meet-and-greet | January 2016

[governors]

The Governors do this, sometimes; they hold a meet-and-greet for the new arrivals to help them get acclimated, and also to distract them from destroying their rooms. A message goes out to all the new arrivals informing them of a party with free food. Everyone likes free food, right?

In one of the recreation areas - sadly, not one of the ones accessible by slide - there are some chips, dip, some sodas and Solo cups, several large pizzas, and a surprising amount of Oreos.

Party.

Comments

[paeon]

It wasn't hard to notice a wallflower in a party like this. Despite everything being off enough to confuse, O'danya understood the basics well enough to tell those who were coping socially with those who were not. Some had probably just come out of a feeling of... loneliness? Something like that. She was in a similar boat herself; not that she minded everyone around and would speak with many of them before the party was over, but because she was rather overwhelmed by the difference. Or lack thereof. There sure was a very strong hyuran presence and no other races that she could see as of yet. It reminded her of snowy, isolated Ishgard and even then, the frozen city-state had a mingle of elezen and hyuran and traveling salespeople of all sorts spotted here and there.

This was nothing like any of that.

All of that aside, she was noticing more and more those who seemed to need some prodding. Perhaps friendly conversation would help encourage them. If nothing else, it would give O'danya a better idea of what was going on.

"Are you all right?" she asked the woman in the corner, feeling there was a tension to her that O'danya couldn't place right away. Her voice was smooth, firm and light. Inexplicably somewhat Welsh. Even though some of her features were feline in nature, she would come off as nothing but an outdoorsy human to the senses; miqo'te relation to actual cats was still a hotly debated topic in her own world. "Is there something not to your agreement here?"

[bostonhowler]

The words startle her and she almost drops her soda. She really wishes it were a cup of coffee. But maybe she shouldn't have caffeine at all.

"What?" Brigid asks, still confused by the cacophony of sensory overload in the room. so many new heartbeats to get used to, so many new smells. She blinks out of her confusion and focuses on the woman in front of her.

"I'm fine, really." She assures the other woman. While she would love to step outside and be away from the party, she understands why it's necessary to be here. "Brigid Finn." She says, introducing herself. Another new heartbeat to concentrate on. It helps.

[paeon]

O'danya stood firm at the startle, tail only twitching in reaction. Someone was jumpy, that tension not for nothing. Even if O'danya couldn't get the reasoning out of her — it was her own business, after all — maybe it could come to settle sooner than later.

"Well met, Brigid. O'danya Mitnu," she introduced, hand placing briefly to her chest. "Or, I suppose, the name they wish me to use would be Guilty Geyser. I'm partial to the one with which I already arrived."

[bostonhowler]

Brigid can't help the smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Their codenames are slightly ridiculous, aren't they?" She asks, amused that someone got a stranger name than she did. "They named me Twinkle Castle." Which, Brigid had laughed a good long time about.

She wonders if the woman is fatemarked or sentinel. That seems to be the division here. Who is who. But she doesn't know the proper protocol for asking. She rubs her own fatemark on her hand. It itches when she's unsure of herself.

[paeon]

"More than slightly," O'danya agreed. She observed for a moment, her brows knitting together at the name given to Brigid instead. Whether it was appropriate or not, she had no way of knowing, but her guess was that they were simply chosen on whim. "Twinkle Castle is at least something that could exist, one would suppose."

She smiled for the joke, then tilted her head when she saw the nervous gesture. Perhaps it was just the overload of everything going on. "I apologize if I've made you uncomfortable," she said. What was this subtlety thing? Clearly calling it out so bluntly was the best thing to do.

[bostonhowler]

"I've never seen one." Brigid says about her codename. She's still rubbing the Fatemark on her hand. She drops it the moment that O'danya says something about it.

"You haven't." Brigid assures her. "It's just been a long day and there are more people here than I thought would be." She's getting overwhelmed and she knows it, but she's determined to stick it out. She wants to meet people, but she's not a very social person anyway. Add in that she's not used to these heartbeats, and she's a bit out of her depth. Usually what she does is stick her headphones in and listen to something else.

[paeon]

"Neither have I," O'danya admitted. There was still time yet in her life, and a castle that twinkled would hardly be the strangest thing she'd seen. Would the Allagan's Crystal Tower count, she wondered? It certainly did have a way with catching the sunlight and sparkling over the fields of Mor Dhona...

At the reaction, she gave a smile and tried to ease her own stance. Certainly not easy for some to be placed in such a difficult situation. "Mayhap it would be better to turn somewhere more solitary for now and seek out our new companions at a later date?" she suggested. "On your own terms."

[bostonhowler]

Brigid is used to real castles, like the ones in Europe, things she's actually seen in person, thanks to her studying in Ireland. But a twinkle castle? Just ridiculous. There's certain types of stone that sparkle in the twilight, but she's yet to see enough to create a castle out of.

Brigid has thought of leaving, but it seems rude. She wants to go home. These people are her new pack, and that's something she needs to get used to, and learn about. There's a lot to learn from just observing. Like learning heartbeats or smells.

"Perhaps, but it would be rude to just leave." She points out. "If we're all stuck here, no reason to be unsociable."

[paeon]

"If we are all stuck here, then there is plenty of time to be social later," she returned, not unkindly. There was a certain amount of rebellion in her when she suggested it, perhaps because this party had been thrown with expectation for them to all meet and learn about each other without time to adjust. It wasn't right of these captors, employers, whatever they wanted to call themselves.

Shaking her head, she continued, "Regardless, I am not here to force your hand either way. Have you any interest in the classes they claim to offer?"

[bostonhowler]

Brigid's Alpha told her to not hide away and she's trying not to do that. She's a good beta wolf, and she obeys her Alpha. It makes her wonder how she's going to be able to obey anyone else. Perhaps if she looks at this as a job, and her Sentinel as her boss? It's something that she's going to have to think long and hard about.

"The hand to hand combat will be nice to get into again. I'm rusty after two years away form class." She might be fatemarked, but she's not a weakling to leave her Sentinel to fight her battles. "Other than that, I plan on spending most of my time in the library. What about you?"

[paeon]

"Truthfully, I had not yet given it the proper amount of thought," she responded wryly. Having asked the question herself first, it was probably bad form not to have an answer ready in return. She canted her head to the side thoughtfully. There were certainly a number of options and plenty of things she was going to have to locate in order to keep herself sharp, but...

"For the classes themselves, I would like to learn about the land we now find ourselves in. The library would likely be the place for me to do that." Ah, but there was definitely a wrinkle in the plan and she added, "Although I've been given to the impression that sentinels are required to take a certain number of courses whether we deem them necessary or not."

[bostonhowler]

Brigid hums for a moment. "That was my thought. To learn about what we're doing here, what is expected of us. It has to be recorded somewhere. I would think the library has all that."

She sighs. "I would not mind some of the classes, but fighting isn't my forte. My Uncle always insisted we learn how to take care of ourselves, but I was always much more academic." She feels no shame in admitting that. "My strength is finding strange information and making sense of it." She shrugs a bit. It's something she's always been good at.