Welcome to Gaia! ::

Fallon was on time to Calintha's. She was actually a little bit early. Some might not realize, but it was actually just as rude to be too early as it was to be late. So the cinnamon-haired girl made a pit stop and a tea and coffee shop near Calintha's apartment and picked up some clover honey sticks to use in the tea she brought.

When she finally reached the door, small tote-cart filled with food in hand, Fallon was two minutes early. She knocked and waited, adjusting the ribbon at her waist. It was still cold in Destiny City, but Fallon was slowly shifting back to dresses. Her legs were covered by a pair of black opaque tights with equally black heels and a pale salmon dress fell just above her knee. She had only worn a cardigan, not a jacket, and would probably regret that on the walk home.

But Fallon was happy. Why wouldn't she be? She was getting another chance to reconnect with someone who remembered Barren Pines. Those people were few and far between, and Fallon would not deny a chance to talk with any of them -- least of all someone she liked like Calintha.

When Calintha appeared, Fallon grinned, hoisting her little cart up the stairs to the girl's apartment. There was something so mature about having your own place. Fallon couldn't wait for the day she took that step, even though it felt far off. Dorms were one thing; an apartment was another. There were some nights when Fallon would stay up late to design a potential future apartment, hypothesizing where it would be and how many square feet she would have to call her own. She'd sketch up schematics and label everything from the bed to the lamp before folding the sketch up and stashing it away with the others. Fallon never threw them away; they were all potential plans.

"It's bigger than I expected," she said, sliding out of her coat and hanging it on the back of a chair. The place was nice, very nice for a high school kid. There were organizational things Fallon would have done differently, but over all, Cali had done a very nice job. Fallon nodded approvingly.

Calintha might not know where to go next, but Fallon did. She knelt by her cart and pulled out a clear casserole dish with some kind of pasta-looking contraption inside. "I hope you like lasagna," she said, crossing to the girl's oven. She started opening drawers at random, pulling out rags. Her fingers traced over the labels on the spice jars, and she shot Cali a grin. It was good to see that the blond had taken a note from her organization.

"I just want to get this started before we do anything," she said, cranking the oven on. It would take a few minutes to preheat, maybe more if it was a crappy oven. Fallon drew one hand to her hip and placed her other hand on the counter, evaluating its cleanliness. "You've done a nice job with this place. Do you like it here?"

Lasagna seemed like an easy thing to cook, but Fallon actually had a hard time with it. She couldn't save a casserole in the middle of cooking it, not like she could with veggies on the grill or seared fillets. Once the ingredients were put together and popped in the oven, that was it. This one looked good -- no burning, no over-merging of layers. She'd watch Calintha's reaction carefully when they started to eat.

"Roommates are overrated," Fallon said, waving a hand dismissively. "You should just have more friends over. When it's just friends, you can always ask them to leave when you need a little quiet time." It had been a blessing of epic proportions when Fallon got placed in an empty room at Crystal Academy. She had been warned that the other bed would not stay empty forever, but it had been two months. Fallon was getting cocky.

Behind her, the oven beeped to signal it had preheated. "Crystal is nice, proper, organized. I'm not as good of a student as some of the other girls. My history teacher hates me. I swear -- she has it out for me. I told her I didn't like learning history on the first day, and she made me go sit in the hallway." A frown crossed her features and she popped the oven open. "The worst part is, she still quizzed me on the information I was in the hallway for. I would've said something, but I don't want to get a reputation at Crystal as a behavior problem." Fallon knew that title all too well. No -- she refused to be a behavior problem.

Fallon popped open the oven and slid the casserole dish inside. It closed shut with a thunk. She stared through the little clear window for a few moments before turning back to Calintha.

Why did she hate history? Fallon wasn't entirely sure. It was always her worst subject, despite her penchant for memorization. Honestly, the trouble she had was with theorizing why things happened. Teachers always wanted that. They wanted essays on reasons that WWII started and on why Pinochet was or was not a monster. What did any of it matter? The past events of history could not be changed. Writing about the massacre in Rwanda would not save any of the lives lost there. Fallon had a hard time devoting so much of her energy to a cause that she considered already lost. What mattered to Fallon was what she could do in the here and now. Looking at the past only illuminated failures, and Fallon was too forward-looking (or rather, present-day obsessed) to give it too much thought.

Of course, that explanation was too long and winding.

"History is frustrating. It's the same things over and over, but with different countries and different names. No one can understand why something happened the way it did and when it did except the people who were directly involved in it." Fallon crossed to a chair and thumbed the back of it. "None of the history I have ever learned has felt personally relevant to me, and so I've never cared about it."

Fallon shrugged, and a swatch of cinnamon hair fell over her shoulder. "But that teacher is a psychopath out to get me. Now -- show me those plants. You know I'm excited to see what you've done in this space." Just like that, Fallon changed the subject and was happy to move on.

Fallon gave one last glanced to the oven and then followed Calintha to the other side of her apartment. When Fallon entered the next room, she stopped to stare wide-eyed. "Wow," she said, crossing to the plants inset into the walls. She worked a slow circle around the set-up, pausing to read the little labels.

A strange aloe plant caught her eye, and she lingered in front of it. Then she turned back to Calintha. "It's great. I'd recommend investing in plastic sleeves where you can insert index cards to update the information. The post-it notes aren't reliable to hold." Fallon reached out a finger and touched one. It fluttered to the floor. If this had been her room and someone else did that, Fallon would have lost her s**t. She stooped to pick it up and tried to stick it back on the pot. It didn't work so well.

"What do you do with all of these? I mean, they're lovely," not that Fallon could truly appreciate them, "but there are so many. Do you sell them?" Some of the plants looked so similar that Fallon assumed they were the same thing. Was Calintha trying to build her own forest?

Fallon perked up. "Tea? You grow tea? Do you have any... now?" Her eyes searched for the plant, but Fallon didn't know what she was looking for. It was all green to her. She had never had the pleasure of picking her own leaves. It was just another way for her to gain control over her meal. Could Calintha help her do that?

She moved in the direction Calintha had indicated, but still couldn't pick it out. "What variety do you grow?" she asked, glancing back over her shoulder. "I love tea. You should show me how to pick tea. I've never done that." This was a big deal to Fallon. She drank a lot of tea and prided herself on having a variety of culinary experiences. Perhaps Calintha could open the door for her to have a new one.

The little hedge was bright green and immaculately trimmed. Fallon was immediately pleased. "Definitely. I hope you understand that you have just given me permission to show up at your house demanding tea the moment that plant is ready for harvest." She nodded emphatically. Tea was a passion for Fallon and tending her own tea plants could be another fun hobby to add to her growing list.

The shrink would be proud.

Standing in the apartment smiling, Fallon wished that she and Calintha had been closer at Barren Pines. They had a few classes together and saw each other about the halls, but she had little personal conversations with the girl short of, "Do you need to borrow a pencil?" or "Did you understand the history assignment?" But now they had an opportunity to change that. They had come out on the other side of a dark cloud, together.

The lasagna would be done soon, and Fallon began to migrate back toward the kitchen. "Calintha," she said, voice growing serious. "What do you... remember? About Barren Pines." It wasn't an easy question to ask, but Fallon felt compelled to do it. Her shrink got very concerned every time she brought up her old "school" and everyone else just looked at her strangely for even referencing it. But Cali had been there; she would understand.