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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It would be a nice thing to do," Peggy agrees, though she feels awful for even deigning to speak about it when people are falling ill with the flu and there are more important things to focus on. Still, it would be nice to be able to wear such things and pretend, for just a moment, that she's not trapped in a village being pushed around in ways she despises. "Does it ever seem like the right time, though?" she can't help but wonder.

"I don't want to be insensitive and have a party while people are ill," she says. "It feels a touch mocking."

"Well, maybe we can schedule it in a few weeks," he suggests, his lips twisting wryly. She's right, it does seem a little gauche to plan a party when people are under the weather, but if they keep putting it off it'll never get done. One crisis begets another, in his experience.

"If we wait until the perfect moment, however, we'll never have another party in our lives," he points out. "It's too bad there are so few musical instruments," he continues absently. "I don't know how many of us are musicians, but I'm quite sure you're getting sick of that one record you have." He's been taught words like record in the time he's been here, and he likes to think that, if you didn't know any better, he'd more or less sound like anyone else these days.

"I wasn't in the habit of attending many parties," Peggy confesses, given that her life had been rather mired with the job and not nearly enough free time to allow her to enjoy herself. The most she ever was able to enjoy was to attend soirees and dress up and make herself feel normal on a case, when she wore makeup to stun someone rather than to impress.

"It is a terrible record, honestly," she has to admit. "Though, I do have a music box now, as well. We'll have two options," she teases.

"My aunt liked to throw parties. It was expected of her, as a Lancaster, and I think she delighted in the politics of it all, more than the actual frippery of the party itself. Even so, I was forced to attend each and every one, usually as a chaperone for my cousin. At least, until I joined the monastery, and then I was set free," he adds with a smile.

His tenure at the Temple may not have lasted more than a few years, but it was a welcome reprieve from the stuffy life he'd been living at home.

"I thought it was nice," he protests, feeling the urge to champion her record's quality, even if he was also getting rather tired of the songs by the fourth or fifth time he heard it straight through. "The music box might be difficult to dance to, but I'm sure we'll manage."

"My mother threw awful parties that I tolerated," Peggy admits, given that they were sad and stilted and no one ever truly had fun so much as sat there and acted polite in the ways that everyone was expected to act, even though it was hardly any entertainment at all.

"I take it that means that no one else has received any records, then?" She's still curious why she had been so lucky as to get one herself, but even she finds herself too maudlin to use it much of the time, given that it just reminds her of a dance that never happened.

"You know," he says slowly, scratching at his chin and drawing his eyebrows together like the very admission pains him, "I almost miss them, after all those years of complaining bitterly about attending and doing my best to avoid having to do so at all costs. I mean, they were horrible, and boring, and dreadfully long, but I suppose they just became familiar. And they were always filled with members of my extended family, so perhaps I miss their company more than the actual parties themselves."

Living in Habble Morning, Benny was surrounded by his entire extended family. And while most families tended to be rather small in Spire Albion, likely due to the lack of space available to spread out in, he was still always surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins of varying degrees.

Being the only Albion down here on the Surface can feel very isolating, sometimes.

He shakes his head. "Not to my knowledge. I haven't asked anyone, though, so it's possible that someone has and they have no way to play them, which is why they didn't say anything." Surely there are people in this habble who don't know about Miss Carter's phogograph machine.

"I'd like to imagine that people are receiving far more useful items than what I did," she says, given that she'd been grateful for her collection at the time, but with some distance, it all seems rather frivolous, the sorts of things that do no good in the long run. She would much rather food or books or weapons, that is, if she can't get a drawn map of the way out of here.

Glancing aside when she sees someone else feverish and flushed, she has to wonder how many people have been impacted so far. "You could always convince Kate to turn one of the lunches into a bit of a fete, I suppose," Peggy points out. "Now that I live with Stella, I would never want to force such an event on her."

It had been a lovely last hurrah, in that last home of hers, after Bucky had vanished. Now, though, she'd rather attend than host.

"Well, one would hope." Kate's dresses are very pretty and flatter her admirably, but they aren't quite as useful as, say, a weapon would be. Benedict has grown used to no longer wearing his gauntlet and sword at his side at all times, but he can't lie and say he wouldn't jump at the chance to have them back.

He hums. "The Inn would be an ideal place, I suppose," he concedes, eyeing the room they're in consideringly. "Considering the number of people we've managed to accumulate, even with the steady disappearances of certain members of the habble."

It hasn't escaped his notice, the sudden absence of members of the community he'd taken for granted before. It's made him doubly nervous, that one day he might vanish. Or worse, Kate might, and then he'd be left alone and the entire habble would no longer have her around to look after them.

Peggy does her best not to flinch at the mention of disappearances, mainly in that the last time she'd had the dance, there had been Steve before and now he's there again. It's not quite the same as someone who's vanished and never returned, but there's a special kind of grief that Peggy feels as a result of this. She tries not to think about lost chances and how she's doing herself no favours by not pursuing things this time around, but she still can't bring herself to change.

"You seem quite determined for such a thing to happen," she can't help but tease. "Let's see if we can't get people healthy first, but then I'd be happy to pitch in whatever help you might need."

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

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