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

[astrogator]

New arrival Tayrey also sees some familiar faces, but with a noted exception or two, they're the people she is doing her best to avoid. The young lieutenant has lived an absolute nightmare for well over a standard year and was roundly condemned for her desperate efforts to escape. She's wary. Mistrustful. Only willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to total strangers.

Like this man here. She's drawn to him, on the outskirts of the gathering, because there's something in the way he looks that seems to mirror how she feels. Tayrey approaches deliberately, stepping into his line of sight at a distance, no surprises. She's a young woman, on the shorter side, ill-fitting plain clothes and stiff military posture.

'There are a lot of people here,' she remarks - which is about as insightful as commenting on the hum of a starship engine, or the local climate adjustments, but... small talk. It's an opening.

[immortaldemonsoul]

Ellarinne frowns in sympathy; learning to read again was no easy or pleasant task. "You would be the one to know best what you are," she agrees. "I will not forget. Do all humans on your world look as you do, then?"

[umm_shafaqat]

"Not to my taste," Keziah replies, with a note of amusement. (The verbal tone is the only giveaway to her mood, her expression is placid.) "Some of it might make me sick."

[abhorrently]

"Yes. Yes."

In a way, Ari's correct. The mission did succeed, though it was tangled and complicated and something that in her deepest heart, she's glad Tayrey was spared. The anguish would have been too much to bear, after everything. Instead of dwelling too hard on that, she clasps Tayrey's hand back, and smiles, the relief clear in every inch of her face.

"I...don't remember all of what happened, around the end. Nearly dying made it hazy, I think. It's supposed to clear up with a bit of time."

A gentle disclaimer, that she can't give all the details at present - but then again, her brain's always been a wreck. Her amnesia, her headaches, those weren't secrets. There was always the risk that things would get foggy in difficult circumstances, and that only time and rest would bring it back to clarity. What she can recall cleanly is open information, but right now, soaking in the joy of being released and having a friend back predominates her mind.

"But the fact is, we got out. Gods, it's good to see your face again."

[batteryacid]

"Magne is the tall lady with the auburn hair and the big shoulders. César is the guy with far too much pomade in his hair, who keeps looking at Magne like she hung the moon." Eddie points each of them out as he describes them, with a grin.

"And yeah, I grow peppers for my partner. Angel loves spicy food."

[immortaldemonsoul]

"Excuse me?" A tall elven woman, with long teal hair, a blindfold on her face and -- for some strange reason -- ram horns appears at César's elbow. "Are you Mister Salazar? Eddie sent me your way." Ellarinne smiles eagerly. "I'm told you like to cook with peppers."

You know who else likes peppers, César?

This girl!!!

As soon as she gets her hands on some good fatty pork she's introducing you all to spicy bacon and then it's all over for all of you. Or maybe a nice spiced rib roast...it literally makes you breathe fire for the next hour!

[spaghettification]

“Indeed, a scientist who studies the stars and how they dance, and why they burn.”

It’s clear he’s driven by wonder, rather than how his innovations can be used. Which makes his life in his canon all the sadder.

[immortaldemonsoul]

"Ah...allergies?" Ellarinne frowns in sympathy. "My apologies for bringing it up, then. My enthusiasm got away from me."

She bows her head respectfully. "My name is Ellarinne. I arrived here a few days ago." She smirks slightly, joking, "My welcoming party was only a single person. Clearly I should have held out for the rest of you."

[lasthumanvoice]

“Either say something, Jon Sims, or fuck off.”

Cecil usually is willing to ignore staring, but, well. Some things were never resolved between them, were they?

[astrogator]

'It's alright, you don't have to...' Ari is quick to reassure her. Whether Fever doesn't recollect, or doesn't want to talk about it, she won't pressure her for any information. That Fever is here is enough.

The truth is that Tayrey is ashamed of herself, the desperation, the way that in the end she spoke so openly of her raw pain to people who could never understand it. Pathetic, really. A proper Tradeliner should keep her feelings private. Tayrey had been under too much pressure, suffering far too much for far too long to hold up. She hadn't had the strength that she needed.

She is resolved to do better. To mend the broken pieces. Not to let the horrors of the past keep affecting her. Her hands aren't shaking now; Fever is safe. Ari Tayrey isn't a hugger, and she doubts the other woman is either, but with her free hand she reaches out and touches Fever's arm. An old Tradeline gesture. Comfort.

'It's good to see you too,' she says, and tries not to think about the faces she hasn't seen, the others that matter to her. 'It's - oh, I feel like I just got the last place on the last shuttle off a failed colony, you know?' She has nothing. Everything is unfamiliar. There will be so many challenges to overcome - but she is alive and free and she's allowing herself to feel the joy of it. Her smile now is bright and honest.

[umm_shafaqat]

"No harm done, Ellarinne." She takes a sip of the hot drink in her mug, wondering vaguely what it is. Likely not alcohol, her tastebuds can still pick up on that.

She tilts her head in acknowledgement, and says, "I go by Keziah these days. A pleasure to meet you." Despite Ellarinne's obscured eyes, Keziah's own gaze does not focus on her face for long, skittering away. (The name is pronounced keh-zi-uh, not kez-ee-a... middle syllable rhymes with 'eye', serendipitiously.)

cw: mild PTSD symptoms

[astrogator]

Here's Arilanna Tayrey, new arrival, bundle of trauma. She glances at the pamphlet and narrows her eyes, because to her it means she's letting her composure slip. What was it, the skittish hypervigilance? That little tremor in her hands? She flattens them against her sides, missing the fact that the doctor was handing the papers out to all manner of people. Nothing personal, Tayrey. Probably.

'Thank you, but I haven't any need of such services,' she says, all military pride with just a touch of defensiveness. Yes, she's damaged, but she can repair it herself.'My dreams are uninteresting.' Not pleasant. But not surprising in any way, she thinks.

[notinflictthem]

"Eh, don't worry about it- it wasn't a good joke either."

Even if he was going to go for the 'stern letter from the ethics committee and a cessation of funding' punchline and not the other one.

Hawkeye shakes it with the hand not holding a plate.

"Hawkeye Pierce. They tell me I'm a Captain but here? I'm a civilian, treat me like one. And uh, also with you," that's what the Catholics say right, "I'm one of our doctors around here. 'f you're military in your world I expect I'll probably be seeing you eventually."

[lovinglefthand]

"Those are napkins. They're literally just a bunch of napkins that you scribbled on for five minutes, which I know because I watched you do it."

First Aid valiantly resists the urge to sigh or rest his face in his hands.

"You didn't even include your own clinic's address...are you getting lazy now, Doctor Pierce?"

[notinflictthem]

"Very good!"

Almost there, just one last thing.

"Speak?"

[notinflictthem]

"Pamphlets, which I made myself by utilizing all the resources at my disposal. And they don't need the address. My clinic has my name on it."

How long will he valiantly resist that urge?

[abhorrently]

"Why, that's extraordinary."

And all the more so that his people have deduced it without magic. At least, that's her assumption, given how he has no magical presence. Hard work and things she can't even comprehend must go into it.

"I've never met someone like you before, doctor. Not in all my life."

The closest she got to those who study the stars, they were spacefarers, and their areas of expertise were quite different.

[abhorrently]

When she remembers, she'll figure out how to tell it all. Even the parts that sting - because Tayrey deserves that honesty, to know what occurred afterwards. To know that even in the face of someone who didn't deserve any of the courtesy the lieutenant would have brought, that they had still fought to be unshackled. That her spirit had still lingered in their minds. But mixed up and hazy as she is, she won't fight to tell it now.

"No kidding. I think I spent a half hour just walking around to enjoy being on solid ground again. Everything in my eyes is so utterly welcome."

There are those that haven't fallen into her view yet - those that she will remain hopeful to see again, or at least that they have some sort of peace - but sorrow is an old friend, and liberty is newer, and there will be time when she lays her head down at night to contemplate that.

"Have you eaten? Everything's fresh, and no one's standing on ceremony about it. I have, but I don't mind waiting for you."

[abhorrently]

"Well met, Ellarinne. My name is Fever, and I claim no titles here either."

She'll accept the hand - there's no reason to be hostile, in this case. Nothing more than a twinge behind her eyes that gripes like a wounded beast with a bad leg.

"As for aid or respect, let's leave that to what time will show is better suited."

[notinflictthem]

"Alright, Daisy. You just giving everyone the stink-eye for the hell of it? Genuine question, I'll join in if you are."

[notinflictthem]

"... some of us don't have any magic in our world, you understand. Except the magic of Christmas," he adds, in a tone that hopefully indicates he's joking.

Hawk presses the plate into his chest.

"There you go. Now have some and tell Chris what a great job they did on it."

[notinflictthem]

"Did I try the meatballs- I would marry those meatballs if I could fit a ring around 'em," Hawk grins and nudges Watson back, "if I have any more of them a hamburger patty is going to come out with a shotgun. How've you been?"

[spaghettification]

“Well. Now you have, and you can join me to watch the stars some night. Yes? In a town like this, light pollution at light will be limited. It’ll be a very crisp night sky. Perhaps I’ll even be able to point out other planets orbiting the same sun.”

This is on absolutely no way an attempt to ask Fever on a date. He is purely looking for a stargazing partner.

[crushed_pearls]

"There's always another war," Erin agrees, and she can't even muster the energy to be bitter. She flicks her ear with a finger while she continues, "But if it helps, you reminded me of the street doctors my people produce, is all. They get put through the grinder too. We all do."

[crushed_pearls]

Erin's always been a big eater, hasn't she Lieutenant? One of her many trips to The Food, patent pending, has a pretty strong fruit and vegetable theme, with quite a lot of the Lost talking to locals about the dishes, cracking her sideways smile and looking exhausted and worn. Erin's looked this bad on the ship before, but usually only after things like, say...the Village.

The resulting plate is taken directly to Tayrey.

"Peace and prosperity, Lieutenant," Erin murmurs. "Good news is, there's been another vegetarian around the joint, so people knew what the hell I was on about. Probability smiled on ya."