( open ) happy moonsgiving, everyone! (forward dated to 11/15)

[crocodilesmiles]

Date & Time: All Day, November 15th, 3313
Location: Focused centrally on the Moon Base Cafeteria.
Characters: Any and all!
Summary: It's a feast on the moon under the guise of being a new sort of Thanksgiving! Food, drink, merriment, food comas... lend a helping hand, fill a few plates of goodies, and meet friends new and old!
Warnings: None right now. Please PM this account should anything go beyond a "my grandmother is also reading this and that is okay" level of appropriate.
Notes: Tag in action or prose, and please specify a time of day, location, or activity your character is participating in! (Set-up, the feast, clean up, etc.) Feel free to offer multiple prompts, as your heart desires! Also, Collette is asking for people to write something they're thankful for on butchers paper on the wall before getting their first plate of food. This is 100% optional!

In the morning, the setting up begins. It's hard to say what's a morning versus what isn't on the moon, but using the lighting system as a sort of guide, those who offered to help set up the feast or continue on with the cooking will all be there bright and early.

After things are cleaned, the cooking continues on while further set up of plateware and silverware and hard to break glasses are left to those helping hands with a mind for arrangement details. The whole of one section has been converted into a sort of buffet-style lineup, waiting for the dishes to be complete and set at ready. All varieties of the usual dietary fare have been offered, some in greater quantities than others.

Then comes the time where people stopping by or trickling in aren't just turned around or co-opted into assisting; it's feast time, though not before an announcement that each person getting a plate of food must write at least one thing they're thankful for on a large sheet of butcher paper taped up to the wall. There's a variety of colored markers and pens provided, from someone's personal (and eclectic) collection. It's a soft price to pay for free food and plenty of it!

When the feasting has wound down, so begins the clean up. Tired, drunk, well fed, over fed, or simply content, people will be shuffled out or dragged into helping turn the cafeteria back into working, normal form. What decorations were added will need collecting (or stealing), plates and dishes and cooking implements and pots and pans will need washing, and floors a good sweeping and waterless mopping before things are all back in order. Leftovers, if there are any, will need to be placed in sealable containers and put into refrigeration.

And then, blissfully unaware of anything impending on the horizon, to bed, or different haunts, for the night.

Comments

[crocodilesmiles]

"What? Where?" She looks down at her front, not able to see where it is closer to her right shoulder, by her collarbone. "Awh, man! I thought I'd kept it to just my hands!"

She hardly minds getting dirty, but she'd been trying to be good! Oh well. She'd used washable paints at the very least.

An Exsilium vintage is a curiosity. "What's not expensive for Exsilium? I mean, I didn't know they had their own wineyards or whatever they're called, is it an import?" Look, she doesn't know a thing about wine. But he'd bothered to save it, and now he was donating it to Thanksgiving.

There's something in that to be twice Thankful for.

[commentboxtroll]

"But doesn't orange fit the theme? You could finish adding enough paint to look like a pumpkin."

He smiles over it, but briefly. It fades some when she questions how the wine even came to be! Overall, he doesn't have a clear idea of where it's from, but it's also clear Collette doesn't know all that much about wine! So, he shrugs.

"Wine can be made from lots of stuff, not just grapes. Other fruits, honey, flowers, roots. I couldn't tell you what they used, only that it was local and isn't poisonous. Bitter, too, but what can you expect from limited resources?"

[crocodilesmiles]

With the orange smear across her cheekbone, she's not that far off from some unofficial transformation as it is!

"Are you saying I'm round, C?" She snorts, shaking her head, laughing after a moment. She doesn't figure he's calling her fat in the slightest, or if he was, that it'd be all that serious.

Complain about her weighing too much? Sure. If he didn't, things were either serious, or he'd probably been brainswapped. Caesar and complaints go hand in hand!

All this information about wine is news to her. "It really is? I didn't know any of that!" Alcohol was more complicated than her vague understanding of it -- that kind of understanding that said anything with an alcohol content would get you drunk, if you had enough of it. "Couldn't you change the bitter with honey? Do we even have bees... oh, yeah, we did." She looks thoughtful, trying to recall the different instances where she'd seen bees.

[commentboxtroll]

"No. Gourd-like. There's a difference."

There really is! But no. He's only jesting, which marks him as being in a particularly good mood. Even with the wine question having killed it a notch, that doesn't last long. She doesn't focus on the where, but the what, and he's happy to oblige with answers.

He's one hell of a know-it-all and, for once, this isn't some bizarre futuristic high tech thing!

"You could. Wine made from honey is called mead. I could have gotten some, but I grabbed the first one I saw. I hadn't actually expected to share it at a dinner, you see."

[crocodilesmiles]

"Ah, so you're saying I've got hips. Or else a big butt." Which she can't seem to take seriously, laughing and crossing her arms loosely over her chest. "Guys are supposed to like both. Do you?"

It's a tease, pure and simple, unconcerned with actual response. She likes that he's in a good mood, paired with the fact that she can guess, and doesn't want to confirm, the where the wine comes from. Some stories make better mysteries tonight than explanations.

Honey wine being called mead... she's heard of that in movies! "Oh? What were you expecting to do with it?" Comes her curious question, a hint of the devil in the way she grins.

Personally, she hopes it's something like christen the spaceship by slamming it over the hull, but she suspects it probably isn't that.

[commentboxtroll]

Of all the things to ask! It's always so hard to figure out what Collette might say when he kids around, which is something he's very much reminded of right now. Are guys supposed to like those? No one told him!

"It's not as though I see your butt all that often, so how should I know?"

The rest, however, remains uncommented upon, as he settles on being vaguely embarrassed instead.

"Oh, you know. Have deep and meaningful conversations with the empty bottle. I never did get around to it, though I think that's for the best."

[crocodilesmiles]

"Must be my hips!" She decides, letting it rest with that and a wink. "Though you could always just ask if you wanted to, you know."

... Perhaps that was forward, but she's mostly sure no one else heard, and she's definitely trying to see if she can get him to blush a little (more). The things that aren't entirely kind that make her nights are very silly indeed.

At his admission, her dreams about seeing him christen spaceships die sad little deaths. "I don't think you'd be a very fun drunk," she agrees, reaching out and patting the side of his thigh. "So all for the better, for sure." That the temptation for that sort of escapism was right there is something she suspected. It's relieving in a way to hear him say as much. "Besides, you're too good at dwelling as it is. You'd get maudlin!"

She's super supportive. In fact, she always says the right thing! (Or... not.)

[commentboxtroll]

Oh no. He isn't going to let her get any further blushing out of him. It's been so futile not simply adjusting to how open she is about this sort of thing. Why should he end up being flustered forever?

"It's true. I won't deny it. Would you like me to announce it in a toast?" He wouldn't on fear of all of Collette's overprotective brother-types getting up to immediately kill him afterwards, but still! Two can play this game!

"A gentleman doesn't ask about the a lady's butt, however. That'd be rude."

And to whether or not he'd be a fun drunk, he can only shrug. Caesar wouldn't know, though he would wager on him being a sleepy one, if his few encounters with the generally unwanted glass of wine here and there at important gatherings told him anything.

"I should hope not. If I turned out like that, I don't think I'd ever touch a drink again."

[crocodilesmiles]

The idea of a toast is enough to make her laugh out loud, clapping a hand over her mouth. It's a little too loud right now, given how the feasting hasn't started. Her eyes dance with merriment while she tries to stifle her mirth.

She'd love to see what kind of toast that'd end up being!

"I think that might be a little much," she concedes (her, saying something's a little much? Ha!). "Nice to know we're in company of a gentleman and a lady."

She wouldn't really call herself one, but that was primarily out of an expectation that ladies didn't do things like go sky-diving or attempt to wrestle alligators. Or Hork-Bajir. Or Taxxons.

"Maybe we'll figure it out one day! Until then, we can stick to the water and the fruit juice. Or the punch, but you know someone always spikes the punch."

There's an unwritten law in the universe about that, somewhere.

"I really do need to change before this gets going. Oh! Oh, wait." She looked over her shoulder, back toward the kitchens. "There were still some of the water glasses that needed to be brought out over here. I knew I was forgetting something!"

To her it's only a big deal because it takes her more time than most to get ready, or, frankly, do a lot of the things people take for granted. She sighs, resigned to the fact she's going to be part pumpkin for dinner, or else be arriving late. That's not so bad, really, just bothersome!

[commentboxtroll]

Her conceding? That's a win. It should be celebrated! How, he wouldn't know, but it seems like a thing to do. He does pull a face at her alternate drinking suggestions, though.

"You know I have had alcohol before, right? It's not as though I'll being a giggling idiot after one drink."

Unlike some people he could name! But since one of them would be Ellie, he isn't going to do that. They don't need extra reminders of those who aren't here with them today.

"And you go. I can go get the glasses and bring them out," he adds, looking off in the same direction she does once she recalls that. "I did say I'd help set up, didn't I?"

[crocodilesmiles]

"It's still fun to imagine you like one!" Mostly for the sheer contrast to the rest of how he is. He's probably had more exposure than she has, though on one occasion she had turned very giggly, and on the other she'd turned extra touchy. His luck just happened to be on the giggly side that had inadvertently gotten him punched in the face.

Some people took chess way too seriously.

Her surprise lasts for a moment, since she hadn't expected for him to volunteer to finish out the task she'd assigned herself. "Yeah, you did!" She smiles, expression softening. Some of the tension in her shoulders bleeds out in relief. "There shouldn't be more than a stack that still needs to be brought out. We were washing the things from this morning, they had to wait until after the other stuff got done."

She reached out, either to nab his hand or some corner of his clothing. One will earn a squeeze, the other a tug. "Hey. Thank you, C."

[commentboxtroll]

"It must take a very impressive imagination to even imagine that."

For that alone, he could only hope it never came to be. The last thing he needed was everyone seeing him as some ridiculous drunk. That part, he would happily (well, not too happily, keeping in mind that punch) leave to Collette.

Leaving in mind, he almost took off as soon as she mentioned where the glasses were, but the tug on the corner of his shirt as he tried to pass stops him for a few more seconds. He looked back and, as he so often does, shrugged.

"It's only some glasses. It's not that important."

[crocodilesmiles]

It's a smile he probably recognizes by now, the kind that's a little more aware of herself and the fact people don't have to do little nice things for each other. He says it's not that important, but it's important by the very structure of how it's said.

"Yeah, I know. Still. Thanks."

She lets go, tucking her chin in a little as she smiles, looking upward at him through her eyelashes.

Man, she'd totally try to pull him down and kiss him right now if she felt he'd tolerate it, but public spaces and displays of affection with Caesar went together about as well as oil and water if she wasn't subtle.

Though she finds she appreciates that about him too. Surprising even herself!

[commentboxtroll]

He wonders how many times he's seen that look by now, but it never was something he'd bothered to keep track of. Again, she gets a shrug in reply.

"You're welcome," he'll at least manage to say that this time around! Then he waves her off, gesturing towards the exit to her own wing. "Now go on. Don't waste time making eyes at me, geez..."

[crocodilesmiles]

She laughs, hands going to her wheels and rolling herself back a half step. "One day!" She says, and it's an empty threat, for a full promise Collette has her own boundaries she discovers in all the little ways she didn't realise before.

That's all from her, aside from the sound of her laughter, before she's turned and gone on, heading back to her room and the comfort of a clean change of clothing.