Ian In The Wrong Place? - OTA

[ubuntu_programmer]

Open/locked?: Open
Who: Ian and whomsoever encounters them
What: Ian arrives in Auradon
Warnings: Some angst, maybe?


There was a figure slumped by the wall, their white and black hair disheveled, their glasses on the grass beside them. Their small suitcase was over their legs, their backpack dangling from one arm. After a moment they groaned and lifted a hand to their head. "Did I get hit by a truck or something...?" They mumbled.

Eyes opening, they looked around. "Well that's not good. I can't afford to be hallucinating now." They picked up their round lensed glasses and checked them before putting them on, then fished a phone out of their pocket. "No bars. Of course. I need to write an algorithm that will allow my phone to find signal from anywhere in the world. Of course, I should still be close enough to get signal anyway, hallucination or no. So... what is actually going on here...?"

Comments

[hotheadwarmheart]

One could indeed count doors if they wanted to do it the boring way. But Lea preferred counting armor. "Not at the moment, unfortunately," he said. "The were some t-shirts and stuff at the museum gift shop, but the shopping plaza we came across didn't have a proper clothing store. There is a craft store with a lot of fabric and stuff though, and some of the people here are fairly handy with a sewing machine apparently, so if you don't mind waiting a little while they could probly help you out."

"Honestly it's a good thing we do have a few crafty people. Not many people arrive already packed for a trip, and there's only so many spare sets of clothes to go around, especially for adults. Since this is a school, most of the stuff there is more sized for teenagers."

A moment more of searching the shelves, Lea spotted something. "Hmm... I found some plain green bedding back here. Would that work, or should I keep looking?"

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Might as well use it for now. I'll have to find these crafty people, I guess."

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Green it is then," Lea said, gathering up the bedding that proved to be a nice mint green, including the duvet cover. "And yeah most likely. Or if you're a crafty person yourself, there is a home-ec room that we're free to use; there's fabric and sewing stuff in there."

"Now to find you a room. Any one that doesn't have a mark on the door is free; the rest are either claimed by someone already or belong to someone who vanished."

[ubuntu_programmer]

Ian nodded. "Are they seperated by age, so I should avoid whichever area the children are rooming in?"

[hotheadwarmheart]

"Not really," he said. "The free rooms tend to be dotted around, so there's some separation just cause of that, but nothing official. There's two beds per room, but as of right now, no one needs to room with anyone else if they don't want to."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"And.... no one thought it was a bad idea for kids and adults to have lockable dormrooms in the same area?"

[hotheadwarmheart]

"It's honestly less 'is that a good idea' and more... there just not being anywhere else to really put people at the moment," Lea said with a shrug. "Right now the school dorms are basically it when it comes to available living quarters. I mean a couple businesses in the shopping district might have apartments above them, but those probably belong to people already. The palace might have a couple guest rooms or something too, but me personally, I'd almost be afraid to actually use any of the stuff in a palace bedroom for fear of accidentally breaking something more expensive than your average car. So dorm rooms it is, generally."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"Uh... huh...." Was he naïve or was this place really that different? They found that they didn't want to know, o long as someone was making sure that the kids were okay.

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea sighed. "Look, I'm not dumb," he said. "I get what you're worried about, but everyone here kinda tries to look out for each other. And anyone who was creepy like that probably wouldn't have ended up in Auradon anyway."

"And anyway, this is way better than the last place I was stuck in. It was basically this flying sentient train that traveled from world to world through the void. Being a train you basically lived out of a sleeping car room that was, for the most part, randomly assigned and shared with up to three other people. People who might be guys, ladies, nonbinary, kids, adults, humans, aliens, robots, vampires, talking cats, humanoid computer programs, or who knows what else. Had to get used to some weird sleeping arrangements there."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"............ Well that just makes me worried in a different way....." They admitted. "Talking cats? Seriously?"

[hotheadwarmheart]

Lea nodded with a bit of a wry smile. "Welcome to the multiverse," he said. "It's a weird, weird place."

"Though really, even if it hasn't been exactly willingly, I've been kicking around the multiverse for a couple years now, and I've found that most people who end up in places like this? Are surprisingly pretty cool. Everyone's kinda in the same boat, everyone remembers what it's like to be new and confused, so for the most part people just try to get along and be decent to each other. Yeah, there's personality clashes sometimes, and the occasional misunderstanding or cross-cultural kerfuffle, but well... no one wants to be that guy that everyone identifies as a jerk or a source of trouble, so things tend to get resolved without too much fuss."

"Plus if there's anything that'll turn your preconceived notions on their heads, it's multiverse travel. Take the vampires I mentioned, for example. You're probly thinking of a creepy guy in a black cape stalking and attacking people in the dark, but the vampire I met was the total opposite of that. His name is Daia, and he's actually really innocent and sweet. I first met him when he was hiding under a table, crying, after a disruption in the train's systems made things a bit more chaotic than usual for a day or so, and it's kinda impossible to be scared of someone after that. And since the train provided packaged blood for him to drink, he was essentially just a dude with a weird diet. Nothing to be scared of at all."

[ubuntu_programmer]

"You know, I really thought my job was something most people would consider weird if I was allowed to ever explain it to them, but this is something else entirely. Though given everything I'm till not sure why me. Why not someone like Addison or Ben? Or Magic?"