mingle | we have bread and fishes and a jug of.... well, herbal tea.

[lastofthekellys]

WHO: Kate Kelly
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: 15th August | Noon
OPEN TO: E V E R Y O N E
WARNINGS: N/A
NOTES: All sections are completely free for all! You can handwave your character helping out or thread it out, or just jump in to them eating. All characters are ICly invited, as they are every day. In light of the illness plot, feel free to use this post as an excuse for your characters to catch ill or spread the plague around.
STATUS: Open and ongoing!

---

Rain, hail, shine; blizzard, earthquake or lightning storm, the meals at the Inn have continued. People can, and do, wander in at breakfast and supper - as long as the stores are enough for three meals, anyway - but the main meal remains the one at midday. It's this meal which is the main event that Kate structures her day around, making sure volunteers arrive to help prepare, serve, and then clean; double-checking that there is enough food for all, that stores aren't too low and that fresh greens have been gathered. With the village chickens now producing eggs regularly there's a welcome addition of protein to the foodstuffs, and by now there are a number of experienced cooks in the village. At least, experienced in the ways of cooking communally and with what's on hand.

The main room of the Inn is swept, dusted; cutlery and bowls, plates are laid out on the sideboards in piles to be collected as people need. Everything is as it should be, even if some people - Kate included - are feeling a bit under the weather. But that's to be expected, isn't it? Everyone gets run down, has a day or two of feeling off colour. Certainly, it's nothing to worry about.

So come on in, help at the kitchen or pull up a chair at a table and enjoy some warm food and company while the outside confusion stays firmly outside.

Comments

[forthecrown]

Elizabeth had realized in her time here that sometimes men came from different eras from her own, different places and even different worlds. She had trouble believing it was any day and age other than England, 1955 and the adjustment still took her by surprise from time to time. This was one of those times. If he'd started on ships as a boy, he likely wasn't a midshipman in the manner she was thinking.

"I was thinking of the great war, the second great war between Germany and the world but I keep forgetting that people come from different times and places. Forgive me, it's very short-sighted."

[seekingcrocodile]

"I don't know that war." Which she has certainly figured out by now. She's just said as much. It is true that the story of where and when he's from is more complex than it is for most of the people here, as least as far as he's aware.

"I served with my brother, until he died."

[forthecrown]

Elizabeth made a soft, comforting sound and dipped her head a bit. She'd comforted her fair share of soldiers before, yes, but she had never had the experience of losing a family member aside from her father and that had been under vastly different circumstances than a war. Still, she knew that pain in some manner, even if it wasn't exactly the same way.

"I'm quite sorry for that. No one should have to lose someone they love, especially not when it's unexpected. You don't get a chance to say all the things you'd rather like to say."

[seekingcrocodile]

"He was trying to prove a point." He uncaps the flask again and takes another swig. Liam died a long time ago, but that doesn't mean that this is ever a conversation he enjoys. "He was trying to prove that he was right and I was being ridiculous. It turned out I was the one who was right."

And then he'd sworn never to return to Neverland, and had been back there twice since then. Such is his life.

[forthecrown]

"Well, here's to Liam, then, and all those we've lost along the way, Elizabeth said, tipping her chin up in a determined way. She hated that she'd inadvertently directed them down this path and wanted, hopefully, to steer away from the melancholy.

"I'm sure he was wonderful. How did you come about having the flask? Something from one of the parties?"

[seekingcrocodile]

He holds the flask up again in a silent toast, then sets it back down. Liam would lecture him about the rum, and there was even a time when he would have lectured other sailors about rum, but he's past that now. There's no turning back.

"Something like that. We arrived at the inn one day during the winter to discover wrapped items with our names on them. So many, in fact, that there were some hidden throughout the village too."

Talking about this brings back bittersweet memories of Emma, and their time together in this place, which had not, in the end, been long enough.

[forthecrown]

"Rather like Christmas, I suppose," Elizabeth said. "Though I don't know how anyone could keep track of time in this place. I tried to at first but eventually my attempts at making a calendar fell by the wayside."

She'd ticked off days dutifully until things happened and she missed a day, then three, then a week's worth of time.

[seekingcrocodile]

"Something like that." He doesn't have much experience with it himself, since he'd been young when he started sailing, and then he'd spent most of his life in two places that didn't have that as a celebration, but he remembers something about it in Storybrooke. Not that Storybrooke is much like the rest of the world it exists in anyway.

"I spent many years in a place where time doesn't move. We had a similar problem in keeping track in keeping track of just how long we were there."

[forthecrown]

"Really? I never thought such a place could exist. Then again, until I came here, I didn't think a lot of things could exist," Elizabeth said. She had to broaden her mind if she intended to survive this place and part of it was believing that which she thought was simply impossible.

"How long were you there? I realize that's probably a difficult question to answer, considering you couldn't measure time properly."

[seekingcrocodile]

"I've seen a lot of things that others would never believe." Literally the stuff of stories, in most cases. "Just like I'm sure there are things others have seen that I have not." He might not even believe some of them.

"I don't know exactly, but it comes out to somewhere in the line of centuries."

[forthecrown]

"Centuries? Time must really run differently there than in the proper world, then," Elizabeth said, utterly astonished. She thought that little could surprise her at this juncture and then she was surprised at every turn.

"It reminds me of the old stories about faerie rafts. Have you ever heard any of those? How a hundred years can pass in a few minutes and the person is none the wiser?"

[seekingcrocodile]

That gets a raised eyebrow from him. "Which proper world? There's more than one world out there." Which seems to be new information for most people.

"I've known a few fairies. I've never heard about rafts though."

[forthecrown]

"I've come to learn that there is more than one proper world out here which is a strange thing in and of itself."

Elizabeth paused for a moment, trying to decide how to explain a faerie raft. "It's their castle beneath the ground. You know, you look for a ring of toadstools and if you stand in the middle at night they'll take you away?"

[seekingcrocodile]

"I've seen a few of them myself." Though most people wouldn't believe it, probably, because they're not aware of the existence of these other worlds.

"I've never heard of that, but now I'll be sure not to stand in the middle of a ring of toadstools at night."