Event | Yard Sale!

[ironwood]

Characters: Come one, come all!
Date: July 21st - July 27th
Location: The City of Keeliai
Situation: The rationing is officially lifted and the kedan are celebrating by conducting one citywide yard sale! Think big! Think small! Think tribbles! Think all!
Warnings/Rating: Tribbles. Lots of tribbles. Please indicate content warnings in subject headers as applicable.

The morning of the 21st kicks off with heralds roving about the city of Keeliai to declare that the rationing edict has been lifted and that citizens no longer have to contribute one-fifth of their productions (juulan or physical goods) to the communal stores maintained by the police force. These announcements trigger a state of celebration across the city as kedan drag months worth of hoarded items to the street to sell, steal, or trade in a wave of mercantile goodness that stretches for nearly a week. Not even the rising tide of tribbles seems to dampen their spirit, with kedan citywide finding new and inventive uses for the fuzzy paperweights.

Characters are free to do as they will during this event, with police oversight relaxed in the aftermath of the long rationing and strained relations. Impromptu sales out of suites will rarely be inspected and purchase made elsewhere are no longer monitored. Everyone is taking a breath of fresh air, so to speak, and most do not want their first fun in months to be ruined.

OOC: See the OOC announcement for details and this post for subheaders in which you may wreak havoc celebrate the lifting of the rationing. Feel free to start your own thread header if you like! <3

Fire Sector | Earth Sector | Metal Sector | Water Sector | Wood Sector | Other

Comments

[relentlesstide]

[He doesn't pay Bruce much mind until he actually speaks up (not going to encourage this habit of showing up and staring without at least a greeting), mentally counting the tribbles tossed out into the ocean by ceremony-goers and wondering how many sharks he's going to have to alert when the kedan have all left.]

Batman. [Two can play at this awkward greetings game.]

[cowled]

['Hn'.]

How's Mera?

[Bruce can... guess as to how the power-down affected her. And even if he spent most of the time gloating over the metahumans like a dick, Mera falls into the rare category of 'sassy woman whose sassiness I tolerate and somewhat respect' and he is genuinely concerned about her welfare. Even if he'd never admit it outloud.]

[relentlesstide]

[It's pretty much impossible to not respect Arthur's wife. She's the queen Atlantis always needed, and she holds herself like a queen without putting herself on a pedestal. But it's true, the power loss had affected her a lot more than most, primarily psychologically. The last time it happened was not a good time in either of their lives.]

Better. Our gills are opened up again.

[cowled]

[He doesn't respond to that directly, but his silence is... satisfied, all things considered. He doesn't quite consider Arthur a friend, but he's... worthy of the title, at least, even though their respective responsibilities have kept them in the peripheral of each other's orbit for most of their respective careers.

Bruce reaches into his belt, pulls out a small device. Hands it over.]

The Kryptonians have been adversely affected by the noise these creatures emit. You Atlanteans seem to have fallen on the opposite end of the spectrum. Use this.

['This' being a small (waterproofed) sound device which negates the tribbles' trilling in a twenty meter radius by providing a precise counter-pitch.]

It may need to be adjusted.

[relentlesstide]

[He takes the little device, turns it over in his fingers to check it out (he's not immediately trusting of anything given by Batman, honestly, his unconditional trust is difficult to gain if you live on land and breathe air).]

Seems like. I think I got off easy with the headaches since I'm not a full-blooded Atlantean. [He's been managing it pretty much with a headache prescription from the local apothecary.] You and Dinah come up with these? I know she helped out with Kal.

[cowled]

She supplied the proper frequency. I adapted it.

[He senses that mistrust, says nothing about it. Honestly, he'd be more concerned if Arthur did extend it so easily. He can only handle so many boyscouts in his day-to-day life, and Clark takes up the vast majority of that category all by himself.

Still, Arthur isn't the sort to want or require his approval, so he keeps it to himself.]

If you don't use it for its required purpose, I'm sure it'll make a decent paperweight.

[Is that a dry, oblique reference to all those bugs Arthur and Mera have destroyed? Maybe.]

[relentlesstide]

[He nods once, tucks the little device into the compartment in his belt buckle. Arthur will try it out later on himself, cautiously, and determine if it's safe to hand off to Mera (assuming she'll even accept the help). While he doesn't think Bruce necessarily wants to harm either of them, at least at this point in time, it's better not to take that for granted.

The corners of his mouth twitch up into a little smirk at the reference, though.] Oh, we have plenty of those already. [You really should stop bugging his suite, Bruce. He's just going to keep doing terrible things to them.]

[cowled]

[Calmly,]

You know why I do it, Arthur.

[And he won't apologize for that. He expects that the League would take him down if he ever went rogue (if they could, a point of contention in his mind) and he would do the same for any of them. It's respect, as much as duty.]

[relentlesstide]

And you know why I remove them. [They're never going to see eye to eye on this. Namely because of the Tower of Babel incident, which wasn't Bruce himself, but not many people know how truly horrific it is to slowly dehydrate and suffocate in the air because something won't let you return to the sea. (Thankfully J'onn had been there, but if he hadnt...)

It's how his two year old son died, all those years ago, suffocating in a bubble of air, struggling to return to the water.

Arthur has no dual identity, but he will still forcibly remove his coworkers from his home life if he has to. He isn't in the business of keeping secrets, but some things are just for him.]

[cowled]

[Bruce makes a faint noise, mostly a hnn.

Arthur understands that Bruce would be there to stop him if the need arose. The rest can remain unsaid, and he turns to go.]

Stay in touch.

[Which is almost uncharacteristic in and of itself. A year in this place has... forced him into a position of working with and relying on others. He and Arthur aren't close, but he still helped Bruce get a penny out of a crevasse once.

(Or more specifically, he came to help, and the penny remained in its resting place, but. Details)

With that, Bruce turns to go.]

[relentlesstide]

[He gets it, he does, but also knows it won't ever come to that. If Arthur does go rogue, whether from mind control or anything else? His wife and Kaldur will bring him in. Kaldur's already driven a specter out of him once.

Arthur glances back out at the water, humming in acknowledgement.] You too. [Called loud enough to be heard over the breeze as Bruce leaves. They might not really be friends, and they might never actually trust each other, but they can at least work together.

And maybe keep in contact. Maybe.]