Start of Something... Tedious [Party, Nineteen]

[Drake]

No sooner had Drake stepped into the pool room and noticed the large expanse of water than someone came up and said hi. "Yeah, I'm Drake," he replied as he raised a hand in greeting. "And you are going to be in my faction if I recall correctly." Drake squinted his eyes slightly as he tried to remember his name correctly. "The name is Alain, right?"

Drake tried to remember his morphs too, but that was harder. Some sort of dog. A crow too. Aaand... a meerkat like Diana had. There were a couple more too, but Drake couldn't remember them at the moment.

"So, what is there to do at this party?" he asked Alain, seeing as how he had arrived before Nineteen and himself. Drake pointed at Alain's drink. "I see they have some red stuff. It seems like they always have red stuff at parties." Drake had never been the best at conversing casually with strangers, and he was afraid it showed.

[Alain]

"Uh, yes yes" he said putting a hand on his chest, "and yes," he finished looking down at his cup. "Though I'll be honest, I'm not sure what it is. Generic party red stuff sounds about right," Alain said nodding and laughing a bit, relieved that his new faction leader had a sense of humor or at least didn't take himself too seriously. Alain didn't think he could take a mini Cassie as a leader. He probably would have defected.

"As for things to do, you can try the pool if you don't mind the fact that it's cold." Alain looked over at it. He was thinking of trying it out a little later but as an otter, not as himself. Even the otter wouldn't enjoy it for that long or so he'd been led to believe. He imagined the pool may get warmer with time but they had just finished it a couple of days ago.

"Or food," he said motioning to the table and the line, "or talk I guess," he said, motioning to the party in general.

[Nineteen]

Nineteen's eyebrows rose when Drake said something about red stuff always being at parties. She wondered what he was getting at, and it seemed like a change from the pretty competent sounding guy she'd been talking to in the hallway. Red stuff? What did that mean? Before she could ask, though, Alain was agreeing. Maybe they were both nuts.

She looked around both of them, over to the food tables. There was something of a line, but it was clear to see why: there was a big variety in the foods, and that was something you didn't come by much around here. "I'm voting food first. Then we can swim. Because that's not a terrible idea of anything," Nineteen added with a smirk. "Seriously though, let's eat. Never know if they'll run out of the good stuff." With that, she began walking towards the line.

[Drake]

"Sounds good to me," Drake agreed, then started heading toward the food table. He still had most of his pie left, so he wasn't as anxious to eat good treats as he was a week ago, but you could hardly turn down an assortment of snacks. Not without a good reason anyway.

As he passed the table on the way to the line he spotted lots of things he wouldn't mind nibbling on. There were pretzels, cashews, crackers, peanut butter, and of course, a big bowl of the red stuff. There were a few other things too, but none that seemed particularly appetizing to Drake just now.

"I am definitely going to miss the food they have here when we go," Drake commented as he stepped into the line. Then jokingly he said, "I just hope I don't get a cramp when I hop into the pool."

[Alain]

Alain followed them over to the food table, only glancing back at the party, searching the crowd for Suji. He stopped when he saw her stand up at a table by the pool. She wasn't looking at him and he wasn't sure if she'd seen him so he quickly turned away and continued to follow his new faction to the food table. Now that he'd actually seen her he wasn't sure how he wanted to handle the situation. A simple apology would probably work best but it always seemed so hard to start those things.

He got in line behind the others and picked a plate and started putting some food on it without really thinking about what he was taking. Which resulted in him getting something that was brown and gooey. It's consistency was somewhere between soup and jello and he couldn't tell if the chunks in it were meat or rice or vegetables or all three. "Hmmm," he said, looking down at it. "What do you think this is?" he asked out loud, not really expecting to get an answer back.

[Nineteen]

"Beats me," Nineteen said as she inspected the... texture-less blob on Alain's plate. She courageously scooped some on to her own plate. "There, we'll find out together." For the rest of the food, however, she picked things whose main ingredients she could reasonably approximate. Then she finished it off with a cup of fruit punch. Well, that Drake guy had been right. It was red.

When they all had their collected items, Nineteen glanced around the enormous pool room. "Where to? Watch the swimmers get hypothermia, or by the music? Then again, we could do both." Nineteen spotted Suji. The girl that had Alain worked in knots yesterday. She quickly licked her lips. "Or neither. We could do neither."

[Drake]

"I'm up for whatever. I haven't heard much in the way of good music lately, so I guess that is what has my attention right now."

Drake was about to head in the direction of the DJ stand when he noticed Suji walking around over near the pool. "Oh, hey, there's Suji. We used to be second in command together back in Dallas. I bet she would love to meet you guys. We should go say hello. I doubt we will get another chance any time soon."

He was going to switch direction, but then Suji jumped into the pool. "Er, I guess it could wait until after we eat. Looks like she's busy right now." Drake shrugged then continued on in the general direction of the DJ stand.

[Alain]

Alain smiled at Nineteen. It was a small gesture, taking the brown goo, but it hit a chord in him. It was one of the first times since leaving the free human town that he hadn't felt quite as alone. It was true that he and Nineteen had spent time together outside of class before this but always in the background of their interactions was the fact that she was his teacher and he was a student. They both knew the roles were temporary and that was what had kept them from getting in the way of social interaction too much, but they'd always been there. Now they weren't and he found he liked it better that way.

He turned towards the pool when she mentioned swimming just in time to see Dustin take a swan dive followed by Adrian's canon ball. Waiting below them in the water was Suji and his small frown was the only indication of his feelings. This was getting ridiculous. He really shouldn't be avoiding her. He'd messed up but it happened and he didn't think Suji would hold a grudge. He should just walk over and apologize and he almost did so except that it seemed it was unanimously decided to head over to the DJ. Besides, as he turned and walked with Drake and Nineteen, he realized that Suji was probably taking this time to get to know her new faction just as he was. He just resolved to find time later when there was more privacy and less duty.

"So, not to pry," he said, turning to Drake, "but a lot of rumors have been flying around about you and Suji and Aubrey the past few days. If you don't mind talking about it I'd love to hear your version of events. Not that Fin wasn't informative, I know he was there, but he seemed to have a flair for the dramatic."

[Nineteen]

Nineteen's eyes went from the girl in the water to Alain to Drake and then did the whole round over again. She hadn't really been introduced to her, and she wasn't exactly looking forward to it. Nineteen couldn't bring herself to really think badly about the chick just on the grounds that she'd had Alain tied up in knots. Alain wouldn't appreciate it, and wild rumors aside, it was clear that the girl was a good Animorph.

Just when Nineteen was bracing herself for whatever level of awkwardness would be involved in meeting Suji with Alain standing there, Drake took them over to the music instead. Taylor was over-confident (to say the least) about a lot of things; music, however, was a thing he had every right to brag about. They'd been standing there for a moment, and Nineteen had started chowing down, when Alain asked about their new faction leader's past. Her eyes moved though her head didn't, and she continued to chew.

She was definitely interested in the story, but it occurred to her that Drake had mentioned Suji meeting them. As in, both her and Alain. Which meant that Drake didn't know that Alain and Suji already knew each other. And Alain hadn't exactly disabused him of that notion. Quietly, Nineteen sipped at her fruit punch.

[Drake]

It was true, there were a lot of rumors going around. Drake hadn't heard most of them directly, but he had received the effects of them. And he knew not all of the rumors were true or accurate. There wasn't a lot he could do about it though. Not with the rumors so widespread already.

However, what interested Drake the most was the apparent source of the rumors. "Fin? As in Fin has-too-many-middle-names Larson? He is here? He's the one who has been telling people about me?"

That explained a lot. Drake hadn't seen Fin in what seemed like forever. He hadn't even known where the guy had gone when he left. He would definitely have to try and make some time to meet his old faction mate before he left.

"Yeah, well uh, whatever Fin told you I suppose I can try and help clarify it. Was there anything specific?" He looked between Nineteen and Adrian to see if either had anything in mind.

[Alain]

"Yeah, that guy. He's been talking about all of you really."

Alain didn't know what he wanted to hear about but he knew what he didn't want to hear about. He didn't think he could sit through another retelling of Dallas, especially the way Drake would probably tell it. It wouldn't sound like the fairy tale Fin had spun which had been a comfortable enough distance from the truth for Alain to stomach, and probably for Fin to stomach himself. Besides, if the topic of Dallas came up Alain didn't want to feel like he was lying, if only by omission. Then again, knowing Cassie, Drake probably had a case file on him already with that little fact buried in it somewhere. The thought of the arrogance of the woman still made his eyes burn.

"Well how do you know Suji?" he finally asked. They seemed like good friends if Drake wanted to introduce them and Alain didn't really know much about what Suji was like before she got to the free human camp. He found he wanted to hear about her from someone who knew her well, maybe hear about how she'd ended up at the camp in the first place.

Alain took a spoonful of his brown goo and found it wasn't that bad. He glanced at Nineteen to see her reaction to the food but glanced away again out of...was it embarrassment? Nineteen knew a bit about his relationship with Suji and Drake did not and he'd rather keep it that way. He'd never been the kiss-and-tell type and he didn't really see any reason to change that. But Nineteen would still know that he was fishing for information.

[Nineteen]

Nineteen was carefully refraining from saying much, though she did nod at the mention of Fin. He was a hard character to miss. And, well, she didn't really try to miss him, but that was besides the point. Alain looked at her, and then looked away guiltily after asking about Suji.

Yeah, she was just going to keep her mouth shut. Her luck she'd end up saying something that gave something away... not that she knew what was at stake here, really. So she just slurped down some of the goo-food. It was surprisingly sweet, but there was meat somewhere in there too. Like an oddly spiced stew. Not bad, really, but definitely weird.

[Drake]

Drake wrinkled his brow a bit. He wasn't sure how they had gone from Fin back to Suji, but it wasn't that big of a deal. Maybe Fin had made up some story about how he had met Suji, but it would definitely be made up. Fin wasn't there when Drake had met Suji for the first time.

"Lets see. It was back in Las Vegas where I met her. She rode into town on a really cool motorcycle so she could help us with a special project. Officially, I guess she wasn't part of our faction, but she might as well have been. Anyway, Suji helped us build the bombs that we used to blow up the Hoover Dam. We couldn't have done it without her."

Drake realized that the Hoover Dam incident might be a touchy subject for some, depending on the perspective they looked at it from, so he moved on right away. "Later she helped us rescue a bunch of kids in, I think it was Indonesia? After that we were both transfered to Dallas where, well, you know what happened there. We were both second in command to our faction leader there."

"So I guess I know her because we have gone through a lot together. I haven't seen much of her before the last couple days, but I consider her a good friend and ally. Someone I would trust my life to."

Drake casually took a sip from the drink he had in his hand. "How about you two? Either of you have any really good friends yet?"

[Alain]

Alain smiled at the thought of Suji on a motorcycle. It didn't really fit in with his view of flip flops and history books but it didn't seem out of place either. He ate some more of his brown goo and started to relax a little. He'd been treating Dallas and Suji and all of it as some huge touchy subject. It was, to a lot of people it was and to him it was, but he realized he wasn't helping himself by jumping and wincing, metaphorically speaking, every time the subjects came up. Some day he may have a lot more to feel guilty about than fishing for information about a fellow animorph and that was a sobering thought but a realistic one. Listening to Drake reminded him that he was about to go off and fight the same war that had brought Suji to the free human camp, heart sore and exhausted, the same war that had led to Dallas.

"So- so what? You saw what this thing does to people and you thought, hey, let's give that a try? I need to get on board for a big dose of suffering? None of us have enough of that in our lives already? Suji's words came back to him. At the time he'd felt defensive, he'd felt the need to explain to her why he had to be here and that he had chosen to be here and it wasn't her fault. Now, for the first time, he felt afraid. He hadn't really thought about what he may be going into, he'd just assumed it couldn't be worse than what he'd left.

He had a pensive look on his face and he almost missed Drake's question. He looked up with a start and swallowed the food he was hardly tasting before answering it. "Not really," Alain said, "except for each other of course."

[Nineteen]

Nineteen's eyebrows arched at the mention of motorcycle. Really? Weren't important people supposed to be incredibly stuffy? She listened to Drake go through a list of Suji's other achievements, and did found herself increasingly uninterested. This was for Alain's benefit, of course, not hers, but she was tired of hearing about the girl that was swimming around what, thirty feet away from them?

She was rescued by the question about really good friends, and laughed at Alain's response. "Wait, who said we were friends? This is a strictly business relationship," she said with a nudge.

"I don't know. I guess I've got friends here. Alain's probably the only one I'd call myself friends with that's going to Rio, though." Nineteen shrugged. She'd miss people here, people like Dimitra, but every relationship in the Academy was based on the idea that a person could be reassigned at any moment. Permanency was simply not something you allowed yourself to expect.