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

[theydrewfirstblood]

John loses his smile--and for a second, he's too warm. He feels shaky again, carrying the dead weight of a body whose soul has taken flight.

"You...not...forget...me?"

"Monsters are human, too." John replies quietly, lowering his gaze. "Some of the worst ones...and they get a choice, too. I never did. I tried, once--very recently, I tried. To free a man who didn't deserve to be a prisoner. There was a woman, someone who saw...different in me. Thought like you, that I could still be a person--and the hell of it was, I believed her. For one second...I believed her."

He pauses, fingers curling into a fist that stings his skin with the kiss of nails--stops him short of drawing blood.

"The second I did, they killed her."

He looks up into Gerry's eyes again, his own filled with hollow grief.

"There's a point when what's inside stops counting. When no amount of desire or faith can change a damn thing. You can keep wanting and keep believing, but if the whole world refuses to let you it'll drive you nuts. Acceptance can sometimes be the only thing that keeps you from breaking--at least a weapon that works won't hurt anyone when it's left alone. That's all I am: a gun trying to stay in the locker. Least that way, fewer people will get hurt."

[skeletonkeay]

Gerry just stands there, watching stoically, his expression failing to move. The only things that give away the fact that he isn't made of stone are his slow breathing, and his eyes.

Stormy grey eyes. Eyes that stare, that burrow, that see into the soul and know. Unnerving and unwavering. Something about his gaze draws out a feeling of paranoia, of being seen and known far too well, of being stripped of one's privacy.

At last, he scoffs. "You're choosing hopelessness," he accuses bluntly. "Fine. That's what I get for helping. Deaf ears. But know that you have made the choice to let the song take hold of you, and you continue to choose it. And when the drums begin to beat, when the screams ring out, when the gunfire cracks the air... just don't forget that you chose it."

He brushes off. Not particularly fast, busy lighting a fresh cigarette, but he suspects John will choose not to follow. To follow would be to want to heal.

[theydrewfirstblood]

Unaware of Gerry's assessment, John stays still for a beat--but Gerry only makes it about five or six steps before John's hand settles on his shoulder from behind, heavy but not restraining.

"People hear songs. People beat drums. People scream, people shoot--weapons don't have voices. Weapons don't fight the wars...they just sit in the locker and wait to be used, and if no one ever comes for 'em? That's all they do. They sit in the dark, in the quiet. They don't hurt anyone...they're left in peace to simply be."

The hand squeezes, gently.

"And if weapons could make choices, if weapons could want...that's what they'd choose. What they'd dream of: to exist. To sit in the armory...to be left the fuck alone."

The hand leaves his shoulder, and if Gerry turns around, he'll be alone.

[skeletonkeay]

Gerry doesn't need to turn around to see. He yanks his shoulder free, not a fan of being touched. Wiry muscle beneath his thin frame. "I said what the fuck I said," he barks, and quickens his pace, grumbling to himself. "Fuckin' Avatars, always trying to get the last goddamn word. Too busy trying to win to listen."