Meggan and Amanda

[x-meggan.livejournal.com]

Meggan’s flight arrives



By now Amanda knew the airport as well as her own apartment, but it was unusual for her to be going there without a bag and a set of tickets. Or for her to be waiting in the arrivals lounge, periodically checking the board. Anyone looking at her would say she seemed almost...nervous, the way she couldn't sit still and the distracted chewing of her thumbnail. Every so often she'd get up to pace a little, wandering through the small crowd, eyes moving to the doors every time another batch of weary passengers arrived.

Meggan finally disembarked, being somewhere toward the middle of the group of passengers. She had become caught up in a book she'd recently discovered, about an hour before the flight had landed. After another moment passed, she was trying to quickly shove the book back in, and hurry up before she managed to get run over by another woman who was apparently overly eager to get out and into the lounge. Meggan blew her hair out of her face, and glanced around.

For her part, Amanda was looking for a small furry girl, having not seen her adopted sister for a while, and so her glance slid off the pretty blonde girl being buffeted by the crowd. A small frown appeared - this was the right flight, so where was Meggan?

Meggan nearly passed Amanda right on by, before she glanced to her right, doing a double take. "Amanda?" Remembering how much she'd changed since the last time they'd seen each other, she whispered with a smile, "It's me, Meggan--I lost my fur." If any of the nearby passengers from her flight overheard her, they would likely assume she meant a mink coat, rather than actual furriness.

"Meg?" Amanda blinked at the blonde girl standing in front of her. "Bloody hell, look at you!" she exclaimed, stepping back a little to look the (slightly!) taller girl up and down. "You went and grew up on me since last year!"

Meggan nodded with a shrug, as she carefully sat down her duffle bag. If she was going to lean in for a quick hug from Amanda, she didn’t want to accidentally ram her (possibly breaking a rib!) with the thing. “People keep telling me that, but I didn’t notice I’d grown that much,” she said with a laugh as she looked down at herself. Good food apparently was apparently doing its magic for a growing girl.

"Well, it's been a while since I've been back, so yeah, it's noticeable." Amanda opened her arms for a hug. "'S great to see you. Everything's all organised at the school - 's handy having your brother teaching at the school you're going to."

Meggan immediately gave her an enthusiastic hug. “It’s great to see you again, too.” She had missed Amanda deeply, as well as the rest of the school. "Oh, that’s definitely good to hear.” Stepping out of the hug after a moment, and glancing to her left, Meggan quickly snatched up her duffle bag before it could trip up a random passerby that was paying more attention to boarding times than his surroundings.

"Let's get going - the Broomstick's parked not far away." Amanda glanced at Meggan's duffle. "That's everything?" She grinned. "You pack like Szardos, all right."

“Good thing, too. More than this and I wouldn’t be able to carry it all safely.” Meggan had seen one or two people fretting over that exact situation on her flight. And whether or not everything they happened to be carting around would be lost, with no hope of finding it again. With a slight giggle, she whispered, “There was actually a strange man two seats behind me that was taking bets on how many pieces of luggage would be lost when he finally made it back home.”

Taking her sister's elbow, Amanda began steering them through the crowd to the exit. "See, I don't get a bloke having multiple pieces of luggage. Angie needs it for all her shoes, but a bloke?"

Maybe if he was a shoe salesman that wanted to bring all of his stock, and his own personal belongings? Unlikely, though. “From the look of that bulging thing, he was bringing every suit and electronic he ever owned. One duffle does me fine.” Meggan dodged out of the way of another woman that was apparently desperately dashing to catch a taxi somewhere outside, before they continued on towards the exit. With a chuckle, she added, “I could never keep track of that many shoes.”

"When I remember the trouble we had getting you to keep track of the shoes you were supposed to be wearing, I'm not surprised." Amanda employed a judicious elbow to get an oblivious businessman shouting into his cell phone out of the way of the doors and led Meggan towards where she'd parked her faithful car. "And I'm glad you've moved on past the pink," she added with a grin.

At least these days, Meggan was able to keep track of her shoes for more than a week and a half. “Last time I lost my shoes it was just because a dog yanked one off my foot.” Laughing at the pink comment, she added, “At least I didn’t move on to neon pink and green polka dots and stripes!” She might still mismatch things (she had done well this time, at least, with a light blue shirt and purple jeans) occasionally, but she knew that that sort of outfit would hurt the eyes of anyone in a 100 yard radius.

Amanda shuddered theatrically. "Fu... bloody hell, you wear that and you'll have Adri bleeding from the eyeballs." As was her habit around Meggan, she was trying to curb her usual swearing, or at least moderate the worst words. "Adri's the new Maths teacher," she went on to explain. "Emma Frost's sister. She runs a fashion company in her spare time."

Meggan snickered. “You have to admit, though, you couldn’t lose sight of someone dressed like that. Even if you were trying to. Too much ugliness for anyone to forget.” She stepped to the side for a moment to allow someone with a luggage cart to get around her, before continuing in the general direction of the car. She almost cringed at the thought of math, but stopped herself. Not one of her favorite subjects, but she did her best. Instead, she limited her cringe to the thought of causing bleeding eyes.

“Ooh, don’t want her eyes to bleed.” Playfully holding up her hand for a moment, she added with a grin, “I promise I won’t be wearing mismatched polka dotted pink overalls.”

Amanda laughed out loud at that. "If you could find something like that, it might be worth the eye bleeding. Like the time Doug and Ange pranked me and stole my clothes - they left me this bloody pink foofy dress to wear to work. There's still a photo on the staff fridge - every time I take it down, it turns up again." Luckily the car wasn't too far away - Amanda always seemed to have good parking karma in New York. Arriving at the battered white vehicle, she paused to open the trunk so Meggan could throw her bag in. "You got the special treatment - I cleaned things out so there was room for you and your stuff before I turned up," she told the younger girl with a grin. "Normally I have half a library in here."

Meggan couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of that image. She made a mental note to sneak over and see if the picture was back at some point in the near future. Holding up her duffle bag before she threw it into the back, Meggan grinned. “I have a miniature library in here, too. I didn’t want to go crazy from boredom if the flight was longer than it they said it would be.” She had managed to squeeze more books (leaving some room for her clothes, of course) into that duffle than she had expected would fit.

"Please tell me you're not reading those Twilight books. They're worse than the Harry Potter." Amanda had always tried to steer Meggan away from fairy tales and magic-related fiction, given the trouble magic had caused her as a teen, but the younger Meggan had proved stubborn about it.

Meggan shook her head. “No need to worry, that’s definitely not one of the things I brought. The only book that might count as magic related in there is The Hobbit... maybe Peter Pan, too? The others are more adventure—like Treasure Island, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. I think I threw The Three Musketeers in there, too.” She wrinkled her nose for a moment. “Twilight didn’t sound like an interesting one to me.” After a moment, she added, “I don’t like vampires--especially vampires that twinkle.”

"Twinkle? As in, sparkle?" Amanda shook her head. "Not that vampires are real, but every account I've ever read? Definitely not into the glitter. I think even Clarice would draw the line at twinkly vampires." Closing the trunk, she opened the passenger door for Meggan. "M'lady, your chariot awaits. Don't let the outside fool you - my Broomstick here has been worked on by mechanical geniuses. Well, a genius."

She nodded at that. “Yeah--they probably wouldn’t want to be sparkly if they were trying hard to keep from being noticed.” If a sparkly vampire came after Meggan, she wouldn’t ooh and ahhh--she would most likely laugh herself sick from the very idea of it all, and then run away. She hopped in, saying, “Thank you, M’lady,” with a grin. She looked almost impish for a moment as she buckled up, adding, “Hopefully the Broomstick will be good for a few more years, then.”

"Don't you listen to her," Amanda told the car as she slipped into the driver's seat and did up her own seat belt. "Next stop, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters." She looked over at Meggan, sobering a little. "You ready?"

Meggan nodded enthusiastically as they started off. “I’m ready!” She was, without a doubt, eager to see everyone there. She had missed the school more than she ever thought she could.