7, 2010 9:19:31 GMT -5
Aura spat her gum out and stuck it to the bottom of her stool while the server wasn't watching, reading over the menu. Damn near everything looked tasty, particularly -- ooh, there was a BLT, or a chicken sandwich. Part of her wanted to order everything on the menu. Or just sneak back into the kitchen and rummage through the fridge, there was probably slices of cheese and some cold cut ham or eggs, and there might have been mustard and for some reason mustard and dill pickles sounded really good-- God damn it, I don't even like pickles!
Aura glared at the menu. "I want a double bacon cheeseburger, no mustard, no pickles, and chili cheese fries on the side. Oh! And scrambled eggs."
...Aura had no idea where the hell the scrambled eggs had come from. Fucking raccoon spirit.
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 7, 2010 9:26:25 GMT -5
"Grilled fish sandwich, add cheese, nothing but cheese, barbecue chips, and... fine, salad. The little one with mandarin oranges and cranberries."
He raised an eyebrow at the guy. What the fuck. Was this the 'are you gay or dating the buxom chick' stare, the 'why do you look like one of my animes' stare, or did he have something bizarre on his face? He checked his shirt, just in case.
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 7, 2010 20:28:43 GMT -5
Aura tapped her nails on the counter, glancing over at Jaymie. "You too?" she muttered. The employees here probably thought they were insane.
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 8, 2010 4:42:37 GMT -5
"Yeah," he grumbled.
"So have they given you your roommate assignment yet? I got my class schedule last week, but that just said 'pending'."
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 8, 2010 6:18:14 GMT -5
Aura shook her head, sliding the mustard bottle around the counter.
"Nope," she replied. "My class schedule is somewhere probably, I'm pretty sure I stuck it in my bad or..." She shrugged. "It'll turn up. They didn't mention anything about roommates."
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 8, 2010 6:32:14 GMT -5
"Huh. Mine made a note of it twice. 'Same-gender accommodations'. Wonder why it came up for me and not for you." He raised an eyebrow.
Their food arrived. Jaymie began nipping at his sandwich. "Wonder what they'll teach us about this shit..." he said under his breath.
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 8, 2010 6:46:18 GMT -5
Aura shrugged. "Dunno. For all we know, we're just getting shoved into some weird boarding school for freaks."
Aura picked at the scrambled eggs a bit, then, neglecting the fork, began eating them with her hands. And telling the little chirping thing in the back of her head that she was no going to throw random condiments on them, no matter how tasted scrambled eggs with syrup and ketchup sounded.
Aura halted mid-bite, then reached into her pocket and nonchalantly put the salt shaker back on the table.
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 8, 2010 7:28:26 GMT -5
Jaymie started snickering in the middle of his fish sandwich, which quickly devolved into laughing, which quickly devolved into choking. He stood up and tried to breathe, his long hair falling in front of his face in a ragged cascade, face coloring in obvious distress. Three different people jumped out of their seats to help him just as he finished coughing and sat back down.
There was an uncomfortable silence as he went back to normal, his impulse to swear at the fucking sandwich warring with his instinct to act coy and aloof. In the background, there was a slight commotion as the counter guy dropped something expensive-sounding.
Jaymie coughed one more time, wiped his face on his napkin, and went back to eating his fish sandwich as if nothing had happened. "Yeah, that's probably it."
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 8, 2010 7:37:03 GMT -5
Aura glared rather pointedly at Jaymie. "Shut up," she snapped, kicking lightly at his stool.
She squirted three different condiments on her plate and doused a french fry in them. "We should probably try and leave soon," she murmured. "We're getting looks again."
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 8, 2010 7:43:33 GMT -5
"Yeah, I hadn't noticed." He picked at his salad. "I'm probably going to need a to-go box."
"We can still get there by like, two. That should be plenty of time to get things settled."
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 8, 2010 7:51:08 GMT -5
Aura nodded, taking a bite out of her cheeseburger.
"So do you think there's actually a school in a castle in Sacramento?" she asked, wiping her mouth. "Because with the random and disjointed information we've been given, it kinda sounds like bullshit. The guy I talked to gave me a bunch of really vague information and kept yelling back and and forth at someone in the background, and when my dad asked him to repeat it in Spanish I think he started speaking German."
She smirked. "I mean, don't get me wrong, if it's just some really elaborate practical joke we can still hang out in Sacramento a few days or something and I'd be pretty impressed at something so extensive, but you know. Still." Aura took a sip of her water.
|
|
|
Post by Jaymie Elderton on Jan 8, 2010 7:58:49 GMT -5
"I'm not worried about it being a joke. I'm worried about it being a bunch of crazies running some kind of freak-diploma mill. I still want to be able to get into FIT, you know? Somehow. Or at least something." He finished his sandwich and began downing the chips, looking askance at the guy staring at him.
Yeah, that was the 'I'm completely smitten with you' stare. Goddamnit.
|
|
|
Post by Aurelia "Aura" Valdez on Jan 9, 2010 12:56:37 GMT -5
Aura snorted, beginning to load the rest of her food into a box. It would give her something to eat along the way, at least.
"We should probably get going," she mused.
|
|