sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Harvest Feast 🍂

[MINGLE] Harvest Feast 🍂

WHERE: 6I Inn
WHEN: 10 November, all day
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE POST
NOTE: Details can be found here.

In the wee hours of November 10th, before even the earliest risers have roused themselves for another day, items begin to appear in the front room of the Inn. Decorations first — Boughs of autumn leaves in their reds and golds, wreaths of dried flowers and silken ribbon, flickering candles among the goards and berries and acorns. The food arrives next, the decadent aroma slipping up the Inn stairs to tempt those lingering in bed — Every imaginable harvest time delicacy, from roast turkey and ham to smoked salmon and oysters; fresh, soft bread warm from the oven to plum pudding and ice cream. And did we mention pie?

Once again, it's time for a feast. The bar is stocked, the coffee is brewed and the tables are groaning with food. Indulge, there's more than enough for everyone — That is, if you don't lose your appetite worrying about what it will all cost.

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'Yet' being the key word that Bela takes from that sentence. She's hesitant, concerned for her safety and well-being, but the turkey and the potatoes look so damn appetizing right now. Even the desserts were calling out to her.

"You say that with such confidence." She comments breezily, recognising Kira from before. "This place is hardly worth living in anyway, regardless of who or who isn't here." Bela wants to go home. Even if people would repeatedly tell her that she can't, she is too stubborn to let go of the hope that she can.

Her stomach growls again and Bela sighs, picking up a plate from the table to load it up with an assortment of food, bringing it back to where Kira was sitting. She places it down on a free space and takes the seat next to him, not bothering to ask if it was okay for her to do that. Bela reaches for a knife and fork, carving up a piece of the turkey she grabbed and brings it to her mouth, eating the piece whole. It tastes fine.

"Suppose I have to get the drink myself, yeah?" Since it seemed like a serve yourself kind of affair. "I hope there isn't a limit to how much alcohol I can consume. I've been wanting a proper drink for the past two weeks now."

Getting wasted sounded like a wonderful idea.

"You need to broadcast that more," he says, part of him relaxing at the time-frame. Two weeks couldn't be enough time for her to have known whoever these people are so attached to, whoever he's failing to be now. "I had two people handing me their stash when I came through, all I had to do was go through all the cabinets in the middle of the night."

Make yourself a nuisance with a simple solution, and most people will give up whatever you're after.

Pulling his own prize from a fold of his coat, he flashes a bottle of vodka at her: "You don't have to fetch the drink, but if you mind sharing a bottle you might have to grab a couple of cups."

People handing Kira bottles of alcohol told Bela two things. Either those people were very good friends of his or they really were that generous. She doesn't think she's at the stage where others just handed her things without question, but two weeks wasn't enough time to build up a solid alliance with a person. It was especially difficult for Bela, since she didn't really do friendships.

An eyebrow rises at the sudden appearance of the vodka. He hid that well. Bela is impressed, and well, wants to find out if they made good vodka here.

"I don't think I'll mind that at all." A grin, before she goes in search of something to put the drink into, coming across a few worn down tin cups. Bela brings them back and sets them on the table. She's pleased with herself.

"These should do."

The bottles at the bar had the same antiquated look of the bar itself--glass and crystal, finely cut stoppers, lithographs on some of the labels. Back home it would probably cost more than Kira's rent, and depending on what was in the bottle, make him go blind. Here, the labels show little sign of age, and the bottle just seems entirely too nice for the cups.

He kind of likes that, though, if he can be pressed to like anything about this place.

"To finally getting hammered," he says, pouring them both a few shots and clinking the lip of the bottle to her cup. "And probably to hoping the coffee lasts until tomorrow."

They looked like they should belong in a museum, safe behind a glass cabinet for people to admire. As someone who frequented museums, she could see the value in them, even if they weren't the kind of items that Bela specialised in acquiring.

"To finally getting hammered," Bela echoes, downing the shot in one go. She coughs afterwards, wrinkling her nose. "Damn. That's strong." A shrug. "For some reason I can't find myself caring very much about it." The hope being she would get drunk that much quicker.

"If the coffee doesn't last, suppose we'll both just have to suffer."

"There is plenty of ice water to dunk our heads in," he says with a shrug, though he isn't sure he's ever been deeply hungover without access to coffee. Alcohol had gotten scarce alongside caffeine in the quarantined zones, and he'd never really gotten the hang of breaking open vending machines.

His own shot goes down a little easier, being his second of the--afternoon. Time is a flat circle and he'd rather be drunk than respectable, on a day like this. Still, he takes a bracing breath afterward and blinks, swirling the contents in the bottle before pouring out two more.

"Where are you staying, anyway," he asks, having the foresight to work out home before either of them is potentially terrible at finding it for the night. "I'm like, a hundred feet that way?" He points through a wall he thinks has the brick house beyond it.

Ice water would probably work but it wouldn't be as pleasant as coffee. She doesn't want to go back on her decision to get blinding drunk, not when the opportunity was there. Who knows when it would come around again, if ever?

Bela taps her finger against the freshly topped up glass, needing to take a few moments before taking the next shot. If she wanted to last a few hours worth of drinking she might have to widen the time between each shot. Just to be on the safe side.

"A house behind the inn. It's blue and grey." She juts a thumb in the general direction of her chosen home, hoping that it was right. "Not quite sure of the distance but I could probably stumble my way towards it." There goes her second shot. "They'd let us crash here if we couldn't make it home, yeah?"

Lifting his glass in another short toast, he says, "Here's hoping," as they click together. He doesn't quite throw it back in one go - closer to two or three, but he plants the bottle on the table between them. He doesn't know who she is, but they're stuck here, and they're doing this. He can almost pretend it's a Sunday night at home, pushing the weekend a little too far.

His other hand, which in his previous incarnation had been badly scarred across the knuckles, lifts more or less unblemished to push at his hair and scratch at the new scar looped up from his ear. It still itches, not entirely healed, but a reminder that he went from stitches to none in what felt like hours.

Well, felt is a difficult thing to pin down. "The - that fountain thing. When you came through, I mean, everyone has more or less the same story. But was anything about you different?"

Silence lingers between them and Bela is fine with that; they don't really know each other well and drinking seems to be more on the cards right now. Speaking of which she lifts up the bottle and pours herself another shot of vodka, placing the bottle back in the same spot when she's done.

The shot goes untouched, her gaze flitting around the room to watch the other villagers having their fill of food and drink. For a moment, everything seems completely normal to Bela. She doesn't have to be afraid of what was to come.

Kira's question interrupts her thoughts as she turns to look at him. "I was wet." It's a joke. "But in all seriousness, I didn't feel any different. I didn't look any different." There's a pause. "Why do you ask?"

Can he ask and not answer? What would it matter, his hair hasn't grown in near enough to hide the hook of a scab on his head, if it ever actually does. What a fucking turn the last few months have been: he didn't die in the evacuation like he'd more or less planned for ten fucking years. He didn't die in the quarantine, he didn't die from a touch of pneumonia, and he didn't die from a bullet to the head.

Maybe he doesn't need his powers at all, maybe they were hit or miss as it was. Now he has to live, and live here, and have some permanent mark like an ugly vein on the side of his head. Why keep him alive if he wasn't going to stay pretty?

"This," he sighs, turning his head to the right and gesturing at the red and brown line. "Last I remember, it was barely stitched. Then I roll out of the water and it's fine."

She doesn't know what Kira is going to do or say next so Bela picks up her shot and drinks it in one go, enjoying the burn as it goes down her throat. Already, she's feeling a little fuzzy from the alcohol but it's a pleasant buzz, one that Bela doesn't want to end too quickly.

Her gaze falls on the mark on his head when he turns, staring at it for a short while. What the hell had happened to him is the first question that springs to mind, though she doesn't ask him that. Not yet anyway.

"Maybe the water has healing properties?" It sounds ludicrous but given where they were, it mightn't be that much of a stretch. "Somehow, we were taken from our homes without knowing how so magic healing water is a possibility." As she speaks Bela tops up her glass. "Have you asked anyone else about it?"

"Maybe," he agrees, slow and half-hearted. Dubious is his default setting, especially when talking about this place. Every search for answers leads either to people who are too new to really know, or people who have been here long enough to hem and haw about still not knowing. Mark certainly has his theories, but his feelings on the man are about as mixed as the place.

This person is at least appreciating some kind of antique bottle of vodka with him.

"I'm taking a bit of a survey," he admits, consoling himself with another pour from the bottle. "Some people claim to have been dead, which is a little - how do you really know? I imagine they were just very badly hurt."

People coming back from the dead was not out of the realm of possibility in Bela's world. Those who wielded a great amount of power could bring someone back, and there was always making a deal with a demon - something that she wouldn't recommend to anyone.

"You can't really know." Bela replies, shrugging her shoulders. "All you can do is take them at their word and draw whatever conclusion you want from it." Choose to believe them or not. Bela didn't care that much about it to be concerned.

"Maybe we're all dead and this is some kind of weird purgatory."

She's right: however much he used to think he could and did know things, this place has thrown it well for a loop. Surviving to wind up here had thrown it for a loop. "I've heard that one, yeah," he agrees, tossing his fresh pour back and letting it sit with the others.

Under this table doesn't seem like the worst place to wind up, considering, but he still reaches for a drumstick instead of the bottle, after that.

"If this is purgatory, at least food still tastes amazing when you're getting drunk," he sighs.

"The food is definitely one of the highlights for me." The vodka even more so - Bela might try to swipe a bottle for another time. "And I suppose the company isn't completely terrible."

He wasn't an idiot and he shared his vodka with her so those were two things that Kira had going for him.

"Off-topic, but I'm still trying to figure out a way to contribute to things around here. Be a team player or whatever. Any ideas?"

That blusters a laugh out of him, a see-sawing thing that barely gets any momentum before he's smothering it with food. Not drunk yet, but starting to get that feeling where objects are just a little bit to the left of where he thinks they should be--the perfect time to eat whatever it takes to survive the bottle.

Half the bottle, whatever.

"You're already being a team player," he says, tilting the bottle with one finger before letting it rattle back into place. "As far as I can tell though, unless you're up for hunting and gathering this winter, the thing to do is take a shift at the fountain." Apparently he'd signed himself up for that in his past life, and he's starting to wonder if it would really be the worst deal: at least nobody coming through would expect him to remember who they are.

Those earlier feelings of fuzziness are steadily growing stronger so Bela quickly puts some food on her plate, not really caring what it was. She also follows that up with pouring out another shot of vodka, though not touching it yet.

"See, I'm not opposed to some gathering over the winter," she replies, scooping up some mashed potato from her plate and eating it slowly (it was good, okay?) before addressing the second part of his statement. "But a shift at the fountain doesn't sound too difficult, provided I wrap up warm and have some kind of spiel to deliver to new people."

Bela reaches for her shot, then stops mid-reach. "Hopefully I wouldn't encounter anyone too hostile."

"Well, let me know if you do, I'll come along. Two against one, and all." It wouldn't surprise him if anyone came out of the fountain ready to take it out on someone--the cold would probably do most of the work of keeping them in line. "We can practice building fires or something, roleplay our little speeches to each other."

The idea of explaining something he understood so little about had him eyeing his own glass, though he opted to fill the anxious void with food instead.

"Speaking from experience, come with me if you don't want to freeze to death works alright. It certainly re-prioritizes things."

Having someone else around whilst she was on shift at the fountain may not be such a terrible idea. Until she felt comfortable enough to do it by herself. Kira's suggestion was certainly something for Bela to consider. "Sounds like a good plan. I'll let you know."

Now she reaches for her shot and down it in one, wrinkling her face afterwards. Still as strong as the last few shots. Her food goes untouched for the moment.

"That line actually works?" Bela asks, remembering how reluctant she was to go with Margaery at first to the village. In fact, it took a while before she was actually convinced to leave the area around the fountain. "Surely, one ought to lead in with something else first, then follow up with that line."

Bela switches her attention to the food for a brief moment, spearing a bit of ham onto her fork before hastily eating it.

"Have you not seen the Terminator franchise," he asks, then wishes he hadn't--it's entirely possible that a lot of people here haven't, some of them don't even know what movies are. That's weirdly depressing, and he doesn't want to expose the gaps right now. He just wants to enjoy a drink with someone who seems to be treading the same water that he is.

"Like I said--personal experience. It worked on me." If Mark had said anything else, it didn't stick. He'd been too cold and too confused. "I came through with snow on the ground, my priorities were pretty set."

The look she gives to him should be enough of an answer. Bela's film tastes fell under the classic horror category.

"My experience was different to yours. It took some back and forth before I finally decided to go along with Margaery." Being the stubborn person that she was. "Even then, I didn't trust her. I couldn't tell if she was leading me to safety or more danger."

Reaching for her shot she knocks it back.

"I think the debate is still open on that."

"We can poll people as they come through," he says with a snort, finally refilling and tipping back his glass one more time. "Anyway, now that the speeches are out of the way, which of us did you find more trustworthy? Like a customer service survey at the end of the call."

Hand resting on the bottle between them, he shrugs: "Maybe we'll just tell them we know where the alcohol is."

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[MINGLE] Harvest Feast 🍂

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