Cyberlad
Half Pint
Ezekiel
PatientBean
Mao Mao
Retired
Qia
Festive
mickilennial
AndyC| A child playing with a toy car on the carpet. "Pack your gear, kiddo. We up sticks in five to ten minutes." - - - - A middle primary boy is working on mathematics. He hears a tapping. He looks up, and then turns and looks out the window. "Pack your gear, kiddo. Up sticks in five to ten." The man whispers hoarsely from outside. | - - - - An older boy eats his lunch out in a school playground. "Pack it up, kiddo. We up sticks in five to ten." - - - - - - - - A young high schooler is hammering down the final pegs to hold down the ropes to the outer rain-cover on a tent. The sun is rapidly sinking into the horizon, casting the sky a rich red. A well dressed man approaches from that horizon. "You have got to be fucking joking!" "Sorry kiddo, pack your shit. I've already got your foot locker from the campus in the car. We-- hey, literally this time--" The man said, pointing at the tent. "--Up sticks in five to ten." "This isn't even my fucking tent! It's the school's! And it's shared!" He called back to the man who had already walked off in the direction of the group and the designated faculty member to inform them he'd be removing the child. "Even better. Won't take you as long to pack your shit..." The Butler dryly said back over his shoulder. |
"Not speaking to me, huh?"
Sullen silence radiated as the boy threw his pack in the back seat, before climbing in the front with the sourest of demeanours.
"I get it. It sucks. You know it's not exactly how I want to be living my life either, you know that right?"
More silent venom infected the atmosphere.
"Alright, tell you what. If you talk to me, you can pick what's on the radio."
"Gee thanks. We're miles from fucking anywhere. It's AM only out here." Banjo closed his eyes and clenched his fist in a wince, immediately regretted his reply.
"Heeeeey! There he is!" The Butler ruffled his hair roughly. "And for what it's worth. We're about to come up to Ararat in five or ten minutes, so there should be transmission. If we're lucky it should hold all the way to the next, which is some way off, so the gesture's not f'r nothing, y'know."
Banjo withdrew bitterly, still pissed that he cracked so easily.
"Ahhh cheer up, Bug-a-lugs. It may never happen." The older man said as he flicked the radio over to the FM band. Already faint transmission was coming in. "Wha'd I say, eh?"
The boy started adjusting the radio frequency, looking to find something strong enough for the radio to take a hold of.
It suddenly clicked into some 80s rock band.
"Heeeey! The Church! A classic! Looks like you're a natural, kid.
" # --it leads you here! Despite your destination... Under the Milky Way tonight. # "
The boy looked at the older man, singing along off key, but spiritedly. He stuck his tongue deep in his cheek, deeply in contemplation.
" # --Wish I knew what-- # What..? Aww, c'mon maaaate, don't be that prick!"
The boy twisted the dial and jumped the frequency forward, as the older man took one hand off the wheel to suddenly reach for it, but it was already gone.
"Oh you little bastard!"
Already the frequency had found a new destination, this time replacing The Church with literal church music. Some regional choir or other belting out a hymnal over the airwaves.
The older man looked at the younger.
"You can't really be telling me you're enjoying this more."
The younger looked back at the older, then started to bob his head out of rhythm to the music, as if dancing to chords that couldn't be heard.
"You'd really go mutual destruction over this..?" He looked at him again and saw the grin of utter determination creasing the younger one's face. "Of course you bloody would. Maaaate, c'mon now!" He said, once again extending a 'mate' over multiple syllables.
"Where are we going this time?"
The older man considered whether he should tell him. Why not? They were going there anyway, he'd find out soon enough.
"This time? Scotch College. In Melbourne."
"Why do we keep doing this?"
"Mate, you know I can't tell you that. If I could, I would have by now."
The younger didn't want to hear it. He turned away and looked out the window, at the brown sunburnt grass, and odd eucalypt whizzing past, as the car kept it's hundred plus kilometre pace tearing down the Western Highway. The Western Highway which a bunch of dickheads in suits had long tried to convince people they should be calling the A8, in an endeavour to knock all soul and spirit out of everything by reducing all highways and freeways in the country to a letter-number code. As they whizzed onwards Banjo could see some farmer was burning off the front paddock on his property, getting ready for a hot summer.
"There'll be a time I can tell you, and believe me, on that day, I'll spill my guts and come clean with you about a lot. And happily, mind you. Be a Hell of a relief off MY back, I can tell you. But for now, I can't. You've just gotta trust me on that."
"Now can you change the bloody station, I feel like I just broke under enhanced interrogation. Five more minutes and you should pass the bloody threshold for being reported to the Hague!"
The boy jumped the frequency forward again, until it settled on an older station playing music from the 60s and 70s. He was about to jump it forwards again when...
"What have you got, magic bloody Aussie pub jukebox fingers or something?! I was wrong before, you're not a natural. You're super-bloody-natural!" As the older man started slapping the steering wheel to the song.
He let it play.
Location: Pacific Royal Collegiate & University - Dundas Islands, Pacific Ocean
The Homecoming Trials: # 1.31 Up Sticks In Five to Ten
Interaction(s): Cassander - @Lord Wraith, Luce - @Roman, Calliope - @PatientBean
Previously: Dickheads, Defectives and the Dilettante Dernier cri
Banjo had somehow managed to have snuck in unseen through the back entrance of the Intake House. He raced into his room and threw the rest of his P.E. uniform on over his speedos. He'd thank God for small miracles except what he could hear made it clear it was no miracle at all. Commotion from the front of the house. Little wonder he could sneak back in through the back unnoticed. They were all waiting for their rides to the Plateau out the front and it sounded like they were boarding now!
He scrambled out of the intake house, before catching himself, doing a tidy pirouette to re-balance himself, and slowing his pace to a walk.
"--noficially he's still as much a member of Blackjack as any of y'all."
Oh, he threw a y'all in there. How charmingly folksy. Hasn't hit his quota yet. But Banjo uncharactheristically kept this thought to himself, holding 'the Butler's' message about this situation being more permanent still in his mind and not doubling down on putting a target on his back for being late.
He quietly snuck in behind Blonde Sparky McGee and some blonde bird whose name escapes him because he didn't previously give a shit when people were doing initial introductions. Banjo was pretty sure the other guy's name wasn't Blonde Sparky McGee either, he was pretty sure that would have actually stuck if it was the case.
"Who's that guy?" He whispered to him.
No response. Is he hard of hearing too? Maybe the side effect of his powers. Chronic tinnitus. Made a sort of sense. He'd whisper louder.
"Who's that guy?"
"Shut. Up."
Well, that was less than polite... He was only asking a straightforward question.
"Who's that guy?"
Sparky McGee's teeth gritted so hard his face might spark up if his hands wouldn't first. To his right, Banjo could see one of his hands glowing. Geez, is this bloke really this tightly wound?
"Should have been here on time." he spat in a hushed tone through gritted teeth.
Banjo looked at him screwfaced. "The Hell'd I do to this guy?" He racked his brain. And whilst he did he wasn't ready for the answer to his question to come from the blonde bird next to him.
"Tad."
Banjo snorted. Loudly. And couldn't keep the laughter off his face after either. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes.
Big Country with his "Y'all"s glared at Banjo menacingly.
"Look what the Chancellor dragged in."
"And who's this Highway Patrol reject, while we're at it?" Which to Banjo's surprise he managed to keep to internal monologue.
"Team, this mountain of a man is Aaron Matthews, the faculty representative for your fellow new students of Team 18.”
And then a redhead alighted from one of the two vehicles. Presumably from one of the vehicles, because he couldn't see Aphrodite's clamshell anywhere. "Good Lord, do they not let in anything under an 'eight' here." He thought to himself.
Then he looked down the line at Trace. "Well... maybe they grade 'em a 'one' for each arm." Tuck that little comeback away for later... Let's face it, there will be a later.
“And this spitfire here, is Team 18’s student advisor, Ryan Clarke,” Introduced Good ol' Jim-Bob, minus the Bob. ...Regardless how well the Bob fits.
“These ones have the look of winners,” The Redheaded Ryan pronounced, declaring her opinion that Abercrombie and Fitch models are "winners".
“Yours, eh, I wouldn’t go all in just yet, Jim.”
Wait, Abercrombie and Fitch..? Banjo looked down their own line at the two "football friends" from earlier, Sparky McGee... he wasn't exactly chopped liver himself. Calliope looked like she belonged either on a catwalk somewhere or on the business end of a camera - TV or film, take your pick...
He chuckled to himself in realisation that this transparent display was just meant to spark competition...
...until he looked down the line and saw that those same "football friends" had taken that hook, the sinker, the float, the rod and half the damn boat. Goddamn. Were they REALLY this easy to manipulate?
Then she ruffled. Heh. Tad. --'s hair. “So cute.” she uttered in a demeaning way.
"No, little Banjo. She's bad for you. Stop it. You should not want that."
"Exactly, you should not. But you do. Because you are broken. And therefore clearly in need of 'Guidance'."
"No little Banjo. Bad little Banjo. You go away and think about this-- Wait, no... Don't you think about this later. I'm onto you, little Banjo..."
Ok... So yes. They really were that easy to manipulate.
“All students assigned to Team 18, you’re in the vehicle marked with an Eclipse, anyone not assigned to Team 18 can find their ride 'cause you’re not with me.” The 'super trooper' called them to fall in, and a bunch of equally hapless youths to Banjo's Blackjack Bunch bundled into their own buses and buggered off. Apparently taking their furry friend to go get flead, de-wormed and his claws clipped.
A bunch more artificial jibes, transparently designed to drum up competition, and it was their turn to get in their six wheelers and head off to the next pre-planned act of lunacy.
Banjo jumped in the back of Jim-Bob's truck before the seats were even taken - Just as he could only be a Jim-Bob (-Bob pending), the fact he WAS a Jim-Bob made it a truck. A Jim-Bob could only drive a truck - and everyone else piled in where they could. Soon enough they were off!
Banjo was bouncing around in the back, laughing his arse off at the stereotypical nature of their tour guide, his drawl, his choice of phrase and general mannerisms. Oblivious to the occasional side-eye and quizzical expression from the others his obnoxious cackling was bringing. Every aspect of this place was seemingly ridiculous to him, and his laughter even occasionally spilled into the cabin and into the background of Jim's commentary over the radio.
Until they hit the artificial cliff faces of the Southern Plateau known as the Howling Cliffs, where ironically Banjo's howls of laughter fell silent. Not because it wasn't still ridiculous to him, but rather because it was too far all over again. Back home if a Hyperhuman deigned to grace the public with such an aweinspiring display of power they'd be stuffed in a white room and stripped for parts. Probably. Banjo was never game to find out. Every time he'd used his own he'd made sure to do it in absolute privacy. And they'd always been on the run. Presumably because they'd get found out somehow and have to scarper. Purely speculation, but it made as much sense as anything.
Now he saw an entire hyperhuman-made landscape that factored in nature's acoustics in its design. It beggared belief.
Jim-Bob's truck and *Snort* Tad's car, pulled up and everyone jumped out.
Jim-Bob called to order the first business at hand. Setting up camp. Two people to a tent. No exceptions. Which didn't seem promising. Banjo thought he might be hard up to find someone who didn't seem vaguely bothered by his presence in one way or another. Maybe if he got in quick with one of the "football friends", those two seemed incredibly eager to know anybody. Nah. That's a bit dickish. Those two actually seem to get on, I'll just grab a tent, get to work and let some straggler come to me. That seemed-- "Hup... I'm getting glared at. What did I do now? Oh. Jim-Bob must have heard me laughing in the back on the way over here. I wasn't THAT loud on the way over here, was I?"
He was. Other campsites had turned to see what the commotion was at their arrival. From quite some distance away as well...
“In any capacity, while you lot do that, Tad here will get the fire going and rassle us up some grub, If ya don’t eat meat, now’s your time to speak up and Tad will get you the proper vittles, otherwise, I think we have something y’all are going to enjoy.” He Lifted his hat and smoothed his hair back before replacing the Stetson atop his head, because of course he did.
The "rassle" got another snort, and he couldn't hold back a chuckle anymore when the "vittles" sprang forth. He felt the eyes hold on him for a fraction of a beat, as they swept across all in attendance. Banjo took a deep breath and made a brief note of what was required, just to distract himself and recover his form.
"So, just... tent. Food's taken care of. Set a tent up and you're golden. Simple. Piece a piss."
“This year’s homecoming trial is centred around the massive hedge maze you see growing over yonder. Startin’ tomorrow, we’ll be sending you into the hedge and as a team, you’ll need to work together to navigate it, while also overcoming anything you encounter inside. While I can’t get into specifics with y’all, I can forewarn you that these obstacles can be anything as simple as a riddle to a trap riddle corridor to even a physical confrontation.”
"Well, shit..."
Banjo actually had a legitimate question for the matter at hand. But he could tell he'd made the man not particularly receptive to giving him an answer or... well, anything at this point. He doubted Jim-Bob would piss on him if he fell in the campfire at this point, that'd go double for Trace, and for some reason that blonde Sparky McGee kid who seemed to have his own issues with him for some reason.
Ehh... plenty of time. It's not until tomorrow. Maybe he could ferret it out of someone else, or somewhere else.
He was struggling to understand how the whole thing worked. It seemed to be at cross-purposes. They were... supposedly somehow competing with other teams... but the ultimate purpose seemed to be to divide the team into set 'houses' based on how they handled themselves. But in some way that wasn't directly related to overall aptitude. But it was a tough thing to ask even if he hadn't already pissed anyone off. This place seemed 'hyper' with the school spirit and just pointing out that it seemed cross-purposes could probably come across as if he was slagging it off. And asked from him? Only moreso. Like, was this even a thing that a set team 'won' or was it one of those 'how the game's played' things?
Then came the real horror story...
“For tonight though, y’all should try and bond as a team. Throw the old pigskin around, sing kumbaya, play truth or dare, I don’t really care so long as you actually learn about one another. Another good idea, go over your Hyper Abilities, learn your deck before you play it. Now’s the time to reveal any hidden talents.”
Team bonding and socialisation activities. Normally he wouldn't give a shit, but since his little chat with The Butler it had underlined the fact that he was going to be stuck with these people. For some time. And he hadn't exactly put up a good batting display so far. A dicey fifteen or twenty runs whilst being dropped a couple times at best. He had this horrible foreign sensation others called 'anxiety', which he was completely unfamiliar with because he usually just neglected to give a pinch of shit. He began to resent the Butler for telling him, before deciding to deal with his problems the healthy way he usually did.
By forgetting them entirely and distracting himself with something else.
He strode towards the tents with a single minded determination, before being intercepted.
"Hey, name's Calliope. I don't suppose you would be up to sharing a tent tonight?"
"Yup. Sure. All good. Just grabbing one now, if you want to find us a spot to ere-- put the thing up." He grabbed a tent and followed the slender blonde girl... to wherever on earth she planned on going, honestly.
"..."
"Hey..?"
"..."
"Hey, little Banjo--?"
"Look, just... Don't-- talk to me for a little while, mate... Just let me make sure this is all reality..."
Once Calliope had come to a stop, he swung the tent down off his back and proferred a suggestion.
"So how'd you come to this Looney Tunes Funland? Tell me 'bout yourself and I'll set this thing up. Had to do it enough back home. And it's always easier going with a distraction, where I'm not thinking too hard about the work at hand. Oh... ah... 'Banjo' if it wasn't already known." He popped his head up over the tent bag and turned to give her a grin, when it finally dawned on him to give his name in case she hadn't heard it.
"Also, truth be told, if we go through some of that here and now, we won't have to figure it all out in the 'team bonding' session they seem to have planned. Not... *huff* exactly looking forward to that." As he hauled the groundsheet and poles out of the bag.
He scrambled out of the intake house, before catching himself, doing a tidy pirouette to re-balance himself, and slowing his pace to a walk.
"--noficially he's still as much a member of Blackjack as any of y'all."
Oh, he threw a y'all in there. How charmingly folksy. Hasn't hit his quota yet. But Banjo uncharactheristically kept this thought to himself, holding 'the Butler's' message about this situation being more permanent still in his mind and not doubling down on putting a target on his back for being late.
He quietly snuck in behind Blonde Sparky McGee and some blonde bird whose name escapes him because he didn't previously give a shit when people were doing initial introductions. Banjo was pretty sure the other guy's name wasn't Blonde Sparky McGee either, he was pretty sure that would have actually stuck if it was the case.
"Who's that guy?" He whispered to him.
No response. Is he hard of hearing too? Maybe the side effect of his powers. Chronic tinnitus. Made a sort of sense. He'd whisper louder.
"Who's that guy?"
"Shut. Up."
Well, that was less than polite... He was only asking a straightforward question.
"Who's that guy?"
Sparky McGee's teeth gritted so hard his face might spark up if his hands wouldn't first. To his right, Banjo could see one of his hands glowing. Geez, is this bloke really this tightly wound?
"Should have been here on time." he spat in a hushed tone through gritted teeth.
Banjo looked at him screwfaced. "The Hell'd I do to this guy?" He racked his brain. And whilst he did he wasn't ready for the answer to his question to come from the blonde bird next to him.
"Tad."
Banjo snorted. Loudly. And couldn't keep the laughter off his face after either. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes.
Big Country with his "Y'all"s glared at Banjo menacingly.
"Look what the Chancellor dragged in."
"And who's this Highway Patrol reject, while we're at it?" Which to Banjo's surprise he managed to keep to internal monologue.
"Team, this mountain of a man is Aaron Matthews, the faculty representative for your fellow new students of Team 18.”
And then a redhead alighted from one of the two vehicles. Presumably from one of the vehicles, because he couldn't see Aphrodite's clamshell anywhere. "Good Lord, do they not let in anything under an 'eight' here." He thought to himself.
Then he looked down the line at Trace. "Well... maybe they grade 'em a 'one' for each arm." Tuck that little comeback away for later... Let's face it, there will be a later.
“And this spitfire here, is Team 18’s student advisor, Ryan Clarke,” Introduced Good ol' Jim-Bob, minus the Bob. ...Regardless how well the Bob fits.
“These ones have the look of winners,” The Redheaded Ryan pronounced, declaring her opinion that Abercrombie and Fitch models are "winners".
“Yours, eh, I wouldn’t go all in just yet, Jim.”
Wait, Abercrombie and Fitch..? Banjo looked down their own line at the two "football friends" from earlier, Sparky McGee... he wasn't exactly chopped liver himself. Calliope looked like she belonged either on a catwalk somewhere or on the business end of a camera - TV or film, take your pick...
He chuckled to himself in realisation that this transparent display was just meant to spark competition...
...until he looked down the line and saw that those same "football friends" had taken that hook, the sinker, the float, the rod and half the damn boat. Goddamn. Were they REALLY this easy to manipulate?
Then she ruffled. Heh. Tad. --'s hair. “So cute.” she uttered in a demeaning way.
"No, little Banjo. She's bad for you. Stop it. You should not want that."
"Exactly, you should not. But you do. Because you are broken. And therefore clearly in need of 'Guidance'."
"No little Banjo. Bad little Banjo. You go away and think about this-- Wait, no... Don't you think about this later. I'm onto you, little Banjo..."
Ok... So yes. They really were that easy to manipulate.
“All students assigned to Team 18, you’re in the vehicle marked with an Eclipse, anyone not assigned to Team 18 can find their ride 'cause you’re not with me.” The 'super trooper' called them to fall in, and a bunch of equally hapless youths to Banjo's Blackjack Bunch bundled into their own buses and buggered off. Apparently taking their furry friend to go get flead, de-wormed and his claws clipped.
A bunch more artificial jibes, transparently designed to drum up competition, and it was their turn to get in their six wheelers and head off to the next pre-planned act of lunacy.
Banjo jumped in the back of Jim-Bob's truck before the seats were even taken - Just as he could only be a Jim-Bob (-Bob pending), the fact he WAS a Jim-Bob made it a truck. A Jim-Bob could only drive a truck - and everyone else piled in where they could. Soon enough they were off!
Banjo was bouncing around in the back, laughing his arse off at the stereotypical nature of their tour guide, his drawl, his choice of phrase and general mannerisms. Oblivious to the occasional side-eye and quizzical expression from the others his obnoxious cackling was bringing. Every aspect of this place was seemingly ridiculous to him, and his laughter even occasionally spilled into the cabin and into the background of Jim's commentary over the radio.
Until they hit the artificial cliff faces of the Southern Plateau known as the Howling Cliffs, where ironically Banjo's howls of laughter fell silent. Not because it wasn't still ridiculous to him, but rather because it was too far all over again. Back home if a Hyperhuman deigned to grace the public with such an aweinspiring display of power they'd be stuffed in a white room and stripped for parts. Probably. Banjo was never game to find out. Every time he'd used his own he'd made sure to do it in absolute privacy. And they'd always been on the run. Presumably because they'd get found out somehow and have to scarper. Purely speculation, but it made as much sense as anything.
Now he saw an entire hyperhuman-made landscape that factored in nature's acoustics in its design. It beggared belief.
Jim-Bob's truck and *Snort* Tad's car, pulled up and everyone jumped out.
Jim-Bob called to order the first business at hand. Setting up camp. Two people to a tent. No exceptions. Which didn't seem promising. Banjo thought he might be hard up to find someone who didn't seem vaguely bothered by his presence in one way or another. Maybe if he got in quick with one of the "football friends", those two seemed incredibly eager to know anybody. Nah. That's a bit dickish. Those two actually seem to get on, I'll just grab a tent, get to work and let some straggler come to me. That seemed-- "Hup... I'm getting glared at. What did I do now? Oh. Jim-Bob must have heard me laughing in the back on the way over here. I wasn't THAT loud on the way over here, was I?"
He was. Other campsites had turned to see what the commotion was at their arrival. From quite some distance away as well...
“In any capacity, while you lot do that, Tad here will get the fire going and rassle us up some grub, If ya don’t eat meat, now’s your time to speak up and Tad will get you the proper vittles, otherwise, I think we have something y’all are going to enjoy.” He Lifted his hat and smoothed his hair back before replacing the Stetson atop his head, because of course he did.
The "rassle" got another snort, and he couldn't hold back a chuckle anymore when the "vittles" sprang forth. He felt the eyes hold on him for a fraction of a beat, as they swept across all in attendance. Banjo took a deep breath and made a brief note of what was required, just to distract himself and recover his form.
"So, just... tent. Food's taken care of. Set a tent up and you're golden. Simple. Piece a piss."
“This year’s homecoming trial is centred around the massive hedge maze you see growing over yonder. Startin’ tomorrow, we’ll be sending you into the hedge and as a team, you’ll need to work together to navigate it, while also overcoming anything you encounter inside. While I can’t get into specifics with y’all, I can forewarn you that these obstacles can be anything as simple as a riddle to a trap riddle corridor to even a physical confrontation.”
"Well, shit..."
Banjo actually had a legitimate question for the matter at hand. But he could tell he'd made the man not particularly receptive to giving him an answer or... well, anything at this point. He doubted Jim-Bob would piss on him if he fell in the campfire at this point, that'd go double for Trace, and for some reason that blonde Sparky McGee kid who seemed to have his own issues with him for some reason.
Ehh... plenty of time. It's not until tomorrow. Maybe he could ferret it out of someone else, or somewhere else.
He was struggling to understand how the whole thing worked. It seemed to be at cross-purposes. They were... supposedly somehow competing with other teams... but the ultimate purpose seemed to be to divide the team into set 'houses' based on how they handled themselves. But in some way that wasn't directly related to overall aptitude. But it was a tough thing to ask even if he hadn't already pissed anyone off. This place seemed 'hyper' with the school spirit and just pointing out that it seemed cross-purposes could probably come across as if he was slagging it off. And asked from him? Only moreso. Like, was this even a thing that a set team 'won' or was it one of those 'how the game's played' things?
Then came the real horror story...
“For tonight though, y’all should try and bond as a team. Throw the old pigskin around, sing kumbaya, play truth or dare, I don’t really care so long as you actually learn about one another. Another good idea, go over your Hyper Abilities, learn your deck before you play it. Now’s the time to reveal any hidden talents.”
Team bonding and socialisation activities. Normally he wouldn't give a shit, but since his little chat with The Butler it had underlined the fact that he was going to be stuck with these people. For some time. And he hadn't exactly put up a good batting display so far. A dicey fifteen or twenty runs whilst being dropped a couple times at best. He had this horrible foreign sensation others called 'anxiety', which he was completely unfamiliar with because he usually just neglected to give a pinch of shit. He began to resent the Butler for telling him, before deciding to deal with his problems the healthy way he usually did.
By forgetting them entirely and distracting himself with something else.
He strode towards the tents with a single minded determination, before being intercepted.
"Hey, name's Calliope. I don't suppose you would be up to sharing a tent tonight?"
"Yup. Sure. All good. Just grabbing one now, if you want to find us a spot to ere-- put the thing up." He grabbed a tent and followed the slender blonde girl... to wherever on earth she planned on going, honestly.
"..."
"Hey..?"
"..."
"Hey, little Banjo--?"
"Look, just... Don't-- talk to me for a little while, mate... Just let me make sure this is all reality..."
Once Calliope had come to a stop, he swung the tent down off his back and proferred a suggestion.
"So how'd you come to this Looney Tunes Funland? Tell me 'bout yourself and I'll set this thing up. Had to do it enough back home. And it's always easier going with a distraction, where I'm not thinking too hard about the work at hand. Oh... ah... 'Banjo' if it wasn't already known." He popped his head up over the tent bag and turned to give her a grin, when it finally dawned on him to give his name in case she hadn't heard it.
"Also, truth be told, if we go through some of that here and now, we won't have to figure it all out in the 'team bonding' session they seem to have planned. Not... *huff* exactly looking forward to that." As he hauled the groundsheet and poles out of the bag.
- - -
