abraxaslogs | [ OPEN ] turkey-time and all that follows.

Entry tags:

[ OPEN ] turkey-time and all that follows.

Who: open to all. (see note(s) below!)
What: it's the time of year and with all these new faces as well as with everything going on, sam thinks it's time for another all summoned not!thanksgiving
Where: sam's horizon
When: end of November/beginning of December
Warnings: will update as necessary.

THE SETUP

As per Sam's invitation, come dinner time, his horizon is going to be full fall aesthetic. The trees will have changed, there will be a slight chill in the air (no matter how it's usually hotter than this in Louisiana in November), and everything will be decorated in prime Fall Decorations - so many pumpkins, so many candles, so much Hallmark Card Thanksgiving, minus any weird pilgrim/puritan bs. Inside the house will be a kind of organized chaos - tables and ingredients and food everywhere. Because while Sam could magic the whole meal together, he's much more about putting in the work, so this not!thanksgiving is old school. If you show up early, you will be assigned a job, and Sam can tell if you cheat and just Horizon something together.

Outside in the front lawn area is a large, long dining room table. Come dinner, it will be a picture-perfect image of a Thanksgiving Meal. Everything you could want and then more will be set out, and there will be a setting for everyone, no matter how many people show up. There's no seating arrangement, so find a place and take a seat, chat it up with whoever is to your right, left, or sitting across from you. The only magic that Sam is going to allow at this point is the fact that the table will always be the perfect size - whether that is smaller or larger. There is plenty of booze, plenty of food, and more than enough desserts, and Sam is really just looking for a casual, nice time of it.

Afterwards, there will be plenty of opportunities for more people to help - just imagine the dishes, y'all. But even then Sam will be playing host, making sure everyone has what they need, even if what they need is an Adirondack chair by a fire pit and a blanket to pass the hell out. Either way, his entire Horizon is open, save for the one room upstairs that is always locked.

OOC INFO

- this is a totally open post! I've got a TL below for various scenarios you can find Sam, but otherwise have fun, meet some people, put up a TL of your own!

- Sam's only Rule is there will be no fighting. You want to duke it out? Take it somewhere else. There will not be warnings or second chances. Don't be an ass. This is his home, respect it, or he'll have your ass thrown out. He's not afraid of squaring up, but you will not be invited back if you chaos too many issues. :)

- this is open to any and all Summoned, no matter loyalties or factions. Sam is going to be going overboard to be welcoming, especially to new faces. Even if your character didn't see the big invitation, feel free to have them invited by word of mouth.

- any questions? message me at disarmingly

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[ While some might have mocked Hilda for not understanding, Steve's expression is more one of commiseration. Sure, he'd had electricity and plenty of other concepts that most people from his world would consider basic back in his time, but he still knows what it was like to wake up in the modern world and have people say sentences to him that might as well have been in Greek. So he's patient. ]

It might be easier to just show you.

[ With that, he drags the deflated decoration with him down the few porch steps and looks around, finding a handy outlet against the bottom step. He takes the plug at the end of the motor's cord and plugs it in. After that, all it takes it hitting the on switch on the motor and a loud whirring sound starts. As promised, the decoration begins to balloon with air, slowly inflating.

He stands up and dusts his hands off. This is going to take a while, so... ]

What friends would those be?

[ Now that she's said that, it's slowly starting to click into place in his mind. Why he feels like he's seen her before. ]

[ Steve manages to hit the nail on the head in terms of how Hilda prefers to learn. Books are well and good, but she’s tactile in her day-to-day life; watching, learning and doing (even if she moans and groans about the last bit) is how she absorbs concepts. His patience is appreciated too, of course. Her marvelling hadn’t landed well with all the locals.

She watches in awe as the sad, comical turkey starts to rise. Maybe she could make something similar but in the likeness of someone she knew. Now that would be a hilarious joke. ]

Three of them were here before I arrived – Petra, Sylvain and Claude. Felix and I arrived together and thankfully we all somehow landed in the Free Cities.

[ Hidla supposes that if one of them had ended up in Thorne or Solvuun that they could have met here or Nocwich – but there was something to be said about knowing that they were only separated by the walls of their living quarters instead of miles. ]

Any chance you’ve met them?

[ So that was it. Claude's dream. That's where he'd seen, blink and you'll miss it, Claude on his wyvern signaling down below to a girl with pink hair. There'd been a quick understanding between them on the battlefield, information communicated without words even being necessary. Steve had identified that as clear as day. He knew what that was like, having similar understandings with the likes of Natasha, Sam, and Tony.

Her question jerks him out of his thoughts and he quickly nods, even as he leans himself up against the porch wall. ]

Most of them. I know Claude the best. We got here at the same time and rode the wagon to Cadens together. We've kept in touch since.

[ And just how much should he tell her? It might be awkward to reveal that he'd seen her in a dream once, so maybe he can ease into it. ]

You two are close, aren't you?

Really? I'm so glad! [ It's such a throw away phrase that Hilda is all too aware she throws out when she has nothing else to say, but she genuinely means it this time. ] Claude can be a little slippery, but I'm glad he's making friends here.

[ She worries about him. About all of them, but particularly Claude. As warm as he is, there's a distance to him that can be easy to miss when you're focused on what he wants you to pay attention to.

Despite her own quiet observation of her friend that few others they know would be able to say confidently, she tears away her eyes from the turkey to look at Steve curiously, an amused airy laugh escaping her lips. She doesn't mean to not answer his question, she's just more preoccupied with why Steve asked the question like that. ]

Are we? Did Claude say that?

[ Slippery? Steve finds that an interesting way of describing him, as Claude has been the friendly type ever since they met. Then again, his experience with him might be different than so many others because one of their first interactions had been in Claude's nightmare — which had spurred him to tell him plenty about the war he was a part of, and its aftermath.

Which all segues nicely into what Hilda asks him next, as he gives a small shake of his head. ] Not exactly.

[ He's reading into things a lot here, but he knows what trust on a battlefield looks like, and so he doesn't think he's off the mark. He eyes Hilda for a few seconds and then shrugs. ]

This is going to sound strange, but a while back something went kind of haywire with the Singularity and the Summoned were... well, sharing nightmares with each other. I was in Claude's, which was in the middle of a battle, and I'm pretty sure I saw you there. Briefly.

[ He's not sure he needs to explain how he was able to extrapolate what he'd seen to the two of them being close, but he is open to any questions if she has them. ]

[ It's slippery but affectionately. She had always thought that Claude was a difficult one to grasp especially early on in their friendship. Even now when she knew him vastly better than she had five years ago, she can't help but think it from time to time. She tells herself it keeps her on her toes, but who really knows?

She hadn't been sure what to expect with Steve's question but she hadn't expected that. Surprise slips through her usual mask and her eyes widen. ]

A battlefield? [ Gondor immediately comes to mind but it could feasibly be any battlefield considering their differing points in time. If Steve had been dropped in the middle of a nightmare with her there, then it was possible he knew some details from her friends about what they had been pulled from. Her heart hammers in her chest for a moment, Steve's words hanging in the air between them. So that's what Claude had been hiding from her. Or at least one of the things. After a beat, she offers him a brief explanation fully knowing that he might have been told this story already. ]

We were fighting a war back home and Claude was - is - our leader. [ There's another pause as she keeps her eyes trained on the inflating turkey. A half-hearted smile tugs at her lips and she can't help but ask a question that she's sure she already knows the answer to. ] Was I fighting or was I there cheering people on the from sidelines?

Edited 2023-01-29 07:35 (UTC)

[ What Steve said has clearly struck some sort of chord, and how could it not? Hilda had come here to have a good time and get to know her fellow Summoned, and now they're here talking about war. It's one hell of a curveball, especially when they're still sitting here watching this dorky turkey decoration slowly inflate.

It does mean that no one in the immediate vicinity is listening in on them, though, so there's that. ]

Yeah, I gathered that much. He gave me a brief history lesson when we talked after, said that the war was over and you were focused on rebuilding now.

[ He has no idea of how Hilda fits into everything, save that she seems to be Claude's subordinate in some way. Her question is odd enough that Steve's quiet for a few seconds, frowning as he tries to make sense of what she's asking and why. ]

I only saw you for a brief moment. We were riding on Claude's... wyvern... thing, so you were way down below. But he signaled to you that you needed to focus your attention on a different part of the battle, that the Kingdom had to be dealt with before you fought the Empire. So yeah, I'd say you were part of the fight.

[ That's all he can really remember of the exact moment in the dream, though Claude had filled him in on some of the political background later on. ]

[ Hilda knows that Steve can't possibly know about the odd little time paradox that was pointedly ignored amongst their little group, but it's still hard for her brain to comprehend what's being said. Obviously it's a good thing that they've been rebuilding, but it's still mostly news to her and clashes with the reality she had been pulled from. She could make believe things away pretty well, but not that well.

There's no point in hiding it from Steve; she has nothing to gain and a combination of his kindess and connection to Claude is enough for her to trust him. ]

I know this is going to sound a little weird but I'm not technically from the same point in time Claude is. That's the case for all of our friends here too. [ She pauses, suddenly unsure about where else to go after that. She doesn't want to think about the implication of what Steve saw. If she was alive in Claude's memory then that was also a good thing right? But that might not mean that she's alive in Claude's present.

A small furrow forms between her brow for the first time during their conversation. ] Is that normal? To be here but remember things differently?

[ It doesn't sound that weird at all, especially with what Steve has already experienced firsthand here with the other Avengers and the variety of timelines that they all come from. Though what Hilda follows up with next is a little different, and he crosses his arms, noting that she's showing some genuine dismay for the first time during this chat. ]

Remember things differently? As in... you're not just from different times, but from different timelines?

[ Maybe she won't know how to distinguish between those two things. It's a fairly new concept to Steve himself, and he gestures for her to come over and sit on the porch steps with him so that they don't have to talk quite so openly.

Once they're seated, he clears his throat to try and explain. ]

I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the multiverse, but the idea is that there can many different versions of the same sequence of events, and each one is an alternate universe. Sometimes things have only changed a little, sometimes a lot, but that could be what's going on with you and Claude.

[ No doubt someone like Strange or Tony could explain this better, but then again, maybe they'd get too technical with it. ]

[ There's some level of relief that she feels when Steve doesn't react to her question in a negative way. She nods, following him towards the porch and feeling a little like a lost duckling while still mulling over what he's said. Honestly, it makes perfect sense in a way that it shouldn't.

If Hilda knew Steven or Tony, she'd probably end up more confused. At least here, she doesn't get the impression that Steve is speaking down to her, or making her feel stupid for a concept that she never thought she'd have to deal with in her lifetime.

The crease between her eyebrows stays in place, and she worries on the bottom of her lip for a moment as she processes everything Steve is saying. ]

It sounds like one of those choose your own adventure books. We had a couple of those growing up back home. [ Except most of them had happy endings. ] You make it sound like you've lived through that. Or at least experienced it.

[ Maybe a part of her is looking for some level of comfort, to know that she and friends aren't the only ones going through this strange experience alone. ]

It does kind of sound like that, yeah.

[ Branching paths, each with their own endings. It's more that Steve is familiar with the concept, though, as they'd had to educate themselves on it when taking the Stones out of time.

Then again, does his future self make an alternate timeline when he chooses to stay in the past with Peggy? Probably so. Steve lets out a breath bordering on a sigh and gives a small nod. ]

Sort of. Me and my teammates had to travel back in time... it's a long story, but any changes we made in the past might have created another timeline.

[ His own personal future and what it might have caused is something he isn't quite willing to get into now. ]

I'm lucky, though, in that all of my friends here seem to remember the same sequence of events. [ He glances at Hilda, brow creased in quiet sympathy for her. ] That not being the case must be a headache.

I'm glad that that isn't the case for you and your friends. [ A smile flickers to her face to show that she genuinely means it. A little timeline confusion might be a bit of a headache, but things could be worse. ]

A little headache is a small price to pay if it means that they're alive and well.

[ Hilda doesn't think she needs to say that war leads to plenty of uncertainty. She's curious about Steve, but there's something that tells her that as friendly as he is, there's a distance there that feels all too familiar. If experience told her anything, those sorts of things took time.

She lets a comfortable silence fall between them, the sound of the turkey inflating and chatter of people in the house fill the air. When it's all done, she pushes herself up from the porch and rushes towards the ridiculous looking balloon. ]

That was so much easier than I thought it would be! I'll have to remember this if I want a balloon at the gates of our domain. [ She grins over her shoulder at Steve. ] Thank you for helping me. Why don't we finish up with the rest of the decorations and then we can head inside?

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[ OPEN ] turkey-time and all that follows.

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