(Untitled)

[pylean_cow]

Fred Burkle is aware of the date.

Of course she knows it's not the real date; that with so many people on the island from so many different dimensions and with completely different calendars and units of measurement, the date on the island can only be arbitrarily chosen in order to simplify things. Though, she's not sure why whoever picked the

Comments

[c_thomas_flood]

Tommy had wandered into the kitchen to find something to snack on whilst working on his typewriter at the same time. He was scouring the cupboards with just a banana up until he passed the girl making a sandwich and figured he could manage a couple of those single-handedly pretty easy.

He set down the banana on the counter and began construction of several small sandwiches, glancing sideways to smile politely. "Is it your birthday, or somebody elses?" Tommy asked, deciding it was pointless to work alongside each other in silence.

[pylean_cow]

She puts an extra slice of cheese on her sandwich before she looks up.

"It's mine," she says, and the look she gives him isn't quite a happy one. She's not really sure how she feels about today, after all, "Well, sort of. Technically, it's not my birthday for about another month, but the date's right, at least."

[c_thomas_flood]

"Happy birthday, then," he smiled as he slapped another slice of bread on top of the sandwich and then cut it into quarters.

Tommy noticed her expression and tried to help her see the upside. "So you get to celebrate it twice? Lucky. You know, unless your birthday is a really traumatic time of year for you and then celebrating it twice is actually not that great..." He let himself trail off.

[pylean_cow]

"Thanks. And no, that's not it," Fred says, shaking her head twice. Well, she'd spent a few birthdays in pretty traumatic ways, spending them trapped in a hell dimension while she tried to figure out how to construct a birthday cake out of a combination of acorn paste and tree bark. It hadn't been successful.

"This place is just... weird. I guess I'm still not used to it." Somehow, evil board games and space stations falling from the sky are a lot less strange to Fred than having to calculate time differences for her birthday.

[doubleomalley]

"Is it your birthday?" George asked, the song taking all but two seconds to get stuck in his head after he walked into the kitchen. "Because birthdays call for more than sandwiches, I think."

[pylean_cow]

"Yes and no," Fred says, pausing with her second slice of bread, mostly because she's not sure if she wants to add something else to the sandwich. She's hungry enough that it warrants it, but she's not so much contributing to the island's food supply than she is constantly helping to deplete it. Most of the time she feels a little guilty about how much she eats on a daily basis.

"I mean, it's not actually my birthday for just about a month, once you take into account the difference in time between dimensions. If this dimension even falls under the Julian year at all." she almost laughs then, just because she's not sure that anyone's actually taken the time to make sure that the island operates on the same cycle as Earth at all. "But the date is my birthdate."

[doubleomalley]

George made a show of giving her answer some thought. "If the calendar says it's your birthday, then why not celebrate? Any excuse for people to throw a party for you is a good one, right?"

[pylean_cow]

"Yeah, well there's not really anyone lining up to do that anyway," Fred replies, and finally decides to put the second slice of break on her sandwich. There's a sense of finality to it now. Finality and eventual deliciousness.

"But it's alright. I wasn't really expectin' it anyway." She shrugs.

[a_royal_bastard]

Alistair had a similar plan in mind as he strode into the kitchen. He hadn't seen Fred since that weekend they all spent on the other island, partially because of the craziness that followed the week after. His first thought was that he was glad to see she was doing okay. His second was the tune she was humming. The birthday song was relatively new to him - he'd never encountered it in Ferelden - but it was something he'd heard enough on the island now that he could recognize it.

"Are good birthday wishes in order?" he asked, shooting her a smile.

[pylean_cow]

"Sort of," Fred says, looking up at Alistair, a piece of cheese still in one hand. She can't hide a smile at seeing Alistair, though, despite what they went through together two weeks ago. There's a good chance she'd be dead if he hadn't been there.

Well, sort of. Maybe she would have died and come back to life once the game had been beaten, Fred really doesn't want to think about it.

"It's not really my birthday. Technically, it's not for a month, but because of all of the island's weird time stuff, the actual date's today."

[a_royal_bastard]

"I won't tell anyone if you don't. Happy birthday," he said, heading over to take some of the juice out of the refrigerator. He'd long since gotten used to the machine (though it still amazed him sometimes what people came up with). As he reached for a cup, he asked, "Can I pour you some?"

[pylean_cow]

"That'd be great, thanks," she says, and she finishes constructing her sandwich, adding the cheese and the last slice of bread. If this were anywhere else, she might have added more to it, but she always feels guilty on the island, taking food without really contributing anything at all.

"So how have you been ? You know, since..." she pauses for a second, deciding that she probably doesn't need to finish the sentence. "Since."

[notaparker]

Part of me is tempted to actually avoid her, in case she has any unfortunate questions about my ability to climb things in a somewhat spider-like manner. Even if it wasn't actually that spider-like, since I don't stick to walls any more.

I miss sticking to walls.

But it's a small island, and I'm hungry.

"Is it your birthday, or the sandwich's?"

[pylean_cow]

"I think it's more the sandwich's birthday than it is mine," Fred says, looking up at Jessica from her partially constructed boar meat sandwich. Fortunately for Jessica, people climbing things like a spider is far from the strangest thing that Fred has ever seen; in fact, it's so far down on her radar that it never even registered as strange to her.

"You see, technically, my birthday's not for about another month. That is, if the island even has the same Julian year as Earth in my dimension. It's just the date that's the same."

[notaparker]

"It is the day of its birth," I reflect, opening the fridge and gathering materials for a sandwich of my own. "So it's the calendar date of yours, as far as we reckon it, but it isn't exactly a year since your last birthday. This place makes for the best headaches."

I can follow the concept pretty well, actually, I do have a head for this sort of thing, which is part of the reason Peter volunteered me for Team Science last week. Not that I don't still consider this a questionable choice on his part.

It did work out, though. He's got me there.

[pylean_cow]

"Exactly," Fred replies, though she frowns a little once she realizes that Jessica's really only rephrased what she just said. "But I don't know, maybe it is. No one really knows that transport into this dimension is instantaneous anyway."

She shrugs. It seems like the longer she's on the island, the more questions she has about it. And it's not exactly like finding answers is all that common.

[chose]

It should hurt less, given how long Angel spent away before finally going home, but it doesn't. It shouldn't make a difference to her, given how upset she still is with him, but it does. She shouldn't have been checking his hut for signs after all these months, but she was. For the sake of not being entirely contrary, the first thing Buffy knows she should do is seek out everyone who knew - knows - him and deliver the news, so she does.

By chance, she finds Fred in the kitchen, but it takes less than a second for her to all but chicken out. She isn't sure she has it in her to break this news to Fred, not if it's also her birthday. She forces a smile, waves. "There's an earworm if I've ever hear done. Someone you know or...?"

[pylean_cow]

"Kinda," Fred says, and despite her melancholy over missing home and her family on her technical birthday, smiles at Buffy anyway. "I mean, assuming transport to this dimension is instantaneous, it's not actually for about a month, but there could have been some kind of limbo between Los Angeles and here." She shrugs, then adds another slice of boar meat to her sandwich.

"But the date's right, anyway."

[chose]

"Happy birthday," Buffy exhales, giving her best attempt at an appropriately cheery smile. She doesn't have a mirror on hand, but she's almost certain that it falls short, corners of her mouth not reaching quite so high as they should. "I think this calls for a cake," she adds, because when she opens her mouth to speak, the words she knows need to be said don't manage their way out.

[pylean_cow]

"Thanks, but that's okay. It's not like it's my first birthday without a birthday cake," Fred replies, remembering the five birthdays when she didn't even have anyone to talk to. She'd kept a tally of how long she'd been in Pylea and had almost missed her birthday altogether the first year.

She puts the finishing touches on her sandwich, adding the second slice of bread, and that's when she notices that Buffy's 'happy birthday' isn't really all that happy at all. "Are you okay? I really don't mind, you know, the sandwiches here are delicious."