I'm leeeeeaavi--arriving on a jetplane!
Who: Ivan Braginski and Ion Sollomovici
When: September 29th, late afternoon
Where: Le airport
What: Two cousins reunite. One is jubilant tolerant. The other...not so much.
It had been a very rushed morning...or rather, very very late evening. His aunt had placed a phone call informing him that yes, someone had been found for him to stay with in Liberty and yes, they'd be retrieving him the following evening from the airport.
...it really gave him no time to properly book a place on a flight out of Spain (a process that always took a great deal of time for him, language barriers or not, given his...rather unique condition) and he was quite fortunate to find a seat at all, though it was a center seat between a couple clearly torn between wanting to get a divorce or have angry makeup relations in the necessary, and a line of toddlers loudly exclaiming at the wonders of airtravel behind him.
It was perhaps the longest 19 hours of his short life (made more miserable by every time he misinterpreted a dirty look exchanged by the couple to be directed at him and...well).
He disembarked from the stale air and claustrophobia of the innards of the plane like Jonah emerging from the whale.
He did clip his head on the top of the exit door, but otherwise all was well.
Surrounding him was English. Spoken, written, signage, clothing, the occasional garbled Asian attempt at it...all English. It gave the whole place a very exotic and upscale feel, even for a simple airport. Ion inhaled deeply, savoring the flavor of filtered air after many hours in a practical miasma of human gas and halitosis.
So! America, the land of...survival, he'd been told. He kept a cheerful smile on his face as he tried to be inconspicuous about glancing around at other travelers making their way to the baggage claim as well. You could never tell what a person could be hiding under their clothing or in an easy-to-reach bag, and Ion recalled something about concealed shoulder holsters which added another note of worry to his mind, and on top of that, there were all these suspicious bulges in people's clothing that now garnered his attention with the force of a freight train a-and--!
He took a moment to compose himself in the men's restroom inside of a stall by screaming loudly into his duffel bag.
So it was with a greater sense of composure, general well-being, and a bright smile that he finally arrived at the appropriate baggage claim.
And then he saw what awaited him there, staring at him predatorily with an even brighter smile.
He spun abruptly on his heel, long hair whipping at his face as he attempted to make a dignified bid for freedom in long strides away from the baggage claim, happy expression still firmly pasted in place.
When: September 29th, late afternoon
Where: Le airport
What: Two cousins reunite. One is jubilant tolerant. The other...not so much.
It had been a very rushed morning...or rather, very very late evening. His aunt had placed a phone call informing him that yes, someone had been found for him to stay with in Liberty and yes, they'd be retrieving him the following evening from the airport.
...it really gave him no time to properly book a place on a flight out of Spain (a process that always took a great deal of time for him, language barriers or not, given his...rather unique condition) and he was quite fortunate to find a seat at all, though it was a center seat between a couple clearly torn between wanting to get a divorce or have angry makeup relations in the necessary, and a line of toddlers loudly exclaiming at the wonders of airtravel behind him.
It was perhaps the longest 19 hours of his short life (made more miserable by every time he misinterpreted a dirty look exchanged by the couple to be directed at him and...well).
He disembarked from the stale air and claustrophobia of the innards of the plane like Jonah emerging from the whale.
He did clip his head on the top of the exit door, but otherwise all was well.
Surrounding him was English. Spoken, written, signage, clothing, the occasional garbled Asian attempt at it...all English. It gave the whole place a very exotic and upscale feel, even for a simple airport. Ion inhaled deeply, savoring the flavor of filtered air after many hours in a practical miasma of human gas and halitosis.
So! America, the land of...survival, he'd been told. He kept a cheerful smile on his face as he tried to be inconspicuous about glancing around at other travelers making their way to the baggage claim as well. You could never tell what a person could be hiding under their clothing or in an easy-to-reach bag, and Ion recalled something about concealed shoulder holsters which added another note of worry to his mind, and on top of that, there were all these suspicious bulges in people's clothing that now garnered his attention with the force of a freight train a-and--!
He took a moment to compose himself in the men's restroom inside of a stall by screaming loudly into his duffel bag.
So it was with a greater sense of composure, general well-being, and a bright smile that he finally arrived at the appropriate baggage claim.
And then he saw what awaited him there, staring at him predatorily with an even brighter smile.
He spun abruptly on his heel, long hair whipping at his face as he attempted to make a dignified bid for freedom in long strides away from the baggage claim, happy expression still firmly pasted in place.