[MINGLE] Color Coordination: The Announcement

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: 6I Inn
WHEN: Morning, 18 April
OPEN TO: ALL - This is a mingle post
NOTES: Details may be found here

---

In the often-bustling front room of the inn there sits a large, old-style chalboard on a wooden stand. Chalk is a precious commodity, but limestone can be found easily, and both sides of the board are often covered with notes and notices from villagers.

This morning, the board has been wiped clean and a much different message has appeared on its worn gray surface:

Jude Sullivan and Francis Mulcahy have been exposed to toxic spores and will slowly drown if a counter-agent is not procured.

A yellow lichen is needed. It only grows on a small stand of trees in marshland two days to the southeast. There is no other antidote.

The following people have coordinates for the lichen loaded into their wrist devices. Only they may retrieve it, and only if they work together. If anyone else attempts this, the expedition will fail.

Peggy Carter
Beverly Crusher
Jean-Luc Picard
Owen Prichard
Margaery Tyrell
Mark Watney

Hurry. Soon it will be too late.

Comments

[iron_beneath_beauty]

The stir had drawn Lyanna from the edge of the woods back to the inn. It wasn't uncommon for something to happen that would gather the entire village, but generally those were the feasts. Very rarely did something like this happen. The only time she could remember the Others actually communicating with them had been through the letters.

But it wasn't like this and no one's life was in question...save for those that might take that sacrifice too far.

She recognized most of the names on the board, though their faces were unfamiliar to her. She had kept to herself in the village, uncertain of her footing and those around her. She couldn't imagine how it would be for someone else, chosen to go on this mission without any idea of what might happen or what would be waiting for them. They would have to rely on each other.

Perhaps that was why she wasn't named? She was too independent and solitary.

She had pushed her way closer, coming to a stop at Owen's side. He was someone she had seen around, but hadn't fully met. He had ideas at least, something for them to do rather than wait for news. "What are spores, exactly?"

[underpinnings]

He's been waiting for something like this from the drop, for the infection to raise its ugly head despite no one speaking of it--it doesn't occur to him to doubt the veracity, he's only surprised by the reactions. How sheltered is this place, how true are the claims of being plucked from different times and worlds, that they're worried the victims can't breathe. That this girl, pausing in her push to the fore, asks him this?

Owen stares at her a moment, taking it in.

"They're airborne particles," he explains, breaking it down to the most basic terms he knows. Everything he learned was so specific to surviving the infection, it takes a moment's thought to broaden the definition. "There'll be a plant or fungus where both people traveled, and they would have breathed in something it released."

Was she the only one who didn't understand, or would it be all of them? He tries to address the group in volume and tone, though he's still looking at her when he adds, "We need to burn out the source without anyone else breathing that in."

[iron_beneath_beauty]

She had seen strange things and heard confusing reports of other worlds, but this was the first that such things mixed. Spores, it was an odd word for something that was supposed to be dangerous. Two men were ill because of something called "spores". It was hard to take it seriously. But given everyone's response to the message, she knew she should.

Owen's look of surprise wasn't out of place. Everyone shared that look at one time or another. The sudden meeting of different worlds, the lack of knowledge and common ground. He at least didn't call her an idiot or something of that sort. All she could offer was a serious expression to show she wasn't jesting.

"The plants released something that infected them?" She asked, making certain she had this right. "If it's so easy to breathe in, how do you know we haven't already? We don't even know what plant caused this. Maybe the spore is only deadly when the Observers want it to be?" Nothing happened by random happenstance. It was a game to them, a test of some sort they had to pass.

"What do you think will happen to them? The ones chosen, if they go on that journey?"

[underpinnings]

"Probably some fuck-shit," he answers, bitterly realistic in the face of her final question. This is, after all, a place where things simply appear, illnesses suddenly arise, and names are chosen by invisible watchers for dangerous tasks. "Why hand us a solution if there isn't something else involved." He's been that person, in a negotiation, driving people between rocks and hard places. Messing with their heads.

"But we have to go. If there's a cure, we need it. Maybe they are the only two sick now, but you're right." He inclines his head at her; if she wants to step in and take it seriously, no reason not to encourage a good deduction. "Anyone might have been exposed. We need to bring back as much as we can to deal with it."

Or to just be away from the full outbreak if this situation can't be managed, but he knows better than to say that aloud.

[iron_beneath_beauty]

"It sounds like a test for everyone. There might be something out in the woods for those that have to go on the trek. Meanwhile we have to let them go and accept the dangers they might face. We can't follow, we can't help. We have to stay and feel helpless." She didn't know how she was going to stomach it. Those going weren't close friends or family, but it still made her sick to think about watching them leave, knowing that something could happen.

"Was your name on there?" She asked, noticing the term 'we'. She didn't know the young man, despite having seen his face around the village. She had isolated herself for too long. This group was going to risk themselves, but she didn't know the first thing about them. "I'm Lyanna. I'm sorry I didn't meet you before this."

She offered her hand, as she had seen others do before.

[underpinnings]

Owen snorts, though he doesn't mean to be unkind. "You never have to feel helpless. You just have to figure out what you can do with the situation you're dealt." Helplessness is transient, a momentary affliction that can be cured with action.

"Like I said, you should find the source and burn it out. The medical people can do their best with the sick." Much as Owen itches to put them in the prison and segregate them from the rest. The people here are too soft for that.

"And don't be sorry, it's not as if any of us knew." More than anything, he's bemused by the remark, but he shakes her hand all the same. "Owen. Don't worry about us, just take care of what you can here, make sure no one else is counting on us to get back."

[iron_beneath_beauty]

She frowned at the snort and implication, well aware that he didn't mean to offend, but instinctively feeling a surge of annoyance. "How else are you going to feel when someone you care about is being sent on a mission that could mean their death? You can't prevent it, you can't stop it. You have to wait. Sometimes there's no action you can take."

She crossed her arms over her chest, trying not to be rattled by this or by any of what was happening. "How are we going to find what the source is? Can we eve see these spores?"

It was an odd thing to say. "No one else is counting on you? What do you mean?"

[underpinnings]

"There's always action you can take," he reasserts with a shrug; better that than don't care about people. He'll go for the sake of a cure to an overall threat, and for the sense that he won't have much choice--and he'll do his best to keep everyone alive and accounted for, but there isn't a name among the villagers that would inspire him to worry. Better that way, in a place full of unknown dangers, edicts from invisible hands and eyes. "If nothing else, to distract from the feeling."

From every feeling, really.

Both brows lift briefly, as he parses the question. "No one else getting sick, is what I mean. We have to assume this won't be easy; it might not even really be a cure. Ask the victims where they've been. If they can speak, as what they've seen, and deal with it."

He gives her another look, just a flick of eyes taking stock. "You should worry about yourself, not the people chosen. Watching your own back is the best you can do for anyone."