Survival Of The Fittest

((Alice Boucher continued from Cat Nap))

It was a warm time of the day, so Alice had decided to eat her lunch outside. The sun shone down on the grass around her, as she pulled her feet up onto the bench she laid calmly on, looking into her bag.

How many times have I told you, Alice Boucher, not to put your feet on the chair when you're wearing shoes?

She rolled her eyes as she thought back to the many times her parents had lectured her over her preferred seating position; why would it be her problem if a little dirt got on the chair? Who knows what the people who used it had sat in before?

As she looked around the campus, Alice pouted with irritation; it was bad enough she was stuck in this country; why'd her uncle have to live so far from the school as well? If it wasn't the case, she would've gone home to eat lunch every day, rather than having to wait until she could have a table to herself.

Pulling the thermos out of her bag, the girl thought back to her previous night in the kitchen: the tunes of her iPod and the smell of the ingredients wafted beyond her imagination and into her senses, as she remembered all the pleasure she put into every little dish; now it was time to enjoy the soup of her labour.

Unscrewing the top, the chilled cucumber soup filled up the container, its green tinged substance eagerly awaiting Alice's excited taste buds; it was the perfect lunch for a warm day like this.

Still, it'd be nicer if she could've eaten it with her friends.

She sighed as she thought of her pals in France; why couldn't there be anyone like that over here? All these Americans were so…American. Lazy, stupid and arrogant Americans. Would it be such a bad thing if God shoved a decent exchange student in her way?

"Just one would be nice."

Moving it up to her lips, Alice continued having an unpleasant look on her face as she tasted the concoction slip down her throat.

Delicious.

((Clio Gabriella continued from iFly))

The sun was bright that day, only partially obscured by a cloud in the sky. It was the kind of day one spent outside, rather than cooped up inside in a large room with other people. And so it was for that reason that Clio decided to adventure outside that day. She also didn't feel like eating. She usually had a rather large lunch, and nearly no dinner, but Clio just...wasn't hungry.
She looked at the gardens around the campus. They looked all very well maintained, with a lot of care obviously put into them. She noticed a very lovely pair of begonia's that stood out among most of the others in the same bush. She smiled. But then she frowned.
I am such a stereotypical girl. I mean, flowers? Pink Flowers?
But she ignored that part of her mind, and bent down right near the flowers, and took a whiff. The aroma filled her nostrils, and it was such a good smell. The kind of smell that one would find in one of those sprays, but smelled better.

As she stood up, she found that she was not alone on the campus. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw someone laying on one of the benches. She looked familiar, but Clio couldn't see her face. Turning around, she recognized the very distinct hair style. Well, not so distinct as in...noticeable. She walked around in an arch to try and get a look at her face, and smiled once she saw her.

It was Alice Boucher, a girl she knew. Well, she knew as in she occasionally spoke to, but didn't take the time to get to know that well. She started walking, and called out to her.

"Hiya Alice!"

As she drank the lunch, Alice let out a sigh as she flexed her had back behind her. It was oddly empty on the campus, considering the warm temperature. Admittedly, she had gotten out earlier than usual to start her lunch, so perhaps she'd only have some alone time for a few more minutes before the place became crowded with the noisy populace of Bayview.

She had a lot of alone time these days.

Taking another sip, she shut her eyes as she thought back to her life in Nantes: normally, she'd have just finished maths at this time of day, and then she'd head with her friend Juleen to meet up with Nichol and Diahna and the others for lunch, where they'd talk about their nights before and laugh at the losers and freaks, whilst she'd enjoy whatever meal she'd made the night before.

Sadly, she was only enjoying one element of that fun these days, and she could tell you that bitching by yourself just makes you feel weird.

Still, her thoughts were interrupted and her eyes forced open by a noise addressed at her:

"Hiya Alice!"

Looking over at the source, Alice saw some girl walking towards her.

Huh. God acted fast.

Whilst she was surprised by the unexpected greeting, she was still wary of the stranger; what sort of person randomly greets you in the middle of campus for no good reason, especially with that much enthusiasm?

And whoever this girl was, Alice had most definitely not invited her to start calling her by her first name; she hadn't invited anyone to call her by her first name since she'd been shipped over. Didn't these people know some of the basic courtesies when it came to addressing others?

Well, she seemed to know her name anyway, so Alice reasoned that she must've talked to her on one or two occasions. However, she couldn't have been that interesting to talk to, as she still didn't know for the life of her who this girl was, and she wasn't exceptionally eager to puzzle it together either.

"Hello."

She replied, her mandatory response laden with her thick accent.

Now that she was closer, Alice could start to guess that this girl wasn't a natural born American, given her complexion and facial features. Then again, she could've just had foreigner parents and be a local herself; it was far too early to tell.

"What would you like?"

((Debut of Adrian Staib))

Lunch couldn't have come quickly enough for Adrian. Today had been quite stressful, and Adrian was feeling the full effects of it. Sure, the day had started out innocently enough, but soon, Adrian was facing his worst enemy: math. It was magical that he could somehow maintain a B in that class, although after today, he may be looking at that grade becoming a C.

But now that lunch had began, Adrian just needed to get away. He didn't want to spend time inside the crowded school, so he took his lunch, a sandwich and apple, and headed outside.

After stepping into the warm sun, Adrian felt his stress melt away almost instantly. Well, at least it's a nice day, he thought as he took in a deep breath of the fresh air, his earring glinting in the sun. All it really took was a good day and some nice scenery to calm him down. He looked across the flowers and marveled at their beauty. He noted that this would be a great scene for a landscape painting.

He then saw that there were two others outside as well. He remembered their names to be Alice and...Clio? He'd never really spoken much to either of them, but they didn't seem like bad people. He walked over to where they were talking.

"Do you mind if I sit here? The building is a little too crowded for eating inside."

"What would you like?"
"Um, what, oh, well, nothing really, I was just saying hi. And, so how are you?" Clio replied in a slightly Italian accent. Her smile faded a bit. From the tone of Alice's voice, she could tell that she wasn't expecting company, and from her accent she remembered she was also from Europe. France or something?

"Do you mind if I sit here? The building is a little too crowded for eating inside."
"Huh?" Clio said, flicking her head towards the new company. It was a large kid, in both figure and standing. Clio bit her bottom lip. She...didn't have a thing against 'large' people, but they just made her uneasy. Maybe it was because if they as tall as they were, she felt she could be crushed. While she initially told herself that was ridiculous, she was as uneasy as she was.
"Oh, I suppose that might be..." Clio started, before turning back to Alice "You don't have a problem with that, do you?" she asked in curiosity.

"Um, what, oh, well, nothing really, I was just saying hi. And, so how are you?"

Fine?

You know, Alice could appreciate the irony that she had just been wishing to meet a nice foreign person, but wasn't she just being a little direct? I mean, how much could they have talked to each other if she couldn't even remember her name? It's not like she was the only person in the school she could've talked to, after all.

Frankly, she was glad to see Clio's smile fade slightly: maybe she'd get the hint and leave of her own volition.

"I'm go-"

"Do you mind if I sit here? The building is a little too crowded for eating inside."

Another person had snuck up on her whilst she was distracted trying to get rid of Clio; some big guy. Some REALLY big guy. Huge, even. Looming over her, Alice tensed her grip on her cup of soup slightly.

Alice wasn't a fan of big people, and it seemed that this school was teeming with them. She could barely see where she was going in the hallways, sometimes!

And now he was trying to approach her too? Why'd everyone want to be her friend all of a sudden!?

Ok God, you can stop now.

Looking around quickly to be sure of herself, Alice turned back to the giant:

"There are many chairs here. You do not have to use this one."

It's not like she had ever tried talking to this guy, or if she had she'd not given it a second thought. It figured that this would happen when you only give people the simplest responses necessary.

"You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

Yes, yes she did. She was trying to enjoy her lunch, not reach out to the ‘Needs-a-hug' club. Why weren't these people talking to their own friends, anyway?

"I do not know him; I would not like to eat my lunch with him."

Taking refuge in her foreign language, Alice vented her frustration.

"Give them a taste of Alice, and suddenly everyone wants a piece of me."

Sigh.

Adrian internally shrugged off their surprised reactions. He was quite used to it. When you have to duck through most doorways, how can you not expect to have people stare at you?

"There are many chairs here. You do not have to use this one."

He slightly chuckled. "Well, I didn't mean this exact seat, just in the general area." Alice seemed a little ticked at him being here. He wondered if he had unintentionally done anything to upset her, or maybe it was just his presence in general. Either way, he didn't know at the moment.

"Oh, I suppose that might be... You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

"I do not know him; I would not like to eat my lunch with him."

Well, at least Clio didn't seem to have a problem with him being there. Alice, on the other hand, did. Although, if not knowing him was the problem, then he could at least introduce himself. This probably wouldn't solve much, but it's what came to Adrian's mind.

"Sorry for not saying earlier, but I'm Adrian." He took a seat on another bench and then looked up at the other two.

"So, how are you two?"

"I do not know him; I would not like to eat my lunch with him."

Clio smiled. She really didn't want to be around people who seemed to be too big for their own good. But apparently the guy didn't get the message, as he took the nearby bench and started up a conversation.

"Sorry for not saying earlier, but I'm Adrian."

Ignoring the kid, Alice muttered an obscure french phrase that Clio could not fathom. Knowing that the guy, Adrian wasn't going to leave any time soon, Alice did not obviously want to sit with him, and it was obvious she was included by extension, so she thought up an idea. She strolled towards the other bench, ignoring the kid again, and made herself in the exact centre of both Alice's and Adrian's benches. With that, she plopped herself straight onto the grass underneath her. From above it would look like an obtuse isosceles triangle of tension. Smiling, she leaned back on her hands and flung her hair back over her shoulders. She was about to resume conversation with Alice, but she remembered that the other guy just asked a question.

"Oh, hi, how are you?" Clio asked. Before he could answer, she held up her hand.

"Hold that thought for a sec," Clio turned towards Alice once more, intent on continuing their conversation.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't catch how you were!" Clio said, only less enthusiastically than last time

Despite her attempts to tell the giant to shove off, he seemed insistent on annoying Alice as much as humanly possible. Clearly he was also a retard, or else he would've understood that she was telling him to get fucked, rather than explain how he wasn't on about a specific seat.

Maybe he had some pituitary problem, or something. Either way, she became even more irritated when the guy decided to go take a seat nearby anyway. This wasn't the only eating area on the whole campus!

And as if that wasn't bad enough, he was still insistent on talking to her, as he asked how she was, but not before being kind enough to go and introduce himself; like she gave a rat's ass who this guy was.

And to make matters worse, during this whole whirlwind of displeasure, the other girl ended strolled over and dropped herself down onto the grass like it was nobody's business.

"I don't want to you to sit on these seats, but you have to use seats."

This was probably why people were so pissy when she brought her shoes up, but at least shoes were made for getting dirty! Jeans and skirts were made for only getting slightly dirty as a result of people like this cow being stupid and sitting on the floor!

More to the point, why the hell was she still here!? Or either of them for that matter!

Downing the remnants of the soup in her cup in one, not nearly satisfying gulp, Alice screwed the cap of her thermos on, ever so slightly looser than she intended. Getting to her feet, she glared at the two with distaste at the strange behaviour, regarding their questions for a moment.

Rude, rude questions.

Poor manners, it was, to come up to a stranger and start asking them questions, even ones as minor as how they were doing. In her world, people were more respectful of such things.

"How I was? I was good before."

Her scowl turned into a slight smirk; she couldn't bitch to herself, but maybe she could have a little fun with knocking these two down a peg. Or six.

"Now? Now I am bad."

(( Sorry for late post. The first week of classes is stressful.))


Neither of the other two seemed to take well to Adrian's sitting there. Alice looked like she was about to start chewing him out at any moment. He raised his eyebrows slightly as Clio went over and sat on the ground between them. She asked him a question, and when he was about to respond she held up her hand and then turned to talk to Alice. Adrian thought that Clio was attempting to somehow moderate the conversation. If that was so, this would turn out to be interesting.

He snapped out of thought when Alice stood up. She still looked angry.

"How I was? I was good before. Now? Now I am bad."

Adrian could tell at this point that he was at least one of the factors that had made Alice angry. Whether or not Clio was also part of her problem, he didn't know. This depressed him a little. He didn't really try to anger people. He decided that he wanted to know what he did to make Alice so angry. Adrian decided to not say anything at this point; he wanted to hear the rest of what Alice had to say.

((It's no problem. Take as long as you need))

Well...this was unexpected. Was Alice somehow annoyed by Clio's presence? Well, what did Clio ever do to her? Was she rude to her in the past? Did she have a thing against Italian people? Well, the only thing that she could think of that could be offending her at the moment is the big guy. She wasn't remotely unfriendly to Clio until the big guy showed up. So maybe if she got rid of him, she and Alice could have a friendly conversation. European to European. Woman to Woman. Maybe she would actually say what the problem was.

"Really? What's the problem?" Clio asked innocently. Clio was kicking herself inside her head. Making herself seem innocent would probably just make her seem like a bitch. Was she a bitch? No, she wasn't. But she didn't want that message to get out.
"Your soup gone cold?"

The big lug and the annoying intruder looked up at Alice as she loomed over them. Little worms, the both of them; and she was the eagle with the talons ready to claw them to pieces!

"Really? What's the problem?"

A grin spread across her lips: this was the perfect opening for a tongue lashing on these pathetic American low lives, and she was going to take it!

"I will tell you the problem. I am sitting down to eat my lunch on a good day, and the sun is in the sky. Suddenly, I see a girl I do not know go towards me, she talks to me as if we were good friends, and makes me feel very unhappy."

Yes you weird, perverse girl: I'm talking about you.

"And next, a tall man goes towards me and also talks to me. Two people I do not know both talk to me in five minutes, and I can not enjoy the lunch I cooked."

The intrusive nature of these two pissed her off to no end.

"And to be worse, when I try to talk to the man calmly to go away, I find the two people both not going as I asked, and sitting down near me."

It wasn't much of a tongue lashing, she had to admit, but what could she do? Whilst she was able to speak the language well enough, she wasn't exactly a master of the English insults. If she was back home, she could do this to some lowlife without a shred of difficulty, and with any luck get some fat bitch to start crying. But here? Oh no, she had to make do with stating the obvious in what she hoped was an insulting tone.

"This lunch is annoying, and it is more annoying every minute."

Adrian was right; he was part of the problem. That just didn't seem right to him. Was it because of something he said? Was it something he did? He didn't like to think that he was the kind of person to tick people off, yet somehow, he was in fact contributing to Alice's anger.

"This lunch is annoying, and it is more annoying every minute."

Adrian used this break in Alice's speech to speak up.

"So you're pretty much saying that the two of us simply introducing ourselves ruined your lunch." This was weird. How could the introduction of someone make your day go sour? You would have to be very antisocial for something like that to have that sort of effect. If that were so, how did she even survive? Would someone coughing disgruntle her? Would tapping her on the shoulder cause her to go berserk? For goodness sakes, she was in high school, how could one get by in a place like this with that attitude and not spend all their days miserable?

Realizing he had let his mind wander a bit, Adrian turned his attention back to Alice, and waited for her reply.

"This lunch is annoying, and it is more annoying every minute."

What. What the...what? What was this girls problem? What did she do? She has no right to accuse her of being intrusive! Intrusive is taking her thermos and drinking the contents! Intrusive is taking her bag and copying her homework! Introducing herself to her was not intrusive! When people spoke to her years ago, back when she was recluse, she didn't blame them for her problems, or insult them like this!

Clio pulled her legs into her body, and turned towards Alice. She stood up so she was facing her, only just meeting her eyes, but about a foot away.
"Look, I don't know what they do over in...France, yes France, but we were not stopping you from eating your lunch!" Clio started before the other guy, Adrian, chimed in.
"So you're pretty much saying that the two of us simply introducing ourselves ruined your lunch."
"Exactly! Is that it? Is your need to be alone so great that the mere introduction of another person in the same place curdles your soup or drink or whatever it is you're having in that?" Clio blurted out, just that little bit angry at someone who would rather be alone than have any sort of friend. Well, maybe she did have friends, but being alone just isn't healthy for ones self-esteem or whatever!

She didn't plan for anything, and she had no idea what was going to happen next.

Alice continued to grin as the two argued back at her, listening to their accusations of antisocial behaviour and unreasonable desires to be left alone.

Complete attention seekers, the lot of them: everyone always has to greet them whenever they want to, and if they don't then clearly they must have some sort of problem.

An outright laugh followed her thought pattern, followed with Alice returning the glare in Clio's eyes with a look of arrogance in her own.

"That is not smart. I am so sorry for not looking at you, and I am going to give you looks in the next time, you bad people."

Urgh, this was hard. How the hell was she supposed to insult these people when she didn't even know the words for needy or whores?

"If you would like, I will write a book about you two after talking to you for many hours. I will give you all the looks you need and want whether or not I am going to be eating my lunch without people here."

It wasn't fun, not being able to unleash the full brunt of her tongue. She wanted so badly to put these people in their place with a few well placed insults and her normally creative use of her vocabulary of French insults, but all she could do was fall back on sarcasm, and as they say: sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

"You are bad people, and I laugh at you not having intelligence."

It was still all remarkably tame, and her grin had turned into a pout of annoyance at her own lack of versatility rather than the worms in her presence at this point. If she couldn't have fun with laughing in people's face in this country, then there wasn't a hell of a lot she could do beyond read, cook and swim; yet another reason to hate the USA.

Why, mother and father? Why did you have to send me to this country?