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

[needmetodoanyattacking]

"A lot to take in, isn't it?"

The thick Welsh accent comes from a few feet behind her--a safe, but not impersonal distance. If she turns, she'll find a young man in a suit, with bright blue eyes just a little older than his apparent years--experience, not immortality. Not for him.

His hands are folded in front of him--designed to show he's not armed--and his stance is relaxed, weight balanced more on one leg than the other. It's not the posture of someone ready to fight, and Ianto Jones has no intention of fighting. Not today.

And not with a woman who looks so bloody shaken. The way she wanders, slow and cautious, the way she lays a hand on a wall here or a lamp post there...

"Is this world so different from your own?" He calls out. "Or did you arrive right out of the thick of it? Not a local, me--came in on the ferry like you. Ianto Jones, at your service."

[abhorrently]

A thin gold circlet glints on her brow when she turns to his voice, red eyes assessing everything about him in a quick moment. Not a threat, none of these people seem to be, and her magic's still in place. It's fine, it's fine - it still feels like it'll be a trick, though. Some realm bent on trying to snap everyone over its knee. And yet, so far, it hasn't.

"A bit of both, as it happens, but I'll make a long story short and say it's good to be breathing air as a free woman. Fever, and well met."

[needmetodoanyattacking]

"Indeed." Ianto replies, feeling a pang of sympathy for the woman at that particular description. He can't imagine where she might be coming from, but he's felt similar...

...and he doesn't like to think about that, because the last breath like that he took was his first day back at the Hub after Lisa, at long last, died.

The struggle that came after, the pain and anguish and guilt...the relief only made it all worse in the end.

"The adjustment can be rough, but it's worth it." he assures her after a moment. "I come from a world similar enough to this one, albeit quite a ways into the future. Some things differ, but there's enough that's the same to find my way. One thing I can tell you, because I've worn that look...this is real. All of it. And if I can offer any means to help reassure you of that fact, I'm happy to help."

[abhorrently]

"That's quite kind of you."

A brief pause as she takes the words in, their implications. Clearly somewhere in his past, the idea of things being not real was a threat. And hasn't it been for her? Illusions, dreams, her own mind the battleground. The realms, and how they shattered. And now, things that she would have touched to reassure herself, all gone.

Just herself and her scars. At least those were still there.

"I won't ask the impossible of you. Only where you'd recommend a newcomer go to fully experience this place. What she can't miss out on, to truly get used to it and settle in and enjoy it."

[needmetodoanyattacking]

"More immediately? The throng at the bloody potluck." Ianto admits with a quiet laugh. "People are the best measure of this place, local and otherwise. Groups of them, flockin' like geese and gatherin' like sheep. Any other time, the Oak & Iron is a great place to find 'em."

It's an honest answer, immediate and from the gut--and for all that he questions himself for giving it, he finds it's true. His thoughts, drifting as they did to the presence of Abaddon when he thought of what this poor woman might be going through, moved to individuals caught in isolation. The way Lisa came to him, the way Diane came to Owen--they had all been taken by the illusion in isolation, one on one.

One thing he's come to understand is that no man is an island--relationships are one thing, but reality is never down to individual perception. Truth, and the spirit of any one place...

"It's all about the people." he echoes. "You want the measure of any bit of earth that any soul calls home--find its people. They'll always be the pieces of a place worth knowin'."

[abhorrently]

"You sound like a friend of mine. She also holds a high regard for people - tried her best to make sure we all remembered the concept of community even when what was around us didn't really lend itself to the situation."

She's fond when she says it. Though her attachment to the woman wasn't deep, it was hard to not respect her viewpoint.

"If we had nothing else, we had each other. And the same remains true now. If I had shown up on the shores with nothing - no ferry, no conversation, none of that came from other people - I grant that I might not be as charitable as I am now. I might not even want to be in public."