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The Perk, Wednesday Afternoon

Nina was on a quest! An official quest, even! From her class!

And, since, like it was a quest that got her out of class (which was kind of tragic, honestly) and she'd spent all of yesterday trapped in her room…

Nina settled herself at the Perk with a tea (knowing good and well that both Seivarden and Tisarwat would consider this tea a terrible life choice and they weren't wrong, ugh, maybe she'd go buy a hot chocolate or something…) and a muffin (which tasted much better than her tea) and contemplated her options.

She had to go and learn something.

She had a week.

Nina considered her options. Did she, like, want to go out and learn something useful? Or did she want to go and consult Google and see what it thought the most pointless skill to learn would be… and learn that?

Honestly, she was a little frightened of Googling that question. And yet…

[Open post is open!]

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Astrid was...dawdling. Buying herself some time. Putting off actually getting to that painting she'd finally planned out for her wall. Because even though she knew what she was going to do, she'd sketched it a million times, and she'd painted all the teardrops, she still wasn't sure if she was ready. It would carry some kind of finality to it, a tribute, and she just...

...it wasn't too late to change it, to just do something different. But, for some reason, she was feeling that actually doing it would be...important.

And so she was procrastinating, going instead into town to distance herself a little from that black, black wall waiting for her, to get herself some coffee and curl up in a corner to sketch passers-by.

And maybe frown a little thoughtfully at the other blonde girl in the coffee shop already as she waited for her cafe au lait, trying to place her familiarity among the misty fog of half-remembered faces and entirely new ones.

Luckily for Astrid, while Nina honestly couldn't remember ever talking to her, Nina knew good and well who she was.

Even if, like, most of her current knowledge stemmed from the fact that Foomy seemed to keep running off to spend time with her.

"Hiiiiii!!!!!" she chirped, not quite as brightly as she usually would mostly because, well, she didn't quite feel like the other girl would appreciate it, somehow. "Astrid, right????????"

She knew it was Astrid but it did tend to creep people out when you just admitted you knew who they were when they were clearly attempting to place you…

"I'm Nina, from room 221!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yes, that jogged Astrid's memory a little bit. Maybe a party or two? A shared class, here and there? She nodded, and then, a moment later, seemed to remember what words were. "That's right," she said. "Nina." She shook her head a little. "Sorry; I was just trying to remember your name. It's....it's been a while..."

Especially when she hadn't really bothered keeping in touch with anyone, not even those she considered her friends, because she really didn't think there'd be a reason to.

"Don't worry about it," she said cheerfully. "I, like, had an unfair advantage--------------Sabine's a friend of mine, you know???????????????"

A beat.

"Did you, like, want company for a bit????????????"

She did, sort of, but she also didn't. Astrid's relationship with the concept of company was...complicated.

"Do you?" she asked. "I was just going to sit and sketch for a bit, but you look really...determined about something." She said it with a faint, maybe a little awkward smile, still feeling uncomfortable with thing like small talk.

Especially considering the most of it she'd done lately was with a small little jelly-like blob that only spoke back in unknown beeps and chirps.

"I wouldn't want to interrupt."

"You wouldn't be," Nina said, eyes wide and voice earnest. "Like, honestly, I'm doing homework right now??????????????????? And maybe you can help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been given an assignment to find a thing to learn and then go and learn it in, like, a week………………"

She grinned at Astrid.

"I haven't, like, yet decided if I want to pick something ridiculous or something serious?????????????????"

Well, Astrid had her coffee now, so she figured she might as well pull out a chair and join Nina.

"I feel like, at this school, ridiculous is almost a requirement," she noted, a bit ruefully, but with an attempt at a smile, though that was short-lived, replaced by a faint frown. "Just find a thing to learn? That's so...vague."

It would drive her crazy.

It almost seemed like everything about Astrid was faint, truly, even her blonde hair being a paler, milder blonde than Nina's.

"Just find a thing to learn," she confirmed. "Which, like, is just as vague as it sounds????????????? It's given me so many ways to go that I haven't decided which to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the fact that there's only a week to learn it…………"

Well. That just wasn't much time.

Edited 2020-01-22 18:43 (UTC)

"I can't imagine anyone expects you to be an expert in just one week," said Astrid, who would very likely take that statement back if she knew whose class this was actually for. But, for now, she just tilted her head curiously. "What have you thought of so far?"

"I haven't so much settled upon any ideas just yet," Nina admitted, with a slight shrug. "Like, my default is 'well, okay, I'll go learn a new language' and in a week that's not going to work…………."

She considered that.

"Maybe, like, I could learn to drive??????????????"

She'd put it off, since Vette had been the driver out of the two of them.

"But I'm not sure who drives around here............."

Except for Bus Dean.

"I actually took classes and got my driver's licence a few months ago," Astrid offered, "but I don't know how helpful I could be with that, I didn't really get a chance to actually use it much."

But that did remind her that, now that she was back, she was wondering if she could technically use it to drink at the club on the island, since technically, her licence said she was old enough to drink there.

"Plus, we'd need a car."

Technically, her licence said she was old enough to rent one, too, though...

"We could steal the bus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Because that was Nina's default vehicle for everything.

"But ohmygosh, really????????????????? You'd be willing to teach me?!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Astrid blinked at Nina a little, because she was still on the technicalities of potentially renting a car legally and it was a bit of a jump from that to stealing a bus quite illegally.

And she already had a record on this island.

"I could...try?" she ventured, sounding incredibly doubtful and unsure about it and if she'd just inadvertantly gotten herself into something she might regret, but, at the same time, she felt absolutely no pull to really object to it, either, beyond pointing out the glaring issues in this plan.

"I mean, I don't know if I'd be very good at it, and driving a bus is probably a lot different than a car or a van..."

Well, a few of the glaring issues, anyway.

"I mean, like, Bus Dean feels incomplete at this point if I don't do things with the bus every now and then," she reasoned. "And he'll think he's in the clear now that the new semester has started………. and we'd bring it back………….."

Though Nina was willing to concede that, like, maybe Astrid wouldn't be quite so willing to risk the Wrath of Bus Dean.

(Who was secretly a softie and Nina adored him.)

"But, if you're not up for that," she said, "what about we do a test run in the Holoscene??????????????? That way if we crash, like, it's just virtual crashing????????????"

Astrid's concerns were far less on risking the wrath of anyone and more along the lines of the fact that buses were very large and intimidating and possibly likely to careen easily off causeways when they tried to potentially go out on some actual roads.

Part of her would have almost liked to get caught, because then maybe they'd have no choice but to kick her out and send her back home.

She leaned forward a little, with a newfound determination, a spark of her self-destruction igniting. "The Holoscene? That's like the Danger Shop at the school, but here in town, right? I think that'd be a good idea, a test run before we try the actual thing. Because you have to at least try the real thing, it's just not the same in in a simulation, I'd guess."

Astrid really had no idea how punishments here worked, did she?

"It totally is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mae runs it and I'm sure she'd be cool with us using it for something like this??????????????? She's pretty easy going!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Nina giggled.

"And, like, I don't think Detective Diaz would think simulation was the real thing either," Nina said, nodding. "So she'd super judge me if I didn't do it for real too…………. "

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The Perk, Wednesday Afternoon

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