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

[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.