Mingle - Emergency Potluck

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WELCOME POTLUCK

Greetings, residents! Those more observant sorts among you may have noticed a large influx of very crowded ferries. In order to welcome our new residents en masse, Town Hall is holding a potluck in Town Square. Please bring a dish if you are able and make a new friend!

All of our newest arrivals need only bring themselves. We look forward to welcoming you all into our community, and may your lanterns always be lit.

This event is open to all! In light of our new influx of prospective players following the Great Sail Migration, we've decided to offer a small public event to tide everyone over until the TDM this weekend.

Comments

[abhorrently]

"A change of pace usually helps throw things in perspective. Or if nothing else, it's new memories, new people, new experiences. The chance to try anything and everything you get your hands on."

Which may go a ways to explaining the eclectic mix of food on her plate.

[abhorrently]

"If you suggest that whole enforcer business, I'll leave. It's not in the cards now or ever."

She'd known that since she arrived. And while she can argue she knows more than just killing...how does one translate her skillset into something actually useful?

[maximumcake]

He's seen a lot of different body types, including a friend of his that had six arms and the ability to make more any time, so he doesn't even blink at the extra legs here.

"Good choice. I had some of that already and it's delicious. Chris made it." Max knows because he helped carry it for them.

"I know." There's some whine in his voice. "This is sort of like my version of a security blanket. Besides, they have to come to me to get the food, don't they? I'm still meeting them. And you. Hi, my name is Max Maximum."

[cacophonish]

She's the second person he's come across today that seems familiar with him-- or, at least, familiar enough to pair his name and face with each other. It'd be more disconcerting if he didn't already get some... semblance of an explanation from the winged elf chick.

And if this wasn't something that happened from time to time back home, too, though in that case the reasoning was less to do with world hopping (and BDSM????) and more to do with him being too fucked up to remember half his nights.

(Plus he was a big fish in a super niche scene. He's used to some notoriety!)

"No problem," he smiles, warm and friendly. "And I know, right? It's like, people can be so sneaky with it! You think you're safe, then bam! You see chunks of bacon in your soup, or your mac 'n cheese, or-- fuck, anything, you know? I even saw it on cupcakes once."

Oh Jeff, you sweet 90s child. You have no idea how big the bacon craze is going to get.

"Luckily, the Oak and Iron-- that's where you're staying, right? I mean, if you just got here. Anyway, they've got some good options. There's this lentil mushroom pasta I pretty much lived on for, like, my first two weeks here."

[crushed_pearls]

"Lass if you hear me seriously suggesting joining law enforcement, my life is in danger and I'm signaling for help."

[crushed_pearls]

"Seems like," Erin agrees through a tight throat. "All kinds of other shit too...I can feel Spring coming, Daisy. I feel her. She's here."

[theydrewfirstblood]

John is propping up a wall when he senses movement, then spots the the young man finding a place of his own, just barely in John's periphery, still and silent.

He lets it happen. The kid moves like a fighter, but not quite like a soldier--not like John's kind of soldier anyway. After a few moments he turns his head just enough to get a better look...

That expression he wears makes John ache inside--raw and bleeding. He's a fucking kid.

Pushing off the wall, John moves into the kid's line of sight, catches his eye, and jerks his head for the kid to follow him--specifically, over to the tables where there's food.

The best place to start with any kind of wounded animal, especially the human kind, is with a full stomach.

[cacophonish]

"Oh. I'm nice?" Why is this news to Jeff? And why is there some dumb rebellious impulse in him that's like 'no, prove her wrong! don't help her up!'?

Anyway, he ignores that impulse, because he doesn't want to be a dick. Which... probably proves her observation right.

Jeff takes her hand and helps pull her up, keeping it offered in case she needs to lean on him or anything.

"So, like. If I didn't see you get out of the hearse, I'd think you'd been run over by it or something. You okay?"

[maximumcake]

He won't point it out if she doesn't. Although it's much more obvious on him with his big brown eyes all puffy and tears flowing freely. And not for the first time today.

"I'm okay," he tells her softly. "I'm okay now. It was like... waking up from a bad dream." He knows she saw. She had to watch. It was the last thing he ever wanted. He promised her. He promised to live. But now they're here and it's all going to be okay.

"Valdis and Ylva are here, too. Have you seen them yet?"

[crushed_pearls]

She's heavier than she looks; a lot of it is muscle, but the wings sure aren't adding any small amount of weight.

As for the question...

"You know the saying 'start as you mean to go on'? Day I was born the doctor slapped my factory fresh behind and that kinda set the tone of my life."

[cacophonish]

"Like you were a waiter?" He perks a little in excitement and adds, "Or a butler?"

Look, 'butler' might be a leap, but he has domestic servants on the mind these days, what with his newest job.

"I dunno, it's just..." He shrugs a shoulder. "Strangers offering people candy... Gets a bad wrap sometimes. But yeah! I was kinda-- for a couple months, I was working with the candymaker? You know, just helping him out, um, like an apprentice or something." Except Jeff's not the most reliable apprentice, and he doesn't quite have a knack for the finer points of artisanal candymaking, it seems.

But boy does he beam when Max says it tastes like a Warhead.

"They do? Shit yeah! I knew it tasted familiar!"

VICTORY. Max has singlehandedly boosted Jeff's faith in his candymaking abilities.

[cacophonish]

Oh no, she's heavier than she looks, and Jeff's a noodle on too-long legs, so this is...

This is going to be a bit of a struggle.

"So like... Life's kicking your ass, huh?" Boy, he feels that.

[hadnoright]

"G-Good," she gets out, after a long moment where her throat feels like it's being squeezed tight in someone's fist. "Good. If you're okay, everything's— everything's good."

She's hoping he doesn't think too hard about how she's here, too; about the conditions of the deal they both must have taken. It's better if he thinks she just got out and went down fighting, but if he asks—

She knows she won't be able to lie to him. She's never been any good at lying to him.

"Uh— no, no. I haven't seem them yet. But that's good."

[maximumcake]

The first thing she will feel is his heart soaring with a burst of hopeful joy. Valdis?! That was her voice! His head whips around and when her face comes into view he lights up like the sun. And at the same time, tears spring to his eyes so fast his vision goes blurry.

"Valdis!! You're here! You're...you're really here!" He races to her side still half blind but he could find her even in the dark of night. He wraps his arms around her in an almost crushing hug and sobs against her shoulder. "I thought I lost you."

[crushed_pearls]

"And I didn't get the safeword about it - brace your legs, shoulder width apart, think of it like lifting an amp my dude -"

[hadnoright]

"It's real. Isn't it? This place. It feels... real. Like it smells real."

She doesn't feel it the same way Erin does, she can't. Spring is Erin's domain, her relationship with it is something Daisy can't have, but she can still tell something's different. This isn't like the artificial ship sailing between dimensions, a facsimile of an idea. It's real. Cursed so obviously Daisy can practically smell it, but real.

[hadnoright]

"Daisy Tonner." She folds her arms and lets her posture slip again, kicking one foot idly along the ground. "Yeah, I'm new. Fresh off the boat."

She almost laughs at herself. She's going to keep saying and doing that, probably. If she can't laugh at the fact she spent a collective 5 years on a cursed cruise ship, she'd have to cry, and guess who hates crying.

[redlightgreenlight]

Hers.

Everything she needs is here, more so now that Max has found her. But she'd promised him that hadn't she? In every world. In every lifetime. They would find each other. At the time she'd said it to comfort him, to assure him of her love. She never imagined it would be real.

"Max," she hold him just as firmly, burying her face in his chest, willing herself not to cry. "I told you, remember? I said we would always find each other."

Perhaps the goddesses have chosen to smile on her after all.

[crushed_pearls]

"Ylva thinks so," Erin agrees. "...We need the lay of the social landscape fast, love. I still need to feed. Us monsters still need to stick together."

[abhorrently]

"Noted."

She leans back a little, eyes flicking up to the sky.

"The only idea I have a sort of...maid of all work. Odd jobs. I'm used to people asking me to do all sorts of things, and I do it. Though that's not really anything useful."

[hadnoright]

"Mm. So do I." Daisy shuffles around until she's tucked more comfortably up against Erin's side, again, head on her shoulder and arm draped loosely over her. "Social web's your thing. But there's uh— a couple people here? From home? I think? And maybe if this place has animals, I can... feed that way. I dunno."

Yes, she is going to just bury the lede about people from home in the middle of that sentence.

[crushed_pearls]

"Hard labor can't hurt," Erin teases. "Learn how to fish, maybe become a lumberjack. Work off them noodle arms."

[actuallyawolf]

"Oh, the moment he steps out of line my teeth'll be in his throat." She says it like it's a vow. "But people like him here for some reason. And he knows I'm watching him."

[crushed_pearls]

...

.....

.........

"Basira?"

[maximumcake]

He sees that glance they give to his arms. He might be flexing just a little harder for reasons.

"Not if I do it while I'm multi-tasking. It might be, I don't know, meditative. If I start with a little at a time I could build up a supply gradually." Is he considering the logistics seriously? Yes. Yes he is.

He places the cake down carefully and, once he's wiped his hands off on the apron he borrowed, he holds one out to properly shake Their hand. "Nice to meet you, Chris? Is that okay? My name is Max Maximum but you can call me Max. I'm he/him for pronouns."