nexus_crossings | Time for a big ol' Nexus Block party

Time for a big ol' Nexus Block party

On a sleepy summer morning a wonderful smell begins to waft throughout the Nexus. For those familiar with this place there can only be one explanation but for those new faces to the nexus this may be a strange thing: seeing so many people flocking toward the sweet and savory scents perfuming the Nexus.

There are a few tables set out this morning in the Plaza in front of a small cafe loaded with several carafes of coffee, a myriad of pastries from more than a few different worlds and cultures, and a large pan of eggs and sausage kept warm over a chafing dish. On either end of the table are disposable plates, cups, and cutlery as well as a few welcome pamphlets in a small container. Along the front of the tables is a hand made banner.

Meet and Greet

Manning the tables is Katsuya Suou, red apron on and a cup of coffee in hand. He looks far too cheerful for how early in the morning it is. It's always satisfying to put one of these on and see the throngs of different people stuck in line together to get their food and find a place to sit among the tables and couches nearby.

"Right then, is anyone hungry? I've got more than enough here for everyone so please mingle among yourselves or feel free to ask me anything you'd like."

((OOC: This thread is ALL ABOUT threadjacking and hopping. I encourage folks to tag on each other's comments and mingle rather than to reply only to me. This is a huge opportunity to have your characters interact with people they wouldn't have talked to before. Branch out! Meet new people! Scheme new schemes! Steal the last chocolate croissant!))

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Apple tree man? That conjures to mind images of Johnny Apple seed and Alec blinks. Was he real? A Swamp Thing like me? He'd always kind of loved the story as a kid. If he was a Swamp Thing that's why. He was my...magical ancestor somehow.

"I'm not familiar." He pauses, "I can't drink cider or anything but water. I'm grateful though." He considers this, "There might be an Apple Tree Man in the green. I'd have to ask. What's his story?"

He's grateful no Apple Trees are sprouting up in the middle of the party.

Apple orchards were common where Cricket grew up. Things have to be a little more tenacious to grow in the mountains, where the soil is rocky and winter storms can be inhospitable. But apple trees, rye and corn, and a few other hardy crops do well. And of course the number and variety of wild trees and other plants can't be dismissed. This kid is comfortable in a forest.

"I don't know if he was ever a human man, exactly," he says. "Granny said he was a spirit that sorta...loaned farmers the use of the trees. And he would always live in the oldest tree in every orchard. But you had to be polite, because if you cross him or hurt the trees, the harvest won't go well, and even worse luck might happen to you."

"She said she and her sisters used to take a cup of cider in the fall and pour it out on the roots of the oldest tree as a kind of a thank-you. And she would always tell me stories about how someone she knew left liquor or fruit for the Apple Tree Man and they'd find money the next day, or their back would stop aching, stuff like that. I always reckoned she'd made most of it up, but it ain't like pouring out a cup of cider is too much to ask. Just in case, you know?"

Cricket isn't hugely superstitious, but he's not too proud to hedge his bets. If there are supernormal forces, he'd rather be their friend than their enemy.

That sounds like a swamp thing, a "green man". A bit of an assholish thing to do in Alec's mind, but he doesn't want to kill the superstition. The more human beings fear the green the better.

If he still had a gut, it would have clenched in anger at that sudden thought in his mind.

"You did the right thing and I'm glad it helped. I'm not the green man, but he might be..." family? "Similar. To what I am."

In point of fact, it's an old Scotch-Irish legend that Cricket's ancestors brought to Appalachia with them when they settled. He has no way of knowing that, himself, given his rather tenuous connection to family and history, but he does imagine it has about the same credence as Jack Tales and fairy stories. It means something, just maybe not what it says it means.

"Well, I never saw anything good or bad come from it, sir," he says with a smile. "But I guess when you tell a kid the neighbors' trees are alive and watchin', they mind themselves more around 'em. We didn't have no orchard, just some berry bushes in the yard."

"My name's Cricket, by the way. Thank you for the fruit."

"Of course. Anyone who treats the green with such respect as you describe deserves the same in return. Plants do not always talk, but we do listen."

He pauses, "What brings you here to this place?"

He nibbles at the berries politely, but with obvious relish. He's got plans for living here, and they keep getting revised with every new development he encounters in the Nexus. A workshop. A small still. A big garden. Blackberries, lots of them. Maybe he can learn how to make blackberry wine.

"Miss Harley's plants move around, too," he murmurs. That's taken some getting used to.

"Me? I think I got killed and this is what I get instead of Heaven or Hell," he shrugs. "There ain't no real consensus on it. Some people say I don't look dead and others say I might be, but I know I can't get home. Found a path and a door, and it don't open for me. But last I remember, I had a man choking me and my legs was slipping out from under me."

Killed. He can relate to that. He doesn't dream of the pain in his chest anymore when one of the rot's soldiers drove a chainsaw through his arm, severing it.

"I'm sorry to hear that." He hesitates before offering the young man another blackberry - growing from his hand this time, "I know...I died once. Before." he pauses, "I've died twice actually."

On the whole, a chainsaw sounds like a much worse way to go. Cricket would have preferred a non-violent death in his sleep, maybe decades from now when he's an old man, but there are definitely more painful, traumatic things that could have happened to take him out. It was quick.

He seems quietly impressed by the berry growing from the Green Man (which is what he's dubbed him in his mind, for lack of a better name). He has to do a double take from the berry to his face, making sure he's being invited to take it, because it's a little weird to pluck something off a guy and eat it in the midst of the conversation. But it's a kindness, and he's still hungry, so he accepts it with a smile of thanks.

"Twice seems like at least once too many," he observes with a wince of sympathy. "Hope you don't have to do any more of it, especially not any time soon. You seem like a real kind person."

Okay, so he doesn't really know that for sure, but Cricket's bound to like anyone who'll feed him and be a sympathetic ear.

"...You're too kind." He's not. He is a monster in the grip of monster urges but he has it in him to try and remember humanity. That's what's important.

"I do the best I can. Not all giant swamp monsters are terrible people. At least, I'm not."

He gestured, "You really like berries."

Monster is as monster does, maybe. Cricket hasn't seen his dark side, and he's an innocent in his own way. That, and he comes from a place that's pretty close to nature. You get to see the bright and the dangerous when you live in poor Appalachian country. You can still starve if the harvest fails, or get hypothermia if you wander outside in the winter. He figures the best thing to do when the natural world gets mean is to get out of its way. Humans are harder to deal with, in a lot of ways.

"I never met a giant swamp monster before, sir, so I wouldn't pre-judge." He grins a little, and then nods. "Blackberries are my favorite. My...my ma used to make pie out of 'em in the summer, but she ain't around any more."

He looks thoughtful. "Wonder if you can make moonshine with berries in the mash, like you can with apples? Bet it'd be sweet."

Giant Swamp Monster.

It's the first time Alec hasn't felt, well. self conscious and it feels good. At the mention of moonshine however he can't help himself.

"It'd be easy. You could distill the stuff and if you didn't overuse it, serving it as a shot..."

One big hand tucks itself under his chin and he strokes his cheeks before he raises a hand over the ground and a blackberry bush begins to grow. Moving over to the table, a few people duck away from him as he grabs an empty container, a rather large one. By the time he returns, the plant is huge, bright leaves and buds for the berries themselves.

Alec sets down the container before he nods to the boy, "When the party is over, come and find me. I'll carry this to where you're staying."

Cricket has always had friends in odd places. He's a square peg in a round hole, himself, and he's not too shy to work for any regard he hopes to gain, and that means he's ready to recognize other people on the fringes of society. Maybe even meet 'em halfway. If the giant swamp monster is kind to him, he's happy to be friendly right back.

He brightens at the assessment of the possibilities. Blackberry liquor sounds like the nectar of the gods as far as he's concerned. The sudden growth of the berry bush startles him into stepping back, eyes getting wide as it grows, visibly, before his eyes. He's so absorbed watching he barely even notices Alec slip away for a container and return. It's certainly one of the thicker, healthier plants he's ever seen.

He looks up at Alec, back at the plant, and then up again. "For me? Really? Geezus. I'll take good care of it, sir!"

He's pretty sure Harley will welcome the plant, too, whether in the greenhouse or outside on the property.

"The green likes people like you." He can be magnanimous. Generous. Kingly, "Folk who are the salt of the earth."

He nods, "if you need anything else, let me know. I'd be more then happy to help."

Beaming, Cricket offers a last handshake. He has no problem responding to kingly condescension, and it's hard not to take a liking to someone who's given a generous gift. "Much obliged, sir. Really. When I make the liquor I'll bring you some, and you don't have to drink it unless you wanna."

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Time for a big ol' Nexus Block party

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