Another Town Meeting -- In Regards to Water Supply and Fountain Issues

[notabirdcostume]

WHO: Sam Wilson
WHERE: The Village and then Inn
WHEN: (backdate) September 15
OPEN TO: ALL
WARNINGS: Paranoia? IDK.
STATUS: Open and also VERY threadjack friendly. This can be as crazy as the last time they all got together to spout theories. Set up your own sub-threads for what discussions you want to happen. I figure we need a discussion about the fountain and Sam's plan to watch it, a discussion about the recently discovered spring's side effects, and possibly a talk about any new discoveries or progress that's been made since the last town meeting. Feel free to mingle and make friends.

---

Sam stood at the edge of town, feeling a little ridiculous. However, he felt bad for not trying to include the two mysterious arrivals that had sworn this was some kind of murder game before running off. He still didn't get that, but the girl he'd met had worried him and after he'd heard about the guy as well he'd started to put it together that the two were most likely from the same place.

That aside, they weren't going to earn their trust if they had meetings and looked like they weren't at least trying to extend a hand to two of the newer arrivals to the village. Sam had decided enough was enough and since it was time for another meeting of the village folk it was also time to extend a welcome to their neighbors in the woods. He'd heard enough people mention that they'd been spotted out there. It wasn't like he had a phone and he wasn't sure how much he trusted Peggy's little bird friends just yet.

This was going to be his best bet and even then he felt utterly ridiculous. Sam took a deep breath and then called out, "HEY! I KNOW THERE'S A COUPLE OF YOU HIDING OUT THERE!" He paused, waited, took another breath, "MEETING IN THE VILLAGE IN 15 MINUTES! WE GOTTA TALK ABOUT THE WATER AND WHAT WENT DOWN WITH MY PLAN TO WATCH THE FOUNTAIN."

He couldn't be sure if they'd heard him or not, so Sam leaned down towards the ground, and wrote a brief note in the dirt:

TRUCE. MEET AT INN. NEED TO TALK.

Sam added a happy face as a sign of good will and also drew an arrow pointing towards the inn. It was now time to get everyone else if they hadn't already heard him yelling at the trees.

---


After getting the word out to the rest of the village population, Sam made his way back to the Inn. There was still a lot of debris from the Earthquakes that had literally shaken things up a few days ago, but the cleaning process has begun. Unfortunately, the smell of the contaminated river still wafted through the village and made Sam's nose crinkle in disgust. Just one more problem on top of everything else.

Sam gets things set up, running through the topics in his mind. He needs to follow up on the fountain and what people had experienced during their watch. His timing had been poor, so he hadn't actually had the opportunity to see anyone arrive. He also wanted to see if anything new had been discovered beside that spring Emma and Margaery had found a few days ago. The water supply was important after all, they could survive without a lot but water wasn't one of them.

He hoped this went a little better than the last time a meeting like this had been called, though at least he didn't have to worry about people fighting over weapons this time.

Comments

[igotacrossbow]

He'd kept silent out of respect for Cougar's need for privacy, but after even Frank lifts his hand, Jake sticks his own in the air, his elbow remaining on the table like a bored teenager in class not wanting to make it too obvious he knows the answer to the question that was asked.

Part of him wants to keep this quiet, to keep Cougar out of it, but anyone who looks at them can tell that there's definitely something up with Cougar. People can be quiet by nature, sure, but there's quiet and then there's quiet, and Cougar definitely falls into that category.

So, taking a bracing breath, he spills the dirt about their shared pain. "Our unit was framed for the death of twenty-five children," he blurts out, not looking at Cougar so he doesn't have to see the quelling look the man is surely giving him. "We watched them get shot out of the sky right in front of us."

[warriorborn]

Benedict had been lurking in the background, leaning against the door frame that lead into the kitchen, wanting to be kept abreast of what's going on but also still somehow feeling like he's intruding if he tries to get into the thick of things.

Still, listening to Miss Kelly describe — in somewhat vague terms — her personal trauma, and listening to everyone else, makes him feel like he needs to do something.

Pushing off from the wall, he slinks into the room quietly, and settles himself down on the bench beside Miss Kelly, his hand resting briefly on her spine in sympathy. He would like to do more, somehow, but now is neither the time nor the place, so he withdraws his hand relatively quickly and lifts it instead in the air. "Spire Albion was attacked by a neighboring Spire, and the monastery in which I studied was razed to the ground in the bombings. Many of the monks were trapped and died in the fire. I was unable to save my teacher."

Brother Vincent's death is devastating, even now. The man was like a father to him. "But," he continues, blinking away the memories of watching blood bubble up past Brother Vincent's lips. "I am not burned." He turns his hands back and forth, displaying his perfectly healthy skin. "It is almost as if the whole thing just...never happened."

[thenewways]

Nerys has heard plenty of difficult histories before, so none of this shocks her, though there are some people with hard luck tales she hasn't entirely expected to have them.

"Recently? I'd just been stunned with a phaser," she says, and there's that faint tinge of sardonic laughter to her tone, the one that's never too far away when talking about the Cardassians. "But that's nothing major; not to put too blunt a point on it, but I spent a dozen years in active resistance to colonial occupation of my world and my people. It's been a couple years since the withdrawal, though, and I thought things were going pretty well."

Seeing as Nerys is in a good enough mood, she spares the group her commentary on how alien invasion was both like and utterly unlike what humans thought it might be in their stories. Always justifications, never quite outright genocide, just a long grind into the dirt. Instead, she clears her throat and adds, "So I'm guessing a lot of us, if not all of us, were picked for a certain level of resilience. Either that or..."

Her lips twist and she cuts herself off before saying or we're all broken enough to be manipulated, because she wants to stay friendly.

[hawkeyesniper]

When there aren't monsters to fight there is apparently more time for theorizing. Honestly, it's one of the things that reassures Riza about this place -- no one has given up yet. They're taking the small puzzle pieces and mulling them over and over again. It's tedious and often times fruitless, but it is so necessary. She nods in agreement as Mark's assessment that they are perhaps too close to the picture. It's hard to not be when you are in the thick of things. Riza's unsure where the thought process is going after that though. However, since everyone seems to be openly admitting to their trauma, Riza isn't about to start by hiding things. Her hand quietly joins the growing number.

She considers some of the stories being shared and the people who are only raising a hand. She decides to speak up again, "It would really come down to what their plans are if our pasts are important or not. If they had a way to bring us here, they could have had a way to look into our backgrounds -- find out the kind of people we are and how we react to certain situations. Knowing how humans behave and manipulating those expectations was what got my country into trouble in the first place." She doesn't elaborate just yet on the recent plot the Homunculus and their Father had finally executed -- at least it had been a failure. However, it also never would have happened if people weren't prone to war and bloodshed for the flimsiest of reasons.

She doesn't think that's what is happening here though. On a regular basis this place reminds her more and more of the experiment run by Tagruato and his corporation. "However, it could also mean nothing. The group bringing us here could just be selecting people at random because they don't care about our backgrounds or where we are from, but of what use we can be to them now. I've dealt with that sort of situation as well and that organization also had the ability to take people from their homes and place them in a deserted city just for an experiment. They just needed people, they didn't care what world they came from." Riza thinks about the people who had had no business being in that project -- people with no ability to defend themselves and were basically walking targets for a Crab bite and infection. It was honestly amazing that people like Giselle and Miwako had never sustained more serious injuries.

Nerys had a point then, perhaps it was more about their ability to survive, she certainly hadn't meant anyone like those two here.

[treadswater]

The very tall young man sitting next to the slim, curly-haired brunette, Annie studies him for a long moment.

He's the only one mentioning a physical injury being healed. That, that seems important. Trauma, she's not touching that. She can't. Everyone knows - or everyone knows in Panem. About some of it. Others, she can't talk about it. She can't be brave like Finnick and raise her hand. She doesn't want to be called upon to answer anything about the bombings.

She doesn't even want to think about it.

Instead of raising her hand, instead of managing to hold the blonde woman's words in her mind, the one who spoke of being monitored, instead of keeping a damn watch, Annie looks down.

Down at her hands. Uncared hands. Not a blemish on them, except what she's pick up here. No knicks from a knife. No burns.

It's like she's been polished by the Capitol. Polished to blank perfection.

Is that what happened with the young man's injuries?

But Annie can't speak, certainly not when everyone's all disagreeing with each other. She'll stumble over her words, panic. She'll just.

She'll think about it. That's what she'll do.

[teen_angst_bullshit]

Frank's gaze is unreadable, but still Veronica feels it like a punch to the gut, her mind racing with what he must be thinking of her. She wants to explain, only stops herself at the last moment, helped by the sound of Jake's voice.

She makes a hushed sound of dismay, wide eyes swinging to Cougar -- Deeply private Cougar, who had shared these things with her in confidence.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar's been sitting beside Jake, quiet this whole time because he might have opinions, but this isn't based on their survival like the weapons had been and so he has nothing to say. When Jake raises his hand, Cougar nods because he's grateful he will speak for them. Except, when he keeps speaking, his lips press together thinly, his mind already racing through what he will do in retaliation.

He catches Veronica's look and tips his baseball cap a little lower over his eyes to avoid eye contact, because the last thing he needs right now is to feel weak. He'll deal with this later.