004 { A life you don't live is still lost

[tobeclosetohim]

WHO: Jo & THE COMMUNITY AT LARGE
WHERE: The Pub & Inn
WHEN: July 27th, Midday through Night
OPEN TO:Everyone was invited personally
WARNINGS: Jo's Better At This Than She Means To Be
STATUS: Open To All; Threads w/ Jo, w/ Others & Threadjacking Welcome

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Jo told everyone she saw yesterday to come by the Inn & Pub today.

Anytime after midday, and to pass on the message to anyone and everyone else they saw. That it wasn't a meeting per say so much as something everyone was going to need everyone's help with and something everyone should probably get in on. But without clarifying much else.

She spent the rest of yesterday stealing nearly a half dozen curtains from houses that hadn't been claimed by anyone, and then acquiring enough charcoal to fill two small baskets. It's not paper and pens or pencils but it's going to have to do until someone has a better idea or finds better supplies.

The morning of the 27th, Thorfinn helps her get them tacked to two different walls of the main room of Inn & Pub using her knives to cut holes and then sharpened bones, from earlier meals in the month that she hadn't been aware had been saved even, banged into the wall to make them hold high and sturdy enough.



On one side of the room, three curtains line the wall and it says at the high top MAP & LANDMARKS. In the center most piece there are sketched bits for the buildings they can all recognize, the center most being the fountain, and in the distance the river, certain bits of forest, canyon wall, but there's a lot of white space in every other direction, too.

On the other side of the room, one curtain goes up, marked only at the top with FOR TRADE. For the moment that one is entirely blank, but sooner or later she going to end up writing Fresh Meat, with her name and Thorfinn's next to it. There's a second curtain for that wall folded behind the bar, for when and if it's needed.


For now Jo's sitting on a table, again, feet on a chair, elbows on her knees, hair loose on her shoulders, looking at the maps' ocean of white, waiting to see what else might get filled in by those who show up today. Or at least having a better idea of where they should still be looking that hasn't been covered half a dozen times already by everyone else.

Comments

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo's on the table, but she slides off with a nod for Thorfinn, about where she's headed before she heads that way. It's not even much a thought process anymore. Cougar at least has the bare understanding of English, while she's spent a good portion of her last month helping a Viking, now living with her, learn how to speak and understand any English at all aside from her name. Which he came in knowing.

But Language isn't an actual barrier in these things unless they let them be.

Thorfinn knew far more of the terrain than her already.

"Long time." Jo says, easy and even, sliding into place over by Cougar. "We're making a map of all the land that's been covered so far, and--" She paused to point over her shoulder, hand flipping upside down above it, as she gestures across the room. "And that's for things people are willing to trade. Or, I guess, they could list what they need, too. So far it was just offerings."

Or maybe she'd drag out the other curtain she'd stolen and make a Seeking For/Needs list for people to fill in, too.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar gives her a thoughtful nod as he taps on the curtain for the things that are willing to trade. "Rabbit and venison," he says. "You can put me down as offering. And berries," he adds, because he's been gathering as much as he's been hunting. "Field medic," he adds, with a light tap on his chest.

He's not inherently a saint or someone who's ready to volunteer, but he thinks anything that puts him in a good bartering position is worth doing.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo leaned down and grabbed a piece of the charcoal from the ground, and started jotting notes. It wasn't like any of them had a system yet, or anything that said what equality would be, or treating. If there would be some median middle ground for everyone, or if it would be up to each of the sets every time someone wanted something. Whether it would continuous or one-time things.

Sitting here watching it fill in more than she'd hoped had brought on a number of even more questions.

"Okay," she said it as she wrote. "Rabbit. Venison. Berries. Field Medic." There's a small hesitation at the end, turning her head to look up at him, not yet dropping her hand entirely from hovering where she'd stopped with his list. "What kind? Emergency medic or like doctor, if someone needed a doctor for whatever their problems might be, too?"

[thecatinahat]

He shakes his head when she asks her questions. "Not doctor," he clarifies. "Medic," he clarifies, because the team had him in the best of situations and then the sliding scale went from Pooch to Roque until you got to Jensen and Clay on the other end. Not that they were bad -- just that sometimes, their big hands didn't understand gentleness.

"I can do wounds, breaks," he lists, "gunshots, stabs," he goes on, thinking of the most recent things he's had to patch up. "Physicals? Diagnoses?" He shakes his head vehemently, now, because he doesn't have the skill or ability to do something like that.

[tobeclosetohim]

"Simple triage things." Jo nodded, getting it, and started adding more to the edges. "It sounds about like what I can do."

Though she'd watched so much more and much worse happen on the pool table in the place she grew up. The blood never really came out of the edges of the felt entirely, but she'd seen how much blood and other things could come out of human body long before she ever realized she probably shouldn't have seen it, or been mostly unphased by the act itself being something like normal.

In a pinch she could try for more, but she'd rather not, unless someone was actually dying on top of her.
It wasn't her thing, and she might just as well kill someone accidentally as manage to save them.

[thecatinahat]

"Good with stitches," he says. Stitches had come up a lot in the field and for the more minor of the injuries, they had never needed to go to the hospital, so Cougar got out his thread and got to stitching, which means that he can do excellent cross-stitch and patch up someone with a bullethole in them.

He gestures to the boards and then back at her. "Has anyone surveyed animals? Food sources?"

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo shook her head. "Not yet, but Sam was talking about a log book, and that would be good to have in there, too." She looked upward, at the list, at the ceiling, letting it roll out of her mouth as it was hitting her head. "We could take stock of what we have all together, and what's available out there, both that could be avoided and that could be captured. Especially if it needs more than one of two people to capture it, or build enclosures for them."

Beat. "I don't know much about the plants, which could probably have done with something along the same lines, too."

[thecatinahat]

"Need to know how much animals are there," Cougar says, a serious look on his face. After all, at some point soon, he's going to have to stop hunting and so will everyone else unless they want the population to go extinct and lose their food source. "Can't keep hunting. Starve," he says, his eyes dark.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo stopped, thinking about that, because it was just as true as the rest. Everything they were and had existed in the same bubble as them. They had no proof that what they had wasn't an already limited, already depleted, stock. It was a dangerous balance, and that was even playing into the idea there was a balance her at all and it wasn't all just a setup. Just like the Hell Dimension. Just like the floating islands of Medietas.

"And your suggestion for what they all live on during the times they have to stop hunting?" Beat. "Or even how long, or how often, for how long, so as not to put that possibility into effect this soon, already?"

[thecatinahat]

"Greens. Grain," Cougar answers, because there's plenty that they could get. "Fish," he adds. "Might need to be careful about breeding." If they have someone keeping an eye on the population and protecting them to avoid extinction, then they'll be able to assure themselves to know that they're keeping themselves alive while still keeping an eye to the future.

"Preserving food would help, if we have to ration. Need cold storage."

[tobeclosetohim]

"If we make it to winter, too." She's been thinking about that a lot.

She's been thinking about a lot a lot, but that one is in there, too. It's obviously still summer. It's too hot for it not to be summer, but it's hard to tell if it's just starting, in it's middle or headed out. But if it goes by any normal pattern of seasons, fall will come and winter. They don't know how bad or how long either of those might be either, and the latter could make a lot of things terrible.

"Something needs to be worked out." Jo frowned. "Especially with how many of us there are, and how many more might come before it."

It was hard enough having enough to eat most days for everyone here. Some of them able to feed themselves, some of them almost not at all, and that was just day to day, week to week. Before they might need weeks or months of food on store, from everyone present and any more who came, too.

[thecatinahat]

"Yes. Or start breeding," he says, without a hint of irony or joking. After all, if they want to guarantee themselves constant food, he thinks that knowing the exact population would help. Unfortunately, given how long it takes for some animals to grow into viable food sources, this is something that has to happen soon.

He gives her a raised brow. "Could start a small reservoir for fish? Small warren for hares."

[tobeclosetohim]

When survive becomes so close to settling, and she has to wonder if this is what whoever put them here meant for them to do. She really can't stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, but that doesn't mean she has to say. She can simply let the feeling of it prickle along her shoulder blades and nod slightly.

"Couldn't hurt to trace the river to any of the other rivers, find out if there are any ponds that could be mostly cut off or shored up at certain points." She wasn't one for catching animals, but she could see the point and purpose to his suggestions as they were rolled off.

[thecatinahat]

He nods, because starvation is a hard thing that he's come face to face with before, because given the sort of missions they'd run, food hadn't always been plentiful. "Yes," is all he says out loud, because it will help them in order to keep moving forward.

And if winter is bad here, they will need all the help they can get.