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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'll put mandatory sedation on your file. Or restraints, but I don't know you like that yet," Hawkeye jokes.

Then he blinks momentarily, taken aback.

"Oh uh- I was an army doctor, if I'm treating a blind patient they're always freshly blind. Sorry about that, just an assumption. Lucky I guessed right. I was lying anyway, people tell me I'm a dead ringer for Bette Davis."

Hrmmm, so maybe he was flirting. Fun flirting, but still. Erin can be merciful.

"You're gonna need better tits before I sign off on restraints, Doctor," Erin says with a little laugh. "You're gonna want to write some Sappho quotes on my file. Try the one about where I can't weave, it's a good one."

"Better tits!? How dare you, madame! I won best chest picture in camp three months running before I forgot to shave!"

His indignation is entirely mocking, and dissolves into a light chuckle.

"Alright, alright, I get the picture. Had to try. Do I get a name for your file or should I just put you down as not interested?"

"Erin Peters, shipping out from New Avalon in Maryland. Don't worry if you haven't heard of it, it seems to only be on my Earth." She scowls for a moment. "Witch and warrior by trade, usually. Getting a real job will be..."

Beat.

"Hey doc, you got a knife on ya? I need to check something that might make your job easier."

"Oh hey- I'm from Maine. Has to be some sort of crab-lobster solidarity, right? Crabapple cove myself- don't worry if you haven't heard of it, neither have half the people living there."

He was guessing magic was involved with the wings and all, but- huh?

"I don't carry my scalpels on me, and I don't lend them out for use- why?"

"I haven't had access to my ability to heal by magic for a bit and I wanted to check." Erin sighs deeply. "And it's easiest for me to cut myself, don't have to explain why I 'attacked' someone else and I'm a bit hard for other people to cut usually."

"Sorry, I signed this wacky piece of paper which means I don't cut into healthy flesh for no reason."

And he isn't about to assist in that either.

"You also have healing magic, huh."

If Hawkeye sounds a little defeated by that, it's because he is.

"Yeah, but don't look so down, I ain't Christ. I'm barely even Judas." Erin makes a Hand Wavey Kinda Gesture, trying to figure out how to explain through the fog of exhaustion in her head. "...I can heal things the body could heal, basically? If a dude gets stabbed I can get them to heal faster than they'll die, but I can't like. Regrow an eye, install a prosthetic, cure a cold, perform a bypass, none of that. When it comes to the work you do with your hands the best I got is basic first aid and getting people to be comfortable while they die."

He doesn't quite perk up, but Hawkeye nods in acknowledgement, appreciatively.

"At least one person isn't gunning for my retirement."

But enough of him moping.

"I'll call if we get something minor in the clinic, then we can test it. Or if you find anyone willing to help you with that the way you suggested, don't tell me about it. Especially not if I have to stitch you up about it. We clear?"

"Crystal," Erin agrees with a faint note of surprise. That tone of authority...

"Forgive me here doc, you uh, done a lot of battlefield medicine? You remind me of some people."

"I really wish it wasn't so easy to tell. Is it my posture? I'm slouching as much as possible, and red is as far away from khaki green as I can get."

Hawk shakes his head, "Korea. I don't know if you're before or after my time, but I'll tell you I know they do encores after it. They always do."

"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."

Hawkeye twitches.

"Yeah. Well. 'M a civilian here all the way down to my yellow belly. It gets crazy here sometimes but still not as bad as home. So. I'm enjoying it while it lasts."

A huff.

"And by your people I am assuming you mean pigeons."

"Homeless cryptids, and I'm maybe twenty percent joking. The Jersey Devil is one of ours, legacy title, but, well. We see a lot of combat wounds." She shrugs, apologetically. "There's never enough doctors to go around either. Hard to get training without like, a birth certificate. Shit sucks. So if you have trouble, need some muscle? I've got you."

.........

"Start at the beginning, I think I blinked and somehow we ended up at the Jersey Devil and not having birth certificates."

"Thought that might get your attention." Erin shrugs again; her half-smile is...

Not happy.

"You know the old stories about faeries? How they steal children, or buy them, or bargain for them, and then leave a fake in their place? My people are the kids that came back. And the thing is, as a general rule, coming back doesn't do shit to the fake. They're still on Earth, living our life, using our identity. They have our fingerprints and our licenses, they use our birth certificates, they live with our families, they work at our jobs. Leaves a body in a bit of a spot, and that's before having to reckon with, well, the everything implied when I say 'faeries exist and they kidnap children'. We're not big fans of that, which means a lot of fighting, which never stops because there's always just more faeries. The reward for winning one war is fighting the next one."

"The speed with which all of that gave me a headache is a marvel of medical science."

He holds up a hand-

"So what, fairies... clone you? That's- how does nobody notice? Fairies just steal kids and nobody- nobody does anything about it? Why? What do they want kids for?"

"I'm with you on the headache, brother." Erin listens to his questions, patiently. Takes a deep breath, and spreads her wings before pointing to the darker shadow now cast against the square. There's a piece missing from it, right at the heart; where a whole shadow should logically be cast, it just isn't, as if that part of Erin's body doesn't block light.

"The fakes are made out of trash, and pieces of a shadow. It makes them...something like the original. Close enough to fake it. If you ran tests on me and my fake we'd both turn up as a normal human. But this is where the story gets fun. For ages and ages and ages, as far back in history as we've seen, anything fae had an...illusion, right? A magic animal looks like a normal cat, I'd look like a normal human, a great lord of the other place looks like a will o' the wisp, all that. And then in A.D. 2016, all the illusions just shattered. No one knows why. 's why you can see me like this and not as a random Irish lass."

..........................

"I'm going to go sit down."

"Sanest reaction I've ever had to this talk. But hey, find me after I've got a job, and I'll get ya a drink, yeah?"

"It'll be easier for you to find me. I'll be in the clinic with my name on it, happy hour is six to seven."

Hawkeye needs a lie down after that. It doesn't even occur to him to offer a parting flirt.

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Mingle - Emergency Potluck

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Seems like wrap?

ye