keep that fury deep inside you: primitive weapons plot

[thenewways]

WHO: Kira Nerys
WHERE: the Inn
WHEN: Saturday,
OPEN TO: All (August Plot, part 2)
WARNINGS: none at present
STATUS: Open

---

When Nerys heard about the boxes that Jo and Killian Jones had found, she was surprised. When she heard what was in them, that they were all marked with intent, the surprise lessened, and now was turning into sinking overwhelming tunnel vision in her head, her gut. The physical sensation of knowing, knowing that someone had plans for you, and those plans were likely ugly--oh yes, she knows it. Just because it's familiar, though, doesn't make it something she enjoys by any stretch of the imagination.

No, it's the kind of feeling that Nerys had learned at a very young age to transmute into anger. The kind of anger that fed her family, then the kind of anger that blew up Cardassian weapons depots, then the kind of anger that kept her focused on her job and kept her people safe.

She knows that if she's feeling this way, things are just as bad or worse for others. While she hasn't been entirely candid with everyone about her past, though she certainly hasn't lied, she's pretty sure she's seen complexity (let's be frank, darkness) in some of the people she's met, and like fuck did they need a full-scale civil war on their hands here.

It's a good way for them all, in the not-so-long run, to die.

Clearly, they all needed to have a gods damned talk before this boiled over, and as Nerys sees no one else volunteering, she steps up, roaming through the village like an old-fashioned crier. "Hey," she shouts at the people in the field, around the town, using the rather powerful pipes the Prophets had seen fit to give her. "Hey. Meeting at the Inn, fifteen minutes. We need to talk."

She gets to the inn in a few minutes' time, then clambers up onto one of the tables in front of Jo's lists, and sits, cross-legged, to wait. Folks filter in, a few at a time, and Nerys taps her jaw with her fingertips, counting out the seconds (she'd like a chronometer, but that'd be like asking for latinum dust). Once enough time's passed, she clears her throat. It doesn't really do much, so she rolls her eyes, then turns up the volume a little--not aggressive, but enough to catch people's attention. She's accustomed to walking the fine line between too much and too little leadership, because unlike her Starfleet colleagues, she doesn't expect the hierarchy of rank and linked formality of sometimes-grudging respect. Makes it easier to actually talk to people.

"Hey. My name's Nerys, for those of you who I haven't met properly yet. You've probably heard what was found out in the forest," she starts. "I figure we should all sit down and discuss it, because the last thing that's going to be any good for anyone is us starting to distrust each other and get into fights. So...let's hash it out, right?"

If she has to scream the 'this is what they fucking want, they want us to hurt each other, fuck them' message into people's heads, she's willing to do that. Eventually. Hopefully someone else will agree.

Comments

[notabirdcostume]

It's the goddamn in-fighting all over again. Sam can see it playing all over. One document sends Steve and Tony to different sides of the table and dragging their allies along with them. A stack of crates appears in the woods and now the exact same thing is happening here. Sam doesn't like it. They'd been doing so well as a group up until now. Sure, Sam still knew so little about so many, but they'd made it nearly two months now without trouble.

"All right. We're obviously not going to get anywhere if we're too riled up to hear the other side. I think we can all agree that there are viable points being made here. But let's not forget that we have managed to survive nearly two full months here without much in the way of outside help."

He gestures at a woman he barely knows but whose point he agrees with the most, "Why is this the line though? We've been sleeping in these houses, using the few tools that were left here, and even keeping the pets being sent as early Christmas presents."

Sam gets that Jo and Kol have previous experience. The boxes could be cursed, they would't know. Hell, they could be drinking poisoned water and the seeds they're planting could be all genetically altered to kill them. That still doesn't explain to Sam why the crates are suddenly the big bad here.

"Other boxes have already been opened and we've been working in a damn garden with seeds from one of them. You want us to go back and dig those up as well? They're forcing our hand, but I'm waiting for one of you two to propose an alternative then -- and maybe stop acting like we haven't already been using everything they've already given us. Cause I don't want to play out some twisted version of Survivor for the amusement of our captors...but I'd also like to not starve to death, freeze to death, or whatever other ways we can possibly die here."

[seekingcrocodile]

There are some good points being raised here, on both sides again, but they're still missing something obvious.

"It's obvious there's magic going on here somewhere. I don't think anyone can deny that fact. Yes, real curses-and-charms magic. What else could have created this place? And I can't speak for anyone else, but the ability that Emma had to act against magic doesn't work here. We're completely at the whim of whoever is behind this."

He indicates Sam now. "But listen to what he -- again, I don't know your name -- just said. We've been using all these other things already. Have we noticed anything that might be a curse? Should we stop using them in case they're delayed curses? How long do we wait to see if anything happens?"

He waves his hand at the items laid out on the table. "We handled the crates to bring them back here. Some of these items have been handled already to put them on the table. If these items are cursed, everyone who touched them is already cursed. If it's something passed through air, we've all been breathing it in."

He turns to look and Jo and Kol. "How long do you propose we wait before deciding that these are safe to use?"

[tobeclosetohim]

It really is a pity that pub doesn’t have alcohol, because Jo would like to be drunk.

It’s like watching a movie she’s seen too many times. Lived too many times. The argument is the same. The answer is the same. The choice at the end will be the same. The only option they can see always — take the risk, trust that your abuser, who kidnapped you, stripped you of you world, your resources, your clothes, and now even of powers, when they hand you something you need after denying you for so long. Because you have to. Because you believe you won’t survive any other way.

So that you are grateful. So that you can’t turn it down.
She hasn’t gotten a magical box from the sky, but she’d felt the same way about them.

But Jo’s been to worse. Jo’s been to no resources, no food, no water, and no sleep, to being terrified every minute of every day and every night, any real demons were at every corner, in every face, when night and day didn’t even exist, and every cut in her skin, down to a splinter, might mean in five days she might pop from the inside like balloon made of blood and bone confetti. This was plentiful peas and carrots compared to that. Or even Silent Hill.

(Or shooting her own mother in the face for her own survival.

Not her mother. Not her mother. Remember.

B-A-N-G.)

How this will play out is already written on the walls of this room and the faces of those talking. Some of them will take the weapons to hunt. Some of them will take them to domesticate and settle this land. All of them will call it survival, and an acceptable risk. Price. Choice. And they’ll take her with them. Because she’s just as trapped here.Because none of them will understand, none of them will believe as much, what either she or Kol will say, until it’s happened to them. It’s a scary what-if, but okay you, but maybe not us, story until then. The same as it is in every place she’s ever been pulled.

It’s not even that she doesn’t understand them. Empathize even.
She understand them too well. She’s been in this pit too many times.



If anything she’s more interested in one of the few things Killian says in the middle, wrinkling her brow. She’d known who Emma was when she came in, but she’d never known Emma had magic. There are limits to everyone’s knowledge. Even hers. She’s so well aware. She never stops being aware of that. Of that quote. About how the more they learn, the more they realize how little they do know.

Jo tilted her head and looked at Kol, who she was almost too relieved to hear sense from, and then back to Killian. “You and I have already touched them. To get them here, to lay them out, to show them to everyone.” She already took that risk. She made that choice. She lived a foot off the cliff. It’s what worried half the people that loved her, liked her, followed her, partnered with her, in every world. It made her predictable, and sacrificable.

It made her a hunter. Dying in the dark, for others, in the face of monsters.
She signed up for that at birth. The multiverse only expanded what ‘monsters’ could mean.

“We could wait a few days.” She shrugged. “A week. I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell they want with this anymore than any of you. We could see if anything happens to us. It could be now. It could be months from now. It could be never. But I don’t like giving them anything. Trusting in anything from them. What Kol's talking about, it's happened in every place I've ended up, in some way or another.” She looks at them all, but especially Sam and Kate, who seemed to think the only answer was we do this or demand Kol and Jo, specifically, give them a better answer. That there were only two paths. Only the x’s or the o’s in this tic-tac-toe game of Stockholm logic.

“I told you the first day we got here. I don’t have any more answers than any of you. Just the facts of where I’ve been and what I’ve been through. If I did—“ Because this is so obvious she thinks it’s deeper than breathing. “—I wouldn’t be here, for a fifth time.”

A drink. Her kingdom for a drink. And a different path. A real answer. Anything that made them non-complicit in this game. Again.

[markwatney]

I honestly cannot believe that we're having this conversation. There are a lot of surreal aspects to this place, not least of which that we're here to begin with, but this has got to be the most surreal of them all. I draw a hand over my face with a slow, heavy sigh.

"I appreciate that some of you have history with this sort of thing, but some of us also have history with nearly starving to death," I say as I look up, my voice weary, expression resigned. "I'm not waiting a few days to see if these things turn out to have some kind of curse on them. We need them right now. I cannot stress emphatically enough how much. If some of you are uncomfortable with using them, then don't use them. Those of us who are, can. As it is, we're losing valuable daylight while I've got a field to finish clearing."

[thecatinahat]

Cougar's been sitting very quietly at the edge of this conversation. He's not one to speak. Speaking is the last thing he wants to do, but the more and more people keep talking about not trusting something because it might be tainted is one more spark of conversation that he disagrees with so much that he needs to speak. He gives Watney a sharp look and a nod of approval before turning on Jo and giving her a pointed look.

"Everyone here eats eggs from a chicken that came in a box," he says, his words heavily accented and fast considering his discomfort with English. "You give me a bow and better arrows or someone else who knows what to do and we can start to bring down bigger game and not worry about the rabbit and fish population. You figure a way to preserve and we have time to get the crops going."

His eyes are sharp and he doesn't care what enemy they might be facing.

"Don't trust all you want, but I'm staying alive and I'll drag you all with me if I have to." And if they won't consent to giving him the bow, he'll just have to see if he can't find a way to procure it by his own means.

[seekingcrocodile]

"That's it exactly." Killian speaks up again, from atop his table. As he speaks, he starts to pace back and forth to punctuate his words. He turns to look at Jo first. "You're right, we did handle those items, you and I. Nothing happened, at least not immediately. If they're cursed, then so are we."

He addresses the rest of the group gathered around now. "It seems to me that the best way to solve it is this. No one will be forced to use any of the items if they do not wish to. We know the concerns now, and aye, they're valid concerns. You could be taking a risk by using these items, and if you do not wish to take that risk, then fine. But now that we know there may be a risk to using these items, if we wish to take that risk anyway, then it's on us and no one else." Now that they've been warned.

"As for the items themselves, I propose this. They were labeled, by color. Ignore that. Those labels are what they're using to divide us. Don't let them get away with whatever they're trying to make us do by labeling them. Whoever can get the most use out of them should use them, regardless of what color they're wearing. Miss Kelly said something about axes and firewood. Obviously I won't get much use out of an axe," he holds up the hook for emphasis, "but someone else could. Let each person willing to use these items use the ones of them that they can get the most use out of, or find some way to share them, and those who don't wish to use them do not have to."

But like he said, he's possibly cursed already. "Do you like fresh fish? I could put that harpoon to good use. Perhaps someone else could as well. Let that be their choice, knowing that they're taking that risk. I don't like the idea of that risk myself, but I've already taken it to bring them back here."

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo holds Cougar’s gaze when he talks to her without looking away. There’s no tension in her posture, in her shoulders, in her face, in her jaw, in her eyes, and when he stops? She says . . . nothing. Her head leans to one side, the barest second of movement, not looking away, not ever for even a second dismissing him, his words, or his opinion, but her body doesn’t follow the shift like it does always in a chair while talking to someone.

There’s no specific emotion at all to ascribe to her expression and posture showing now.




Barely the count of two later, while Killian is talking, Jo slides off the table, without a look at anyone else in the room, and walks toward the map on the wall. This decision has already been made and it’s not a discussion. Certainly not one that needs her, and only two, three, people put any stock in her words.

She picks up the log book resting on the table there and one of the sharpened pieces of charcoal, before walking toward the colored boxes. She can still hear them, and she very much so is listening, but she starts jotting in the short hand the rest of the log book is written in due to the inability to write precisely with the charcoal and flimsy back of a curtain material.

Noting with a letter combination and a symbol, what is in each box and what condition each of the pieces are in, and when they get to who is claiming what she’ll put that down, too. Along with everything else of note that might come up while the rest of them talk.

[lastofthekellys]

Kate watches Miss Jo, but doesn't call after her. Doesn't try to make her stop and explain herself. Explain why these crates are the line in the sand, the hill to die on, the one thing in this place that is a trap. Which is what Kate wants to know. She wants to understand.

The older woman isn't, it seems, much in a mood to explain, and Kate isn't sure if it's ruffled feathers or frustration, some form of judgement or merely an extension of the push-pull that Miss Jo seems to have about the group. What Kate is fairly sure is that there's no point in pushing her now, not now she's pointedly left her prominent position without a word to busy herself with Something Else.

So instead, she finally takes her own seat (with a quick smile at Wilson, because, yes, she'd noticed the way he came to stand by her in case she needed assistance) and continues her own side of the conversation.

"We could also watch each other for a bit, with the tools. Still use 'em, but keep an eye on any changes in behaviour.

I don't understand this place. Or how things can appear. None of us do. I don't want to be blind, to the dangers talked about? So I'd vote, if we're votin', that we pay attention to the other boxes, too.

Use them. But be aware."

She wants to move on, to how. How to use. How to store. That's what she'd meant, at the start. But she hadn't been expecting the possibility of curses coming up, either.

[dnr]

Frank has managed to sit here this long with no more commentary than the odd for fuck's sake under his breath, but only because Watney and Cougar said most of what he would have, and because he has the patience of a goddamn saint, in his opinion. They're weapons. Use them.

He doesn't manage to refrain from rolling his eyes at the talk of curses, but he casts a glance Jo's direction, to make sure she's recorded enough, before he takes a long step past the others, toward the crates.

"We gonna do this or just talk about it?" he says -- which turns out to be a rhetorical question, as Frank reaches right in for the new bow and arrows from the navy crate, aiming to hand them off to Cougar.

[thekittenqueen]

She hesitated as she watched others begin to stand and let the momentum of the conversation raise their emotions. So far, others had managed to keep from insults or heated words, all sides managing to explain themselves rather well.

Though there seemed to be a divide between paranoia to practicality.

She watched as Frank got to his feet, digging into the crate and pulling out a bow. While she was on the side of using the weapons, she wasn't certain that to distribute and leave would be wise.

"It might be better to keep the tools as communal. We share so much already, why not the tools as well?"

[thecatinahat]

Cougar likes the girl, but there's a problem with what she's suggesting. "I trust one other person to understand why that bow and those arrows cannot be altered without knowledge, even a little," he says. He knows Frank will be able to keep it in good condition, but he thinks that anyone else will start thinking they're helping and something will go wrong. There's so much more to long range than people think and if his calculations start going awry because of tampering, they potentially waste things.

"There are things we can share," he agrees, but there are also things in there like this and the harpoon that require specific skill. "Things that shouldn't be, not if we want our best chances." He gives a nod to Frank and heads to the crate, aware that he's standing half at attention. With another nod, he gestures to Hook with a raised eyebrow to ask if he wants to come get the harpoon.

And one quick glance to Jake that says 'cover me' in case things get bad.

[dnr]

"Unless we've got any other archers around," Frank adds with a testy half shrug. It looks like there are a few more bows sticking out of the other crates, after all, and while Frank can use one, getting one for Cougar is his priority.

But Cougar's glance to tech guy serves as reminder that they are, by his estimation, a couple of the deadliest people in the room, if not the only dangerous ones -- and escalation isn't what he's after, just action. (...Even though escalation is arguably exactly what he's doing.)

"Look, anybody wants to learn once the planting's done, it ain't that hard to make a practice bow," he relents. "But we can't replicate this kind of quality -- and I'm not wasting it."

[itchtokill]

Kol is quiet for a long while after his spiel about magic and curses. He can see the doubt in some of them over it, and he can see the urgency for everything else in others. Again, everyone has made good points, they aren't wrong, they're just...naive. Clueless as to the open-ended, unimaginable possibilities that are sure to be coming their way any time now. This is only the tip of the iceberg and they won't have a single clue what hits them when it does. And honestly, at this particular juncture, Kol can't say he'll feel sorry or in any way bad for them because they were warned, and they just didn't listen. Story of his bloody fucking life. No one ever listens to him and it almost always ends up in hell breaking loose because of it.

It's when the surly bloke that spent the majority of the discussion doing little more than mutter curses under his breath makes the move toward the crates that Kol realizes this is, for all intents and purposes, basically over. They'll all do what they will, whatever that is, be it even distribution or community safekeeping, but... he doesn't have any more dogs in this fight. He's said his piece, given his warnings. If they want to ignore it, that's on them.

He casts a glance over at Jo, jotting notes as she listens to the rest of them. He's not sure if she catches his gaze, but if she does, there's a silent 'I'm out' easily read in his eyes. "You lot do what you want," he says, gesturing to the crates and the tools, "Said what I needed to, and I'm not touching any of it." And until it can be proven somehow that they're safe? He won't be accepting anything from their captors. He casts one last glance around the room before shaking his head and walking out. If he needed any information beyond this point, he'd just ask Jo about it later. She'd stick around until they all dispersed, he's sure of it.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo hasn't gone far from her table, or her seat. (Or Thorfinn.) The better part of ten or fifteen feet.
To the crates, and the weapons, both on the table and still in the boxes. The front, where they are displayed.

Where she writes and listens. Hasn't turned herself toward anything more than the exact same as everyone has found her in this room every single day before this. Early mornings, and middays, and late nights. Whenever things strike, and whenever there are updates. Of which this counts among the biggest so far. Which is, she's pretty sure, why no one actually comments on it. No one needs to. They know what she's doing, and what she's been doing for weeks.

Frank even looks to her, to make sure she's done before approaching on it all.


She doesn't need notes to point to how fast 'for the community, for all of us' becomes 'only these weapons, for only these certain people,' which immediately spiderweb cracks in the first denials, and disagreements. Justifications for 'only us' and 'only we know.' She doesn't say anything. Some notes, and some acknowledgements, don't need writing. Especially not in a book that is expressly and absolutely for the community, and not for herself alone, and has been for weeks. Instead of only for a few minutes.


She does meet Kol's eyes, and there's a flicker there in her own.
Because she looks, and maybe because he looks to her before going.
Without a single slander for her choice, that she thinks he might understand.


It's not emotion, in that flicker in her eyes. More a recognition that refuses resignation.
They don't get to win. Not by any inch anywhere. Not even if no one in this room gets it.

[seekingcrocodile]

Killian crosses over to the crates, to the harpoon he's had his eye on since they found the items. "Well, since I'm cursed anyway." It's an attempt to lighten the mood, possibly ill-advised. But that's him. "If there's anyone else who knows how to use a harpoon, they're welcome to find me and work something out for its use." He's pretty sure he's the only one who's consistently fishing though.

"I know that this is what whoever left this here expects me to do. Someone's toying with us, that's obvious, and that's the hardest part of all this to take. What it comes down to is letting them know how we feel about it, or increasing our chances of survival."

That's what it sounds like to him, at least. His tone turns a little more conversational. He is about to reveal something personal, after all. "I loved a woman once, more than I ever thought I could, or anyone could love me. Then someone took her from me. I don't mean they went off together. I mean someone killed her, and I swore to make him pay for what he had done. I tried so hard to get my vengeance, until one day I realized that it would get me was my own death. It wasn't worth that. He wasn't worth that. My survival mattered more than anything. So as much as it irks me to know that these were left for a purpose, that they're just toying with us, as much as I would like to make a statement by refusing to use all of this, by burning it just in case, whoever has done this is not worth it. Survival, mine, and that of everyone in this room, comes first." He wraps a hand around the harpoon. "This is how I can assure that survival."

[lastofthekellys]

"No," Kate says.

It's not quiet, but it's even. Tempered steel underneath the outer trappings of a wide-eyed, round-faced girl. It's another reflection of the strength it takes to stand in that kitchen, day after day after day, in the boring drudgery of food preparation. So many hunters, and Kate could join them. She's got, she's willing to bet, as good an aim as anyone else here. She made her livelihood with her gun, and never killed anyone. Never had a bullet go off into the crowd or behind stage. But too many hunters, not enough cooks, so she stays in the kitchen.

It's not a whipcrack of a word, her word, but Kate can project over livestock and crowds, while her torso is encased in boning and steel. Here and now? It's easy.

"The bow, yes. I see your point, Mr Frank," she says. "And after planting, yes, we need to make more. Harpoon, same. But if we're to use these for the community, then...

We need to trust each other a bit. If we store them communally, we don't have to run around tryin' to find it if someone's injured or needs it. It doesn't turn into these things been given as rewards.

I'm injured. Any of us could be, or worse. I haven't had anything like what happened to Captain Jones happen to me. But I know a lifetime of hunger and bein' played with. And I know that the best way for us to survive is to work together.

Which means, other people need training in the bow. In the harpoon. Or others where who know how to shoot-" She looks at Miss Margaery, at others who may or may not have spoken.

"And honestly and frankly, you can use slingshots to take down game, too. Why not store all these things together? Practice with them. Return them after use, so we all know where they are in case anythin' happens. I think after a few days of being here, people will get the story that our situation is precarious soon enough."

Hunger does that, after all. And she's only providing the minimum - no, less - than what she's comfortable with to try and keep people alive.

"Dividin' it all up makes it feel like loot."

[markwatney]

"The lady has a point," I say with an assenting nod Kate's way. She reminds me of Lewis, I realize, the way her polite diplomacy can give way to steel-bound certainty, but only when the situation calls for it. Kate isn't a woman who raises her voice, but she knows how to make people listen.

"As much as I'm sure none of us want to think about this, something could happen to any of us at anytime. The things I know, I'm trying to teach. Honestly, I started doing it just to have more help, but if something happened to me, if I wasn't here tomorrow to help with the fields, there would be some people who at least had some of my knowledge. Divvying up the loot to the most skilled people helps us today, but it's not necessarily helping us tomorrow."

I slide a look over to Jo. Yeah, I see you over there, scribbling.

"I suggest that we make a list, and people can check out the weapons or tools like a library. I know we're not exactly swimming in convenient writing utensils at present, but we can figure out a system. That way, even if someone doesn't return something right away, if someone really needs it, they know where to go. And in the meantime, we try and spread the knowledge around. I mean, I can't even fucking fish with a line and pole," I admit with a soft laugh and a glance Killian's way.

[thecatinahat]

While Cougar can be famously possessive over certain things (his rifle and hat come to mind), nothing here is his to the point that he can do that. Nothing has been soaked in blood and sweat and pain the way his items at home have been. Still lingering by the crate and leaning against it with his elbows, he shrugs and doesn't see a problem with making them available, making them be training tools, but he's still concerned about upkeep.

"We need a place to store them. Avoid flooding, humidity, animals," he says, a man who'd cleaned his rifle three times a day just to avoid specks of dust interfering. "Use spares or others for practice. Keep the best for the hunt," he says. He's not sure he's the best teacher because his English is bad, but he'll do his best. "And we need ways to preserve the food," he reminds people. "No point in the big game if it goes bad."

[seekingcrocodile]

"I'm willing to share." It's true that even with people willing to teach, he won't get much use out of most of these items, but if agreeing to share is what gets him to be able to use the harpoon, then he'll do it. As long as he gets to use it, that's what he cares about.

"Perhaps if we're going to do some sort of check out system, then instead of having to record it every time, we need some sort of symbol to put where each item goes. A trinket or something, unique to each person, so that we can see at a glance who has it." What that might be he doesn't know, but there are enough people here that someone must be able to figure it out.

"I won't get much use out of most of these, it's why I've been trading fish, but if someone wants lessons, I'll trade those instead." He does still have to think of his survival, after all. He's willing to work some things out, but there will likely be some areas where he won't budge.

[dnr]

Frank is tight-jawed while the others talk. While he respects the steel in Kate's tone, even understands the sounder social politics she's advocating, the truth is he doesn't trust everybody. Not with the safety of the whole group. Not with the things he considers his responsibility. There's nothing to be done about it here and now, though.

"If something or somebody worse than a boar comes out of those woods, we'll all be stuck defending ourselves with sticks and rocks while our weapons are safely tucked away somewhere we ain't," he says, but he sets the bow and arrow back down on the crate all the same. With the right weapon, Cougar just needs high ground to keep people safe. Frank is the same. Others among them too, he'd bet. And it won't do a damn bit of good if it's not on them. But the truth is, Frank can kill a small army with a kitchen knife if he has to, too, and even he can see an argument he isn't going to win today. So:

"If we're gonna keep 'em somewhere, it should be here in the inn. Centrally located, building's in good shape, and you've got people around on the regular to keep an eye out for flooding or damage."

"And if we're gonna start taking down deer, we're going to need to build a smokehouse out back," with a nod to Cougar, "and start coordinating who's hunting what, when, and where - for the group, not for trade."

[lastofthekellys]

She doesn't counter Frank's statement with other points of contention: that his statement also requires those weapons to always, always be in reach, which can't be good for maintenance. That as a group, they are scattered as it is.

But he's a proud, rough man, and he's conceding, and so Kate just breathes out and moves on. Like building a house of cards.

"We have plenty of space in the inn, still," is what the woman actually says. "First room on the second floor? Just after the landing? So it's off the ground floor, but still easy to get to."

She doesn't know how badly flooding can get here, but better safe than sorry.

"And, I agree. Group, not trade. We're too desperate right now. The only reason I'm just organisin' a midday meal right now is because we don't exactly have the resources for more than that. Not consistently.

Smokehouse, there's a house, one of the ones Miss Jo took the curtains from. We could dismantle it, or turn it into one of these. Might save us some effort?"

She's not sure, so she turns the statement into a question.

[seekingcrocodile]

Admittedly, the weapon thing isn't as much of a concern for him given that he has one attached at the end of his arm all the time, but he sees how it's a concern for others. Whether they dole out the tools or leave them in the inn to be used as needed doesn't matter to him, so he'll let others hash that out.

"For the group? What's wrong with trade?" He holds up his hand, to stall an objections. He'll make his case, and then he'll listen. "Say that we all put our extras in here. Fish, meat, firewood, crops. What's to keep someone from helping themselves to some supplies without contributing anything themselves? I don't mind letting someone have the excess I can't use. I do mind someone benefiting from my effort when they haven't made any themselves. What's to prevent that?"

Find some way of making it fair and he's all for it.

[lastofthekellys]

Kate shifts in her chair, tilting her head and fixing Captain Jones with a cool eye.

"Are you... advocatin' letting people starve, Captain?" she asks, coolly. "I've not been keepin' tabs on people, or what they do. People bring food here, people come here to prepare it, people eat. That's how I've been runnin' it.

Not everyone here has skills beyond a sound body and willingness to work. If we run into trouble later, with theft, then we deal with it. But so far it's been a month and a half, and we haven't had trouble yet.

How do you propose to keep people fed if they've got nought to trade, other than themselves?"

It's an implication she hopes he - and the others - understand. She's a young woman, and it's a fact of life that she's achingly aware of. What women do to survive, if things get that desperate. If people start withholding supplies to get an upper hand.

[seekingcrocodile]

"Of course I'm not advocating that." He'd just been advocating the opposite, after all. "I'm simply saying that everyone should be pulling their weight around here. All someone needs is a sound body and a willingness to work. They can be taught a skill, or they can help with the cooking or the cleaning up. If all someone is going to do all day is sit around and wait for someone else to do all of the work, why should they get anything out of it?"

[notabirdcostume]

Sam is a little more comfortable with where the conversation is going now. He likes the idea of a weapons storage for everyone to learn from and use as opposed to giving them out like individual gifts. Not to mention that will very much circumvent the color labeling that had been placed on the boxes. He had fallen silent, given that the conversation was more civil, however a thought occurs to him since he had explored several buildings that were not houses.

"You guys do realize there are buildings we could use that aren't houses that might actually already have the equipment to be a smokehouse? I mean, I don't recognize some things from whenever this village was built...but one of the buildings I checked out a month ago looked a lot like an abandoned butcher's."