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Henry reached the stuffed apple unimpeded, thanks to the other two being occupied with each other. It was soggier than he had expected it to be, but that didn't stop it from going straight into his mouth. On the whole, more like his fire-lizard toy than a ball, he decided.


Derik looked at the floor for a moment to cover the intense surge of anger that accompanied any thoughts of what he had to say about his fic of origin, though he couldn't stop his fists from clenching. By the time he looked up again, the fit had passed and he was smiling again.

"Well, I don't have to talk about that to tell you about Pern," he said. "Technically it's a colony of Earth, in the far future, but by the time I come from, it had been presumed a failure and forgotten about for hundreds of... we call them Turns, not years," he explained his hesitation. "It's hard to break the habit." He went on to explain about Thread, which ravaged the planet every 200, sometimes 400 years, and how the early settlers genetically engineered dragons from the indigenous fire-lizards to keep it from devouring all the organic life.

"There's quite a bit of history since then, not all of it pleasant, but essentially the Weyrs, where the dragons and riders live, protect the Holds and Halls from Thread in exchange for the goods and services we can't provide for ourselves--you can't farm in a burnt-out volcano cone, for instance, even if we had the time to spare for it during a Pass." He shook his head. Perhaps conspicuously, he did not mention having been a rider, although his perspective was obvious.


<My home continuum is Animorphs,> Ilraen answered Hannah. <It is a science fiction series in which six youths use a special morphing ability to fight a guerrilla war against the invading Yeerk Empire. My people would have helped if they had known, but they were quite busy fighting the Yeerks elsewhere, and too far away to come immediately,> he added loyally.


Naturally, Jenni reached the food table just in time for newcomers to walk through the door. She did spot them on a routine glance at the playpen, though, and happily waved them over before turning back.

"How is everyone over here? Finding everything all right?" she addressed the lot. "Who's hiding under there?" Seeing Cara bent over, she knelt down herself to take a look. "Bit dark and cramped under there for two big boys like you, don't you think?" she addressed the boys, backing Cara up with a raised eyebrow.

Cara nodded and just passed Kieran a plate. "I'm sure you know what you're doing then, hon," she said cheerfully enough, turning her attention to filling plates for Stephanie and Brad. Once the pair of them were satisfied, she sent them off to sit and eat quietly; she wasn't convinced they'd do it for long, but at least they weren't the kind of kids to make too much mess with anything they didn't eat.

She set about getting a plateful for herself, but jerked back as something collided with her leg. "Oi!" Bending down and picking up the celery stick, she raised an eyebrow and lifted the tablecloth to give the two boys under it a slightly stern look. "Can I ask which of you just threw food at me?"


A rather big man, red-headed and with one eye covered, and a smaller blonde woman came into the auditorium, a sturdy boy of nearly five walking between them. He was hanging onto their hands a little nervously, but quite cheerfully bounded off on seeing some of his friends from the Nursery.

Luke was looking rather like he would have liked to make for the door, but Vicky took his arm and tugged him across towards Jenni. "Come on, at least stay long enough to be polite. I've never seen you worried about social gatherings before."

"None of them have been kids' birthday parties before," he muttered, tugging at his collar a little, and reluctantly followed her.

Cali thought for a moment and then said, "Was it Barid? He's the one that started the food fight a while back, isn't he? That was a blast, except I had to pry Kyle down off the cafeteria ceiling ductwork again. Speaking of which where'd those boys get off to?"



Helen fell back on her back with a thump. Her hands tangled in Artemis' wing.



Kevin and Kyle had already made a sizable dent in the large quantity of sweets. When Kevin realized he had somehow gotten a celery stick onto the plate, he aimed it at one of the feet he could see under the edge of the table cloth and threw it as hard as he could.



Hannah thought for a moment, "I'm from an NCIS badfic, so we didn't have telepathy there, but I've heard of it since then. What continuum are you from?"

"I can get a plate for myself, thank you," Kieran said politely. "Agent Deuce told me I have to stay away from chocolate."

"Sorry, cully," Kestrel told him contritely as she approached, wiping her muzzle on a paper napkin. "I didn't fink to give ye a 'uman disguise afore we came."

"'Salright," Kieran replied. "Ooh, donut holes!"

Stephanie reached the table and climbed up onto a nearby chair, not quite certain what to do now. Fortunately, before she could go diving in, Cara spotted the situation and came over quickly, giving all three children a smile.

"You lot after the food?" She found some of the paper plates and began filling them, one for each; her concern was mainly to prevent the little ones falling or spilling something trying to get to the food. "What do you like, then?"


William nodded understandingly. "Crossovers are never much fun - I've seen far too many things crossed over with Potterverse. Well, I would have, really," he added wryly, nodding at his DIC flashpatch. "I've never heard of Pern, though. I... won't press you for details, though, if you'd rather not give them." He gave Derik a sympathetic look. "Not many people like to talk about the fics they came from."

"Ah, yes, 'don't feed the trolls'." Ben sounded dryly amused. "Either the Nightshade has a grudge, or somebody's taken that old adage a tad too literally. It's a bit of a silly rule if you ask me."

He threw another look around, as if to emphasise his next statement. "If it exists, we recruit from it; you'd think we'd be a bit past questions of species. But I suppose half the things here are a little silly if you think about it."

((And I completely blanked here. Sorry, will try to make future posts better.))

Voltarmi stood up on her bench so she was looking almost eye to eye with Agent Cali. "Thank you for the compliment, but this isn't my natural color." She looked at Cali's hair. "Blue is a good color on you."

Voltarmi sat back down and looked over her plate again. "To answer your question," she said, "not long. Another gentleman with blue hair brought me back here after a mission where I pulled his bacon out of the fire. And you?"

~

Barid clasped Ben's hand with a tight, three-fingered grip. "Pleasure ta meet ya, Ben" he said with a smile. "Da name's Barid. I'm not exactly a friend 'a Jenni's, but we know some'a da same people." He looked to where Nume was sitting in the stands.

He turned back to Ben. "Ya got a good point about da numba 'a trolls in dis place. Did ya know dey won' let us in da Cafeteria?"

"Of course, don't let me intrude." Ben stepped out of Jenni's way with a half-bow and a slightly wry smile, before he looked up at the troll the FicPsych nurse had been speaking to. He was only passingly familiar with the Warcraft continuum, but he gave Barid a polite enough nod as he extended his hand.

"Can't say I've seen too many trolls here, if my guess is right," he said. "In any case, it's nice meeting a friend of Jenni's. You probably heard as much, but the name's Ben Roberts."

~

Brad had tried to protest weakly as Stephanie dragged him across the auditorium, but soon fell quiet, especially as he got a look at the various snacks available. Kieran's comment made him pause, pouting his lips slightly as he eyed the food.

"Prolly an idea," he said to Kieran. "'S too much food for her to eat it all though. She'd get sick."

It wasn't all that easy for someone to sound simultaneously jealous and concerned, but Brad managed it.

~

Miriam fought down the temptation to look amused at the display, particularly as the toddlers made their way over to the snack tables, instead chuckling to herself and shaking her head a little.

"Kids, huh?" She said, at slightly to high a volume to have been merely thinking aloud.

Kestrel popped the cream puff into her mouth primly. "Tha's wo' I thought," she managed to say.

Seeing this, Kieran chuckled. "Better hurry," he told the toddlers. "Before Kestrel eats the lot."

--

Artemis squeaked, nearly dropping the rattle, when he felt Helen latch on to one of his wings. With a hiss that would not have sounded out of place on a python, he swatted her over the head with his free wing, not hard enough to cause any real damage, but enough to convey his displeasure. "No!" he insisted, trying to tug the feathered limb out of her hands.

Ilraen smiled at the question. He actually had some practice answering it. <We Andalites speak with telepathy. Do you know what that is? I understand that some worlds do not have people with the ability, but many do.>


Having won the race to the ball, Henry seemed to think that was prize enough and sat down contentedly. He watched Helen try to bite it for a little while, though it was too big to really get a good purchase on that way—he would know, he'd tried it before. But of course, one could never be too certain about these things. He left her to it. Artemis was causing a very interesting noise with the rattle, and Henry also noticed that he had dropped the toy apple. This was something New and Different, and therefore the most interesting.

"Ball?" he queried, starting toward it. It had certain ball-like attributes, to be certain. Further investigation was required.


"Oh, don't worry about it, Ben," Jenni said, waving off the man's concern. "You do enough every day. That's a great gift." Steering abruptly away from that line of talk before she could sound any more corny (although absolutely sincere), she indicated the large Warcraft Troll beside her. "By the way, this is my friend Barid, though I suspect he's here more because the invitation had the word "party" in it than anything else," she joked. "But, I should go around and act hostessy, so I hope you'll both excuse me."

Stepping back from them, she looked around for people she hadn't greeted yet, and decided to head for the food table.


"Complex," Derik agreed with a chuckle. "The records say I arrived in March, 2008, just before the lockdown, so technically it's been nearly three T—uh, years. It hardly feels like it, though. I remember fighting in the 'Sue invasion, but I don't think I've lived for three years since then. Some kind of odd time-dilation effect during missions, I suppose." He shrugged. "Anyway, I'm from Pern, though the fic I came from was a crossover with Potterverse. ... You probably don't want to know the details," he added, contemplating the likelihood that a 'verse native probably heard more than enough horrible things about it already.

Kyle stopped in mid-reach as the large furry creature glared at him. She looked a bit like Molly, but much bigger, so he decided to back off.

"Aw, you can have it," he said sulkily.

Kevin's plate was dangerously over-full by this point, so Kyle grabbed as many treats as he could reach, and pointed Kevin to the space underneath the table. Kevin carefully placed the plate on the floor and began to push it under the table.



Helen's attention was caught by the tiny black wings fluttering in her face. She dropped the ball and grabbed the nearest wing to try to drag it toward her mouth.

Laughing, Kieran allowed himself to be led away from the playpen. He hoped Artemis didn't get into trouble while he was gone, but the food looked so good.

Artemis, in the meantime, had managed to bite a considerable dent in the rattle. Seeing this, he frowned and began knocking it against the floor.

Stephanie nodded knowingly. "Grown-ups always know best. Like Mummy and Uncle William." She glanced over at the snack table. "C'mon, let's go get some food!" She took Brad's hand and Kieran's paw and tugged them off towards it in a burst of enthusiasm.


William had to consider Derik's question for a moment. "I arrived around the middle of 2007, actually," he replied. "So over three years ago. I'm from the Potterverse - it's all a bit complex, but I originated in a badfic set in Deathly Hallows. Things have changed somewhat since then, but that's the basics. Yourself?"

Brad mulled this over for a few moments, before nodding sagely and turning his attention to the other kids. "Daddy says 's okay to fight if you've got a good reason," he said, his expression grave by four-year-old standards. "Dun' think a baby'd have a good reason though. They're too little."

He watched over the playpen for a few more moments before nodding again, as if he'd discovered something incredibly important. "Tha's right, you've got to be big to know what a good reason is. 'S why the big 'uns do all that stuff."


Ben chuckled, keeping one eye on the various children around even as he kept up his conversation with Jenni. "I can see that," he said, adjusting his glasses briefly. "It's good to see things going well, in any case; I would have come by sooner, but you know what my shifts are like at the Nursery."

A moment passed in slightly-awkward silence as he messed with his robes a bit, and then he looked rather sheepish. "I'm sorry, but I didn't have much of any time to think up a good gift; it was on short-notice, and like I said, I'd been working..."

Artemis had been racing Henry for the ball, fluttering his wings in an attempt to boost his speed. At the sight of Helen holding it, he skidded to a halt, looking somewhat put out at being beaten to the prize. The drool-covered apple plopped to the ground.

Then, as though getting over his disappointment, Artemis crawled past her, retrieved the rattle, and bit it. The action momentarily exposed unusually sharp teeth, leaving onlookers to wonder how the cloth apple had managed to stay in one piece for so long.

--

Kestrel was helping herself to the contents of the food table. There were crumbs in her whiskers and a smear of whipped cream on her nose, but she carried on happily, licking up most of what had missed her mouth on the way down. She spied a tempting-looking cream puff on a platter to her left. As she reached for it, so did Kyle, and the two of them grabbed it simultaneously in an odd parody of Lady and the Tramp.

The ferret smiled down at him, exposing two rows of sharp teeth. "Back off, young 'un, I saw it first."

Cali made sure that Kevin and Kyle were headed away from obvious climbing opportunities and then he slid into a seat next to the small pink haired woman eating cocktail wienies.

"Hi, I'm Cali Still." He glanced pointedly at her hair, and scrubbed his hand over his own hair, which somehow managed to stand up even more. "It's nice to meet another person at the PPC that has unusual hair. Have you been with the PPC long?"



Henry's ball rolled right into Helen's lap. She immediately dropped the shiny rattle she had been chewing on to pick the ball up and gum it.



Kyle stopped so suddenly that Kevin ran into his back.

"Why'd you stop?" Kevin said sulkily rubbing his nose.

"Look," Kyle said pointing at the table laden with food. He handed Kevin a plate and immediately began piling whatever he could reach onto it, concentrating on things that looked sweet.



Hannah listened to the explanation that Kaliel/Maeryn gave with rapt fascination. When she heard Ilraen's voice inside her head, she looked startled for just a moment, then went back to fascinated. "How'd you do that?"

"I'm sure he will, Barid," Jenni said, planning a speech to explain to the two-year-old exactly why he couldn't have it. She had really expected the Troll's partner to provide some kind of quality enforcement, but... "Exchange program, huh?"

She was about to ask for details when Benjamin arrived. "Oh, hi, Ben! Yeah, it's a good turnout, and Henry's great. He doesn't really know what it's about, of course, but he's having fun."

Henry was now racing Artemis across the play area for the ball, laughing with the glee of the chase. He'd started out on his feet, but once he, too, fell down he figured it was easier just to keep going at a fast crawl. He plowed into the toy head first, and it rolled off to one side.


"Have you been here long, then?" Derik asked William. "Where are you from?"


Ilraen followed along with Kaliel's explanation with increasing relief. <I am very glad to hear that,> he said at last. <Thank you for explaining it. I shall have to learn more about Stargate. Given the similarities between the Yeerks and your Goa'uld, it would not surprise me to find that there are crossovers between our worlds.>

One of his stalk eyes lighted upon Hannah, who had joined them. <Hello, small human.> His experience with children was limited to having seen them once or twice before, but he did his best to sound friendly.


(( We should probably start another string from the original post soon. Oh, and Pretzel, please reply to whatever is the most recent post in the string. Thanks! ))

Barid held his gift out to Jenni with a wide grin on his face.

"You can put that over there with the others, thanks," Jenni said with a slightly forced grin. "Isn't Eamon with you?"

"Eamon be workin' wit a new partner," said the Troll as he made his way to the pile of gifts. "Some kinda exchange program. I'll be doin dat, soon as dey find me a partner."

He put the present with the others and his smile broadened. "Da pup is gonna love dat," he said. "I know I did when I was his age."


Voltarmi was at the table eating tiny sausages that were covered in a tangy sauce. She was quite enjoying this unfamiliar food. She looked up from her yellow plate when she noticed that someone had joined her at the table.

"I didn't mean it like that," Kieran told them. "Artie doesn't get into fights, really. He just starts them. Yesterday he pinched Molly's Noodle dolly and put it in my pocket, and she chased me for twenty minutes straight." A somewhat haunted look entered the fox's eyes. "Twenty. Minutes. At a sprint. I didn't even know it was in my pocket until she jumped on me and dragged it out."

Artemis, who appeared to have been listening, gave him such a wide-eyed, innocent smile that it was impossible to believe he hadn't been behind the incident. "Ball?" He inquired.

Kieran shook himself and gestured. "Ball's over there, guys."

With a squeal of delight, Artemis shoved the apple back into his mouth and toddled off in the direction Kieran had pointed. Abruptly he tripped and fell flat on his face, but quickly picked himself up and continued.

Stephanie had been watching Artemis and Henry rather closely, concerned in case they started fighting after Kieran's comment, but now gave Brad a huge grin. "'lo Brad! Been watchin' the babies," she added self-importantly, "'cause he said they'd fight." She pointed at Kieran.


William had hesitated at Derik's dark mood, trying to bring to mind a few comforting or at least encouraging words for the big man. He'd seen a few moods like it before, and could never resist the urge to help.

At the sudden mood swng, however, he followed Derik's gaze and smiled at the little gathering of children. "Yes, I don't quite know what we'd have done without the Nursery; Cara and I were both so busy I doubt we'd have been able to take care of her and do our work, back when we rescued her. I still wouldn't have regretted it, though."

Miriam had since excused herself from the conversation with Jenni and the other adults to put her gift down, and was currently alternating between helping herself to some of the food and keeping herself in a position to keep an eye on Stephanie. Luckily, this wasn't especially difficult, as she wasn't particularly hungry and her partner's daughter was easy to watch, but it did mean keeping a little apart from the others. Still, keeping an eye out seemed the least she could do, so she continued looking round, half searching for anything interesting going on and half making sure there'd be no trouble.

Meanwhile, the steady trickle of newcomers continued, as a bespectacled man who looked to be in his thirties or so led others into the auditorium, including a DTE agent with black hair and a red beret, along with a little boy determinedly latching onto the DTEer's leg. While the Technical Errors agent stumbled off to bring his son to the play area, the other - who looked like he could have passed for a Hogwarts teacher himself, with his robes and the way he carried himself - surveyed the area approvingly and headed over to Jenni.

"It looks like your party's starting well," Benjamin Roberts said. The Bad Slasher-turned-Nursery worker shot a look to the play area and couldn't quite help a small smile. "How's the birthday boy doing?"

At the aforesaid play area, Bradley Kent finally detached himself from his father's leg, as the sight of people near his own age seemed to finally convince him to stop playing limpet. After a few moments spent squirming out of the DTE agent's arms, he toddled over to Stephanie with a broad grin.

"Steffie! Hi!"

Helen smiled at the toddlers and then crawled away after something shiny.

"A Yeerk?" Kaliel looked momentarily confused until Maeryn reminded her about said parasitic aliens. "Oh, no, I'm nothing like that. Maeryn and I are Tok'ra. We're from the Stargate Atlantis universe, though I can see why you might be concerned. We had similar problems back before we joined the PPC."

Kaliel then proceeded to briefly explain about her kind and the Goa'uld, as well as the enmity between the two races.

"So you see," Kaliel said finally, "Maeryn and I are actually quite good friends. We've been blended for about six years."

The squishy cloth apple was hastily returned to its former position in Artemis's mouth. He glanced around uncertainly and, not seeing the missing toy, removed the apple long enough to voice his opinion on the matter. "Fly 'way?" he suggested, glancing upward. He glanced to Helen questioningly, addressing her with a sort of jumbled combination of infantile gibberish and the words "ball" and "where."

Kieran, in the meantime, had gone from fighting back laughter to fighting back the effects of Cuteness Proximity. At least Artie didn't seem to be in a fight-starting mood.

Henry toppled with a startled cry of "Uh-oh!" Fortunately, the padded floor prevented any damage from such a short fall, and he quickly recovered, sitting up and looking around to see what happened. Jenni glanced over at the sound, but seeing no major crisis, only smiled and waved reassuringly. He was reassured, and began to search for the ball.

"Ball gone!" he observed with concern. He turned to Artemis. Maybe the other baby would have some kind of explanation. "Ball gone," he repeated, patting Artie's knee insistently. "Baby," he added, noticing Helen's appearance in his world.


Up in the stands, Nume was much relieved to be rescued from the two young boys entering his space. He returned to reading, but resolved to keep a closer eye on the proceedings from then on, just in case.