Cecil Gershwin Palmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lasthumanvoice) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ph_logs2024-10-13 02:12 pm
lasthumanvoice) wrote in ph_logs2024-10-13 02:12 pm
[OPEN, Mingle] Yamsgiving
Who: Cecil and EVERYONE
What: Another Harvest Celebration
When: Beginning of Pumpkinfest
Where: Center of town
Warning(s): Discussion of the Gala and its attendant CWs may come up
1. Yes, we're happy as fish [Food Prep, Oak and Iron kitchen]
Cecil's made a point of seeking out the best known chefs in town to help him put everything together for this meal. While sweet potato dishes are the star, at least one available with every course, he's hoping to hit a broad variety so everyone can find something they like. He, of course, is peeling and chopping his eternal sweet potato to make sure there's enough to go around.
(Of course you don't need to worry about him with a knife! He's fine! Don't you know he was once a boy scout?)
If someone needs an extra hand for their dishes, though, he's happy to lend one. There's an attitude of camaraderie and cheer in the room, with Cecil even breaking out singing at one or two points in the evening.
2. And gorgeous as geese [The Meal; Festival Green]
Everyone's invited to the feast. That is, in fact, the whole point. Cecil's always been pointedly neutral in the town's tensions, working as the most unbiased media monkey he can. He's the Voice of Pumpkin Hollow, and that means not taking sides between Dahlia and Neil and the Temple and whoever else. But after the gala, he's made a choice to act, to try to foster goodwill and warm feelings. This isn't the stone stew he offered during January's famine, this is a Redwall-style feast.
So, between glasses of mead from Kasprak Farm and dandelion wine, everyone is invited to fill their plate with candied yams and zucchini bread, roast chicken and venison donated by one of the Enforcers. There's a homemade cranberry sauce with citrus wedges and dandelion-leaf salad with an apple cider vinaigrette and toasted acorns for garnish. There's pasta with a homemade pesto sauce and cheese. Desserts, too, are plentiful, some even flavored with...chocolate. But many are not, and feature sweet potatoes. Muffins, pies, etc.
Find a table with a friend or a stranger, and indulge. This is a warm-fuzzy type thing--feel free to use it as a mingle.
3. And wonderfully clean in the morning [Cleanup; Also Festival Green]
Cecil is, quite honestly, expecting to be the only person to stay and clean up. He's been up since about five in the morning and he's dragging a bit at this point. Oh, he did take the time to eat, so he's not starving, but like. He could use help putting the Green back to rights.
4. We've got everything, we're growing everything [Cecil Wildcards]
[You know how to find me to plot.]
What: Another Harvest Celebration
When: Beginning of Pumpkinfest
Where: Center of town
Warning(s): Discussion of the Gala and its attendant CWs may come up
1. Yes, we're happy as fish [Food Prep, Oak and Iron kitchen]
Cecil's made a point of seeking out the best known chefs in town to help him put everything together for this meal. While sweet potato dishes are the star, at least one available with every course, he's hoping to hit a broad variety so everyone can find something they like. He, of course, is peeling and chopping his eternal sweet potato to make sure there's enough to go around.
(Of course you don't need to worry about him with a knife! He's fine! Don't you know he was once a boy scout?)
If someone needs an extra hand for their dishes, though, he's happy to lend one. There's an attitude of camaraderie and cheer in the room, with Cecil even breaking out singing at one or two points in the evening.
2. And gorgeous as geese [The Meal; Festival Green]
Everyone's invited to the feast. That is, in fact, the whole point. Cecil's always been pointedly neutral in the town's tensions, working as the most unbiased media monkey he can. He's the Voice of Pumpkin Hollow, and that means not taking sides between Dahlia and Neil and the Temple and whoever else. But after the gala, he's made a choice to act, to try to foster goodwill and warm feelings. This isn't the stone stew he offered during January's famine, this is a Redwall-style feast.
So, between glasses of mead from Kasprak Farm and dandelion wine, everyone is invited to fill their plate with candied yams and zucchini bread, roast chicken and venison donated by one of the Enforcers. There's a homemade cranberry sauce with citrus wedges and dandelion-leaf salad with an apple cider vinaigrette and toasted acorns for garnish. There's pasta with a homemade pesto sauce and cheese. Desserts, too, are plentiful, some even flavored with...chocolate. But many are not, and feature sweet potatoes. Muffins, pies, etc.
Find a table with a friend or a stranger, and indulge. This is a warm-fuzzy type thing--feel free to use it as a mingle.
3. And wonderfully clean in the morning [Cleanup; Also Festival Green]
Cecil is, quite honestly, expecting to be the only person to stay and clean up. He's been up since about five in the morning and he's dragging a bit at this point. Oh, he did take the time to eat, so he's not starving, but like. He could use help putting the Green back to rights.
4. We've got everything, we're growing everything [Cecil Wildcards]
[You know how to find me to plot.]
no subject
Your mother was Diné. That makes you Diné.
John takes a breath, then reaches out slowly to lay his hand on the kid’s shoulder, if he allows it.
“I was…maybe four or five years younger than the face you’re wearing when my mother died. Her people took care of teaching me about who I am, and I…I was very confused. I wasn’t used to people looking out for me. That was just their way, and they made me one of them…so that’s my way now. What I have to give, what knowledge I possess—I use it to help people. And I’d like to help you, if you let me.”
no subject
Very confused is definitely how he's feeling.
"I don't have a mother," he mutters, like that somehow proves something. But it occurs to him very suddenly to wonder if that's true. What made the King in Yellow? Did something make him? And what does that mean now, if he's only a piece or a piece of a piece?
These are all questions! He doesn't! Like!
"Why? You don't-- need anything from me. You don't owe me." He looks away. "And if you're doing it b... because you owe someone else, I don't want that kind of help."
CW: allusions to child abuse, chronic pain
Anger that made every kindness more and more alien as time passed.
"Because if I didn't, it would feel as strange and wrong and confusing as it feels for you right now." John replies honestly. "Being kind to someone who would benefit from it...that makes sense to me. If it doesn't--if you need a reason, I can give you one. Real and concrete, all the ways that I've been hurt and messed up and ruined that I can fix by just--having people I can help. Here, like this..."
John slides his hand from the boy's shoulder down his arm to catch his hand, then fit it into his for a loose handshake.
"I haven't been touched enough--to the point I live with a lot of pain. This helps...saying hi to people with a handshake. So...hi. My name is John--there a name you'd like me to call you?"
no subject
He folds in on himself a little with a half-hearted growl, the timbre of it unnaturally deep. He doesn't let go of the handshake, though. If this helps- helps John hurt less, it's not like it's painful for Yellow.
His name is John. Kind, gentle, patient John. John-who-is-better-than-him.
The words come out in a tangled mumble: "I'm just Yellow."
no subject
These were things John needed to hear in the aftermath of losing Mom. This kid just needs to hear them, period. This young creature--and he's young, John is starting to realize, his earlier and current strangeness less a show of power and more a lack of control--needs all the kindness he can get.
Cruelty is so much easier to understand, and so much easier to let in. God knows John's more aware of that than most.
"Which also means," he continues, "that you deserve a place to be safe. Up in Northwest Hollow, Baker Ranch--that's mine. And you're welcome to come up there any time you like. Grab some food, spend the night, or just run across the property, you can stay as long or as little as you want to. Don't have to ask, don't need permission. Only serious rule is be nice to the animals, and if you wanna contribute you can help around the house a little. Door's always open to you, so don't be scared to walk through it."
no subject
His laugh is possibly alarmingly sinister even though he's not laughing at anything in particular and everything in general.
"But I'm just Yellow. That's... all."
He is still holding onto John's hand, vision starting to blur and go pinkish. There's something unpleasantly warm on his face, and a touch from his free hand tells him it's--
"--blood? What the fuck? Is my eye melting?"
He squints one eye shut and tries to rub at it with his knuckle, smudging the gory tears around even more.
"And anyway, if you trust me, I'm sure you'd come to regret it."
no subject
"Well, for what it's worth, Yellow's more valuable than any king." John assures him, tugging gently on their joined hands. "And trusting you's never something I'll regret--hey, c'mere, your eye's just fine. I know how to fix that..."
Getting level with him, John pulls Yellow into a hug, if he allows it, one arm around his shoulders while the other rubs his back, chin resting on the kid's shoulder.
no subject
The curiosity is why, even though he freezes when John pulls him in, he starts to relax almost immediately. He can hear John's heartbeat, the fascinating little rhythm unique to the things that truly live and die. Between that and the comfortable weight of John's arms, the... pleasantly?? squished?? feeling, it's... nice.
It's nice.
"You're fucking weird," he says, in the most sullen of mumbles.
no subject
Hugs are hard. Better, but hard, because they're just so much. He needs them, though, to be free of the pain. To feel more, to just plain feel better.
They both do.
no subject
"Why are you nice even though--" He falters, giving a little growl at his own awkwardness. "How does... that work, with humans, how do you get hurt and messed up and ruined and still-- Why aren't you an asshole instead?"