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.]
R’ Lev/Lyubov Morgenshtern | OC | OTA + 1 for Cecil
Yes, we're happy as fish | open to all
2. there’s no turkey left on the table
And gorgeous as geese | open to all
3. the commuters’ return on the six o’clock flyer
And wonderfully clean in the morning | part specific to Cecil, otherwise open to all
4. brings no bale of hay for the stable
Wildcard | open to all
2
At least until he realizes that the strange tickle he's been feeling in his psyche seems to be this person.
He stops a few feet away, holding his plate with both hands.
"...What the fuck is shmuz?"
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Lev/Lyubov opens their mouth before they've quite finished thinking through their response, so at first all they say is, "Nu, well ..."
How does one even translate something so common, so everyday? They duck their head, biting their lip ... and then something they'd heard from one of the other newcomers, possibly even from Cecil, floats up from the depths of memory.
"Like, hang out?" they say, a little sheepishly, and give Yellow one of their broad, earnest smiles, one of the ones that lights up their whole face and makes them look all youthful and optimistic, a right shtetl Pollyanna. "Spend some time just talking for the sake of it, to like, really connect with another? Like, need not be about anything important, neither. Trivialities, they do build friendships as much as the hefty stuff."
"And anyway, eating's easier sitting down. I bite not. Promise."
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He's on the verge of asking what 'hang out' means (out of what, where, why??) before Lev/Lyubov elaborates.
"Oh." He pauses. "Well. Why, though. Build friendships."
His tone trends more defensive as he speaks. "I don't need anyone's help."
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Lev/Lyubov is stumped, but only briefly. They're in a good mood, and really, gloomy young men who insist they don't need friends thank you very much are hardly an unusual thing to encounter when one's a congregational rabbi; the situation just went from a potential curveball to something they can at least screw up with the grace of experience.
"'Tis fun?" they suggest. "Nu. To have friends. Help ... feh, help needs not be considered, if thou'rt averse. I'm like, content to meddle only when asked."
They are rather picking up something odd about Yellow, but faintly, at the back of their mind. They've got no reason to suspect anyone here's dangerous, and if they followed up on every strange vibe and unnerving feeling here, they'd go on a lot of pointless goose chases.
(And they're not really fans of chasing geese — metaphorical or otherwise, geese tend to chase back.)
So they dismiss it. If it bites them in the ass later, that'll be later.
"Like, I know few what truly stomach solitude. And less what sicken from company. We can sit in silence, if thou wish'st, but ... nu. No harm in inviting thee?"
And they smile again. One might certainly get the feeling they couldn't be duplicitous if they tried.
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"Friendship is a human weakness I don't want."
He's seen what happens when friendship ends, when it gets ripped away from someone. He doesn't need any part of that.
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"Nu, suit thyself," Lev/Lyubov says, cheerfully, with only the briefest of pauses to stop themself from snorting. Talking wary outsiders around to participating in the community is, after all, part of their old job back home. "But like, even should one scorn friendship, one must need allies and contacts, nonetheless, find'st thou not?"
They pause, scrutinising Yellow in turn; set in deep, shadowed sockets, their lilac eyes glow, and some stray glow, just as lilac and vibrant, winks from under their fringe.
They've rather fallen out of the habit of trying to see everyone they meet with the first sight — something they'd only care to do back home when accompanying their husband on one of his investigations. Here, the false positives and oddities they have no context for are too common.
But Yellow is ... no, he's still odd. But he's more familiar, somehow. Almost but not quite like a creature of the Silver. So they decide to try a different angle with him, go on a little fishing expedition, hoping to snag some proof of what exactly, if anything, could be a universal constant.
(If Mulcahy knows of Hibernia, might not this young man know of something like the Silver?)
"And like, if thou must know, I have not no foggiest clue what a human is, in any case," they finally say. "I've been like, assuming it's some synonym for person? But I think I might be like, in error here. So whatever friendship I might offer, I rather doubt any weakness it'd impart would be a human weakness."
3
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Lev bites his lip, and stammers, "sorry, it's just like ... some people resent how long this part is, but ..." he waves his pocket siddur vaguely in Cecil's direction. "If thou join'st me and Nyura, we'll have three for sure, and we can bentsh with a zimmun. Which, er, like. Just means three people. Thou need'st not do nothing beyond say umayn. It just, like. Takes some time, no matter how fast one recites."
He smiles to reassure Cecil; some of his nervousness has departed.
"If we can find Zivia, all the better, but she might've done it and left already."
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He's not sure if this is weird, to do openly proudly Jewish things at a celebration giving thanks to a local goddess, but Lev approached him. So it's okay enough, right?
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Lev pauses, considers Cecil's request ... and then, because he's merely easily distracted, not truly thoughtless, he belatedly recalls exactly what the feast was meant to commemorate, and who it was in honour of. He bites his lip.
"I'll be happy to tell thee and ... nu, well," he begins, and starts fidgeting with the cuff of his morning jacket. "Like. I wish not to offend our hosts, but like, I wish not to neglect my duty, neither."
One might expect him to sound unhappy, but he sounds merely thoughtful. And maybe a little sheepish.
"Nu. Thou hast spoken to our hosts, so maybe before we bentsh, thou could'st put my mind at ease, offer thy perspective? I can like, translate the texts for thee. And Nyura can help, if he likes."
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He rakes a hand back through his hair, exhaling.
"My perspective is this: I don't know much. I don't know everything. I don't know enough to be good at being Jewish. I once left a poem written by a Jewish man in the aftermath of a great war on Celestine's altar, and she responded with a pretty sky. I'm not a proud man. I've talked to her when grateful and when desperate. They say that each of us is favored by one of the goddesses, and loved by all of them."
He realizes he's rambling. He also catches the fact that he feels defensive.
"Someone also said the goddesses pass along prayers to our gods, that they can reach back to our worlds and make our thoughts know to those we worship. But. Like. I don't know how you pass along something like the act of building a sukkah, without diminishing what that is. Or the choice to skip leavened bread for Pesach. Or the smell of fry-oil for making sufganiyot, because Judaism isn't just in the words of praying, it's in the living, too. I might not be following every commandment every moment of every day, but the life I am living here, the one I'm choosing, is relentlessly Jewish, much more so than at home because I have you and Anzu and Zivia and the chance to learn, and is learning itself not an act of Jewishness? I remember reading that when students first start to learn to read Hebrew, they're given honey, so the learning will be sweet to them, and...I don't know that Celestine can pass along the sweetness of getting to ask questions, but that's something that's Jewish, wholly entirely Jewish without being a prayer in the normal sense."
He deflates a little. "Which might not, any of that, answer the question you're really trying to ask, huh?"
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Lev chokes back a sob, and then lunges forward and hugs Cecil, burying his long nose in his friend's shoulder. So overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude and love for his friend he is, that the double entendre totally sails over his head.
"I was born in exile and besides the hope I'm obligated to carry, I have not no reason to think the Moshiakh shall come while I yet live," he mumbles. "But here, here should be exile of the worst kind, but thou art here. But here we live as we have been commanded to, even here. Even here."
He lifts his head up a little, and sniffs. He doesn't want to get snot all over Cecil's shirt again. If he does it three times, it'll be his minhag and he'll be obligated in it, any time he and Cecil talk about yiddishkayt.
"I asked the wrong question, but thou gave'st me the right answer," he says. "But ... I ... I should talk. To the mistresses of this isle. At least to one of them. They brought me here, so they must've wanted one like me here. But I need to know."
He won't say, not directly, what's eating at him. The best he can do just now is admit that something is bothering him.
2
With that dreary thought out of the way, he approaches them, taking a seat on the bench. He leaves a gap between the two of them, not wanting to sit too close to a someone who is still a stranger.
"I do have time, yes." Artemy finally says, "I am fairly certain we haven't yet met. Artemy Burakh." He would offer a handshake, but he wouldn't want Lyubov to have to balance the plate of food they're holding with the burden of a greeting requiring hands.
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Lev/Lyubov looks at Artemy with some surprise, taking in the name, the manner of speech, his appearance and bearing; and then beam, having recognised enough of the signifiers to realise that while Artemy might not be from their world — his eyes glow not, after all — he's from a place quite like home.
Quite like their old home, between the steppe and the taiga proper, along the route of the Silk Road.
"Artemy?" they echo. "Uhm. I'm like ... Lev to men, Lyubov to women. If thou'rt neither—" they cut off and bite their lip, just lightly, the smile not quite fading from their eyes, "er, thou'rt fine with the intimate address, nu? I'm all too used to it, and here most know not the implications, or mind not, or merely point such things out not ..."
They pause again, and look at Artemy, shyly. Their accent is quite prominent — a Yiddish speaker, judging by how they trill their Rs deep in their throat.
"If thou— if you prefer'st so, then I'm Lev Venyaminovitsh, or Lyubov Venyaminovna," they say, finally mustering the resolve to push through an attack of overthinking social interaction. "But if thou'rt fine with thou-ing, nu, no need for patronymics. And if thou'rt neither a man nor a woman, pick whichever one thou like'st to call me?"
The smile comes back; the social awkwardness slips off like a coat shrugged off once safely inside. They put the plate down between the two of them, and hesitantly hold out their hand.
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Well, he'd rather not think about that time.
Artemy gladly shakes their hand, giving them a small smile. So small that if you blink it might be gone, but it is still there, betraying his normally scary appearance.
"I will call you Lev, then." He says calmly, trying not to let his voice show the feelings swelling inside of him, "The implications of such matter not to me, nor are they any of my business. Your speech and your name are your own. Though perhaps, someday, I may call you Noukher, if you would permit such a thing."
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It's that word, noukher, that gets Lev's attention — his expression of surprise melts into another smile. He was born a little to the West of where the the language of the Golden Horde is spoken, but not so far West as to have never heard it.
"I'd be honoured, if thou would'st call me such," he says. "Nu, like. I was born between the forest-steppe and the taiga, though. Of the language of my mother's father, I speak little, and 'tis not the one thou speak'st. But, nu."
He gestures.
"We might both be from a place not dissimilar? Which is like, the last thing I expected here, but maybe like, Mortanne's got some theme in mind, when she picks us."
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"I have lost some of the words over time myself," He explains, "But yes, I was born and raised in a small insular town in the steppe. I was in the capital for a bit, studying, but home never stays too far away from the mind... To think our homes could be similar enough, but different too. It almost implies some sort of grand design applied across several different worlds."
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"Mine uncle took me to the capitol, when I was still short of bar mitzvah age," Lev says. "There were ... nu, many reasons. Mine education, the desire to live in a place where a minyan was easier to find. I remember little of my first home, but ..." here he pauses, and shrugs. "Sometimes, like. Sometimes I think I tell myself such things only because forgetfulness is easier to bear than homesickness."
As for the matter of design, he brightens a little.
"Grand design, maybe," he says. "Symmetry, or nu, fractals. It would be like, pleasing to think that HaShem's work can be expressed in mathematics. Though like, I think fractals change not with iterations, and I remember not the term for the patterns what mutate. But ... nu. After some of the things I saw here, I draw comfort from the notion that there is a limit to what might be, as far as ... nu. The narrative goes."
The way he says narrative, it's almost the same tone some people might say laws of physics. Something immutable, something to be found.
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2.
"Ah, Rabbi! You're here too! How have you been?"
She has so much to catch her up on, it feels like. But here they are, and here's time to talk about it. Carefully, she uses her cane to feel where the edge of the bench is, so she can sit without worry, leaning it next to her before setting her plate on her lap.
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"Lenushka!" Lyubov exclaims. "I've been ... feh, as good as can be expected."
The Gala was a little too much excitement for her. But maybe she's starting to get used to it all; or maybe the strategy of not thinking about it has been paying off in the short-term.
"'Tis good to see thee here! I thought thou wert not one for big gatherings? Or like, is the lack of ... nu, pomp make the difference between Cecil's party and the Gala?"
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Less of a chance of her becoming an obstacle to others. She likes the atmosphere of all of this - it feels safe, unlike the threads of tension she's used to sensing in crowded events and places. But this reminds her of New Avalon, of her sister, of a memory soaked in warmth and strength. She's basking in it, and in her mind, shielded under soft wings.
"That, and the food smelled so delicious I knew I'd regret it if I stayed away. I can cook some, but not as good as this."
And a meal you don't have to cook is one you don't have to clean up all on your own. Whether or not she stays to help with this will depend on if she gets waved off or not.
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"No obligation to dance, neither," Lyubov says. "Like, even without the unpleasantness, I rather regret attending the Gala? It's really like, too much."
She shifts in her seat, trying to find the words for why a formal ball is so different to the discothèque, but the words elude her. No matter; it's unlikely Helen will want to catch her out or treat the inconsistency as a betrayal.
"I can barely cook myself," she confides. "Nyura cooks. And, like ... back home, Gigi. Gigi and Nyura cook for the whole flat. I just like, nu, help out. Mostly by staying out of the way?"
It stings a little, to talk about the people she's left back home. She's been trying very hard not to think about it — something made much easier by Anzu's presence. Something of the pain flickers across her face, jarring her smile, and is then gone; but though Helena's privy not to her expressions, that flicker's reverb lingers in her voice for a full moment.
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When. Not if. Not might. But the word when, with a certainty that the sun rises and sets, that a rock sinks when dropped into water, that spring comes anyway. It is a waiting game. But it is not eternal. It is not a permanent divide. That resolution, that stubborn and unwavering belief, is something she offers out to Lyubov. A jewel pressed into her palm, and Helena curling her fingers over it. It is hers, now, to do with as she likes.
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"I hope thou'rt right," Lyubov says, accepting the jewel with gratitude. "Thank'ee. Thank'ee for ... saying so. For believing it when thou say'st it."
She surreptitiously brushes away a tear and, out of habit, smiles on purpose. She does feel like smiling, but without the scripts and routines she's carefully honed, her face would remain impassive, and only her eyes and sometimes her voice would show emotion.
But she doesn't need to do that with Helena, she realises a second later, and lets her face relax.
"Thou could'st be a rabbi thyself, nu? Maybe like, a Maharas rather than a Rabbah, if thou'rt more inclined to tread carefully 'round tradition."
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