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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

[hate_gettin_older]

"Edgar," he says, taking the offered handshake. "Same. Uh ... lean winter?"

[theydrewfirstblood]

John nods, and not for the first time, wonders if maybe their brush with famine didn't also leave him more raw than he should have been when he had that blowout with Sam. What's done is done, and now...

Well. Time will tell if they can get back to somewhere good.

"Not quite bad enough to call it famine outright, but food's been pretty scarce." he admits as he shakes Edgar's hand. "I hunt, so I made it easier for those I could, but we all felt it. Bright side? You guys don't have to--you got any wilderness experience?"

[hate_gettin_older]

Something about Edgar's face changes when he says food's been pretty scarce; a tight wariness, one with no trace of confusion or protest in it. This is someone who's known food scarcity, and has heard of worse than he's known.

"Not a lot," he answers the last question. "Been in places that had some forest, spent a little time in em, but mostly with other folks who knew what they were doing."

[theydrewfirstblood]

"Well, I know what I'm doing. And I'd be happy to share what I know." John replies, blunt but gentle. He sees that shift in his features--understands that kind of resignation.

He's acquired it himself over the last three years in prison.

"I got survival training in the military--you can put me almost anywhere, and I can feed myself. I'll show you--that way you'll be good no matter where you are."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Yeah?" His expression opens and lightens a little. "You can just, like ... find food?"

[theydrewfirstblood]

The look on the kid's face--it's both heartwarming and heartbreaking, in equal measure. Makes him wonder where the hell he came from that that's such a revelation to him.

Spotting a bit of color in his periphery, John smiles and takes a couple steps to his left, bending over to pluck a dandelion blossom that he brings over to show Edgar.

"Dandelion. This? Your best friend if you're out anywhere and food's short. All's you gotta make sure of is that it's not near any plants that may have been chemically treated--weedkillers 'n shit--or close to any major roads where they'd pick up exhaust from cars. Every part of the plant's edible, and dense with nutrients. They get more bitter as they get older, so look for young ones. You can use 'em in salads, teas, sauces, you name it. If veg is scarce, you can eat like a fucking king scrounging for these...and that's just one scraggly little weed."

[hate_gettin_older]

(Oh, where the hell he came from is a whole story of its own.)

Edgar peers at the dandelion, then reaches for it. "That's a flower. You can just eat that?"

And if Rambo doesn't indicate otherwise, he'll try taking a bite.

[theydrewfirstblood]

"People step on 'em a lot, so you wanna wash 'em first." John replies with a laugh, letting Edgar take the flower but gently resting a hand on Edgar's arm to prevent any impulsive munching. "But once you do that? Yeah, you can. Lotta other things, too, and I'll teach you how to find 'em. How to set hunting traps, too."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Thanks," he says, and it feels wholly inadequate for the hugeness of what he's just been offered. "Really, I -- thanks, man. That's a lot, you know?"

[theydrewfirstblood]

It's not enough. he wants to say. This hangdog looking kid who lights up at the thought of being able to just feed himself if he needs to--he's a good kid, he doesn't deserve that.

He wants to stick something sharp in whoever or whatever put that kind of hunger in a guy like this. He reminds John of Co in all the wrong ways, trampled on but untested. The tiniest scrap of hope still in him where he can see something meaningful or even magical in basic survival training.

All the aches and pains, the cold and the loneliness--all of the stuff he learned to give up on in prison just wants to come crawling out of him again with a suddenness that makes him vaguely nauseous for a second.

I won't fail you like I did her.

The colder, more direct thought makes the agony settle again, lets him breathe and reclaim his equilibrium.

"Survival's a right. Not a privilege." he replies softly. "S' no trouble, promise."

[hate_gettin_older]

(Untested isn't how Edgar would describe himself -- and yet, in comparison to John? In some ways, maybe.)

"Not a privilege," he repeats with approval, and that light in his face is sharper now, harder, with years of anger underlying it. "Fuckin right."

[theydrewfirstblood]

That spark of fury makes him hurt all over again--rakes across his heart and soul, claws of feeling and want that are so fucking dangerous. Wanting is the problem, wanting isn't something he can do anymore...

Not when it hurts so much. Not when it gets people killed. Not when it causes so much pain he can prevent just by letting go.

...so why is he putting a hand on the kid's shoulder? Why is he still talking?

"You feel that? That spark? Hold onto that. Hold onto it, but don't get caught up in it. If you can still get mad, you still care--and if you still care, you can do more than survive. You can build something for yourself, you can do more than just live, you can have a life of your own. Home, hobbies, family--anything you want. So you hold onto that...you feel it, you hold onto it, but don't get stuck in it. Like starting a fire--light the spark, control it, but don't let it burn down the whole damn forest. You copy?"

[hate_gettin_older]

He wants to respond well before the man's done talking -- of course he can still get mad, of course he still cares -- but something keeps him quiet. Listening.

In general, Edgar isn't given to introspection or insight, trying to figure out his own or anyone else's inner workings. But this one comes to him unbidden: John's telling him all this because he's really trying to tell himself.

For a moment he doesn't know what to do with that, as though someone's handed him a piece of furniture or part of a complicated machine and said here, hold this. But okay, all right; he can hold on to it until John needs it back, and maybe that'll be enough.

"Copy," he says, and nods.