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

[crushed_pearls]

That gets a weary, weary sigh. "Why is it ever? The wicked don't prey on the mighty, they prey on those who have little enough to begin with. The gods of nightmare who change us and scrape us and burn us and turn us into this -" she gestures to the All of Herself, "- don't got plucking rich men from their beds and besieging the high towers of their fuckin' business empires, they pick off the lowly, the despised, the miserable and the wretched and the weak, those who are already begrudged their place. And, well."

She reaches for the cigar that isn't there again and swears eloquently in English.

"...Sorry. Anyway, the empires of Earth are uh. Not friendly to your people. Haven't been for ages. And that in turn means you're unfortunately represented in the ranks of they who endure the unendurable." She pauses. Something passes over her face, and when she continues it's with sorrow in her voice: "Sorry to say. It ain't fair."

[graphomaniac]

Lyubov frowns, in Erin's direction but not precisely at Erin, and considers her words carefully.

"I'm, nu, unsure what thou mean'st by the unendurable," she finally says, slowly. "I assume it might have aught to do with thine obscured eyes. But thou speak'st as if thou assumest I know what thou know'est, and nu, like. I ... don't."

She ducks her head and looks down at the grown, sheepish and feeling somehow like she's being disrespectful.

"I mean not to be blunt. But like, I seek ... clarity in this matter, since thou need'st mine help, or at least my counsel."

[crushed_pearls]

"It's alright, I broached the topic. Though in the spirit of clarity," Erin flickers a ghostly smile, "the eyes were me. Sold 'em, worth it, though if you've ever got an in on a new pair I'm in the market. That said...I was being pretty literal when I said 'unendurable'."

Her voice gets...

Distant.

"In His wisdom the Lord gave us the power to die. That gift can be stolen. The things I went through aren't possible, should have killed me. And anyone like me went through something like that, something...yeah."

[graphomaniac]

Oh. Well. This isn't an angle Lyubov was expecting, and she has to fight a little to keep her face mostly neutral; as always, it doesn't quite work. She shudders, too.

"I'm sorry," she says, sincerely; her voice cracks a little. She doesn't think Erin's talking about undeath, per se, but she has some idea of what Erin might mean.

"Thou wert removed from the sphere of mortal life, and placed in a sphere much stranger, and much more hostile to the soul, nu?" she continues. "And like, such things are beyond me to fix, but I don't think thou came'st to me to be fixed. Thou sold'st thine eyes of thine own free will, so thou understands the value one can find in ... nu, shall we put it as being broken? With like, the understanding that I see myself as broken and none the worse for it." She taps her walking stick on the ground for emphasis.

She pauses again, feeling sheepish. Erin's strange, strange even by her metrics, in the opposite direction from many here. There's so many questions she wants to ask. But she can't do that. For one thing, it'd be rude.

[crushed_pearls]

"Even so," Erin agrees, a flickering smile once again gracing her lips. "Every sharp and cold edge of me, and the hot and bloody shit beneath. I've been beaten down, I've been damned, and I've been shattered, and I'm still here, on the long death march back to happiness. And in the meantime...well, there's plenty of the damned on the way, to pick back up to their feet and encourage to march alongside me."

[graphomaniac]

Lyubov's much less confused now, but unfortunately, when conversations reach this specific point, she usually finds that nothing she could say could be adequate.

And Erin doesn't look like she might bite in self-defence. (In other ways, maybe, but Lyubov's not interested, and presumes that, assuming she's reading Erin right, Erin can tell she's a fag.)

"Ah. Well, nu, in that case—"

If she knew Erin better, she might go for a hug. As is, she steps forward, reaches out and squeezes Erin's upper arm.

"I beg thy pardon for such forwardness, but like. Thou must know, nu ... the point at which words fail."

She sounds more confident than she feels. This part is part of a script, though rarely deployed at first meeting. Almost never, in fact.

Wrap soon, I think?

[crushed_pearls]

There's - not a flinch, but a tension, at the touch, the muscles in Erin's arm tighten. But she doesn't pull away.

"Yeah," Erin agrees, softly. "Don't be a stranger, and...let me know if you meet someone who could use me, yeah? And I'll do the same."

yep! wrap and make plans for another thread?

[graphomaniac]

Lyubov nods; she lets go of Erin's arm, and salutes her instead.

"I will, I promise," she says. "But nu. Just like ... some people, they hesitate to come to one such as me, when they seek help with ... spirits, the walking dead, such manner of problem. But if thou would'st hesitate to seek me out, seek out mine husband, please?"

[crushed_pearls]

"Oh, don't worry on that score, I'll seek y'all out." Erin's smile, bright and flashing, is much more genuine here. "My stance on the unquiet dead was broadened by falling for a lass back home. Her gods don't suggest warriors or exorcisms, y'see."

"They send in the lawyers."

She can't handle her own punchline, giggling with it.

[graphomaniac]

Lyubov laughs, loud and unexpectedly deep — her natural baritone, unconstrained by the force of her personality and briefly unfettered by the muscle weakness that render her voice soft and creaky.

"Friend, khavertah, ziskayt," she says, still giggling. "What holds thou a rabbi is, if not a divine lawyer?"

She gets it. She really does.