Adelie
Adelie lay half-propped on the arm of the sofa-bed and tried to ignore the last vestige of winter driving a flurry of dense rain against the windows. Her head ached from reading over the regulations for tomorrow's arrival at the Imperial Stadium again. Every rule in there mattered, every rule had the story of an injured dragon or team member behind it, but taking them all on board at once was still a lot to deal with.
On the floor, Phoebe muttered gently to herself as she pushed her needle into the thick outer layer of her race suit again. There had been no question of Adelie helping her sew their brand-new sponsor patches onto their overalls, Phoebe's needlework was just too much neater, but it did have to be finished tonight. It looked like she was almost done, but she'd also stopped swearing, which was maybe a bad sign.
Trying to distract herself, Adelie pulled out her phone again and scrolled idly through Chirpr, but nothing appealed. She'd spent too much time staring at screens already, but there was nothing else to do at the farmhouse still. At least the wifi was working again. Fingers moving automatically, she tapped the icon for Behave! Breakdown! Bonkers! Boys! The load screen with its big, colourful B4! logo popped up, but the load bar jammed at 10% again.
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Scowling even though it made her headache worse, Adelie flicked back to Chirpr and nothing loaded there either. "Did the fucking internet go out again?"
"Hm?" Phoebe looked up, hands stopped mid-stitch.
"I just tried B4! again and now I can't get anything." Adelie rolled onto her side and pushed upright, groaning. "I'll check the router. Just our luck if this house has a fuckin' ghost who hates phone games."
Phoebe let out a hiss and swore, and Adelie looked down to see her sucking on her finger. She must have missed a stitch and pricked herself, the first mistake Adelie had seen her make all evening. Well, it was getting late.
Adelie said, "You ok? Need a plaster or anything?"
"You don't really think this place is haunted, do you?" Phoebe turned her head to look up at Adelie, eyes oddly wide.
A chill went down Adelie's spine, spreading fingers out around the back of her guts. Awkwardly, she tried to laugh it off. "I mean, it'd be an oddly specific ghost, wouldn’t it?"
Phoebe didn't laugh.
Adelie shook her head and didn't speak again as she poked her head out into the hallway to check that, yes, for some reason the router was doing another reset cycle. Probably there was just some quirk in B4!'s network code that crashed it or something, she'd have to try to remember to look online and see if anyone else was having problems. After the race weekend.