[OPEN, Mingle] Yamsgiving

[lasthumanvoice]

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.]

Comments

2

[medekh]

Upon hearing Lyubov call out to him Artemy is filled with a sudden realization of yes, he does indeed have time to shmuz. Having valuable time where once there was almost none fills him with a strange stillness, a gratitude of sorts. Though, somehow, he hesitates to get too comfortable, lest the plague follow him here.

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.

[graphomaniac]

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.

[medekh]

Artemy very patiently lets them speak, and despite himself, he takes some comfort in their words. Lev's accent, as they would want to be called by him, feels like home, somehow. He hadn't noticed it until just now, but everyone else he had spoken to... didn't have a similar cadence in their speech as him. While it was obvious by Lev's dress and appearance that they were from a different time, the place- the place must have been similar enough, he thought. How fascinating. He never thought he'd be so glad to hear a slice of home. The only other time he's felt homesick-

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."

[graphomaniac]

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."

[medekh]

Artemy nods quietly. He all too well understands grappling with heritage.

"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."

[graphomaniac]

"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.

[medekh]

The only time Artemy's ever felt homesick before crops up in his mind again, and his stomach feels upset over it. Still, he puts on a brave face.

"Fractals. I believe that is a much more generous word than copies. Not perfect symmetry, no, this is obvious just by looking at everyone here-" He gives a quick glance to some of the other people at the party, "Deviations can be both great and small. We might be onto something."

He leans back slightly into the bench behind him before continuing on, "Are you homesick, Noukher? Memories can bring both joy and pain, but what is joy without pain?"

[graphomaniac]

"The details of the deviations may well like, obscure the common grounds?" Lev says. "But like, this is all rather beyond me? L'HaShem ho-oretz imloyoh¹."

But he frowns as he says it.

"But which Earth?" he says, softly. Then he shakes himself and looks at Artemy, smiling again. And even though the smile requires effort, it is genuine all the same.

"I find myself homesick for many places, nu?" he says. "But ... nu. I suppose as long as the right people are around, there is little I shall weather not. And thou hast the right of it. How shall we know what is and is not, except by experiencing both the positive and the negative, and not like, merely the positive's negation?"

¹ "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it", Tehillim 24:1. Ashkenazic (South-Eastern Yiddish) pronunciation.

[medekh]

"Whichever Earth pleases you the most." Artemy answers honestly. In matters of belief, as long as you are happy and you are not setting women aflame to keep your communities safe, what does it matter?

He smiles slightly. Mainly just to put Lev at ease. It seems unpracticed, carved in somehow.

"Indeed, though, you must let yourself experience both. Even if it is uncomfortable, or painful." He adjusts, shifting his weight back onto the bench, "Truth be told, I am also a bit homesick for the town on gorkhon. I never thought I'd feel that way after my welcome home party, but life is full of surprises."

[graphomaniac]

Lev shrugs, a little helplessly.

"I suppose exile is exile everywhere, nu?" he says. He smiles back at Artemy; his smile is practiced, easy, but there's some note of duty in it, nonetheless. He is one what has to smile for a living, at least on occasion. The difficulty Artemy has in smiling at him in the first place has not gone unnoticed.

"Thou hast known more than thy fair share of pain, nu?" he says, gently. "And like, from how thou speak'st, more than thy fair share of homesickness, I should wager."

He cocks his head to one side, regarding Artemy with friendly curiosity; inviting him to talk, or be silent as he wishes.

[medekh]

"I have." He admits hesitantly. "Well, life is full of pain, it's how I know I'm still alive." Artemy says then, sounding a bit more gruff, convinced, as he straightens out his backbone. "I was away from home for quite awhile. Maybe a few too many years than I would have liked. Though I don't regret the schooling-"

He does regret the war. But he isn't ready to talk about it. His hands clasp together. He looks across the party.

"Well. Perhaps it all helped me become a better man."

[graphomaniac]

continuing in overflow here!