Crystal;

[foolsmakeitcolder]

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Jude
RECIPIENT: All y'all
NOTES: The first Sunday after New Rifters got dumped in LARPville.

[Jude's voice is low and entirely too damn cheery. Fucker's a morning person.]

Announcement's mostly for the new folks, but for the old folks too: it's pancake Sunday. If you can drag your ass down to the kitchens before noon I will get you a plate. If you come after that, you roll the dice.

This week I'm making home fries. Rifter delicacy. If you have a request, don't be shy about it.

There's a few of you newbies floating around and I know at least some of you from Orientation, so I'll make it easy: if you're new to the Gallows, this invite is especially for you. Come meet some people.


[ooc; Jude is the acting personnel officer, and the touchstone person for new arrivals, especially Rifters. Feel free to say they've met.]

Comments

[foolsmakeitcolder]

Can appreciate someone who knows exactly what they like.

You tried home fries yet?

[heirring]

Is a home fries different from a Burger King fries?

[foolsmakeitcolder]

They're cousins.

[heirring]

So also potatoes.

[foolsmakeitcolder]

Also potatoes.

[heirring]

Is there anything to go with them?

[foolsmakeitcolder]

You try them first. They're seasoned.

If not, there's hot sauce.

[heirring]

Very well. I will try your seasoned fries. And the hot sauce too, thank you.

[Cut to: an interlude in the Gallows kitchen, Wysteria growing progressively sweatier in the face while she eats anything with hot sauce on it. Does she want something to drink? No, don't be silly!]

[foolsmakeitcolder]

[Jude looks on with increasing dubious respect. After a few checks, he folds his bare forearms on the wooden countertop, openly watching her.]

There's a point when the hot sauce euphoria hits.

[heirring]

Does it? [she says instead of, That sounds like a filthy lie, Mister Adjei.]

Though it's hardly all that warm, really. I've had much stronger.

[Ignore the red around her eyeballs. That's how her eyes always look.]

[foolsmakeitcolder]

Yes. You'll start getting sweaty.

[Which he feels he should warn her of.]

And... giddy.

[heirring]

What a bizarre list of symptoms. And is, you know, not entirely divorced from how Ser Barrow described the use of lyrium to me.

[Don't worry about why she's asking Barrow questions about lyrium. It hardly seems pressing in the moment as Wysteria mops the red of the hot sauce up with a pair of potato wedges and makes the best of it.]

[foolsmakeitcolder]

This is magical in the more metaphorical sense.

[But uh-]

You might want to... take it easy there.

[heirring]

Nonsense. It's hardly as if it the heat compounds.

[Has the back of anyone's neck ever been this red before? Who can say.]

Are you enjoying your role as personnel officer, Mister Adjei?

[foolsmakeitcolder]

When it's chiles it does. It's the oil.

[Doing a CONCERN-]

So far, can't complain. Used to do something like it for my pack back at home, but that was for returning soldiers, refugees, rescues, that sort of thing.

[heirring]

[RESOLUTELY determined to ignore all good advice on this subject given her iron constitution, thank you—]

Good, good. In fact, I think it would be highly beneficial were you and I to consult one another directly on certain matters. It seems very sensible that your post and mine should be collaborative ones. To what degree, exactly, I'm not certain. But they do seem related, do they not?

[Her eyeballs are sweating.]

[foolsmakeitcolder]

Definite overlap in purview there.

[Jude, nervously reaching for a handkerchief/napkin type of situation to slide across-]

Newcomers getting feisty's to be expected. To a point. Anything specific you want me watching out for?

[Like The Predicament she currently finds herself in-]

[heirring]

Feisty [to borrow a word] I take no issue with whatsoever. But perhaps you might consider using your position to gauge how certain people might best be reasoned with, for example. That way should there be any question of conflict or the need for resolution, I might call on you for some insight as to their demeanor and temperament and how best hot headed might be cooled and so on. It is always best to make an assessment of tempers in a very ordinary circumstance first.

—Well. [Oh look, a handkerchief/napkin type situation for her to wipe her hot sauce fingers on. Thank you, that's very thoughtful.] Ordinary being a very flexible term in this case, given the state of some Rifters when they first arrive. But you understand my meaning.

[She sets her emptied plate aside. Prudently presses the back of her wrist to her right eyeball which is watering the most.]

I believe I will take that cup of water now, Mister Adjei. If you would be so kind.

[foolsmakeitcolder]

'Course.

[That glass of water is immediate, thanks, and he slides it over, waiting with lifted brows until she's taken a drink before he answers in more detail.]

Can't say I'll be a magical judge of character, but I'll give you my best guess.

[As he speaks he finds a cloth to lather with a bit of soap and water, and offers it over -- a bit easier to scrub a hand on without a second hand to assist.]

Overall, a bit of patience and understanding, especially when it comes to Rifters.

[heirring]

Well, yes of course, [she says, setting down the cup and blinking back tears.] We can't all expect that everyone come into the world fully formed and with all our manners as you and I have been so fortunate to. And we—Riftwatch, I mean—has generally been quite fortunate when it comes to the Rifters which arrive. Perhaps we might add that as a note in the general observations of the phenomena. By and large, a great number of them mean well.

—Still. [Wiping her hands on the cloth now.] There's no harm in doing all that we can to be certain that their time here, however short, is productive. And pleasant, of course.

[That too.]

[foolsmakeitcolder]

[Jude refills the cup casually; she might not want it all but at least it's there.]

Is that so surprising? That most people mean well?

[It's a genuine question.]

[heirring]

I suppose not. Mostly my point is that it would seem useful to put in the record should anyone wish to further justify that Rifters aren't to be feared.

Not an internal record, [she chirps along, still red in the face and looking to be in the verge of weeping, but apparently no amount of capsaicin will stand between Wysteria and conversation.] More of a broad sort of remark that might be suggested externally. Some of us seem to be concerned with their future prospects.

[From the way she says it, it doesn't sound like she counts herself in that number.]

[foolsmakeitcolder]

[The us/their duality isn't enough to catch on Jude's concern, though he does note it. He's been around long enough to remember that Wysteria is a Rifter, even if she doesn't often identify herself as one.]

You going into mediation, or Public Relations?

[heirring]

[She scoffs lightly. Doing so seems to aggravate the sting on her tongue, and she quickly helps herself to a few more gulps of water from the judiciously refilled cup.]

That's very funny, but no. I am merely a scholar who sees some value in recording these observations in a very academic fashion should someone in, say, our Diplomacy division or something like it find such things useful.

I used to conduct a survey, you know. About Rifters and their homeworks and what arcane phenomena were commonplace there.

[foolsmakeitcolder]

[Jude smiles warmly, thoughtful. He's often smiling, always genuine, but something about this one hits closer to home.]

Most of Riftwatch are kind, mean well, help where they can. But it's rarer to see someone go out of their way to lift all of us up.

[Is hearty approval, even if Wysteria frames it as scholarly, and not entirely altruistic. Sometimes things can serve a dual purpose, and there's nothing wrong with that.]

You used to?