afraid_of_marshmallows | Midnight Manor Boarding House Movie Room, Saturday Evening

As soon as Kamala had turned back into a person yesterday, Arden and Eleanor had swung into action. Arden had contacted Mr. and Mrs. Khan to let them know that Operation Birthday Bash was a go and about what time she'd be by to pick up the cake, and then called Mr. Najaf to see if he would be willing to cook up a whole slew of gyros (including some vegan gyros in case Steven or Watts showed up) for Kamala's birthday the next day. She also messaged Bruno and asked Mr. and Mrs. Khan if they could pass the invitation on to Nakia, letting them know about the party and offering to arrange portal service if they could make it out. After that had come ~~handwavily~~ messaging everybody else to let them know that they were celebrating Kamala's belated birthday at Midnight Manor on Saturday evening.

And lo, now it was the appointed hour. Ellie was keeping Kamala distracted upstairs (Arden was not asking how), and she was here setting out drinks (sodas, though Mr. Khan had sent Arden home with a jug of 'sweet tea,' which she had been very appreciative of and had appreciatively poured down the drain once she'd gotten home), gyros, and setting out Mrs. Khan's cake, leaving a spot in case Ellie had somehow managed to find or invent a Squishie cake. Bollywood movies were playing on the TV (though currently with the volume very low), there was a karaoke machine on standby, balloons and streamers were up, the guests ~~Avengers~~ assembled...

Now all they needed was the co-host and the birthday girl!

[Open! If you're a student, a resident of Midnight Manor, or just think Kamala is cool, feel free to handwave yourself an invite!]

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"These cupcakes are amazing!" Charlie said. Charlie somehow had never had a squishy, but the cupcakes were amazing in their own right.

"It really is amazing what they can do at J,GoB!" Eleanor agreed, looking pleased as she came over to Charlie with a grateful sort of smile. "Hi, Charlie. Thanks for coming."

The more people here to celebrate Kamala like she deserved, the better, after all.

"Thanks for inviting me. I'm always glad to celebrate with cool people," Charlie said. She considered for a moment. "Well, I'm pretty happy to celebrate just in general, but it's even better when it's cool people like everyone here."

"Yeah," Eleanor had to chuckle a little bit with her nod. "That definitely does help, and everyone here is pretty cool."

She felt she could say that with pretty good authority just on how cool everyone was with her, which had absolutely not been the case at her last school.

"And, apparently," she added, now a little curious because it had come up with Arden, "August is pretty fully loaded with birthdays, too. Yours was earlier in the month, too, wasn't it?"

Eleanor didn't remember the exact day; she just remembered finding Charlie on the beach recently and celebrating with her.

"End of July," Charlie said. "And you were good enough to hang out and celebrate with me on the beach a few days later, which was awesome."

She smiled as she looked around the room. "Never had a party back home without Aunties, so this is particularly nice."

"We're like bookends, then," Eleanor noted, with a faint smile. "Mine's the beginning of July. But thanks god not another August one, this month is too full of birthdays already."

Granted, Graham was also a July! So that one was looking pretty stuffed, too!

She followed Charlie's gaze around the room with a small bit of pride and relief that things seemed to be going well before asking, "Do you have a lot of Aunties?" and trying to remember the term Kamala had used to describe them in her culture, too. And thinking about her relationship with her own aunts, it was endlessly fascinating to her how different familial dynamics worked...

...while highlighting for her just how mess up hers actually were.

"Oh yeah," Charlie said. "Back home their seem like there are Aunties everywhere waoting to tell you what you've done wrong and what you should be doing instead."

Despite her words Charlie really did love all of her Aunties. But it was easier to deal with them from a distance.

"So I guess instead of Aunties growing up," Eleanor said with a faintly sympathetic smile, "I got the sisters instead."

But she, for the most part, stayed pretty on the straight and narrow and tried not to get in trouble, so she didn't have as much of a problem with the nuns. At least not until...

"But at least for them, it was their jobs."

When Charlie thought sisters, she thought sisters, like her twin sisters. So please forgive her if she was a little slow to catch on.

"It was their job?"

Kamala had slowly but surely been inducting people into the Cult of the Red Squishy. Everybody thought it was a birthday party but actually it was a ritual to get more people indoctrinated.

"Right? Who knew red #5 was so delicious?" Arden asked.

"I guess I've just been too sheltered," Charlie said. "but the cupcakes are amazing. How's it going, Arden?"

"Good, seeing that we managed to pull this off," Arden said with a laugh. "Planning something you could pull together, like, twenty-four hours after someone changed back from a sloth is harder than it sounds."

"Ah, the things you never have to take into account outside of Fandom," Charlie said lightly. "Who knew?"

"Not me, that's for sure," Arden said, her own expression a little wistful. "Friends to throw parties for was just as wild to consider as them turning into animals."

"You have to come home with me sometime," Charlie said. 'The Aunties will take you right under their wings and family you until you cry mercy."

"Yeah, you do really seem like you suffer," Arden teased. "Just terribly."

"I love them," Charlie admitted. "Totally, but boy do they make us all crazy sometimes. Most of the time."

"Well, I look forward to getting driven crazy," Arden said with a smile.

"And I look forward to eating popcorn and kibbitzing while you do," Charlie said.

Midnight Manor Boarding House Movie Room, Saturday Evening

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