Mingle - Emergency Potluck

[pumpkinhollow]

Pumpkin Hollow Community Bulletin

Main Nav | Permanent Bulletin | Calendar |

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]

The other author would like to state for the record, crab rolls are really good if you like crab in other forms.

"In that case, I'll have to do justice to your hard work."

This person may be vibrating in place for reasons unknown, but that's no call to not pick up a piece of sushi and sample it. If Agent Charlie will allow it to be plucked up, that is.

[restingslasherface]

Agent Charlie deigns to permit this. Jean beams brightly at the selection, their mouth full of triangular teeth that fit just a bit too well together. "Not solely my work, comrade! The sailors aboard Mipha's Grace and the seaweed farmers that I employ put in the work every day. Speaking of!" They temporarily set the tray down so they can bow to Fever with one arm crossed over their chest. "Agent Jean, First Mate of Mipha's Grace under Captain Zelda. It's nice to meet you!"

VIBRATION.

[abhorrently]

She gives a half bow in response, mirroring them. Comrade? A very friendly sort, then.

"Fever. Newly arrived, so...just Fever. Well met."

Agent might be ready to proclaim their place, but she has none to boast of. Only the simple gold circlet on her brow and her memories.

[restingslasherface]

Jean cracks a bit of a guilty grin. "I tend to introduce myself as Agent so people won't default to 'mister' or 'miss'. Though! Cecil Palmer did introduce me to 'comrade', so!"

[abhorrently]

"Oh! That's not your first name?"

Wholly and completely serious. Look into her big red eyes.

[restingslasherface]

"...No?? Who would name their child 'Agent'? What if they get a different rank? Can you imagine a Captain Agent???"

[abhorrently]

"Why not?"

She shrugs her shoulders.

"It's no stranger than my name seems to be to others. I knew a man who insisted on calling himself Number 2, though we all ended up calling him Kevin in the end..."

[restingslasherface]

...

......

.........

"His name was poop?"

[abhorrently]

There's a beat of silence, before Fever just laughs and laughs, having to take a step back and steady herself. The sort of laughter she desperately needed after everything was said and done.

"That - no, no, he had this whole situation with numbers and -"

She's just going to wheeze for another second.

[restingslasherface]

"And he picked the poop number???"

[abhorrently]

Full body laughter, the kind that makes you have to fold a little at the middle, before she manages to breathe out.

"I suppose he did. Should have just...kept Kevin....when it was offered."

Deep breaths. Deeeeeep breaths.

[restingslasherface]

Fever you are about to receive a rare privilege: Jean attempting a joke on purpose.

"It seems like he's quite shit at naming, comrade!"

[abhorrently]

If Jean expected a coherent response, they're about to be disappointed. She loses what little control she had all over again, and just laughs and laughs. How poetic it really is, that the man she had nurtured such hatred towards is now only a punchline, a joke stripped of all power over them. She's out, and he's dead.

Finally, she manages to straighten up, and just takes so many breaths.

"Oh...oh, I needed that."

[restingslasherface]

"Would it help further to hold Agent Charlie?" On hearing her name the baby chick on Jean's shoulder peeps several times and makes Threatening Displays at Fever. "She'll calm down if I hand her to you, she is secretly a big fan of being held!"

[abhorrently]

"Are you certain? She seems quite attached to you."

She isn't certain if it's a good idea for her to hold something like that. Small, warm, alive. Breakable in so many ways. Vulnerable.

[restingslasherface]

"Agent Charlegmane was selected for her courage and valor, have no fear." Jean carefully scoops up the chick and offers her forth; she flaps her wings a couple times and regards Fever with a proud, regal even, expression.

[abhorrently]

Slowly, gently, she extends her hands and takes the chick - there's no way to truly refuse her. The weight of her, soft and warm and so light. Feathers and so many breakable bones. Can the chick feel the nervousness that is in her arms, in her hands, kept studiously from her face? If something is to happen, she'll have to shove the bird back at Jean, and run. Figure out something that works as an excuse later.

So far, she's still here. Agent Charlie still lives. The twitching that Fever expects isn't there. Not yet.

Careful. Careful as she brings the chick closer. But..

For a bit, everything is still fine.

[restingslasherface]

"She is still very small," Jean begins in a low, and gentle voice. "I was afraid the first time I was given the chance to hold a much older chicken. But if you accept her, she can help you more than I can really say."

Jean isn't completely ignorant of other people. In Fever's care, they see themself.

[abhorrently]

She is so very small. It would be easy for anything to go wrong. Fever is looking down at her, in her hands, held close to her chest so she won't fall. It's the look of someone uncertain if this is the right thing that they should be doing, without a single roadmap to the correct answer.

"Where did she come from?"

The question doesn't really matter, it's just something to fill the silence, to draw a veil over herself before she gets too tense. Stay light. Stay on the surface. Don't let this stranger have to question if they did something foolish, don't make it so Charlie gets snatched back. Breathe.

[restingslasherface]

"She was laid by one of the chickens from Comrade Eddie's farm," Jean explains, still quite gently. "Hatched quite recently. Many of them went to other farmers to help them start out, but a few have been given as helpers, or therapy animals, or in Agent Charlie's case as a ratter for Mipha's Grace."

They reach their hand out, and gently scritch the chick's head.

[abhorrently]

"Clever girl, to manage that."

And at such a young age. What a wondrous creature. How simple it would be to make that not so.

By tradition I declare: damn OCs and their one-liners

[restingslasherface]

"It can feel hard, to care for fragile things. Can't it, comrade?"

[abhorrently]

She feels insincerity creep up her throat, wanting to scoff and say that came out of nowhere, pull herself back together from whatever gap between the veil and herself they're looking at. Yet. Something in Charlie's gaze holds her where she is. Keeps the words down, though they burn as acid. Firewine on an empty stomach, searing and unsettled.

Instead, she takes a slow breath, and just. Nods.

"They break easily."

In irreparable ways.

[restingslasherface]

"Everything breaks. It's been...hahaha, it's...it's been the hardest lesson I've been trying to learn here, with a lot of very patient help."

"To hold out to love only the invulnerable is to not love."

[abhorrently]

"To love at all is to accept it is insufficient."

It does not cure, it does not heal. It does not fix what is wrong by its own presence. It exists - in whatever state it does. And her heart, crafted as the broken and cold thing it is, must always let it go, in the end.

She smiles, serene, to that statement in her own head. The same sort of comfort of lying on a marble floor, chilly and unyielding. Charlie, innocent and frangible, will never be burdened with such things. How fortunate.