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

[lineman]

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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Comments

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[toughleaf]

When left to her own devices, Reggie will default to cleaning. Even if she doesn't know where things go or if someone's done with their plate, she just starts stacking empty dishes and consolidating forks, wiping down tables and discarding trash like she lives there.

In the middle of this bustle, it almost seems like she doesn't even notice Carter until she sweeps past her, a stack of plates in her hands.

"Let me know if you wanna check out the Sad Treeboy Inn," she says, her voice low and nonchalant, and she pops a stray veggie in her mouth. "I hear they got real beds over there."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[fixeddown]

Carter is legitimately taken by surprise. She had been happy enough to ignore Reggie all night. Several hours in, she was barely doing it on purpose. Just looking for a broom to make herself useful. So she'd been only slightly aware of Reggie's presence until suddenly, she's a little too close for safety. And there were real beds.

Carter blinks, recovers, and throws a glare over her shoulder. "It's the holidays. You'd never get a booking in time."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[toughleaf]

"Take someone else's reservation, fake a medical event, there's dozens of ways around that." Reggie shrugs and drops a handful of silverware in the same glass, just barely throwing a glance back Carter's way. "But if dirty old warehouses and Mad Max cars are what gets your motor running, I'm not here to judge."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[fixeddown]

Carter actively resents the way she bites the corner of her lip after catching that shadow of a glance. She releases it, and grabs the broom she's been looking for from where someone left one miraculously leaning against a chair. She starts sweeping, methodically, but she's glad to have a weapon.

"Don't talk about motors in public." She half-snaps, under her breath, for lack of anything better to say.

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[toughleaf]

Reggie cracks a grin and brushes a pile of crumbs onto the floor. Oh look at what needs to be swept up now.

"Plenty of other euphemisms. Got a preference?"

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[fixeddown]

If Carter catches Reggie's ankles with the broom in dangerous, fierce little pokes, it's on accident. "Something not stupid."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[toughleaf]

"So you want me to ask if you need the threat of zeds nearby to get you all weak in the knees?" She leans up against the table, a shitty little smirk on her face. "Or was that just the rain?"

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[fixeddown]

Carter throws a little grin of her own over her shoulder, distinctly aloof but amused. "What do you need. A blow by blow analysis? You were there. Be creative."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[toughleaf]

"I think what I really need," Reggie reaches for a rag on a windowsill, letting just her shoulder brush dangerously close to Carter's, "are handcuffs."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[fixeddown]

Carter's tempted to make a quarter turn, close the gap. She doesn't. She reaches for a bottle of cleaner to shove at Reggie, instead, allowing their arms to be close in contact, still not quite touching.

"I thought for sure those were the precious item in that fanny pack."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[toughleaf]

"This is my decoy fanny pack." Reggie takes the cleaner, her fingers just barely grazing Carter's. She acts like she doesn't notice, just turns back to the table to spray it down. "Couldn't risk something like that getting in the hands of the thief."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[fixeddown]

Carter, after having swept for three and a half seconds, decides that's enough and sits on one of the wooden chairs. Making direct eye contact with Reggie, like a cat knocking a vase off the counter, she kicks up her shoes on to the rungs of the chair next to it, probably causing further dust to fall.

"Wow. And I thought Responders were supposed to always be prepared."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[toughleaf]

"No, that's the Boy Scouts." Reggie keeps wiping the same spot on the table, unwilling to be the first to break eye contact. "Responders are more creative problem solvers." She scrubs a spot closer to Carter, chipping candle wax off the wood. "I'm sure I could figure something out."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[fixeddown]

"Improvisation might be for the best anyway." Carter feigns boredom, slipping her gaze to the candle wax on the table, and assisting in scraping it off with a fingernail. Her eyes float back up, serious as ever. "I haven't met a pair of handcuffs I couldn't get out of."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[toughleaf]

Reggie bites down on the inside of her lip, but she can't hide how her hand contracts on the rag. So much for nonchalance.

"Once again," her voice is even, if quiet, "I'm gonna need you to prove it."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[fixeddown]

Carter clocks this, and it feels like victory enough that she smiles, even lets it be a little mischievous. "Well." She matches Reggie's tone, "Maybe there's room in the Sadman Inn after all." She kicks her feet back down to the floor, but doesn't go anywhere just yet.

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[toughleaf]

Reggie picks up her rag and twists it between her fingers.

"If I remember correctly," she draws the rag, now something of a thick cord, around Carter's wrist, "it's my turn to show you the way."

AFTER DINNER: Reggie & Carter

[fixeddown]

A dirty table rag is by all rights and logic the least appealing thing on earth. Should not result in a dry little swallow and rising to her feet immediately. She takes a breath and then Carter, to her word, does twist her wrist out of the rag. "You never believe me." She complains, but her footfalls keep close behind Reggie's. Surely someone will believe they're only at the bed and breakfast for the architecture.