tushanshu_logs | [EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

[EVENT] A NEW WORLD ORDER

Characters: ALL!
Date: December 8, 2015 (with some starters for the following weeks)
Location: Keeliai, the Midnight Hotel, others
Situation: The Foreigners have awakened.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

They've been in the Dreaming for so long that when they wake up their bodies feel more like automatons, alien and ill-fitting. They haven’t atrophied, thanks to Milyn, but they’re stiff and a little bedsore, and the solidity of the Life Plane is jarring. Here, the surroundings don’t move on a whim. Here the world is more stable, almost harsh and unyielding in spite of the homey surrounds.

It’s been a year, says the clock on the mantle and on the second floor. Says Milyn, too, when she’s able to stop hugging them long enough to speak.

Nothing much has changed in the Midnight Hotel. There are dishes out of place, objects belonging to either Milyn or Eva in evidence, the diorama exactly where it had been but now brightly-painted thanks to Milyn's boredom. Milyn and Eva took a room each, in the time the Foreigners were sleeping, though neither used them much.

Eva’s upstairs, Milyn will tell anyone who asks. In her room.

Eva hasn't left that room in three days. She hasn't spoken in three days, either, or walked, or moved, or breathed. Her effects are neatly arranged around her bed, and the sheet has been pulled up. There is heavy incense in the room and Milyn has managed to preserve the body enough to remove the risk of too much mess (and other things). In a way, that makes it worse: as though Eva is sleeping. It’s difficult to tell whether Milyn is in denial or whether spending three days with no one to talk to other than sleeping Foreigners and a corpse has had its influence.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"And this place operates on family groups. If most of us don't have family here, we might as well band with the other Foreigners," Iroh said.

"I did once, at that, when things were better. One of the families here adopted me as part of their ceremonies, but now that it seems to have passed, we do need each other, more than before. I think it is the only way we stand a chance to flourish now, without harming anyone here."

Iroh nodded. "Yes, that should be a goal. Show them that we're not asking them to support us, but we want to live beside them."

Yes, certainly. We can be allies, if not quite friends.

"Neighbors, perhaps," Iroh said.

"Rather." Enjolras nodded. "It was different when there were industries that allowed us to get to know each other through other means, like work and such. As they do not need us in those positions now, at least not side by side, it will be on us to make a bit more of an effort.

How would we start such?" He's wondering, frowning thoughtfully. "It may be best to organize some sort of meeting, to lay out our common goals as identified by...well, all of us. Being clear on those could help quite a bit too."

"Exactly," Iroh said. "And it will help us plan for the future. We'll need food and other things before too long."

"Yes, certainly. The Hotel cannot keep us forever." Enjolras adds. "Especially if we gain new arrivals. I cannot imagine how we might fit them all if all the room was taken. Allies and neighbors. We might easily establish ourselves there. It sounds like a task that is not insurmountable." He hopes.

"If we have overcome what we have overcome, it shouldn't be that hard to organize. If someone -- or many someones -- are willing to put in the effort."

"Ah yes."

They've come together before, for a much greater threat. In the end it was their efforts that defeated Malicant and even if those in the city are not too pleased with them at the moment, that can be changed in time, now can't it?

"I certainly think that we will be able to find them among our lot of people here. After all, when it comes down to it, we all do want the same thing, don't we?"

"Or similar enough things," Iroh said. "The basics don't change."

"Rather not. This place is different enough from most of the worlds we come from, but look what we have managed to do together as it is. Surely, sooner or later, that can be used as something of an example, should we need to make a case for ourselves here."

Enjolras hoped, at least, that their form of making a case COULD be by example and perhaps some well reasoned argument. Really, what they might need would be to get some of the kedan, influential ones in their new world, to see these things. If they could gather up support, that was the best place to start.

"I suppose establishing ourselves is our most important task." he muttered, then realized he'd been speaking out loud. "Ah, sorry, before that I was thinking that it might help if we could find support among some of the more influential kedan. Probably those who have successful businesses or similar. At home, whoever had the ear of a businessman had a very good chance, not guaranteed, but a good chance anyway, of being supported. It might be something we can try for, at some point."

Iroh nodded. "At the least, we no longer have our resources. Even those of us who have money need others to sell us things. Self-sufficiency is not something we can do at the moment. Even farming or fishing would require supplies."

"Right." Enjolras bit his lip as that was voiced. It was the sort of thing that had vaguely crossed his mind, but hadn't really been a thing he'd thought much about. "Hmm those of us with skills, any of them, might be highly in demand amongst ourselves. How does one establish a community with so many things gone? It makes an interesting problem, doesn't it? I wonder if there are any of the kedan glad enough to see us that they would barter. Although..."

He glanced around meaningfully. "I am not sure of what we have that could be bartered."

Iroh considered. "Only our labor and knowledge. And whatever goods we took to the hotel, though most of us packed lightly. It is a bit like being a refugee."

"That is true, actually." A bit like being one of Paris's poor, Enjolras realizes with a little jolt. The difference being that he does have a roof over his head for now, at least. And it is not that he is ungrateful for that, or the fact he is still here...

"It does present a challenge, though." He muses, turning fairly thoughtful, trying to ask himself what Combeferre would have done or suggested if he were still here, or any of the others, actually. What comes to mind is the approach Bossuet might take, with the sort of practical suggestion of Combeferre.

"A meeting of as many of us care to come may be helpful for that. Perhaps out of our combined skills we may find new approaches somewhere, or someone has heard of any sort of place willing to take us on, or at least somewhere that we can make any attempts at it. The worst thing that may happen is we are denied anything, or no one has heard of opportunities and we have to consider something different."

And really, that is about the worst that Enjolras can see has happened here so far. If they are very lucky, maybe this worst will really just become another challenge they can face together. Of course, when he considers skills, and his own, there is not much to be done,really.

"I do wish I had considered more practical skills at some point, but...someone may be willing to teach them too. There could be something, somewhere among all of us."

"I know a few things myself," Iroh said. "My nephew and I were refugees for a couple of months, and I was in the military as a young man. Mostly I can cook and make tea. And play music."

He hadn't brought most of his collection of musical instruments to the Hotel, but he had also purchased them on Keelai, rather than finding ones from home. The kedan seemed to have similar enough instruments, besides a few that required being a shapeshifter to play properly.

"Those could be useful, yes." Enjolras nodded, thinking they were a decent start, the music especially. "Especially the latter one, somehow. They may be willing to listen to music as a start. It does quite a lot towards soothing emotions when they've gotten out of hand." Prouvaire and his flute had proved that more than once.

"As for myself...I write and think, and studied law, a very long time ago." He had to laugh then, thinking of when he had first arrived here. "I tried to organize a group once, to attempt to learn what the law here allowed, but doubtless that's changed very much already. I fence, at least, there is that, and I can heal a very little. Not as well as...I think anyone here with greater magic, and I directed a fighting crew on dragonback when Iskierka and Temeraire were here. I have no idea how the last one translates, but I did learn several types of mending burnt through clothing."

Now, it had not exactly looked presentable, but it was something, he supposed.

"Healing is useful, even if it is only a small amount. Do you mean some special ability or that you know herbs and anatomy?" Iroh asked. All four nations back home had the latter, but healing was far less common and effectively a waterbender's art.

"Both, in a sense." Enjolras explains. "I helped in a small clinic here for a bit. My Etienne was a doctor at home, and he taught me enough to be useful and later, after the explosions, we were in one and the people there...and then another friend was harmed...I wanted to do something and they had me moving about a bit. And, after, the last time that we made landfall, and the monks told me I might take away a few skills from the places where we stepped into the Dreams...

It seemed only right that I learn a bit, to make it easier for everyone. And until we confronted Evandau, there I was. I wish I'd thought to take it up a little earlier, the magical sort. It was quite to good to heal so literally for a change. My friends and I, and many others, tried to heal our country when we were at home. Something much smaller, and more direct can make for a nice change. I have faith that what we did at home helped in its way, but still, seeing the results and knowing that I've brought relief to someone...I do see why it meant so much to Etienne now. I could not have done it there,"

He smiles, saying that, because it really is an understatement if there ever was, but still...

"There is peace in it, here, however. It is not only a comfort to the people I can help, I will say that."

Iorh nodded. "When one can't make the big changes one wishes, reminding oneself that you can make little changes to help others is a powerful thing. Big changes can only be made because enough little changes are built up to make it possible."

Perhaps that might seem strange. After all, Iroh was from a world where a single person was charged with maintaining the balance of history. And, yet, Aang could only do the things he did because there were a thousand people getting him to that moment in history. Easy to see the Avatar, harder to see all the people behind him.

"True enough." l'ABC had done its share of small changes too, as had some of their allies. Their decisions and the ways that most of them had chosen to help earlier on had certainly spread hope, and Enjolras could not deny it, but he had rarely taken the time to see, well, people, instead of The People. There was an objectivity there that healing had taken away now that he'd offered his help with it.

And he could not mind what that had done to him. Not now. Small changes did have their place.

"As cliched as it sounds, every candle, every torch that someone lights does cause the light to grow. And when there are enough of them..." Enjolras smiled, his eyes cast more upon something on the horizon for a moment, then on Iroh, both at the light that must be delivered onto the world...onto many worlds, someday, and something bright caught in his eye there, held fast for a moment, even as his smile held forth.

"But it is all so beautiful." He finished, now brought back to himself and everything that stretched before them. "And even now, as you say, it is the little changes, every candle, and those drive us closer, always."

Iorh nodded. "Exactly. I'm glad you realized that."

"As am I." Enjolras smiled. "And this new world, well, it is something I must keep in mind, I think. That everything we do does have its place. It's rather good to know. Whatever else, it gives me hope we'll find something to be done here and now."

"There are always things to be done," Iroh said. "Living our lives, for one."

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