Not far from the dorms, Fandom, Saturday Morning

[weldedtomyspine]

Jaime had not been expecting a phone call this morning. Certainly not from some kid who was trying to sound calm but obviously more than a little panicked. And Momoko and Jaime's budget had not been expecting emergency portal bookings, either

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[b_town_girls]

Rain was half exploring, half looking for a good place to call her mom and maybe freak her out. She thought maybe having the entrance to the school in the background would be good.

Oh! Hey! She knew those people!

She waved excitedly and her gloves emitted a long "Feeeeeenie!" She needed to stop leaving her gloves around where joksters could mess with them.

[heromaniac]

"Eh?" Despite the fact that it wasn't calling for her, that was a voice that sounded slightly familiar. Momoko couldn't place it, but she did give a slight start of curiousity.

[b_town_girls]

"Aunt Momo!" There wasn't an actual sign for Momoko's name but her gloves had been designed to translate finger spelling. "Hey!" This time her gloves sounded like that tutorial sprite from that game. You know, the one with the guy who kept getting called by the damsel's name.

[heromaniac]

Well that was just lazy! Aunt Momo totally deserved a name sign! Something cool! Work on that, Rain!

"Eh?" Now that was familiar and Momoko turned. "Ah! HI!!!" She waved while trying to remember where she had seen this girl before. "I know you!! But I don't remember you."

To be fair, they'd only met via a video call.

[b_town_girls]

"But I'm your favorite niece! You told me so yourself, right before you told Sila the same thing." Rain's shoulders shook with silent laughter. She understood. She had a lot of favorite aunts.

[heromaniac]

Momoko laughed herself. "Well that certainly helps!" And it actually did, since Rain said all of that via sign language!

Since that video call so long ago, Momoko had tried to learn some sign language. Unfortunately there were so many variations! But she learned a few bits of what she could.

Your

[b_town_girls]

Since Elves didn't have their own sign language (they still hadn't quite gotten over their prejudice about "imperfect" children even by Rain's time) Leda had raised Rain using American Sign.

And Rain was extremely pleased that Aunt Momo had tried and gotten it right enough to be understood. One guy she'd met at school told her that the police once had accused him of using some kind of gang language when he'd signed.

"Yes! Hello Aunt Momo. It appears it's that time again."

You are way better at researching this than I am. I realized today that if I ever tried writing Rain as a baby or a little kid I was gonna have to do a lot of research to get it right.

[heromaniac]

"Yes!!" Momoko gave up the sign language, since that was almost the extent of her abilities.

Well, unless Rain wanted to know what day it was, to have Momoko apologise, or needed to know that she was Hearing.

"And I finally get to meet you in person! Hug?" She beamed though and held out her arms for Rain, while turning to Jaime: "This is Leda's maybe!future!daughter Rain! Remember I told you about her calling me?"

I dipped a toe into the Deaf culture a few years ago and have a friend who is an interpreter. Deaf poetry is AWESOME, if you're interested. I almost apped a Deaf AU!kid this time around but ran low on time

[b_town_girls]

"Absolutely hug! And I don't remember if I told you last time, I do know how to read lips. So no worries about the sign language barrier."

She curtsied to Jaime (she didn't learn that from her mother). "Hello Uncle Jaime."

In case you're interested, there is a deaf character in Rick Riordan's Magnus Chase series. He was the inspiration both for Rain, and for the "Leda discovers that Changelings are indeed a thing" plot I did a while back.

[heromaniac]

"Of course I'll worry!" She said before squeezing the girl in a big hug. As soon as she let go, she continued: "I wanted to be able to talk to you in your language, so I tried to learn it! But there's so many types and I couldn't remember which you said you speak. And then it was hard to find a teacher who could keep my hours."

"How is everyone?"

[b_town_girls]

"By the time I'm my age you'll be fluent." Rain assured her. "Mom always thought you picked it up really quickly, maybe it's because of this head start." Time travel was weird, but kind of fun if you liked odd puzzles. "I bet Mom would make the time to help teach you. She already knew it from when she was a kid. Cause Uncle Wolfboy's semi-mute.

"Everyone's good! Though I dunno how many spoilers I should give you."

She decided not to worry Momoko about the invasion back where Rain came from, because it occurred to her she'd likely have no way to let her know how it turned out.

[heromaniac]

"I am totally going to poke her about that, then. And Wolf-boy. He's always writing when he's with me!" Momoko made a face at that information. "And you can give me any spoilers you want! As long as they're not sad. I don't want any sad ones."

"Are you still at school? I think you said you were going to your Fandom? I bet Sila is jealous"

[b_town_girls]

It having been a year since she'd spoken to this younger version of Momoko, Rain was momentarily confused. What had she told her about school? It wasn't Fandom...

"Eh? Oh! No, not Fandom, but it's a similar place. People from all over the Multiverse and the occasional crazy things happening. Like a rain of shrimp. Or the annual occasional invasion."

Now let's see, what was going on family-wise...

"Nothing sad's been happening really. Well the guy I was dating when I talked to you last year and I broke up, which was sad at the time but now it's just a source of nostalgic melancholy. Professor Gaiman's advice really got me through that though. Also lots of ice cream with lots of aunts. And uncles actually."

[heromaniac]

"Eh?" Momoko blinked, scratching her cheek as she tried to think back to the phone call. "I guess maybe I thought it was Fandom since it's so similar?"

"I'm sorry to hear you broke up, though. I'm glad you can look back on it without hurting now. I hope I was helpful? At least in holding your parents back from hunting him down."

[b_town_girls]

"Mom does keep calling it 'I Can't Believe It's Not Fandom'." Rain giggled. "It's in this small town a little north of New Orleans, on what used to be a plantation. The main house is where we have classes and the teachers have their offices, and the dorms are in the outbuildings.

"And yes you were a big help. We had a big girl's night, Mom, you, Great-Great Grandma Mab...actually she was the one we mostly had to hold back from hunting him down. And it totally wasn't his fault. It was a mutual decision. Long distance relationship stuff."