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

[lightconductor]

"Ah, perhaps that's an attitude common to both professions, then, as I'm inclined to agree."

Watson shrugs a little, self-conscious. He can hardly go telling his life story to her now, at a time like this. "I imagine this is all rather overwhelming. I'm not sure I would have been up to a party when I first arrived."

[abhorrently]

"Somewhat, but believe me when I say it is the welcome sort. It helps that I'm just happy to be somewhere else at long last."

Which is ominous, she knows.

"Suffice to say, where I arrived from, the kindness already shown would be remarkable."

[lightconductor]

"I'm sorry to hear that," Watson says, genuinely. "I hope your experience here is better. There may be any number of things here that are terrible, but there does seem to be a real community, with no shortage of kindness -- though I grant you that saying so without being prepared to support that claim is worth little."

[abhorrently]

"Do you need to? Your people let me and others in without suspicion. We're offered food, clothing, employment, the chance to find our footing. Supporting your claim in light of all this...what would you go and add?"

And the idea of choice. The fact that every one of them looked at an offer and said yes - a fairer deal than being swept up and away by forces unknown. That yes, there is a barrier, but it is a problem. Something to be worked at collectively, that freedom can be restored. It's more far-reaching that he would know, though perhaps one day someone will tell him. Not here though. Not in this happiness.

[lightconductor]

"My people."

Watson smiles. "I've only been here a few months, myself. I'm not a local either. Still, they gave me just as warm a welcome. Still... Well, we've had something of a food shortage, over the past weeks, actually. More new mouths than the town was prepared for. We've all been hungry, but no one's starved because there's been a genuine effort to find more food and to share what there is. There's charity here."

The infinite sweet potato aside.

[abhorrently]

The lightness drains from her face a little, and there's a serious cast to her eyes, though her tone remains gentle.

"All of this...is it any strain on the current stores?"

If there is a need, she can't imagine that the others wouldn't leap at a task to do, a chance to help in a concrete way to make sure that there's no risk from their own arrival. There has to be something to do about it.

[lightconductor]

He waves his hand dismissively.

"We're out of the worst of it," he says. "More mouths to feed also meant more hands to work, and the weather has warmed. We also had a blessing of an everlasting sweet potato." Watson grins, because how can you not grin about an infinite root vegetable? "We're already rebuilding, and frankly we've probably earned ourselves a bit of a celebration. Still, there will be work ahead of us, as well, to keep this from happening again."

[abhorrently]

An everlasting root vegetable. She finds herself smiling along with him.

"I can only speak to myself, but I know there are others who'd also feel as I do, that what we can do to help we'll do gladly."

It might be reckless to promise this so swiftly, but settling in, she feels a little reckless. Twitching with the desire to leap into something, now that they're unleashed onto a new world.

[lightconductor]

Watson lets out a contented sigh.

"I can think of worse afterlives than this one," he says. "It is, at least, never boring, and the company is first rate. I'm glad to hear other people want to help improve things even further."

[abhorrently]

She holds her tongue with an act of will. This is no afterlife - but what does she gain from insisting on it to someone who has seniority?

"It's the very least we can do, if we're to live here. Don't be surprised if you get a rash of volunteers soon asking what they can do for others, even beyond employment."

[lightconductor]

And yet even if he can't remember his own death, he knows people who can. He doesn't know what else to call it.

"I only hope this is a better place than the one you came from," he says.