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

"General." Enjolras approaches Iroh, when he spots him on a walk through the city, aware that out of anyone, when it comes to the new changes, he is likely to have some semblance of serenity about the whole thing. It is not that Enjolras is not overjoyed at all that has happened, and that the kedan tend, on the whole, to be faring well without them. It is, in fact, exactly what he had wished for, but it does leave him with some doubt as to what happens next, and what their place in a world that does not actually need them is.

He has the questions tucked away for later, though, for now, greetings are the most important, and so he is giving Iroh a little nod of greeting. "I am pleased to see so many have returned here, and the new world they've made. It will be an adventure, no?"

"Oh, I've gone back into retirement," Iroh said, waving Enjolras over. "I hope I can stay retired this time. But, yes. It reminds me a bit of returning to Ba Sing Sei. The second time, mind you. Though that was shortly after the war, so I was a bit more recognizable."

Iroh had had a complicated relationship with the city that had been his home before the Turtle. For one, the first time he encountered it, it was at the head of a besieging army, the second as a refugee, and the third as its liberator in the name of Avatar and Earth King.

"I should think that you have more than earned it." Besides that, Enjolras thinks, but does not add, war on such a scale as theirs again would be incredibly unlikely. As odd as things have become, and how strange, there is that knowledge of peace, despite how much more difficult their positions have become. It is a comfort in this anyway, although it moves toward the question.

"This is the first fight of such a scale that I've walked from with success." he might as well admit it. July would have been a successful but for Lafayette, but even so. "It does bring up the question of what happens next. I'd thought I had some idea, but now, the new world's risen in our absence. I think that it is what they needed, but I do wonder what comes next. Have you any ideas besides retirement?"

"Oh, the usual. Find a job, find somewhere to live, see which of my favorite restaurants are still open," Iroh said. "It is good to keep busy, and to keep living."

"To keep living."

Enjolras repeats, the words feeling a little hollow. Not crushingly so, but, still, it presents an emptiness he does not much like just now.

"Good advice, I think. But how to start going about it? They turned me out at the cafe I used to drink at, things like that. Apparently our friends have gained power and have little reason to trust us just now. It will have to be fostered, yes? I do have some hope it might be managed."

"There are always opportunities," Iroh said. "We just have to start small, with a small community."

"Perhaps sticking a bit closer to each other as we are starting out again?" Enjolras suggested, shrugging just a little. "I suppose treating it more like our first arrivals, some of us, would be a way to do things."

"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.

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