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

[astrogator]

There's a part of her that wants to object, but she doesn't. He's being kind, and she shouldn't need that. A Tradeliner shouldn't need anything from outsiders, by rights. But oh, how she does.

This is not the man who saved her life, she reminds herself. But she does nod, and sit, and relax so far as she's able. She still looks ready to spring into action at a second's notice, but at least a little of the tension is gone.

'Thank you,' she tells him when he returns. 'I... it wasn't a surprise. Lingering wounds, yes? I tried, best as I could, but they weren't survivable. I was more than ready to go. And then probability smiled, gave me another chance.'

[lightconductor]

"I'm sorry," he says honestly as he sets the dish in front of her. Watson may have also got a little bit for himself, since it smelled so good and he is fond of curry; he settles himself down as well. His apology is more than just sympathy; he understands the experience of dying slowly (and then not managing it) first-hand, even if that's not what brought him here. "Surprise or not, that must have been a terrible experience. You must be relieved to be here?"

[astrogator]

Tayrey gives him a quick nod. 'More than relieved,' she tells him. 'Back home we have this celebration. Liberation Day. It marks the winning of a war, a long time ago. The day I arrived here - that was my liberation day. Probability smiled, bringing me here.'

Too dramatic? Possibly - but it's true, Tayrey was saved from imprisonment and from death, and she's going to appreciate it.

[lightconductor]

"Ah," Watson smiles, "yes, I think that's a very sensible idea. An anniversary to mark in your calendar, I think, and celebrate next year. I hope," he adds, "that you're inclined to celebrate it. This place is... easy to like, I find."

He shrugs, casually, a little awkwardly.

[astrogator]

'I hope so. At least it cannot be worse than where I came from,' she says casually, as if she hadn't weighed up the probability before she chose to live, considered that it might be some trap.

Tayrey hopes that she'll be home before the planetary calendar spins around to this date again, but Watson's sentiment is a kind one, so she doesn't object to it.

'What are the best things about it, for you? No guarantee we'll have the same interests, but it'll give me a place to start.'

[lightconductor]

Watson gestures to the party.

"This community has been nothing but welcoming. We ran short on food this winter, with so many new mouths to feed, but the locals have never begrudged our presence, and we made sure everyone had enough supplies. More people arrive just as we're starting to recover our food sources, and there's immediately as much of a party as can be thrown together on short notice. The monsters are a problem, of course, but I'll be damned if this town isn't something worth fighting for. I spent weeks waiting for some hidden terror to show itself, but there's nothing yet."

He offers a faint smile. "There's also the small matter that this town is rather less, ah, strict about what is socially acceptable, in a way I find refreshing."

[astrogator]

Tayrey silently files away that information. Food shortages. She is resolute never to become a mouth for someone else to feed; she'll start stockpiling in earnest immediately.

'I'm glad that you value it so much,' she says softly. 'For me, this is only a means to an end. A form of indenture. I'll fight for this town so that I can someday get back to my own home, where I belong. Healthy.' She pauses, considering it. 'I take my duties by contract very seriously, and I also - well, I mean to enjoy living again, even if this wouldn't be my first choice of place.'

She tilts her head, looking at him carefully. 'What's different about the social norms?' Not that she'll do anything but stick to her Tradeline code regardless, but it's good to be informed.

[lightconductor]

"If you want to go home, I wish very much for you to have that. I only note that I find myself beginning to settle down rather more comfortably than I might have expected."

Oh, he's caught out in having to be explicit. Oops. Watson makes a small, embarrassed sound, halfway between a sigh and a laugh. "Where I am from, lieutenant, no young woman would be permitted to earn such a rank as yours in any service, but here this is unremarkable. This is also a town where there is remarkably little judgement about one's romantic partners, where I am used to censure, scandal, and very possibly criminal charges if one happens to have the wrong sort of partner. I find the change refreshing."

[astrogator]

She'd be horrified by that if she hadn't already met Earthers and heard about some of their less palatable customs, discrimination for all sorts of reason among them. There's no strong reaction from her, then, just a look of sympathy.

'Where I'm from we'd say that if what you're doing isn't infringing on anyone else's rights, it isn't anyone else's business. It's certainly nobody's business who you take your overnights with. I'm sorry your homeworld wasn't like that.'

Tayrey won't let on that she knows more about it than she's saying, just gives him a small smile. 'And the only rationale I can possibly see for barring women from the military is if your aptitude tests look for brute strength alone.' She'll acknowledge her limitations in that regard, despite being stronger than average. 'But a young woman can shoot as well as a young man. Or strategize.' She shrugs, knowing those policies aren't his fault. 'Or care for the wounded,' she adds, giving him a knowing look.

[lightconductor]

"Oh, I certainly believe a young woman can shoot or strategise as well as a man, and if I didn't my time here would certainly have cured that, but there are many things in my society that a woman is not permitted to do, out of belief that they are... weaker, less capable, and duller of mind."

He frowns a little. "I do not hold with that, let me be clear. I have known some very clever women, and I married one of them, but nevertheless they are barred from a number of places or circles on that basis, sometimes by law and sometimes by convention."

[astrogator]

It would have been intolerable to have grown up a girl on Watson's Earth, thinks Tayrey. In childhood she'd heard her tutors warning her that her genetic enhancements didn't make her better than others. She can't imagine what it would have been like to have been told she was inferior instead.

Still, Watson is hardly alone among Earthers in having come from such a situation, and she's hardly going to blame him when he's making it very clear he doesn't share those views.

'Much better for each individual to rise as far as they can on their own merits,' she says, 'and not be artificially held back because of preconceptions. A society could lose out on a lot of talent that way.' It's softly said, though. 'Your homeworld could do with a few more like you. I'd say that I'd want to go there and speak to them on essential rights, but I guess the ones who needed to listen wouldn't!' Change doesn't come easy, she knows that much.

'I can see why you're finding that this place suits you better,' she adds, more optimistically. 'I haven't been here long, admittedly, but I haven't seen prejudice.'

[lightconductor]

"There's work on such things being done all the time. Seeing this place gives me hope that things might be better back home someday. Ah, but as much as I miss London, I'm not sure there's much there for me, anymore."

He shrugs, uncertain, a momentary grief passing across his face, despite his best efforts. There's the urge to tell the poor lieutenant all about his wife and Holmes, and surely she does not care about either of them, given she's barely met him.

[astrogator]

She sees that look on his face, and she's silent for a moment, soft sympathy in her eyes. It's hard not to let knowledge of the other man she knew bleed through, the man she saw celebrate his partnership contract, the man she saw lying in a hospital bed in a foreign land on an impossibly faraway planet.

In that order - or not, depending who's doing the recollecting.

This man is different, but she can feel for a stranger, can't she? 'There's always hope,' she tells him. 'Your London can be better, and you - is it home for you? If it's home, you can always find something of value there.' She'd left Cardalek in anger, and it hadn't been until she'd been torn away from all she knew that she realised how much there was to miss.

whoops, seem to have missed this one

[lightconductor]

"I did find many things of value there," Watson agrees. That sentiment is true; it's simply that the major things of value were people, and that they are now dead, and what's left is less enjoyable than it had been. "Perhaps I might see it again. We shall have to see what the future will bring us."