in the middle of summer [ OPEN MINGLE ]

[postictal]

Who: Anyone!
What: Catch-all Denny mingle for the last week or so of July
When: Anytime between July 25th and July 31st
Where: Denny
Warnings: Label your stuff if it comes up



[Feel free to use this as a catch-all for whatever your character might conceivably be doing here. Are they loitering outside? Delivering supplies/food? Helping improve the place because god it certainly needs it? Cooking? Socializing? Eating? Just wanting to booze it up? GO WILD.]

[There are nominal rules but if you don't get caught you don't have to deal with them, so you do you.]

Comments

[postictal]

That's because they're flare guns, not pistols.

[He wouldn't trust himself around a real gun, anyway.]

They're for signaling emergencies.

[vagabone]

Oh.

[A sheepish grin. He's out of date, as always.]

Good idea. So how do they work?

[postictal]

[Tim slides one of the flares out of the casing - it comes with two red, and two blue.]

Like a regular gun. Only there's one clip, and you shoot it at the sky if you're in trouble. Red is to tell everyone to keep away, and blue is to say that you need help.

[He glances down at the flares, considering, then shrugs.]

Though I guess you could use them like a regular gun if you're in a tight spot.

[vagabone]

Blue's bad, red's worse, and it'll hurt if shot at some nasty thing. Got it.

[Because if it's something these more powerful, magical types need to stay away from, he's doomed. Not that he'd really use blue for himself either way.

He reaches for one and then hesitates.]

I don't really have anything to trade.

[Wet matches?? Marbles?? Nails??]

[postictal]

I have eighteen of them. You can help by taking one off my hands.

[Though for the record, Tim would probably appreciate a box of nails. It's something he could use, if nothing else.]

[vagabone]

[He's digging through his mostly empty backpack before Tim can say a thing. Nails, a completely unenchanted pretty rock, hardtack still in the package... two things he has no need for and his treasure from Ren!!]

Eh, I'm not going to use this stuff anyway. You want it?

[He might be gone in a week, may as well leave something useful behind.]

[postictal]

[He'd ask if he's really that eager to get rid of the food, but the guy is a skeleton, so...it's likely he doesn't need it. Just because he doesn't need to trade doesn't mean he isn't willing - particularly as he regards the box of nails.]

I'll take those nails, if you won't use them.

[vagabone]

[Nobody eats hardtack for the delicious experience.]

Nope, no plans for them. They're all yours.

[postictal]

Gun's yours, then.

[He probably should feel scummy about it...but, hey, the guy was giving it away. Tim slides one of the guns across the table.]

It's got two red flares and two blue. If you run out, you'll have to ask the Storyteller for more.

[vagabone]

[A few nails are missing, unless the box wasn't full to begin with. Who knows? It's more nails than Tim had five minutes ago. Nothing for Tim to feel bad about, it's something familiar for a change. Pooling resources is what he and his 'cousins' back home do... and they're all stuck on these damned islands together. They might be a sort of family one day, if he's here that long.

He slides over the box in return and tucks the gun away.]

Let's hope I don't use any, yeah?

[postictal]

The hope is that you won't have to.

[He's not about to meticulously count the nails out; he still ended up with more than he expected to get from the trade in the first place.]

Unfortunately, that's not really an option here.

[vagabone]

[Wow, way to not be an optimist, Tim.]

I was chased by a rabid elevator on my first day, I get the picture.

[postictal]

[If you came to talk to an optimist, Tim is the precise opposite of the person you should be looking for :| ]

You're that recent?

[There's not a lot of surprise there, but there is a vague, distracted sort of interest.]

[vagabone]

Three weeks. It's been great.

[If sarcasm could kill, everyone in the Denny would drop dead.]

[postictal]

It only gets better.

[Thanks, Tim. Loving the optimism here.]

Give it a couple months and something's gonna be trying to eat you, and everyone else.

[vagabone]

[Why him when there are meatier things around??]

Is there... something worse than a flying elevator? Because it's a miracle that thing didn't kill anyone.

[postictal]

Underground crystal zombie virus. That was a fun month.

[He doesn't even sound bitter. He's just tired, right down to his fucking bones. You learn to walk it off after a point.]

[vagabone]

[He can understand being tired. Tired, and constantly wondering what on Earth he's here to do. How is anyone still alive??]

Seriously?

[postictal]

[Dumb luck, and death being even more of a stubborn son of a bitch than the rest of them.]

Yeah. Then the sun died for a week and a bunch of things came out of the ocean to keep it out, and we had to fight them off.

[vagabone]

[He can't keep the painfully obvious question inside any longer. He tried his best!]

How are any of you still alive?!

[postictal]

[Not for lack of trying, he almost says. But he's probably taken enough years off the poor guy's lifespan, assuming he still has one. Instead, he merely shrugs, shoulders rolling, noncommittal.]

'Cause whenever we die, we just come back.

[vagabone]

[He looks down at his own exposed bones, silently, and runs a finger up his ribcage. People come back from the dead here, riiight. Look at him, Tim, and don't be offended that he's skeptical. That's too much to swallow.]

Are you... sure about that?

[postictal]

Positive.

[The proof? Tim was fully and entirely dead by stabbing (in the soul, no less) before he woke up here again, good as new. Even better, as it happened, than most of the people from the Castle. His memories weren't seared and scarred away, psychological keloid grown unevenly around the places where twin Determined hearts once nested.]

[Still nest. Even now.]

Whatever you were back home? I don't think the islands consider you "dead" right now.

[vagabone]

But not fully alive either...

[Shame. If the islands brought him all the way back to life and then he made it home before dying again... he'd be able to see his daughter for sure. He flexes his fingers and watches them move, before shaking off those unhappy thoughts off.]

I'm better off without flesh, anyway. Especially here.

[See! That's how you be optimistic, Tim!]

[postictal]

[See, he just figured the guy was made of magic, the way most other skeletons tend to. Good thing he didn't voice that assumption aloud, huh?]

Don't be too sure about that one. I'm not sure it matters how much skin you've got.

[What was that you were saying about optimism]