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 Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 2:49 pm
"Yes, it's safe." Takeoff had been safe too, but that didn't matter at the moment. "Sometimes the plane's going to shake a little. It's called 'turbulence,' and it's just like a boat over water-waves, just with a plane on the air-waves. Not to be confused with the airwaves. Do you want a snack or something? I put our taffy in the bag." He hadn't eaten much of his and she was free to take some.
"Yes, just two hours."
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 3:00 pm
Air waves, not to be confused with airwaves. Maia had no idea what Toby was talking about. She shook her head when he offered her a snack. "I'm not really hungry," she said. "You go ahead." She didn't think she'd be hungry the rest of the day, at least, with the queasy nervous feeling she had in her stomach. It felt a lot like how it had the time she'd tried to eat fish fresh after catching it.
"My stomach has turbulence."
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 3:02 pm
Toby smirked. "They call those 'butterflies.'" He wasn't hungry himself, he just thought a distraction might be good for the poor misplaced selkie. "Do you want to play on the computer or something? Do you want to watch out the window?" He thrust a thumb back toward the plastic porthole.
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 3:10 pm
Butterflies? Maia was surprised by the name. It didn't feel like fluttering. "Want to play a game with me? The last game was boring. All you did was switch jewels. It was pretty though. Maybe you should pick a game." She shook her head at the suggestion to look out the window, paling. "No thank you. I'm fine."
"Pick out a game. I'll play it with you."
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 3:49 pm
Toby's jaw worked in thought as he began to pull the laptop from one of their carry-ons. Games. He didn't have time to play many nowadays, and he'd always sort of preferred a harmless movie to simulated warfare. Besides, there was very little installed on this computer. Special agents weren't exactly expected to be playing World of Warcraft while out on assignment. He turned the computer on and activated Airplane Mode, then went through the default "games" folder.
"Solitaire, that's not very exciting. Minesweeper? Snake? Have you ever played snake?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 4:13 pm
"Snake?" Maia repeated, intrigued. "No, I haven't. I'm new to all of this computer stuff." She watched him set it up. "Is it anything like a real snake?" she asked, curiously. The distraction seemed to be working. She'd dropped her hold on Toby to watch him go through the games.
"Are you looking forward to getting home?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 4:16 pm
"Alright, well. Here." It was a somewhat fancier version of snake since the game's inception in the late seventies, but it always worked the same.
"You use the arrow keys here, and you can't hit any of the walls or your own tail, and you pick up the... well, whatever shows up on screen. Do you want to go first?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 4:27 pm
"Why not?" Maia asked. Why couldn't you hit the walls or your own tail? "I'll go first," she said. She quickly found that the snake on the screen followed whatever key she pressed. And she figured out that if she ran into the berries on the screen, the snake became longer, making it increasingly difficult not to hit the tail.
She beamed. "This is fun!"
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 4:30 pm
Toby shrugged. "Those are just the rules."
He watched as Maia figured out the controls and saw her grow increasingly interested. Ah, so swapping gems wasn't fun, but this was? Well, whatever she liked. "Good! I'm glad you think so."
Dari came up over the back of the seats and watch Maia play as well.
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 4:39 pm
Maia eventually ran into her tail, and found out exactly what happened when you hit the walls or your tail: the game restarted. "Your turn," she announced, stretching and looking up to see Dari. She smiled. "Want to play too, Dari? I bet you could get a better score than Toby does!"
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 4:45 pm
"He could not," Toby said, taking the computer from Maia's lap, "He's a sentient bag of slime, he can't play Snake."
Dari grinned. "You know I have the dexterity."
"Listen, I'm better than you, and that's that."
Dari laughed while Toby's game began. His fingers skipped across the keys while he watched the snake travel. Really he had been a bit old for video games when they'd first started showing up and didn't have much practice, but he was able to decently control himself. When his snake inevitably crashed and burned, Dari's hands appeared, reaching down to take the laptop.
"My turn."
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 4:58 pm
Maia smirked. It seemed she had started a contest between the boys. She watched Toby play with interest, but he seemed almost as new to it as she was. She was interested in seeing how Dari played, since he didn't tend to sleep. He had known how to play bejeweled.
"I think he's going to win," She informed Toby.
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 5:04 pm
"You're a blasphemer," Toby teased, shaking a finger at Maia. He wanted to make a joke about tossing blasphemers out the plane door but that hardly seemed appropriate when they were trying to distract Maia from her fear.
Dari sat down with the game and found that the extra dimension gave him a slight edge. He hadn't really played the game much either, though. Seeing paths of travel didn't mean his reaction times were synched and his game ended in time.
"Let me see," Toby said almost immediately and eyed the score on the screen. "Yeah, I won."
"Do you even remember what you scored?"
"Not entirely, but I'm sure I won."
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 5:18 pm
"You tied," Maia announced, standing up from her seat. "Let's see. That means I have to give you both a prize." She moved to hug Dari, and then Toby. "There. You've both won! Good work!" She grabbed for the bag, taking out her bag of taffy. She unwrapped one and plopped It into her mouth.
"Has it been two hours yet?" she asked, after she'd swallowed.
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 5:22 pm
"No we didn't!" Toby defended, although he really didn't remember what he had scored versus Dari. Really at this point his denial was just to amuse the other two for the flight. Dari accepted the hug, grinning when Toby asked "Why does he get a hug first?!" and then received his own. Toby returned his hug too and was glad to notice Maia having a snack after all. Good, so her nerves must have cooled.
"Not yet, no. Do you want to try for a rematch?" he asked.
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