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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.

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He sure is!

"So two muffins are sitting in their pans in an oven, right? One turns to the other and says God, it's hot in here."

Hawkeye is already cracking into a smile as he delivers the punchline.

"So the other one says 'AH! A TALKING MUFFIN!'"

Firstly, she has definitely never heard that one before. And secondly - he doesn't get a laugh out of her, exactly, but Tayrey does grin broadly, and she does make a little amused sound.

'That's something! I'll remember that one!' she says, turning towards him, relaxing that wary attitude just a fraction. It's not much, but it's a start.

"Eh, you even laugh at my bad jokes! I'll have to keep you around," successful start, he just has to keep it going.

"How do you hide an elephant in a field of poppies?"

Look, it's a long time since she laughed, and she's never heard these jokes before, they're all fresh for her. Tayrey needs this more than she knows.

The next question makes her tilt her head and smirk a little.

'Is the answer to paint it red?'

"Well not the whole thing, that's ridiculous. Only the toenails."

Without skipping a beat, "what do you get when you cross a kangaroo with a sheep?"

She blinks in surprise. 'Now I can't guess that one. What's a kangaroo?'

When Tayrey's ancestors left their first homeworld, brave space pioneers on the way to start new civilisations, some animals were considered more essential than others.

"You don't know what a kangaroo is?"

Huh.

"Big thing that looks kind of like a rat. Important thing is that it jumps to get around, right?"

You know, in service of a 'wooly jumper' joke?

'Oh, I... maybe I saw a picture, once?' She didn't.

There's something about this that strikes her as even more amusing. 'I'm sorry. I ruined your joke by being badly acculturated. Wish I could say that had never happened before, but - well, I'll catch up eventually.'

Then she sticks out a hand. 'Lieutenant Tayrey. Peace and prosperity to you.'

"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."

One side effect of Tayrey's stay on the torture ship is that the automatic regard and deference she had for anyone claiming to be a captain is long since gone. She doesn't, therefore, protest the impossibility of treating him like a civilian.

'I hear you, Captain. I'm military. On my homeworld or anyone else's, and all the space between. Astrogator on the interstellar Tradelines,' she tells him. That's what she's going to be, to these strangers. Not Tayrey the pathetic torture victim. Tradeline Tayrey, clawing back every scrap of what was hers.

No need to be too serious, though. 'I hope you won't be offended if I say that shipside we tried to avoid seeing too much of the inside of the infirmary, however good company the doctor.'

"Yep- still hate it. Doctor will do if you have to all me anything but Hawkeye-"

Then it sort of clicks what she's said and-

"Hold on- interstellar? As in, pertaining to space? You served in space?"

A small sigh.

"Why am I not surprised we took the military into space. Just couldn't leave a good thing going, could we."

Hawkeye is fine by her, and she's about to tell him so when he gets caught on that particular detail.

'You got it. I'm a regular career spacer. Going to be captain of my own starship someday, if probability smiles.' How long since she said that and truly meant it?

'We combine military and trade functions really, but-' he doesn't seem impressed by Tradeline operations, no need to give him the pitch. She pauses, looking back at him. 'If it helps, I don't think it has anything to do with your military or your people. Are you an Earther?' It's a fair guess at this point. Earthers are everywhere.

...

"I guess you could call me that, but where I'm from we're called Americans. That's the uh, the land mass I'm from, we get more specific down to the state or city."

Wow, that's a weird feeling. He's not a fan.

She seems to get that he's not here to hear the recruiter pitch, and so Hawk does her the courtesy of not giving her the anti-schpiel.

"So humans weren't from earth originally in your world, is that right?"

She nods in recognition. Some Earthers don't like being called Earthers, it's fine. 'Americans! Yes, I've heard of your country. The United States.' She stops short of asking him whether he's ever heard of Commander Crichton, because she already knows Earth's population is orders of magnitude above the average colony world. It'd be a daft question.

'My people have never seen any sign of Earth,' she tries to explain. 'It could be that we're billions of years apart in time, or exist in galaxies at opposite ends of the universe, or it could be that we inhabit different universes entirely. I haven't thought of a way to tell for sure. The planet my people first came out from is called Tirva.'

"Yeah, that's the one. I'm from a little backwater that most people haven't heard of to begin with, just picture a foggy wet growth on the side of a continent and that's home."

The explanation makes enough sense to him. Albeit most of his knowledge of space comes from Forbidden Planet and derivatives, but if there's no earth then there's no earth. He's stopped asking too many questions about people's situations if he can help it.

"You ever been there yourself? Or is it more like where your people are from?"

'It's where we came out from,' she says carefully. 'It became a tyrannical place and my ancestors had to fight a war for their freedom. We won, and we stayed well clear, and Tirva is off-limits now. Nobody has been back there in a century.' To her knowledge. Of course space is so vast it would be possible for a determined ship to slip past the border patrol's notice, but Tayrey can't think of a reason why anyone would. Certainly not heading in the Tirvan direction.

'But tell me, what's your little backwater home called?' She's genuinely interested, because where home is for someone really matters. 'When I get home I'll tell my comrades, and you can know that spacers very far away know the name of this place, and not more famous others.'

He genuinely wants to ask more about Tirva but the idea of people in space knowing about his hometown makes him laugh- genuinely, not bad joke laugh, at the absurdity of it.

"It's called Crabapple Cove. I mean it's beautiful- lots of birds, lots of trees. There was a little creek in my backyard I used to play in as a kid. Not a whole lot of people- mostly some lobster fishermen, some farmers- one of them did uh cranberries, actually. My dad's the town doctor, my mom ran the local poetry society, and my sister got out of there as soon as she could."

Another small laugh, "Christ, listen to me, I sound like the tourism board. It's nice, that's all, I miss it. I'm pretty far from home where I left off in my world."

She smiles at his laughter, but the explanation makes her speak softly. 'No, I hear you. I do. I'm fortunate enough to have two homes. My ship's one, and I miss that so bad I could probably write poetry even about the questionable food and my cupboard of a cabin, but the other - I was like your sister. Got out fast. Now it's-' Four standard years. Five? Tayrey doesn't even know any longer. 'So long since I've been there, all the reasons I had for leaving seem like nothing, you know? I just want to see the people there again.'

This is getting decidedly sentimental and that is not a good thing. Not when it's about Cardalek and her father and all the things she needs to put in a precious little mental box and stop dwelling on if she's going to appreciate what she has here.

'Crabapple Cove does sound nice. You're doing the tourism board proud. I'd visit if I could. I think I'd like the cranberries. Maybe even the poetry.'

"It's my mom's poetry, if you said you didn't like it I'd have to fight you for her honour."

But still, he looks out over the assembled crowd, at all the new faces.

"Tell me more about it? I mean, I blabbed enough about my home for the both of us, but I want to know about it. Why'd you leave?"

Tayrey chuckles. 'In that case, I'm certain your mother writes the most excellent poetry in Crabapple Cove and probably ought to win awards,' she says merrily, as much because it's something to say while she tries to figure out what to tell him about Cardalek as anything else.

'Where I'm from... It's a place called Cardalek. That's the name of the colony world, of the Company - the megacorporation that owns it - and of the central Tower I grew up in. Cardalek Tower, floor 284. I grew up in the sky! I was adopted as a baby. That's a complicated story, but my father was so good to me. I never went without anything, and he valued me so much. I didn't even appreciate it until later, when I met people who had rough childhoods, who never had what I had.'

She sighs. 'Why I left... it was impulsive. I had this friend who convinced me that an... internal politics situation was going to go against my family, and that I'd lose my citizenship rights. So I decided to leave. I ran off and joined the military, thinking it'd be a great adventure, and...' Tayrey shakes her head. 'I love my career. I love flying. I don't regret that. But I regret the way I went about it. The hurt that I must have caused. It was thoughtless. Stupid.' She'd been all of thirteen, hadn't known any better.

A lot of the specifics are lost on him, but God if this isn't a familiar tune. He's met plenty of kids who signed up to the army thinking they'd be heroes and wind up on his table as corpses. More than one who was running from home.

"My dad's pretty great too. I had to leave him to go study to become a doctor- when I was younger I was too excited by all of it to write, but... I ended up missing him a lot, y'know. You're right, we're luckier than most."

He's still got the message from the bottle in the breast pocket of his vest.

"I'm sure your dad is still proud of you. I mean, that's what you do when you're young. You make mistakes, break some hearts, and you learn better for next time."

'I thought I wouldn't miss anyone. Back in my first year my section lieutenant, Savitskaya, she used to say she'd make me write if it were up to her. I understand that better now.' Leah Savitskaya, who saw her own children twice a year and knew what Tayrey was doing to her poor father.

'It's easy to be too excited. Too busy. But... he is proud. After I passed for lieutenant he sent a message. He'd known where I was the whole time, just-' she smiles softly, '-let me stay, let me find my own excellence.' Made her feel exceptionally guilty for all the uncharitable thoughts she'd had about the family having her dragged back if they found out.

'So did you decide to become a doctor because of your father? Following after him? I'm sure he'd have valued that.'

"Well hey, glad to hear it. Your dad sounds like a stand-up guy."

Letting his kid go off and make a name for theirself... yeah, he knows what that's like.

"More or less. I didn't really have a choice- I mean, not like how I got drafted, but y'know. Always wanted to help people, couldn't help but stick my nose into situations, steady hands, perfect doctor material. You should've seen his face when I told him I got into med school. I don't know if he was prouder that I was becoming a doctor, or that I wasn't taking after my Grandpa Sparky and trying to scam the government for a living."

Good ol' Grandpa Sparky.

"I don't know how any of the magic junk here works, but... a letter from him washed up in a bottle last month. I don't know if this place does encores for this sort of thing, but. I hope you get word from yours too, eh?"

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Mingle - Emergency Potluck

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