WEEK 1

[strangerpeople]

WEEK 1

[Well, this is...happening. This is a thing. This is your life now. The Commander is expecting you to just up and kill one another, and then try to get away with it. No big deal, right? You guys can handle this. You won't fall for what she has. She's clearly an idiot. A loud idiot, but still an idiot. She's not going to get one over you.

...Right?

In any case, the Commander's quarters are now open for anyone who decides they can actually stand to be in the same room as her, but beware - any favor you might ask of her is going to come at a price, and who knows what she'll ask you to do if you decide to gain a boon from her. Unless you're a suck-up like Baku - then she'll apparently be flattered. Maybe that's a good tactic to use?


Whatever you do, try not to murder the bread again. The Bread Did Nothing Wrong.


There are fifteen strangers in this place.]



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Comments

[mementodagger]

They do?

[He looks down at his tea in concern.]

Is that why I always want tea in the morning and I'm somewhat grumpy without it...? Should I be worried?

[beguiledcard]

Yeeeeah that's definitely a sign of addiction.

[ The smile he gives is an understanding one. ]

But, it's not the worst thing you could be addicted to, and drinking lots of water can help when you're trying to get yourself off of it.

[mementodagger]

[He's still staring at his tea, though now he looks like he's expecting it to bite him or something.]

If I need it to be at my best, and I'm not when I'm without it... perhaps I should wean myself from it. There are times when I've had to go without for days, if not weeks at a time. If money was scarce, other supplies took far greater priority.

[beguiledcard]

Guess that's fair.

[ He gives a nod. ]

I don't know about your world... But, where I'm from, we have non-caffeinated tea. If your world does have that, maybe you could turn it into something that helps you sleep, in the future.

[mementodagger]

I know some tisanes are good for that sort of thing... things that are brewed as tea is but aren't actually teas, as they lack the leaves from the tea plant.

[His voice softens a bit.]

My mother was skilled with herbal remedies, like many women of our village. She would brew something with sea grass and local flowers that soothed me as a child if I was awoken by nightmares.

[beguiledcard]

[ His expression softens... ]

... My mother used to make me hot cocoa in the morning, if she learned I had a nightmare.

[ Then, things changed. They always do. ]

Anyway, that sounds like it must have tasted pretty good. My-... Someone I knew before liked tea a lot. He's, uh... the reason I was staring, earlier, in fact. [ which... ] Sorry about that.

[ It's rude to stare, after all! ]

[mementodagger]

I'm sorry, I don't know what cocoa is. [A sigh.] There's so much I don't know, it's starting to wear on me.

[He shakes himself out of that and shrugs at the apology.]

No need to apologize. I wasn't offended. Do I remind you of this person, or was it simply the tea-drinking?

[beguiledcard]

Yeah... it was just the tea, in this case.

[ His smile is gentle as he shakes his head, now going back to the initial thing said. ]

And, not knowing what cocoa is, is definitely not something to apologize for. It's a form of chocolate, which is something that comes from the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao.

[ After moving to sit down, he takes a sip of his coffee. ]

Where I'm from, the cacao tree is native to the amazonic valleys. More than four thousand years prior to the year two thousand sixteen, [ meaning his time, ] it was consumed by pre-Columbian cultures along the Yucatán. It was even used during spiritual ceremonies by some people.

Nearly seventy percent of the world's crops, in my day and age, is grown in a place called West Africa. Something that works out pretty great for them, since they need to be in a tropical area. And, fortunately, for a lot of people, harvesting these things isn't restricted to just once per year. In fact, in some places, it's harvested pretty much any time.

[ There's a hint of sheepishness in his smile as he twists a strand of bangs. ]

It's... something that's pretty popular on my world. Just three years ago from my time, it was said that they were harvesting almost five million tons of the stuff, per year. Meaning the production rate increased by nearly two hundred percent in just thirty-nine years.

[ Akira Kurusu likes... reading....... ]

[mementodagger]

[Yurick blinks at the conclusion of the infodump. He understood most of it, only the places not really clicking with him. It's not just the sheer volume of cocoa Akira mentioned (which is staggering, how can anyone grow that much of anything?) but also that the other boy knows so much about something random.]

Are you a scholar, perchance?

[beguiledcard]

[ He gives a sheepish chuckle, lightly rubbing at the back of his neck. ]

More like... I really enjoy learning random facts.

[mementodagger]

Learning for the sake of learning is still a noble pursuit. There's no reason to be embarrassed about it. A farmer might be an expert in nothing more than cattle or corn, but it's still knowledge that someone like a noble would never have, and it's useful knowledge besides.