Let us eat quickly-- let us fill ourselves up. {Harvest Feast}

[lastofthekellys]

WHO: Kate Kelly
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: 24th November
OPEN TO: E V E R Y O N E
WARNINGS: TBA
STATUS: OPEN

---

Aside from the days when she'd been too drunk or too hungover to get up, Kate's kept a farmer's hours all her life. Even in winter, when the bitterly cold winds that'd come up from the south and make its way through the cracks and holes in her ma's hut, she'd get up, get dressed, do her chores. But lately, it's been harder to extract herself from her bed. Benedict's been sharing her bed more often than not lately, and the chasteness of their interactions does nothing to change how warm and safe she feels. How little she wants to get up, get dressed, go out into the colder spaces of the Inn and do her work.

So, today, she's late getting out of bed - at least, by her standards. She's late getting down the stairs. She's late, so she's hurrying; she lazed in bed, and now she needs to start the fire in the main room. Start the fire, open the shutters, show that the Inn is standing and warm. And welcome, so she moves the -

No, Kate doesn't move the chairs stacked precariously at the front door as a rudimentary alarm of someone, something, coming through, because the chairs are gone. She neither dismisses it as one of the residents not getting the message, nor panics. Instead, she just opens the shutters to let in the dawn light and see if there are footprints, except, no, the snow has mostly cleared. The day is sunny. As welcome as it is, that doesn't help at all. Miss Hoppity jumps down from the foyer's desk to rub her face against Kate's skirt, apparently entirely unconcerned.

Kate eyes the cat for a moment, then approaches the closed doors leading to the main room. Closed, but with light coming through the cracks between door and floor, door and door frame. Cautiously, Kate opens one of the doors and peers in.

Then, she gapes.

The fire is blazing - hot, cheery - but so are the candles. The candles: candles on the unused candlesticks, candles clustered on tables, light up sideboards. Candles bobbing in bowls of water and apples. Candles white, yellow and red, when the village had none. Boughs of wheat, corn, decorate tables and the mantle over the fire, apples and pumpkins and collections of yellow, orange, red flowers seem to be everywhere.

And the food.

Each table is piled high with food. Roasted, baked, cooked on stoves and Kate knows how to cook, she knows how long this would all take, how many people, and it's impossible. What she's seeing is impossible to have done with the resources on hand: even an attempt would have woken up the whole building.

Disbelieving, Kate walks in. For a moment, she's entirely dumbfounded. Miss Hoppity, however, is nothing of the sort. The cat has leapt up onto the sideboard next to Kate and - well, Kate isn't sure what happens next. Just that suddenly there's movement and something large seems to lunge at her. Miss Hoppity yowls and speeds off: Kate screams as she battles something, falling backwards and hitting the floor along with a broken bowl of water, spilled apples and some tiny candles, and her attacker.

Pushing the food-turkey off her, Kate sits up and is, for once, entirely lost for words.

Comments

[thenewways]

"Not saying that people aren't going to share in general, I don't think anyone here would let anyone starve or freeze," Nerys feels compelled to add, gently amending her thought. "But there could be things, non-essentials, that people might prefer to barter, at some point. Or things people receive in the boxes that they don't have much use for but that someone else wants."

She's thinking of Peggy's underwear, which she still can't comprehend any use for except as a net for fishing. That and it strikes her as incredibly itchy as something to wear.

"Admittedly, even if we keep these somewhere cool and closed up, they're not going to last forever. And everyone's actually had the opportunity to have some, we'd just be bartering with the fact that we had the forethought to set some aside."

[teen_angst_bullshit]

"I think it's probably fair to assume that at least during certain times of the month, the women here would be very interested in bartering for a little chocolate," Veronica replies with a self-deprecating laugh. "Or maybe I'm just thinking of me." In any case, she's glad they're saving them.

"It is kind of an interesting thing, though," she ponders between slow sips of her coffee. "We have this almost total socialist scenario happening here, but can it really hold if we get to a point where we're not constantly worried about surviving?"

[thenewways]

"Certain times of the--oh," Nerys starts to ask, then catches herself as she figures it out. Metaphor around menstruation is rather different, on Bajor, and while she'd enjoyed not having to have to deal with that anymore on the station, it hasn't been too big an adjustment back into the cyclical pattern. At least here she doesn't have to burn the rags to avoid being discovered.

"Ohhh. It's not really my thing, but yeah, I can see that," she agrees with a coy smile, then finishes off the last of her coffee. The dregs are wonderfully sickly sweet and boozy, both novelties in the village, and she swishes them in her mouth a little before swallowing and adding to Veronica's theory.

"My people were traditionally socialist in public affairs but maintained a capitalist economy for non-essentials," she says. "Everyone was guaranteed certain things as rights, then extra things could be bought and sold. It worked okay, I gather, before the Occupation disrupted everything, but we've got people from so many different places around here...things could get heated."

She's beginning to suspect that despite her seemingly innocuous appearance, it's better to have Veronica on one's side rather than not.

[teen_angst_bullshit]

"Yeah," Veronica agrees, her face going slightly pinched. "I don't know if you're that familiar with the U.S. way of doing things on Earth, but we're definitely not socialist. Not like this, anyway. We have social programs, and we've got this Bill of Rights that supposedly guarantees us all things like freedom and happiness, but no one ever seems to explain how you're supposed to get any of it."

Not that she can talk, coming from an upper-class suburban family and never really wanting for anything aside from people in high school to not be total assholes. But at least she's somewhat aware of herself now.

"This is not the direction I expected this conversation to go," she adds after a moment, and laughs.

[thenewways]

Nerys listens closely, though she's not really aware of the details of the Earth governments that Veronica's referring to. "They sort of leave you to your own devices on most planets," she muses, "regarding being happy and free. Well, the latter, not quite as much. But--"

She cuts herself, shaking her head and chuckling softly. "You're right, no idea how we got to this place in the conversation. It's probably one better had when we don't have a bunch of dubiously-provided food and coffee around for stuffing our faces, actually. You want to hit up the dessert table? I figure you might know better than me what some of this stuff actually is."