stateofdecay | Thanksgiving @ Lundegaard (Forward-Dated to 11/28)

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Thanksgiving @ Lundegaard (Forward-Dated to 11/28)

Thanksgiving at Lundegaard

Order of Events

ARRIVALS/VIBES @ 3:30 PM

MINGLING, DRINKS, & APPS @ 4:15 PM

DINNER @ 5:00 PM

LEADERSHIP BINGO @ 7:00 PM

LINE DANCING @ 8:00 PM

Vibes & Playlist

Mismatched furniture, tableware, and cutlery in the B&B, dining hall, and town hall. Wooden carvings of animals hung up with burlap ribbons and hand turkeys made by schoolchildren. Bouquets of dogtooth daisies and boughs of marescent leaves in red, orange, and gold. The smell of freshly baked bread, hay, and woodsmoke. Warm lights from firepits, candles, and dim, flickering fluorescent bulbs.

John played some of these chill tunes.

ON THE MENU

Drinks & Appetizers
🍹 Maggie's Pear Kombucha
🥛 Malted Milk
🍹 Whatever other drinks folks brought
🧀 Charcuterie board

Mains & Sides
🦃 Turkey
🍗 Pan-fried goose in (mostly) huckleberry sauce
🥗 Green and red leaf lettuce salad in lemon vinaigrette
🥬 Mustard greens with salt pork
🥔 Mashed potatoes au gratin
🍞 Sausage hand pies
🍞 Dinner rolls
🍽️ Any other food folks brought

Desserts
🥧 Apple pie
🍮 Baked egg custard
🫐 Wild berries in cream
🍽️ Any other dessert folks brought

VOLUNTEER SLOTS

VOLUNTEER 1 arrives too early and is enlisted to help whip cream by Lundegaard's resident tree whisperer, Alice Samayao. On the bright side, your forearm strength is going to be off the chain once you're done...

After they're released from hwhippin' it, Volunteer 1 sneaks away with some whipped cream to playfully smash it into VOLUNTEER 2's face.

DUTCH and DUKE RATTRAY spy a ladder leaning against the roof of the barn and climb on up. They get a nice view of Lundegaard in the crisp autumnal night. But—whoops—Bill Rhoades takes the ladder away when they're not looking. Dutch and Duke have to jump down (safely) from the roof into a bale of hay. Oof.

VOLUNTEER 5 stuffs themselves on food. Feeling wretched and incredibly sleepy, they knock out in an empty barrel. VOLUNTEER 6 finds them 30 minutes later. You good?

COURT SLAUGHTER makes a daring request during line dancing and gets all the dancers grooving to Rihanna's "S&M" (feat. Britney Spears). Vrow.

GAMES & DANCING

Leadership Bingo
Quaid and John have prepared 3x3 bingo cards using old notebook paper (so... bingo leaves), each randomly populated with the names of community leadership (sans John). The winner gets the honor of being THE BIG TURKEY of the evening and a dozen apple donuts.

Line Dancing
To these classic tunes! Before the outbreak, John spent some time at his local senior citizens center carefully observing line dances and at times participating. So while he claims he can't dance, he is able and willing to help anyone pick up the steps.

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Arwen is currently the wine holder between her and Carter, so she sips delicately and slowly at it as she observes the mingling going on around her. It's nice and not nice, a strange mix of nostalgia and discomfort at being around so many people who are essentially strangers.

She almost doesn't notice Nat a few paces away, but once she does she glides over to the familiar face.

"...did you ever expect everyone to spend Thanksgiving together so quickly?"

Nat's attention is still caught on where Edgar and Mara have disappeared outside, and it isn't until Arwen settles in next to her that she realizes she's biting the inside of her cheek.

"Honestly, no," Nat chuckles, blinking back to attention as she draws Arwen closer to give her a hug from the side. Nat thrives around large groups of people and she's feeling pretty warm about it all, inspite of everything. "I thought this was maybe another year out, but I guess everyone is just tired and looking for more connection too. You think it's too quick?"

The hug is appreciated and gently returned, with a soft knock of Arwen's head against Nat's before she settles back into her own space. Then, after a moment, a small shrug.

"I don't think there's any 'too quick' with this sort of thing - it's... good, that everyone is getting into the sense of community so quickly." A pause. "Does it worry you?"

Nat's brow creases at the question, not out of confusion but out of thought. "No," she answers again. "Do you mean we should be worried about people's motivations? I think it's pretty natural for human beings to crave this, as much as it is for them...us, to build loyalty to something. I am worried if there becomes a rush to build that larger sense of community without building the relationships and finding common ground first. I think a lot of us are set in the ways we've been surviving and doing things and... things will need to change." She shrugs, turning to catch Arwen's eye. "Does it worry you?"

"Coming together is very natural. We're pack animals, at the end of the day." Arwen feels her own need to be close to others constantly pulling her around. She looks to Nat. "But yes, it's a shift for some to start treating these relationships as more than transactional. I'm not particularly worried about it. Just... adjusting, like everyone else."

And, of course, tingling in the back of her mind is the fact that the more people she's around, the more medical personnel that she interacts with, the more likely she is to be found out.

"I worry this is a harder adjustment for some people, though."

Nat hums at that, definitely an understatement. "Can I..." she inhales deeply through her nose and second guesses herself, the words dying on her tongue. Ridiculous. She shakes her head and brings her own glass of wine to her lips. "Anyone in particular you're worried about?"

"Can you...?" Arwen echos, obviously curious and ready to listen. While she herself hates opening up, she never minds when others open up to her, or even ask things of her.

"...Mara seems less than content right now. I'm worried about Beck, too. All of Prescott and Lundegaard could probably use some therapy."

Nat shakes her head though, not wanting to pull on that thread of thought when this was genuinely a pretty nice night. Instead she focuses on where she and Arwen agree.

"Therapy and a tranquilizer. I feel like everyone needs at least a week of peaceful, uninterrupted sleep followed by counselling," and it's not like Nat can exclude herself from that either. "I'm worried about Mara too," she admits, feels a little bit like a betrayal when she hasn't had that conversation with the woman herself. But Arwen is different, especially where Mara is concerned, and Nat has always trusted her. "What's going on with Beck?"

Arwen doesn't press Nat, but does file the aborted sentence away, something to maybe inquire after later. There's enough to focus on without trying to divert the conversation back.

"Once we all trust each other more I'm sure people will be able to sleep fitfully." She hopes, at least. She has a hard time imagining this for herself, but she knows her own sleep troubles are less problematic than Prescott's.

"I don't know how to help her outside of offering support. Do you? As for Beck... I don't know. He seems lonely, maybe."

"No," Nat is obviously troubled by this. Does Nat have lingering...frustration? Yes, but it's borne out of an affection and loyalty forged from the very beginning, and a desire to help Mara in ways Nat isn't sure she's actually best suited for. "I want to make things easier for her, but I don't...with what you two shared maybe, if she does want to talk, she'd be more comfortable talking to you about it?" And Beck, Nat sighs. "There's a lot of loneliness going around. We should do more out by the outposts, I should be better about that. Has he said something to you?"

"You can only help people as much as they'll let you." It's certainly a platitude, but it's true; if Mara won't talk to them, there's only so much they can achieve. Arwen gives a small shake of her head. "Even with what we went through, she's still not horribly forthcoming."

Which, of course, Arwen isn't either. "And Beck just reached out the other day and it felt like a little more than boredom. I might be reading too much into it, though."

It can be good, sensible advice while at the same time not ease any of Nat's worry. It's also just not something that will be solved in the middle of a Thanksgiving feast where a growing number of their group are self soothing with alcohol or weed, so she sets it aside for now.

"You might be," she shrugs, focusing in on the Beck of it all. "But I feel like you know him better than most of us." They both know what she means, even if Nat doesn't deliver it with any coyness or intent.

Arwen will continue searching for ways to help Mara and maybe even press her a bit, feeling somewhat emboldened by Nat's assumption that she'd be more open with her. But, just as the other woman is thinking, that's for another time.

She gives a lopsided shrug. "Maybe." The lack of directness is appreciated. "I also know that I can be a little..." Fussy isn't the right word. Focused seems wrong too.

"I tend to worry more about him than others," Arwen finally settles on. "But you're right, we should do more by the outposts."

Nat's mouth presses into a barely restrained smile as she sways closer to Arwen, hip checking her gently. "You care about him, nothing wrong or overbearing about that," though for Nat to say otherwise would be hypocrisy. "I think knowing we have someone like that is a pretty good cure for loneliness. I told him we'd do an outpost dinner for his birthday, you want to join?"

"It's..." None of her business, now. Or, at least, less of her business than it had been, and even though she wants to at least be a friend to Beck, Arwen worries that she's far more present in his life than she should be.

"Yes, it's nice to have a sense of attachment. From both sides. I'd love to join for dinner. Mara's coming too?"

"I hadn't mentioned it to anyone else yet, it was more a birthday promise than an actual plan for Beck and I at the time, but it's a good idea. I will," she muses on the sense of attachment, wonders if it can be condensed as simply as that. Nat lingers on her...reconnection with Emre, the words that have burrowed their way in deep in a way someone as pragmatic and unflappable as her have never let before. She's not acknowledging that it's festered, or that it's led to self-doubt.

"It's kind of...nice in a familiar way," her smile is wry. "A whole apocalypse and holidays still bring out the stress and existential angst. Some things stay the same."

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Thanksgiving @ Lundegaard (Forward-Dated to 11/28)

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen

SCENES: Mingling: Nat & Arwen