[MINGLE] Saints & Sinners Masquerade

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Corn field next to the inn
WHEN: 31 October, all day and night
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Please warn as appropriate in your subject lines
NOTES: Please make sure you have read and understand the event details! If you have questions, drop them here. RECOMMENDED BUT NOT REQUIRED: Put your SCRUBS COLOR in your OTA subject line for folks doing bingo. Time your OTA for the harvest feast, the masquerade, or both. Costume matches and details for folks who did not get matched are here.

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This morning, our intrepid villagers awoke to a surprise of the nicer kind: A bundle of clothing left at the foot of their bed, tied with a bow. There is also a note: Put on your new outfit and join the festivities in the corn field next to the inn.

You may be thinking, what corn field next to the inn? The one that sprung up fully-mature overnight, of course.

In the middle of the field, villagers will find an autumn feast: Tables piled with harvest time food and drink, warm and rustic decorations, the day's sunshine fending off any chill in the air.

Tuck in and enjoy, villagers, but take note: Things often look different in the dark, and you might be one of them.

Comments

7 | 9 Harvest & Masquarade | Navy Blue

[to_defend]

It would have been easy to stay away, try to watch things from a distance, but while she wasn't completely sold on all these people she didn't know - not completely sold on being human either - it would be a good opportunity to observe, and in this case she could learn more if she were there.

The new clothes provided were appreciated over her navy scrubs. Clothes in general were a new concept, but otherwise it was cold. So, she'll arrive in the new outfit; boot-cut jeans, long-sleeved flannel shirt with white and navy stripes.

Harvest

7 hangs out on the edge of the festivities, looking over the food but not eating yet, although her stomach hurts and eventually she'll need to partake, but for now ... For now she just watches.

Perhaps you can get her to eat or drink something? Or try to share in the merriment? Perhaps you stare back.

Masquarade

At some point later in the night, she finds herself blinking, as if she'd gotten something in her optic - no, eyes - she rubs her palm against her eyes, one then the other, and looks out over the festivities once more. She finds them changed, with bright and colorful decor the likes of which seen.

7 notices, the moment after, that she herself is changed as well; the jeans and shirt are replaced with a long and flowing white gown, with long bell sleeves and a simple cord cinched at the waist. She's startled byt he change, by the way it happened without any notice at the time, and she's immediately on edge again. It may take her a little extra coaxing to loosen up and join in with the fun. Are other people having fun?

Harvest

[nonstopnarcissist]

Part of being in the public eye is being aware of when you're watched- though Tony doesn't think it's any particular kind of staring that should have him concerned, when he finds the source of the itching between his shoulderblades feeling he cocks his head to the side, staring right back.

Feral, his mind supplies, but that thought usually applies to like. Cats. Animals. On occasion scraggly biologists but he hasn't seen it on a person in a few years. "...Pretty sure none of this is poisonous. Come on and grab a plate."

Because he's seen that lean, hungry look in a person before. What the hunger is for, that kind of depends on the person. But food's easiest to offer and- well. She's a new face.

[to_defend]

He's staring back. She feels like it's something of a challenge, and doesn't look away. If anything, she tenses, a slight posturing of the shoulders as if daring him to act on this eye contact.

Then he speaks, and she's not sure what to do with his words. He's talking about the food, she's able to figure that out, but it throws her enough to cause her to lose the edge.

She makes her way closer to the table, keeping an eye on him until she needs to look down to take a plate. She takes a moment to inspect it; turning it over, running her thumb over the smooth surface. It was whole, unbroken and unspoiled. She'd seen fragments of plates, cracked pieces, but never something whole and clean.

7 looks then to the food, thinking back on the way things had withered when the gas went through. This didn't really look like that; it looked more like the pictures and paintings that 3 and 4 had collected in their library. "Is this what it looks like, when it's not poisoned?"

[nonstopnarcissist]

"...generally you can't tell when it is, honestly- but no one's dropped dead yet and I'm pretty sure it'll fuck up their study if they kill off all their subjects." They're trying to fix something, to make something happen. A brute force sort of way of doing it, trying over and over with different people, different clones until the tests come up any particular way but-

That's big game thinking. Right now? There's food, a feral woman that handles plates like they're a mystery to her, and an odd tension at the base of his spine that reminds him of staring down Loki.

Unhinged? Feral? Run ragged in one way or another. He keeps his posture open, his hands visible, his voice low. That's what you do, right? right. "It's fine. Have some."

[to_defend]

It's certainly helping. The arrival had been a shock, and now she's having to relearn all her preconceived notions of humans. With one exception, she'd only ever seen them at war. Each positive encounter she has is another step towards quieting the fight or flight instinct she keeps battling with.

She evens her plate out and reaches for a roll, picking it up, squeezing it, looking it over before setting it on her plate. Grapes, next, she'd seen these in a painting, she's pretty sure. Giving them a once over before adding them next to the roll.

Her stomach rumbles, and she tenses at the sound and gives him a sidelong glance, trying to gauge if he'd heard it. She's not entirely sure what that even was. "Is this sort of thing normal, here?"

She makes a general motion towards the feast.

[nonstopnarcissist]

"No idea. I haven't been here that long, you'll have to ask the old timers." Ignoring the grumbling of her stomach is easy- he's been there, he's heard Bruce while he was there. Learning how to trust food being readily available took him awhile after Afghanistan. Getting Bruce comfortable enough to trust that whatever he needed he'd get took awhile too. "We all throw in now and then for a dinner, I think there was a crawfish boil? And I managed to get everyone together for pasta and pizza a few weeks ago."

Tony shrugs, fluid, slow, careful. "Food brings people together. It's a universal thing."

[to_defend]

Food brings people together.

Maybe that's why humans painted so many pictures of fruit.

It's something interesting to consider, though, and she pulls off a grape and pops it into her mouth. It's ... weird ... with the tough outer skin and watery insides, but the taste is pleasant.

"I guess I hadn't thought about it that way." Which is to say what humans ate and why wasn't part of her daily routine battling their leftover creations.

[nonstopnarcissist]

"Usually when it's abundant it's a sign of safety or a celebration of survival- or trying to get everything eaten before it goes off and becomes wasteage as winter rolls in." He shrugs. "It's- a thing? I think it's a thing. I'm not used to this shit."

He's well aware of coming from privilege. Never having to go hungry or think about when the next paycheck is going to come in, if the bank account will be empty. Here? None of that shit exists, let alone matters.

[to_defend]

She's never had to worry about eating before, let alone stores and shortages. In this specific case, her privilege might trump his. Of course, she had other things to worry about back them, too.

"So, this much food, we don't have to worry?" It was a large spread to her, at least, and between the people and the costumes it's as much a celebration as she'd ever have been able to imagine.

[nonstopnarcissist]

"The food's safe, I'm pretty sure we're stored up well for the winter. If not, we've got hunters that are willing to fill the gaps and a greenhouse that's still growing." Which'll keep everyone fed, the well water still comes up clear, and fishing hasn't ended badly just yet.

[to_defend]

"I can hunt."

It's out of her mouth before she even realizes she's saying it, but she doesn't back down on the sentiment. She'd tracked and killed the beast, she'd helped take out the Flying Machine, she may not have bested the Seamstress but as long as she was alive she would throw herself at challenges and hunting wasn't that much of a difference, was it?

"I can track."

[nonstopnarcissist]

"And lo, one more hunter appears. We should be set for winter, then. I can build things but I'm not much for hunting. They didn't have classes for that in MIT." At least not in his degree path. Tracking might've been in one of the more outdoorsy degree programs but, not something that ever came up for him.

[to_defend]

"Ehmitee?"

2 would have loved this place, 2 would have been asking all of the questions. 7 catches them as the come, but she's mostly interested in the here and now.

"I can track," she iterates, "it's good to have a variety." She could make weapons but she couldn't construct things like 2 or 5 could.

Harvest

[tevinteraltus]

Dorian does, of course, take note, more comfortable in his new clothing than he had been in the scrubs. Thank the Maker for warmth. He's enjoying the idea of some sort of get together, and only partially for the escapism of it all. He nearly walks into the girl as he enters the clearing, though, and comes up short, brow furrowing slightly as he watches her.

After a moment he clears his throat.

"I don't imagine they'll bite, you know."

[to_defend]

7 startles as he almost collides - as much as would have been equally her fault for not dodging out of the way. Her whoel body goes tense and she shoots him a look, but manages to keep herself from taking off. So far, so good.

"You never know." Is her terse reply. She crosses her arms, takes a breath, and tries again. "It never hurts to be cautious."

[tevinteraltus]

"True," and given her body language, it doesn't take someone educated in the reading of it to know she's tense and ready to bolt. "Even so, given our current circumstances, what more do we really have to lose?"

He smiles amicably and inclines his head slightly. "Dorian Pavus. How do you do?"

[to_defend]

That is something to think about, and she considers it as he makes his introduction.

"7. I guess I'm doing alright. Not used to --" She gives a general wave at the harvest and the crowd around them, "-- this."

Pretty much, she means all of it. Food, people, loud and overwhelming evidence of life. It's encouraging, but to someone used used to it, it's a bit to process.

"And, you?"

[tevinteraltus]

"A smattering of overwhelmed along with a healthy dose of 'wary anticipation'. I must admit, I'm a bit intrigued by all of this," he motions around as well, indicating the gathering, the food, the corn.

"Do your people rarely have celebrations?" If so, that in itself is a curiosity.

[to_defend]

She shakes her head. "There's not much to celebrate, no safe way to do it, really." Well, who knows if 1 had any celebrations while she was gone. Maybe because she'd skipped out.

"I spent a lot of time on my own, also. Not much of a celebration when it's just you."

[tevinteraltus]

"Nonsense. One can celebrate quite well on their own." At some point, someone should inform Dorian that 'celebrating' wasn't all about getting so thoroughly munted on wine they couldn't quite walk a straight line back to their solitary quarters.

"What makes your world so unsafe as to be dangerous to throw a party?"

[to_defend]

"Machines, always hunting us. Out in the open like this, we wouldn't last very long. On my own, I didn't have anyone to watch my back."

There wasn't anything to celebrate, and any moment she spent distracted was a moment given to the Beast.

[tevinteraltus]

"Machines?" To Dorian's knowledge, the only 'machines' that existed were large siege weapons, capable of demolishing keep walls surely, but they didn't hunt. They were tools.

"Forgive me, but...how are machines capable of such a thing?"

[to_defend]

So Dorian, imagine if a siege weapon was intelligent, but lacked empathy. Then give it the ability to make other siege weapons that are ambulatory. And have the original abused and angry. The results are really fun.

"It's ... a long story, but where I came from they were. They were built to destroy, then turned against their builders, and then it was just us and them."

[tevinteraltus]

Dorian has a vivid imagination, and it isn't hard for him to at least envision some sort of world in which spirits inhabited siege weapons with the intent of holding dominion over mortals, demonically possessed machines with-

"Maker's breath. This place must seem a reprieve for you, then."

[to_defend]

"It's a lot to get used to."

She wasn't sure what to do with reprieve. The silence still felt too dangerous, and she hasn't been here long enough to shake off some of the ingrained survival habits from her home.