[ OPEN ] i know some places and i've seen some faces

[falcony]

WHO: sam wilson and anyone/everyone.
WHAT: captain america cookout.
WHERE: sam's horizon domain
WHEN: third saturday of september (aka, about 3 weeks after the jailbreak)
NOTES: see below!

HELLO ALL AND WELCOME TO SAM'S CAPTAIN AMERICA COOKOUT!!!!

Over the last week or so, Sam has been going out of his way to contact as many people as he knows to invite them to a cookout at his place in the Horizon. He knows that after the jailbreak, a lot of people were separated, and this was his first thought on how to bring people together. The purpose behind it is simply because Sam thinks that the one thing all of them have in common, opinion on the Singularity and their situations aside, is that they were all brought here and can actually access the Horizon. He sees merit and use in coming together when they can, especially in ways that don't involve the politics of the land they're now living in. So, what better way to do that than around food?

The long and short of it is - this is a peace meal. Leave your issues at the door. Sam has very few rules and there is very little he will give in terms of what this cookout will entail, but three things he will make very clear:

1.) There will be no fighting at his home. You want to duke it out? Take it somewhere else. There will not be warnings or second chances. Don't be an ass.
2.) There is no meeting or serious reason for this cookout. Literally, he just wants people to come together who may no longer be able to see each other due to the travel constraints. It's meant to be fun. Come have fun. (he knows y'all know what that is, even when some of you pretend you don't). Bring food if you want to! There is also a kitchen (if you know what that is) and places to crash. Hope you like seafood!
3.) Anyone who can come into the Horizon is welcome. He'd love it if everyone came, so spread the word.

The cookout itself is set up out front, with picnic tables and chairs and fire pits and lights abound. There are tables set up near grilles if anyone wants to do any actual cooking outside, and a table (probably multiple) set up with sides and napkins and utensils. There are a variety of different places to go and sit and hang out while you're eating. Anything and everything you can want is available - food, drinks, yard games, music playing from out in the trees that will remain consistent unless someone tries to find the speakers and hijack the playlists, etc. If you can't find something outside, you're more than welcome to check the house.

All throughout the party, too, there will be a new friend. Red, as Sam fondly calls him, is a blood-red hunting hawk with silver in between the feathers. He can be found circling around Sam quite often, or perched on his shoulders, but also if you are out and about you can often see him checking up on anyone and everyone. He's a very curious little bird, and also pretty sassy, if you want to interact with him.



If you haven't, or have, been to Sam's domain before, feel free to take a look around. Anywhere is open (save for one locked bedroom) so everyone has open access, but most of the cookout itself will be located in the front yard.

OOC: This is mean to be an OPEN LOG, so leave your TLs or closed threads below! This party will last basically as long as people want it to, but the idea is for it to be an afternoon into the evening. Y'all have free reign save for destroying Sam's home, but if you have any questions, hit me up on plurk (disarmingly or disco (dai#3757). Sam's TL is below, and he will be bouncing around like the good host he is, but lets get a little party started.

Comments

[coerthantorment]

It's still relatively early in the event when Estinien finds her out by the water, having spoken to Eponine a short while before. He's not been enjoying the party much for his own reasons, so part of him is eager for the distraction. Something of use that can be accomplished with this facade.

He approaches her at a relaxed pace, knowing they haven't spoken before. He's not going to start this while being intimidating. While Eponine seems convinced that Nadine has murderous intentions towards her, Estinien has seen enough of the girl to know that she isn't the most trustworthy witness. Still, he wants to know.

"Nadine, right?" he asks, approaching with his arms crossed. His brow is furrowed slightly, something obviously on his mind. She's probably seen him in the dungeon plenty of times, given how much time she spent with Flagg down there.

[nadine_he_loves]

"Yeah...I'm Nadine."

And she doesn't actually know this man by name. She knows he was in the first group brought in, remembers seeing him when making her rounds. But they've never spoken, and her expression is one of polite curiosity as she turns to him.

Maybe he knows Flagg.

"Can I help you?"

[coerthantorment]

He nods his head. He wonders, moments before getting into this, if she'll even know what he's talking about.

"Eponine mentioned you... she said she went to Nott alongside your group."

He leaves it at that for starters, wondering how Nadine will react to the mention of the girl.

[nadine_he_loves]

"You've talked to Eponine? I mean...recently?"

Nadine leans forward, relief and distress at once clear on her face.

"Yeah, she came with us, but she...I don't know. I haven't seen her for days, she never came home. Or...to the inn where we're staying, I mean, and I've looked but I haven't been able to find her. Is she okay?"

She can...make some assumptions as to what happened, but she doesn't have any solid confirmation.

[coerthantorment]

Estinien can't claim to be a master at reading people, but her reaction really does seem sincere. She could be a master manipulator of some sort, of course, and he can't completely shrug off Eponine's concerns, but he doesn't think Nadine knowing why Eponine ran off will put her in meaningfully more danger.

"She seems to be unharmed for the moment," he says. "But, she also seems convinced that you only brought her along to Nott to kill her. That another of the girls you brought along with her said as much." He shakes his head. "For what reason, I'm unsure."

He hesitates for a moment longer before adding:

"The girl has caused me considerable grief, but she deserves better than to be back on the street, begging for food. I'm sure you know how fragile her perception of the world is. Whatever was said to her, it has broken her heart."

[nadine_he_loves]

"....What?"

Nadine's shock is entirely sincere. Eponine thinks...she shakes her head, flabbergasted, trying to wrap her mind around what she's just been told.

"I've been taking care of her, I...." A dark cloud comes over her face. "Julie. God damn it!" She sighs and holds up a hand. This is the exact situation she's here to get a break from, but at least she has the scope of it now. That's one thing, at least.

"I think I know what happened. There's this other girl, they can't stand each other. They've gotten into fist fights before. And she's...she's cruel, when she lashes out. Real go for the throat stuff. I told Eponine to ignore her and just not listen to her, but...well. You know Eponine."

Okay, no wonder Eponine took off. Though it hurts, a bit, that the months of bonding and care were so easily forgotten on the lies of a bully.

"I asked her to come with me because I care about her. I had a crappy childhood, too, I get where she's coming from."

[coerthantorment]

Estinien had been preparing himself to interrogate Nadine if needed, wondering if she really was a danger, but her reaction is making that more and more difficult to conceive of. After all, he knows that Eponine is prone to misunderstanding things, to changing her mind on a moment's notice. She's lied about him before, so similar things happening to other people can't be that surprising.

What's also very familiar is the hurt at having reached out to her, only to be discarded in what feels like a trivial manner. He exhales slowly. He still has his questions about that group, but it really doesn't seem like Nadine, at least, has been intending harm.

"I see," he says, and it sounds like he actually does. He falls silent for a moment, trying to think of what to do. Nadine has really signed herself up for quite the test by caring for multiple heavily damaged youths at once. "She's still in the city, at least, but she informed me that she'd rather sleep in a ditch than 'wait to be killed'."

The way he says that seems to imply he definitely knows where Nadine is coming from in her frustration. Truthfully, he'd been wondering how Eponine had gotten herself beaten up while still in prison, and he guesses he now has his answer.

"I'm not sure what can be said to convince her otherwise. Once that girl has latched onto an idea..." He shakes his head. "Yet, for the moment, those of you in Nott are the only ones with any hope of finding her."

[nadine_he_loves]

"I've been trying to track her down, but I don't know the city well. And there's so many places..." There's bound to be a better way. Maybe magic. Maybe just cornering Eponine in the Horizon. Probably easier than blindly searching an unfamiliar place by herself.

"I'll find her. I'll talk to her. I work with kids - a lot younger ones than Eponine, but...she honestly sees the world a lot like they do. I can get her to understand, if I can just talk to her." Nadine's sure she can make Eponine understand, make her realize that she'd been told things only to upset her and cause problems.

"Thank you. For talking to me about it, I had no idea what exactly set this off. She just took off without saying anything. I'm glad she has other people looking out for her."

[coerthantorment]

He can't deny that Eponine is a bit delayed in her emotional development, never having had much of a chance to grow as a person. The fact that Nadine seems to have experience with this and also genuinely cares for the girl is an even greater relief than he'd been expecting. It makes him feel like he can probably step aside from the moment, help them be reconnected, but leave the rest to someone who actually knows what their doing.

He still wonders, though. For as reasonable and compassionate as Nadine may sound, his limited interactions with Flagg have been worrying at best. How does that all fit together?

He shrugs a shoulder, glancing downward. Is that what he's doing? He supposes so.

"I'd briefly entertained the idea that her fears were correct," he says. "But I am full glad to discover that your concern seems as sincere as mine own." Which is something he now believes, but yet... "I had a strange brush with another in your travelling party, and it caused me to wonder."

[nadine_he_loves]

"I don't blame you." Nadine holds up a hand. "You don't know me, you don't know anything about me except what Eponine's said."

She understands. These sorts of things, they need to be checked into. She's glad that he did, it was the responsible move.

Then she cocks her head, a rueful little chuckle escaping her.

"You're...going to have to be a little more specific, a lot of my people are kind of strange. But overall also not out to get Eponine." Just Julie, and even that she can't place squarely on the other woman. Not when Eponine has been told to ignore her and leave her alone and clearly isn't taking that advice to heart.

[coerthantorment]

Estinien lets out a short laugh. He knows what that's like. He pauses for a moment, though, thinking of how to put it.

"Master Flagg, I believe? I've spoken to him little, outside of our meeting in the Horizon. He'd constructed... some manner of hellish town, preaching to a congregation of skittering wights."

Estinien lifts his arms. It seemed pretty telling about the man's character, to know that this is what he made when given the freedom of a god. All the same, Flagg had shown no violent intentions.

"I was certain the man was insane."

[nadine_he_loves]

"Randall Flagg," Nadine confirms with a nod. "My husband. Was it that first time? Things got...really weird for a lot of us, the first time. I can promise you that he's not insane."

There are many things she'll acknowledge Flagg is - dangerous, powerful, unpredictable - but insane isn't among them. Insane minds can't plan the way he can.

"He's a...community leader of sorts, back home. I've known him most of my life, he's a unique guy, but he's not crazy."

[coerthantorment]

Her husband... well, that explains it. In some cases one might feel awkward for suggesting they thought someone's spouse was insane to their face, but fortunately for Estinien, he's not that sort of person. He experiences little shame for addressing what seems like an obvious red flag.

"'Twas," he says. "And I was not at my most reasonable either, I can admit."

Yet 'community leader' mixed with what he saw there still implies darkness that he can't explain away so easily. Though he supposes Flagg wasn't the only one conjuring horrible imagery in their amnesiac stupor. Nadine's testimony does something to ease his worries, but... well, it would likely take something from the man himself to be fully convincing. It's sufficient for now, though, he thinks.

"Eponine had mentioned... that she thought you would be killing her on Flagg's behalf."

Maybe he can't completely blame Eponine for having the wrong impression.

[nadine_he_loves]

"I don't know how she came to that conclusion. No one wants Eponine dead. My husband barely even pays much attention to her now that they don't share a jail cell." Nadine shakes her head, at a loss.

"All I can guess is that she wildly misinterpreted whatever was said. Or jumped to wrong and way out there conclusions." Or she supposes Julie could have flat out lied, but...Julie has more than enough ammunition against Eponine already, without resorting to that. No, the likeliest explanation is that whatever had actually been said, an imaginative and elaborate narrative had been woven out of it to get them to here.

"It's all just a big misunderstanding."

CW: Eponine's Romantic Troubles

[coerthantorment]

"'Twould seem so."

He still has his reservations, but honestly, being reclaimed by Nadine and her people seems better than what Eponine is doing with herself currently. Nadine herself seems purely genuine... and really, Eponine is perfectly in place being surrounded by strange people. If only they can get along well enough to keep her there.

Thinking of those 'worse alternatives', Estinien hesitates. For a moment it looks like he might excuse himself and carry on with his day, but he lingers, before finally speaking up again.

"...Another thing."

He turns back to Nadine, furrowing his brow. Where before there was mostly caution in his assessment of the situation, now there is a not of less contained worry.

"In our conversation, Eponine also revealed that she'd found herself a man... another of us from the summoning. His name is Nero." Estinien shifts uncomfortably. "He's here, in Solvunn, and I've had the displeasure of meeting him more than once. The man truly cares for naught, but will do whatever he pleases to sate his urges. Eponine is well aware that he is deranged, but thinks that being with him... intimately... is better than no one at all. Despite openly admittedly that he has hurt her."

"The one mercy is that they can only interact in the Horizon, for now, but I fear little can be done to dissuade her from pursuing it further. I only thought that you should be aware... the man is a scoundrel, and he will do her no good."