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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"There is not much more they can do to me," Baze says, voice low and bitter, himself. "I am already dead, and they took Chirrut away again." He finally sets the plate back down on his knee, though it's within reach should she actually want to eat. He'll make her have more in a few minutes, probably, but for now, he is nominally satisfied.

"You can die again," is what Johanna replies, flatly and devoid of emotion because she has to strip it all out of her voice before she loses herself to the grief again. "That's what happened to me. They don't kill you. They hurt you, they kill everyone else. That's how you get hurt in Panem when you don't do what they want."

She stares at the plate for a long while, not hungry at all, but knowing that he's going to keep staring at her if she doesn't eat something, so she leans forward to pick up another small morsel, tucking it into her cheek to rest there, like a squirrel.

"If they wanted to kill us, they would not do it with free food," Baze points out. "And this is not Panem. This is less logical than where you or I come from." He's pretty sure Panem wouldn't have done the raincloud thing, and the Empire certainly woulnd't have. He hasn't entirely given up on trying to figure the place out, but right now he can't see any point to any of it, and it's frustrating on top of how depressed he already is.

"I know," she grumbles, and turns back to her alcohol now that she's given in to his fussing and eaten something. She'd much rather just drink and be done with it, but apparently that's not going to fly anymore, since he cares.

She likes it, secretly, of course she does, but on the outside, she needs to keep herself looking stern and unmoved. "They could've given me more, that's all I'm saying. Food, maybe some morphling, make the pain ease off." Because there is still pain, not physical, but the kind in her head.

"There is plenty of food. The rest you will have to make do with alcohol. I know I am." He has a swig of his own jug, while he's thinking about it. Then he adds, "I am surprised you stayed longer than it took to take some."

"If I sit alone in a room for much longer, I'm going to lose my mind," she says, brittle and bitter. "Besides, I can tolerate people." Mostly, because she just looks at them and thinks mean things about their happiness until she feels better. What she can't tolerate is sitting alone, feeling like she's being beaten.

"Besides," she adds, setting her jaw tightly, not sure she owes him this truth, but feeling like she's about to say it anyway, "I figured you might want some company. We both know Bodhi's shit at it," she quips.

Baze glances back at her, brows up at the admission of actually maybe caring about someone else a little bit, then leans over to loop his arm around her shoulders for one rough little squeeze before letting her go again. He doesn't push much, but that seemed to require a nonverbal response as well. "He could be better," he agrees with the last bit. "He still sometimes acts like he thinks I am going to hit him."

She makes a face when she gets squeezed, tensing up because being publicly hugged (even half a hug, like that) makes her cringe a little, and she doesn't like admitting that she half enjoys the warmth and partly wants to seek it out a little more. That would be weak.

"Maybe that's because he says and does things sometimes that deserve to get hit," she feels like pointing out the obvious.

He expected the cringe, but it didn't stop him from doing it-- if he'd expected a punch, maybe then he wouldn't have taken the liberty. But a cringe, he can handle. The comment, though, earns her a snort. "Not as often as he acts like it. I think I've had only one time in the months I've been here where I actually felt like hitting him."

"I have to be at six, at least," is her deadpanned reply, without joking. She doesn't follow through with it, though, which is the point of all of this. She can tease Bodhi all day long, but nothing ever actually comes of it. Staring around at the feast, Johanna takes another long drink of her liquor, wondering if she can somehow sleep away the next week and avoid whatever surprise is slated for after this.

"You don't have to coddle me, you know," she says, staring forward so she doesn't have to look at him. "I can do fine without it."

"Maybe," he allows, though that's a lie. She does need something, even if it isn't what she thinks it is. Equally as important, though, is that fussing a little and nagging at her to eat, and letting her take one of the two little bedrooms in his chosen house, is a thing he's used to doing. A thing he isn't really sure what to do with himself without.

So he continues, "But I might need to do it." He considers his half-empty mug. "I spent forty years keeping Chirrut out of trouble. Making sure he ate and slept and didn't do anything too stupid. You aren't the same as him. But we get along. And you let me." Bodhi, his only other choice, wouldn't let him, even with the grumbling he gets from Johanna about it.

He looks at her sidelong, and adds, "And I do not coddle. I nag."

"That makes you older than most people I've ever met." Most people in Panem don't live such long industrious lives, seeing as the more trouble you are, the sooner that you end up in the kind of trouble that gets you quickly dealt with. "Fine, you nag," she says, and though she doesn't like to say it too loudly, she feels like she owes this to him.

"I guess I'm grateful that you do," is her grumbled complaint, unhappy to say it, but happy for the attention. "It's the closest thing I've had to family in a while."

"Then I will keep doing it, and you can help my house not feel too empty," Baze says, relieved that he didn't get something nasty back. He knows she wouldn't mean it, but it's still nice that she could keep that reined in. He leans over and this time clicks his drink to hers, to seal the deal.

Then, because neither of them are particularly great at talking about feelings, he changes the subject. "You never knew anyone older than fifty?"

"Good, because I'm too settled to leave." Eventually, she'll want her own privacy and she'll probably just march off in the middle of the night to get it, but until that time, she intends to stay and take advantage of Baze's hospitality (well, being a sucker, but it's the same thing, as far as she's concerned). "Not really. I mean, I saw victors who got to that age," she admits.

"Most of the time, people do something that pisses off the Capitol and get themselves killed. Keeps everyone young."

"Sounds like the Empire," Baze decides, though he does know her place is worse. His place only kills children, not makes them fight each other to kill them. "Though it seems like your Capitol is much more personal than the Empire ever was. They would not care to find and kill you and me. They would destroy a whole city to clean out a small nest of rebels."

"Doing that wastes precious resources," she says darkly, because she knows that people aren't actually people to them so much as a resource that can be leveraged. "We're there to provide them with lumber or cotton or coal. Plus, why take down an entire city if you can make an example out of one or two. Don't get me wrong, there are times when they wipe us off the map, but they make sure that no one wants to try and repeat the same mistakes."

That makes sense, in a twisted kind of way. "And for us, they can usually get that resource on another planet. When you travel the whole galaxy, why bother saving one troublesome little moon?" He sighs. "And here, it is not much better, is it. I do not know what resource we provide, but it must be something." Angst maybe. Is that a resource?

"Entertainment," she says flatly, because she knows that much. She knows what it's like, for people to get bored, for them to torment others. "It's not so different from where I come from. That's what happens when they punish us. They put us on television for people to watch and cheer, for them to shed away their humanity because they're all assholes who aren't involved."

They're safe, in a way that others aren't, or they think that it's somehow glorified to suffer like that. That, or they're the kind of careers who think they're going to win.

"That's disgusting," Baze says. "But I find I am not that surprised. Everything about where you come from seems terrible." He regards his half-empty glass soberly, then asks, "Is there anything good there? Any piece of hope?"

"When you win, you get really rich and they promise not to kill you," is her response, even though it's flat and even, because even that promise didn't hold up. "Only, then they try and do it again because you're starting to make them nervous, so, you know. Mostly the money part, while that lasted."

"I imagine if you make trouble, they will try to kill you regardless of promises," Baze guesses. "It does not sound like any kind of life for anyone." As much as it sours him to think it, she might almost be better off here, in 6I. At least when they torment them here, it's dumb things like rainclouds and fading out. Or losing people, but that could easily happen in Johanna's world, too.

"No, not you. You're too high profile," she says, with the echo in her voice that speaks of a hollowness she knows too well. "If a victor gets killed, even in a mysterious way, people might rebel and revolt. Easier to kill everything and everyone they love to keep them in line when they don't do what you want."

It's why she's alone. It's why she has no one, and it's why she's so hesitant to even dare to let herself feel something. People leave you, that's just how it goes. "At least here, no one's trying to do that every day."

"That's the truth." They might be tricked and made uncomfortable, but it could be a lot worse. Baze has another swallow of his drink, and puts his free hand on Johanna's shoulder. It's not a hug, but it's a connection, at least.

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[MINGLE] Harvest Feast 🍂

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