[MINGLE] Crab Boil

[markwatney]

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: 6I Inn front lawn
WHEN: 21 June 2018, afternoon/evening and onward
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
NOTES: A few thinsgs: You may assume your character helped set up; There are tubers in pot with the red salt, negating the warmth effect; The list of of potluck dishes is here; The list of local provisions is here

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The weather is great, the sun is starting to dip toward the horizon, and it's pleasantly mild. Time for an (extremely) old-fashioned low country boil.

We've got two small fire pits built out in front of the inn, each with a massive pot filled with loads of vegetables — corn, carrots, potatoes, onions — and of course the rainbow crabs Finnick and Annie discovered not long after we arrived here. We've even got salt, if you can believe it, although the red salt in this place is pretty spicy and usually makes me sweat, so I've only put it in the one pot, and then set a bowl of it out for garnishing.

Tables and chairs have been brought out from inside, a couple of them set aside specifically for piles of plates, bowls, cups and whatever potluck provisions the rest of the village brings.

Comments

[pharmakis]

"Neither," she grinned in return. "My family doesn't appreciate toil and that is what cooking is. I like to work, I like to dirty my hands with harvesting vegetables in my garden." It might have started with her desire to learn about magic, but it became something more.

"Do kings cook as well? I don't see a dish from you." There were things she wanted to tell him, or at least wanted to tell someone. He knew what she was and wasn't afraid. It was easier to think of confiding in him than anyone else. She trusted him.

[tooktheblack]

"I do not cook. I can make a venison stew that can keep you alive," Jon pointed out. "But I don't think it would do much beyond that. I volunteered to help clear things away afterward."

He thought perhaps that would be a much better use of his labor than attempting to cook something and have it come out terribly.

"I suppose you're just going to have to take some pity on me."

[pharmakis]

"Shall I? I wonder if I should do more than that?" If he couldn't cook, then she would simply cook for him and teach him as well. "I take it your mother doesn't cook either? No, one of you will learn and I have decided it will be you. You will have to come see me each day and I will make you something to have at night."

It certainly was a good excuse to have his company more and to not be so alone during the night. Even with all of her animals in the bungalow, it didn't compare to having a companion, if only briefly.

"You could bring me meat and I can show you what to do with it?"

[tooktheblack]

"You've just decided I'm going to learn? What if I'm a terrible student," Jon said, giving her a pointed look in return.

"I might not have any skill to learn how to cook and you might end up frustrated instead of having someone else who knows how."

[pharmakis]

"Oh, I am certain there will be moments of frustration for us both, but nothing worth doing is achieved easily. It takes time, patience and practice." Gods knew that it had taken that long for her to even harness her magic. If she could manage it, so would Jon Snow learn to cook.

"Even if you are terrible and never manage to learn, I would be glad for the company. It wouldn't be a waste of time to me. I would like to have someone about to talk to besides my animals."

[tooktheblack]

"Sometimes I'm as quiet as any animal," Jon pointed out. "So you might not be better off if you're looking for someone to talk to you. I always believe in saving words for when they're needed."

Words are wind, after all, and Jon didn't have much time for wind. He did have time for words, though, at least at this party.

"But that isn't a conversation for a feast, is it?"

[pharmakis]

"You understand there is a difference between a quiet with someone else present to no one?" She asked, pushing aside her already empty bowl. "Simply having someone else in the room is more of a relief than having no one there at all."

Whether he spoke or not, it didn't matter to her. She only wanted to have him by her side.

"What words are needed at a feast then?"

[tooktheblack]

"I don't know, something happy? I'm not very good at that," Jon forewarned her. He turned to melancholy more often than not and with his lord father and Sansa gone, it was easy to worry that Lya, Robb or Margaery might be next. He didn't want to lose the family he'd gained here even if this place was still queer and strange to him more often than not. He wanted to stay for a while and enjoy the time with those he wouldn't be able to see in Westeros.

"Not a lot to smile about when you live at the frozen edge of the world. Can't smile too much anyway, mouth might get frozen and then you're stuck looking bemused all day."

[pharmakis]

"You make your own happiness," a lesson that she had only learned through exile. But it was never that simple and life seemed to be made of struggles. He had his fair share from an early age it seemed. It was marked in his eyes and manner, making him seem far older than he was. "There must be something that makes you happy here? You can tell me of that?"

She grinned, picturing that expression frozen on his face. "That would become difficult, if you are a king, you are expected to be stern. Smiling while you oversee justice will confuse your men."

[tooktheblack]

"One of the things that made me happy here and still does was having my family," Jon explained. "My father and sister have disappeared but I had them here for a long while. My lord father was dead back home. Being with him here was stolen time."

Jon smiled a bit. "My brother is here, too, and my mother who died in childbirth. Both dead at home, both alive here. It gladdens me."

[pharmakis]

"I'm sorry." Her voice was soft, taking in his emotion and the heaviness of his loss. He had a good heart, one that seemed to love deeply, even if he hid it behind a quiet, taciturn nature. "What happens if someone has died before coming here? If they leave, what becomes of them?"

She smiled, taking his hand and patting it gently. "It was your mother I saw you arrive with?"

[tooktheblack]

"I don't know what happens when they leave. I only know when they're here, they're alive, and that's why I want to keep my family as close as I can."

When Circe mentioned Lyanna, he nodded quickly in affirmation. "Aye, that was Lyanna, my birth mother. She was the sister of the man who raised me as his own. It gets confusing sometimes, I imagine, but when I refer to my father I usually mean the man that is my uncle by blood."

[pharmakis]

"I hope you keep your brother and mother for as long as you are here." Which she prayed would be for some time. This place seemed to give him some peace he might not otherwise have in his world.

She smiled, "You don't need to explain. I understand confusing families." The Olympians alone had intermarried enough that their family lines were a twisted web. "You look like her, your mother." They had the same dark coloring and were near the same height.

[tooktheblack]

"There's little of my birth father in me," Jon agreed. "I favor House Stark and I favor my mother. I have the dark hair, the dark eyes. Only those from House Stark have that. My father's family has light hair and violet eyes."

It was hard to believe that he and Daenerys Targaryen could possibly come from the same family but they did.

"It was how my uncle could pass me off as his bastard child so easily."

[pharmakis]

"I resemble my father, but not nearly enough." She twisted a curl around her finger, glancing down at the dull color. It appeared bright and vibrant to her mortal eyes, but it was hard to forget how it appeared to the gods. "Next to my family, my hair seems brown and my eyes are only a bland yellow. But my father's other children, their hair is gold like the sun and their eyes are embers." She was far more mortal than god.

"Your features allowed you to be accepted a bit better by your family. They recognized you as their blood. That's your fortune."

[tooktheblack]

"Well, your hair could hardly be considered dull here," Jon said, shaking his head a bit. "Red hair is lucky, where I come from. It's called being kissed by fire. The Wildlings like people with red hair."

He grinned a little, slightly awkward. "Just a saying, anyway. Not sure why it's lucky."

[pharmakis]

"I would hardly consider myself lucky." Though she wasn't certain if she believed in that concept at all. Everything that had happened to her had been from her own poor decisions. There was no one really to blame but herself. This was the first real sign of divine intervention, not brought on by a confession or anything else. Not unless her family was trying to punish or torture here, which she doubted.

"Does the luck extend to others? Perhaps if we spend more time together, you will receive some of my luck?"

[tooktheblack]

Jon laughed a little at that, shaking his head. "Aye, I don't know if it works that way. My friend Tormund has brought me luck in battle but he's one of the fiercest fighters I've ever met. It might be more skill than luck."

Still, Jon wasn't one to completely discount the concept of luck and suspicion. "I'll just have to keep you around and see if my luck improves."