fandomtownies | Parents Weekend Meet & Greet, Friday

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Parents Weekend Meet & Greet, Friday

It was nice for an October Friday, wasn't it? The leaves were falling artfully, and there was a slight chill, but it wasn't so cold that it would leave anyone shivering. And if, for some reason, they were, well-- the hot apple cider stand near the edge of the Park would probably help.

There was a merry banner in Fandom's colors floating above the picnic tables, reading--

PARENTS WEEKEND 2024! WELCOME!

-- and a squirrel band was playing interpretations of modern pop songs on very small squirrel instruments under one of the trees.

Welcome, parents and other friends and family.

[[ ocd up! you're all good to go with your apps ]]

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Lydia dragged over two other young ladies, with Wickham trailing a few steps behind like a bodyguard. A bodyguard who was distracted by trying to get a good look at Adrian's mom's ass.

"Arden! Arden, you must meet my sisters!" For Regency definitions of sister, in one case. "This is Mrs. Catherine Denny, and Miss Georgiana Darcy." In turn, each of the two ladies in question bobbed a curtsey. "Kitty, Georgiana, this is my dear friend Miss Arden Finch." A beat. "And that's Wickham, of course."

Wickham smiled, apparently amused by this mode of introduction. "Hello. Most pleased to meet you, I'm sure."

Arden suddenly felt very underdressed in her tanktop and cutoffs. Not in the least because she suddenly realized that it was October and therefore fall and she needed to pretend to be colder. But also because there were now these very elegant women - and Wickham - and she looked like a ragamuffin.

Neat.

"A pleasure to meet all of you," she said, having no fucking clue how to curtsy in pants. She ended up doing a kind of weird little bow instead and just hoped for the best. "Please, if you don't mind too, um terribly, I would love it if you would call me Arden. Just, Lydia talks about you so much that it's hard to believe this is only our first time meeting. I don't want to be forward, but..." She offered them a smile that hopefully made up for some of her unbelievable awkwardness thus far. "You make Lydia so happy that I just wanna be friends with you, too. And skip over all those awkward bits--" too late "--where we talk about the weather and stuff nobody really cares about."

It was a good thing Lydia had seen fit to forewarn them about the local mode of dress, that was all the narrative was going to say about that, other than to note that Georgiana was working very hard on not being scandalized by Lydia's ankles.

"Oh, please, then you must call me Catherine," Kitty said, and at Lydia's startled look, explained, "I'm trying it out."

"And me Georgiana," Georgiana said. "Lydia's told us so much about you in her letters!" Including her concerns about Arden's association with the nefarious Mr. Kestis.

Well, it was fine, that association wasn't long for this world anyway - quite literally, in fact. Cal's family had somehow managed to find him and showed up for the weekend, so of course he was going home with them. It had always just been a matter of time, really.

She'd just somehow thought there would be more of it.

"I hope mostly good," Arden said, her laugh amused and not at all nervous, why? Though the glance she gave Lydia with pure fondness. "I just you all to know that she's found good friends - real friends - here, too."

And, like, none of them had tried to murder her, even one time.

"We're ever so pleased to hear it," Georgiana told her. "Lydia is ever so capable and clever," and never mind why Lydia sounded like she was choking on something at that declaration, "but I can't imagine setting off by myself to such a far-flung place as the future!"

Wild how Arden hadn't gotten anybody in this conversation turned into an owl, either.

It was like a really low bar that ALL friends should be able to claim! And if you couldn't, maybe you shouldn't get counted as a friend.

Wild notion, of course.

"She is," Arden agreed, with all seeming genuine agreement. "And from what Lydia has told me, both of you would find your footing quite easily," she assured them both. "She assures me that you're absolutely brilliant," she told Georgina. "You'd thrive on all there is to see and learn and know. And you, Catherine..." She paused, trying to figure out how to put this. "Even these days, it can be really easy to make yourself smaller for other people's appreciation. And from everything Lydia's said, you don't. I think you'd get through the future on sheer--" That was so not a word she could say. And neither were the next few her brain supplied in its stead. "--refusal to do anything but succeed. While looking at everyone else and saying, 'What, like it's hard?'"

"Lydia's been very generous, I see," Georgiana said, at the same time as Kitty said,

"It's all right, you can just say that I'm a cat." ("Kitty," Lydia hissed at her.) "I'm very curious to know what she's said about Wickham."

"Oh, no," Georgiana said, "I don't think we need to--get into that..."

Meanwhile, Wickham was standing there looking amused.

Edited 2024-10-05 01:02 (UTC)

"We really don't need to get into all of that," Lydia said with a shake of her head at Arden, followed by a winning smile at Wickham, who in his turn was certainly not giving that chap with the stunningly green eyes an appreciative once-over, no, really, he swore.

This was just going splendidly.

Arden turned to answer and actually got her first real look at Wickham.

"Sir, you are a whole grownass man," she said.

Weird how that didn't sound like a compliment.

"That's certainly one way of putting it," Kitty muttered.

"Were you expecting another cat?" Wickham asked, ignoring his predecessor/sister-in-law there. "I must regret to disappoint."

"Nah, I was just not expecting next season's 'To Catch A Predator' guest star," Arden drawled, crossing her arms over her chest.

Wickham looked to Lydia in hopes of some sort of modern-to-Regency translation service, but she looked as confused as he...for a moment, before she realized she must have told Arden that Wickham was a demon at some point.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "No! Arden, Wickham isn't that sort of demon."

"I did win George Wickham's soul in a card game," Wickham felt obligated to point out in defense of his own dangerous nature, and Georgiana could be heard to mutter something about how it must have been penny-ante.

Okay, so Arden could continue to pursue this, but nobody else seemed to realize that this was some fundamentalist cult shit, and she'd just end up coming across as rude in front of Lydia and her friends. Make them mad. Embarrass Lydia. Possibly make Lydia displaces some of her rightful Harriet fury onto Arden herself.

...Or she could stay quiet, go with the flow, make everyone happy, and hate herself a little bit.

The choice was easy, honestly. It was the same one she'd been making for years. "Ohhhhh," she said, trying to make herself relax. "Wires crossed. Trying to keep all the rules in different universes straight. But if you say he's cool, he's cool." She smiled at Wickham. It was more like a baring of teeth.

Work in progress.

That was probably a good decision, even if Arden's reasoning was dead wrong, because it was one of those Lydia things that was really a lot more complicated than it looked on the surface, and that was before you even got to things like 'everybody thinks we're married,' and then Kitty and Georgiana would start putting their two cents in, and they'd be here all day.

Lydia would clear things up later, she resolved, aware even as she thought it that she would totally leave a ton of stuff out, and said, "I was going to take Kitty and Georgiana shopping tomorrow, although the cosmetics and bathwares shop is dreadfully understocked now, and I thought perhaps you might like to join us?"

Things Arden had no right taking Lydia to task for: leaving a ton of stuff out.

"Sure!" she said with a grin, shoving thoughts of Wickham out of her head. "I promised I'd be having dinner with the Khans, but if we go in the afternoon, we should have plenty to hit up the stores in town. Oh, and the Spirit Halloween outlet is back in the woods, if we wanted to check that out, too."

"Spirit Halloween?" Lydia echoed, but Georgiana burst out excitedly,

"Oh! I've heard of Halloween! It's an Irish custom, to keep the ghosts away. Although of course there's...I was going to say there's no such thing as ghosts," she admitted, chuckling ruefully, "but that might be premature."

"Only of dragons," Kitty put in, helping, like a helper.

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