Impromptu Family Meetups

[smartass_captain]

It's that time of year. Holidays around every corner, family and friends dropping in unannounced, needing to be entertained and fed and plied with stories of how you've been, how is work, and all sorts of things. The thing is, for most of Jim Kirk's life he's never known any of that. It's hard to have sudden family visits when you don't have much in the way of family and aren't speaking to damn near all of them.

Which makes this day exceptionally stressful.

No Starfleet uniform today--even if Jim wanted to he's not allowed to wear any of his own clothes for where he's about to be headed. Instead he's dressed in a soft wool tunic in his preferred golden color and simple linen pants beneath the fur lined cloak he's got pulled over his clothes. Gloved hands fidget with the ties on all of this, a nervous habit he can't quite stop himself from making.

He stops his pacing when he nearly stumbles over a passer-by with how lost in thought he is and it's only then that the captain looks up at whomever he's nearly trodden upon.

"What's the best way to impress your in-laws? What's the etiquette for meeting someone's family for the first time?"

Comments

[volurofthehearth]

Jim's meeting with Felix's family is going to be fine if Runa is any indication. She is a perfectly rapt audience, listening intently to every word with wide eyes. "We have trolls where we come from, but I've never seen one before. What do they look like on Nirn? Are they as big as mountains?"

[smartass_captain]

"As big as--wow. No, not these. They look like your old, old yeti folklore stories, kind of. I haven't seen one up close before, just from a distance. But they're definitely not as big as a mountain. A great ape maybe, but no larger."

Trying to imagine anything as large as a mountain but alive unsettles Jim. That's Too Big for something to be alive. Freaky stuff. He'd love to see one though.

"You have trolls on Earth? Really?? I didn't think they existed."

[volurofthehearth]

"They do on my Earth, but they're very rare these days. When we were out on walks my father would tell me where not to walk because that was where the trolls lived."

Despite never having seen them, it's hard not to believe they exist. Not the way her father and sisters speak of them.

"Do the ones on Nirn speak? Are they intelligent?"

[smartass_captain]

"I've never heard them speak nor proof of their intellect but that doesn't mean they couldn't be capable of both. I should ask Felix for some books on them and read up. Are the trolls on your world like that? Are they really so large?"

And perhaps that is a preview of talks to come. Jim being perfectly capable of giving broad answers that show he's heard of something but the second anyone probes deeper he finds himself at a loss for information. It's not as though he can just make something up, either. He could, rather, but it would probably be a very bad idea to do around Felix's father.

Plus he doesn't want to lie to Runa. She's really too sweet to tease overmuch.

"I've never thought to ask most of those questions before, to be honest. I was warned of them and that was about it."

[volurofthehearth]

"Giants are the ones who are really as large as mountains. Trolls aren't smart, but they can be all kinds of shapes and sizes. Some can use magic, and they can trick people with it. Most people can outsmart them, though."

When Jim admits he doesn't have all the answers to her questions, she smiles and shrugs. "Not everyone on my world knows these things either. Most people don't know trolls still exist, let alone what they're like. But my family loves telling stories about things like that."

[smartass_captain]

"I haven't heard much of giants on Nirn. I'll have to ask."

No beginner's alchemy book is going to touch on the need for Giant's Toe in anything after all. It's not an ingredient for the faint of heart to get, and because of the danger certainly not cheap to buy. Plus, knowing Nirn, it would just be their name for Yet Another Fungus.

"You're from Scandinavia right? Is it perhaps because of where you grew up? Maybe such thigns are native to you home. I'm fairly sure there's no stories like those in the States, where I grew up."

[volurofthehearth]

"When you do, could you tell me about them? I'd love to know what they're like on other worlds," she tells him. How different could it really be, after all? She's not sure, but it would be exciting to find out.

"They are native, you're right." Viatorus must be rubbing off on her, because she tilts her head curiously at him. "Do you have stories of creatures from your home?"

[smartass_captain]

"The only thing my country's known for is being the site of our First Contact. It's where we met the Vulcans, not too long after we were just starting to really crack the whole space travel thing. Though a long time ago I'm sure there were all kinds of stories of animals that have been long since disproved to exist. And people used to be really religious too. Historians can tell you all about the gods people used to believe in."

Point is, if there were gods in Jim's world, they've probably died out in the last few hundred years or been going real hungry for worship.

"I didn't think anything like that was real until I saw proof otherwise here in the Nexus and on your world. Felix's world. There's so much out in the galaxy that's real and amazing...I guess we stopped thinking about the stuff that wasn't observable in some way."