noteful | Birthday Party for Laura/X-23

Entry tags:

Birthday Party for Laura/X-23

It's a pretty low-key party, all things considered, and not significantly different than the one Parker or Meg would have thrown in a dorm room for a friend at home, not-exactly-traditional menu not withstanding.

There's music, low enough to talk over (and maybe with a little more folk in the mix than one expects to find a party). Balloons and streamers in purple and blue and red. A place to leave presents. People to meet or catch up with.

And, most importantly, a chance to wish X-23 (or Laura) a very happy birthday.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Evening!" Jamie says, suavely putting down his latest piece of garlic bread on the plate next to him.

"Are you one of the people organizing the party? Because if so, I meant to thank you. It's great of you to think of doing this for Laura."

"She's a very good friend," Meg says. "I'm glad we could do it."

Laura deserves a party.

"And, yes, I'm Meghan Ford. Meg."

Jamie grins.

"I'm awfully fond of her too. But we've been out for what must have been a while. We only just got found another door - with grand timing, it seems."

Jamie sticks out the hand that is not covered in garlic bread oil for shaking.

"Jamie Hamilton."

Meg shakes his hand, smile very bright.

"Perfect timing. I'm glad you could come, Jamie."

The smile edges slightly to mischevious, and she holds out the new garlic bread tray.

"These are still warm, if you'd like."

"Yes I would like," says Jamie, the wattage on his smile going up another notch, and snags a piece of bread out of the new tray.

Through a mouthful of food: "Dd oomk aths yrsf?"*

*Did you make all this yourself? in comprehensible speech.

Meg has spent enough time around teenaged boys recently (she's only 19, after all), to get the jist of that, at any rate.

"Bar made it," she says. "I just fetched it."

She sets the tray down next to the bowl of spaghetti and looks around the room.

"I'm not sure I could make enough food for this party."

There are some impressive eaters among Laura's circle of friends.

Jamie swallows, and says, more clearly, "I was going to compliment you on it, but I reckon I should save that for Bar. I appreciate the fetching, anyways."

He looks around also.

"So, do you know all these people? Because I don't know more than a quarter of them."

"I'm sure Bar would appreciate that," Meg says. "It is very good garlic bread."

She shakes her head.

"No, I really don't. I mean, I know some of them, and I've met people this evening, but I think the only acquaintance we all have in common is Laura.

"Parker and I just asked Bar to give the invitation to all Laura's friends.

"She has a lot of friends."

"It's a good thing, really," Jamie says, considering.

"I mean, in the world I come from they used to say it takes a village to raise a child - so how many people does it take to raise a full-grown former experiment?"

Meg blinks.

"I'm not sure I'd have put it quite that way," she says.

She wouldn't say that Laura needs raising.

"I mean, I think I kind of see your point, but . . ."

Jamie laughs.

"You're probably thinking 'raising' is rich coming from a boy my age, and I suppose you're not wrong," he says, good-natured.

"But what I mean is, well, learning about people. You need a lot of different examples for that to even get you any kind of idea."

"I was thinking more that raising isn't a word I'd apply to Laura, no matter how old the person using it is."

She smiles.

"And I think being exposed to new people and new ways of thinking about things . . . I guess I think we all need that, to learn about people.

"Laura is just starting from a place most of us don't."

Jamie grins, a little ruefully - he's got personal reasons for thinking that exposure to new places and new ways can go a little too far, sometimes; gbut he won't go into that now - and tilts his head.

"Well, she didn't get raised at all as a kid, did she? And most of us got at least a little of that - nearly every world I've been on, people take some kind of care to put something into the heads of their children that'll help them grow into people."

Meg thinks for a noticable moment before she answers.

Laura is, in Meg's opinion, an intelligent, capable person, who has her own home and job, and cares about her family and her friends.

"I guess it depends on what you mean by raised. It certainly doesn't sound like her childhood was what would be considered conventional by any stretch of the term for my world. But she certainly grew into a person."

And a remarkable one. With or without help.

"Have you been on very many worlds, then?"

"Of course she did. And one I'm awfully fond of, too. But you don't think anyone can do that without help, right?"

As far as Jamie is concerned, being completely alone sucks about the most of anything. And for the first half her life, as far as he understands it, that's what Laura was.

"Oh yes," he adds, offhand. "About a hundred, I reckon."

"I . . . I don't know. Probably not, no."

But she's still not going to get behind use of the word raising. Sorry, Jamie.

Meg's eyes widen.

"A hundred?"

"Around that. Give or take a few, I suppose. I haven't kept count."

Jamie says this with the elaborate carelessness of the show-off who knows that what he's saying is impressive, and suspects that it will come off as even more impressive if he doesn't acknowledge its impressiveness.

"That's . . . I don't know that I can get my brain around that being something I could lose count of," Meg says.

(And take notes on. And make lists of. And . . . the organization this is kinda innate, to Meg.)

Jamie shrugs, with a grin.

"You get used to it. Really. It helps that a good number of them aren't worth remembering."

Some, because they aren't much fun, and some because they're really dull.

"Is, um, is that normal, or 'typical' maybe is a better word, for where you're from? To travel that extensively?"

That gets a slightly rueful laugh.

"Not half. Most people - maybe everyone - in my Home, they'd think you were mad if you started talking to them about travelling worlds. I just got lucky."

'Lucky' is meant as a joke, but there's a bitter twist on the word he can't quite keep out of his voice.

"Most people in my world, too."

Meg would be one of them, in fact.

The twist isn't lost on Meg.

"I . . . "

She's not sure what the right question to ask here is.

"It sounds like your world's not so different from my Home," Jamie puts in helpfully, after a pause to let her finish her phrase, if she's going to.

"There's lots of people here that come from worlds like mine - while most of the worlds I've visited are quite different. If I said England, would you know where I meant?"

Meg nods. "Yes, I would. England, we had. And I'm from Canada.

"Is that like your Home world?"

"Very like." Jamie grins. "I'm from England - from a city you've never heard of, no one ever has. Though if you named a city in Canada I wouldn't have a clue, either, so I suppose it's even."

Birthday Party for Laura/X-23

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests

Re: Mingle with the other guests