sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Saints & Sinners Masquerade

[MINGLE] Saints & Sinners Masquerade

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.

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.

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"I think you might be the smartest one of all of us," Beverly points out wryly. "You'd think us old-timers would know better than to put on something that mysteriously appears before us, but I guess all those gift boxes made us forget what we're dealing with." The cat in a box for her certainly had. Maybe now she'll be more wary about opening up everything and trying on any clothes that might find their way to her. At least this woman isn't wearing anything particularly embarrassing. Lucky for her.

"I'm Beverly, by the way. I don't think we've met."

Niska has to study the other woman for a prolonged moment to parse the comment. She doesn't appear old, so she must mean that she's been here a while or is experienced. She eyes the costume, but pays more attention to the introduction.

"Niska," she introduces herself in turn. "I'm new. Mark rescued me from the tubes a month ago," she explains, and given her unwillingness to be very social, it's taken her some time to get around to meet others. "Gift boxes? Are those frequent?"

Beverly takes in the pause and makes a mental note to use phrases she might use with Data, ways to explain things that aren't so easily confused. Or to explain those confusing phrases if she needs to.

"It's very nice to meet you, Niska, despite the less than pleasant circumstance of being here." She might be one to try to make life here easier on everyone, but she isn't going to lie about how pleasant it really is. "I think it depends on how nice the Observers are feeling. Some people seem to find a lot of them, but I really haven't. The last one I found had a kitten in it and I'm still not sure how I feel about that." She loves the kitten. It's the idea of animals being trapped in boxes that has her concerned.

"Did they put a hole in the box?" She shouldn't sound so darkly amused by the notion that they might not have, but there's a wry tone in her voice that suggests otherwise. It would be terribly cruel, but it also sounds the sort of thing that would be terribly like this place to do.

"Do you not like animals and they forced you to take care of one? I think that would be far worse than being trapped in a costume," she opines.

"No," Beverly answers, "which is part of the problem. I love cats and I'm thrilled to have one, but I don't like the idea of any living creature suffering in this place, humanoid or animal. My kitten will have to learn to survive here, even with me taking care of him."

She'll worry about him when things get rough and given last year, she isn't sure she wants to think of how bad this winter will be. All of the animals in their care will have to be looked after. If it were just weather to worry about, that would be one thing, but with the Observers in the mix, there's no telling what will happen.

Niska thinks that any animal placed in a box in such a scenario would be cruel to treat in such a manner, but at the same time, she has to wonder if perhaps it's like her and simply not human.

Then again, she also can't ask a complete stranger if she had dissected her cat to look for robot parts as that might seem more than a touch odd. "What other gifts are you given?" she wonders. "Treats in boxes to get you to behave, one assumes."

Beverly agrees that it's cruel, but unfortunately there's not much she can do about it except rescue any animals she receives that way as soon as she can. "One assumes," she agrees wryly. "Personally, it's been things like clothes. Necessary items or things that help survival. I think some people have even gotten food. Ravi opened one to find several tubs of ice cream last summer. I don't know if there's a real limit to what one can or can't find in one of those boxes."

Niska, who has never eaten anything in her life, wonders how it is that humans find such joy in things like food. Though, at the same time, perhaps it's simply a failing of David Elster, to have not given them that. And yet, she can touch, she can feel, she can enjoy other things.

"And what is it you want in one of them?" It seems the natural next question, because what you get and what you want can often differ.

That question is an easy one to answer. "Federation medical equipment," she says dryly. "Anything that could help the medical staff save lives instead of just follow whatever it is our overlords want us to follow." What she wouldn't do for a tricorder, hypospray, and a regenerator or two. "Too useful, I suspect. What about you? Any idea as to what you might want?"

"Federation?" That sounds like a word Niska should be wary of. Groups don't usually give themselves names like that unless they have a purpose and a mission and those make Niska wary.

Niska knows exactly what she wants. She wants brothers, sister, Astrid. Maybe not in that order, but she wants that. She wants an answer to who the Synth Who Sleeps is. She wants to know if she really saw Odie in the woods. None of that is going to work, so she eyes the other woman.

"Books," she says, because that's also true. "I like to read, and there doesn't seem to be much in the way here of books."

"The United Federation of Planets," Beverly offers, after only a moment of hesitation. She's already in this deep. May as well be as honest as possible without risking security. "It's the interplanetary alliance between planets that exist more or less autonomously. Our main purposes are peaceful cooperation, scientific development, and space exploration." Really, the Federation is nothing to be feared normally. It's when some of the Starfleet brass start getting a little antsy that things internally start to fall apart.

"You might try the schoolhouse," she suggests next. "I think there might be some books there and floating around. We didn't have many until recently. Paper itself wasn't exactly easy to come by. So the schoolhouse might be your best bet."

Interplanetary travel is at least three decades away from getting off the ground, by Niska's best estimations of the governments around her, which means that it's likely not going to happen for the people in her world, though it does happen at some point.

How very interesting and curious.

"What sort of books?" she asks, because while she has her particular interests, beggars can't be choosers and to continue learning anything would be a welcome thing at this point. "My preference is non-fiction, particularly philosophy."

"Lots of non-fiction. I haven't had the time to sort through all of them, but there's an impressive amount of books there now." It wasn't always like that. The schoolhouse was destroyed a long time ago and only a few months ago was restored by the Observers. Now it's one of the only places that has a decent amount of books and though they are a bit "old school" to the Starfleet officers, books definitely have their uses.

If that's the case, then Niska already has a new destination in mind. She's not one for parties. With no reason to consume food and no desire to socialize with people in such a setting, she thinks she ought to take advantage of the privacy there while she can.

"In that case, I don't think I'll delay," she says, but she does offer Beverly a small smile, perhaps warmer than Niska might have anticipated giving, but she's enjoyed their talk and the direction to books. "Thank you," she says, and means it.

Beverly's smile warms considerably. She's happy she could offer anything at all that might make Niska's stay here a little easier. "You're very welcome. Enjoy the books and hopefully we'll see each other again."

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[MINGLE] Saints & Sinners Masquerade

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