2021-09-18 - Yep, The Building Is Still Here (And Renovations Are Ongoing)

Fern had tentatively reached out to Conner after her talk to Ravn to let him know they were going to be meeting up at HOPE to talk about the weirdness and also that there would be food. Then she started trying to make herself somewhat presentable. Ravn had to be right. She didn't have any real withdrawal symptoms so despite the state of the place, maybe she was...drying out a second time? Or it hadn't even been her and maybe instead just a weird Veil Version of her! It was too much for her to try and wrap her head around.

Finally though, she'd made her way to the Center with a couple bags from Grizzly filled with diner food. Ravn was in charge of drinks. She looks like she hasn't slept very well. Her skin is pale and her eyes look a little bloodshot, but she's showered and in clean, comfy clothes and that's a start! She walks in and blinks, looking around. "....Well. This is good?" She half asks to no one in particular. At least it wasn't demolished. If only she could remember doing literally anything to help with the post-storm finishings!

Black from shirt to boots as always; Ravn Abildgaard's only real give-away that he's not quite in charge of his own situation presently is that his hair is even more of a confused mop than usual, and his usually carefully maintained five-o'clock shadow looks more like two days out and where the hell is my shaver. He's got a frame of six coffees -- never know who else is around -- and a small armload of Coke (the liquid kind) and sparkling water (because he doesn't actually like Coke). He's also got the headache of a lifetime combined with half an anxiety attack and a strange urge to giggle every time he thinks of Seth Monaghan losing his underwear on a poker bet, in a Wild West saloon dream. Gray Harbor, never time to get bored -- in fact, time to even eat, shower or sleep seems rather limited some days.

He strolls in not many steps behind, looking around as well -- trying, perhaps, to identify some of the various bric-a-brac lying around, and its ownership. Oh hey, we have an electrical kettle? Neat. Copy machine that looks like it escaped from 1982? Better than nothing. That wall is painted an exciting shade of yellow? Right, then. "At least the place is ... not actually a damp spot with Denny's bleached bones lying in a corner," he allows.

Conner looks like he's gained fifteen pounds. His shirt is looking just a little tight. Weirdly, the thing has been ironed. All of his clothes have been pressed and starched, which...really begs a whole lot of question about why when it is literally a blue jean shirt over a green t-shirt. Why iron jeans? Well, these jeans are ironed. His boots are even shined. Again, why? The man spends an inordinate amount of time plunging people's toilets. Shined shoes are really more of a liability in his line of work than an asset.

His hair is at least as rumpled and mussed as ever.

And really, they at least got day-clothing Conner and not Conner in boots and pyjamas, which is really kind of a plus for all and sundry. It was a result of getting that text, which reminded him that there were, you know, people to see and that he should probably shower because he smelled so, so, so bad. He smelled like Captain Catfish. Nobody wants to smell like Captain Catfish.

So he comes in now smelling mostly of herbal soap and Old Spice, in that sort of fresh showered kind of a way.

He pauses and blinks owlishly at the changes. "It could have been worse," he agrees, rubbing his hand over his head and looking bewildered in the extreme. "Right," he says. "I'm sure glad nothing absolutely normal and explainable is going on. That would almost be terrifying given...everything. Are you two okay?"

Fern was only slightly startled when Ravn and Conner appeared, having been wrapped up in her thoughts while also staring at all the new things. New to the space at least. She finally sets her bags down on one of the tables and summons up a smile . "It's looking nice. Eclectic, but nice." Normal Fern attire was a little quirky, mostly bright colors, and fit well. Comfy Clothing Fern was apparently just jeans and an oversized sweater that was more like a security blanket.

She gives both men a brief look over before starting to unpack the food. "It's good to see you both in person." And it's just extra good to know that her theory of lots of people having this same issue was steadily gaining more proof. "I'd be a lot happier if this was just one big Dream." Fern admits, plucking up one of the bottles of Coke that Ravn has brought in and opening it up. "I am pretty certain I fell off the wagon for reasons yet unknown but that I was in the process of drying out again. Despite the mess. That's where I'm at in my mental map."

"First I woke up in a bed I didn't recognise," Ravn murmurs and opens a water bottle. "And the only clothing I could find was a pink shirt with puppies on. Having half a panic attack about this -- then I hear footsteps outside, only to have Aidan Kinney walk in on me. Texting with several people all freaking out because time vanished for them. Turns out it's his shirt -- and the reason we're in the same house is that apparently I bought that house, and we both live there now. Then I get hauled into a weird Wild West dream where Isi Cameron and I watch Seth Monaghan gamble away his underpants, and as you'd expect, it all ended in a saloon fight. Wake up back at this new house of ours, realise there are people I said I'd get right back to three months ago -- and they are likely pretty damn pissed with me for being ghosted. I'm sort of in the corner of I have no fucking idea but I'd like a pillow to just scream into for a bit."

Conner stares at Ravn and claims a coffee. He looks over at Fern and his eyes soften.

"I...don't think I get to complain, given what you two went through," he decides. "I'll just say you're not alone in...detecting some uncharacteristic behavior in the activities of the 12 weeks we all seem to be missing."

He looks around, notes a sort of quilted pillow over on a piece of furniture, and plucks it up. He offers it out to Ravn with a sympathetic and pained expression on his face. "As for being ghosted, maybe you didn't. Maybe you did get back to them and you just don't remember getting back to them. Maybe they're missing time too, and are going to give you a pass."

Fern shook her head as Ravn elaborated more on his own encounter. "That's just a little too much. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with anything like that. " She muses. "I'd probably have freaked out even worse if I was somewhere unfamiliar. Or if some rando was in bed with me or anything like that." She took a sip of the soda and sighed contentedly. Snap pointing towards Ravn at Conner's assessment. "That's a good thought. Maybe your understudy did all the work for me."

Though she does give Conner another smile. "We all get to complain." She assures him. "None of us asked to miss twelve weeks of our lives. So you vent if you want and for how ever long you want." She claims a seat, surveying the area again. "I'm glad this place is still coming together. Maybe we need to host a townhall or something here for people missing time? Maybe we can try and figure out what actually happened..." A beat of pause. "Especially Veil Side. Because that surely has something to do with this."

"Oh Lord, I hope so," Ravn murmurs to Conner and mimics screaming into the pillow for a minute or so (silently at least). When he looks like he's done being dramatic he adds, "Or maybe I didn't ghost them and we're eloping to Cambodia to get married on Thursday. Or we did last Wednesday, and now they're sitting at the Angkor Wat temple complex, wondering where the hell I went." Better silent-scream again. Drama queen.

"We should maybe ... I don't know. Work the grapevine. Find out quietly who's time lost. Maybe put up a board here, sign names on it as we find out. Regular folks will think it's for a potluck dinner or something, but we'll know -- and be able to check if someone's been contacted by someone else already." Weaselling out, ayep, commencing. Ravn glances at the corkboard -- oh hello, we have a corkboard? -- and nods. Viable plan. And then, because his thoughts are literally all over the place, "I mean, I'd been talking about moving in with Aidan Kinney, as room mates. We apparently just skipped the whole finding a place and moving our stuff bit. Hope his girlfriend is not too mad."

"All I seemed to do was binge-eat Captain Catfish. I'm honestly shocked I'm still alive," Conner says with a soft sigh and a rueful smile, to Fern.

He rubs a hand over his head again as Ravn spins out increasingly unlikely but ever-more entertaining possibilities, and his lips quirk. In that soft-spoken way of his, the humor nevertheless comes. "Don't worry, Ravn. At least if you and I are now married, the annulment can be swift and painless. No hard feelings."

But Ravn is coming up with actual, concrete plans, and he nods thoughtfully. "We may not figure anything out, but it might be nice for people to know they're not alone. Or crazy."

"Captain Catfish? You must have been desperate or something." Fern mused. To Ravn she added, "I feel like if you were already out of the country you would have come to out of the country. If that's any consolation. " She Claims one of the burgers and takes a bite can't help but laugh at Conner's joke. "That would've been an interesting wedding..." She murmurs, taking another bite of food. "One I'd have been sorry to miss even!"

Then she's all ears as Ravn starts putting pieces together. "Yeah, I like that. Even if we learn nothing - people at least have a place they can come to talk." She agrees with Conner's sentiment. "Which is something good in general. A safe space to talk about the crazy shit in this town. Especially this brand of crazy."

"If we are married I bloody well hope I signed a pre-nuptial and I won't have to pay alimony for the rest of your life." Ravn can't help laugh. "Oh Lord. You know it's going to happen, right? Somebody is going to turn up married or pregnant. I told Fern so earlier, when we were texting. We could start a betting pool on who. I'm fairly sure I'm not pregnant, at least."

Just, you know, talking about crazy.

Ravn nods. "It's what we're about, after all. I mean, beneath the fine print and the paperwork that says we're a charity. All actually about fighting back and connecting people like us. Guess the storm was our dress rehearsal -- and now we're in business." He reaches up with a gloved hand to rub his temple before also acquiring a cheese burger. "Still think we should open a betting pool. Pot goes towards the baby shower."

The apartment manager's lips twitch as Fern joins in the joke about the wedding that probably didn't happen. Probably. But then the talk turns to more productive things, and he turns with it. Of course, the thing that comes out of his mouth isn't productivity or planning, at least not right away. "Are we betting on whether someone is pregnant or who?" Conner asks, because these are important questions if one is going to go about setting up a betting pool of any sort.

Then he shakes his head and adds: "Sorry. I need more of this coffee." And he proceeds to get a lot more of it into his mouth while he tries to figure out more ways to help out. Finally he allows: "Some people may need clean-up help. Not storm clean up. Fall out from whatever they did."

"I feel like I don't know people in this town well enough to even begin guessing whose pregnant or if someone is." Fern shook her head. "I'm pretty sure the bet is for the who. The chances of if someone is pregnant or not I'd say are pretty high in the 'yes' category." She elaborated to Conner. "It could be amusing though in general if people wanted to. And the money is going to a good cause! But damn I'd feel sort of traumatized I think if I were the one that woke up pregnant. There'd be so many unanswered questions! So I definitely don't envy whomever might find themselves in that situation."

Fern ate a bit more, starting to perk up some. Had she even really eaten in the last day and a half? She wasn't too sure. But she was sure that eating now was making her feel a little better. "That's a good point. We could offer cleaning services of all kinds. Household. Emotional. Keeping someone off the front lawn..."

"Who", Ravn states firmly. "No idea who. But there will be one. No one who's ever owned a TV set doesn't recognise this story trope. And the Veil runs on bloody story tropes. Somebody woke up married, possibly. Somebody definitely woke up pregnant. Depending on the type of movie, hijinks or tragedy ensues." Beat. "And there's going to be cleaning up, and I guess we're first in line to help." Little does he know about an apartment building full of Captain Catfish styrofoam containers.

He sobers a little at Fern's words, though, and nods. "You're right, it's not a joking matter -- or at least, there's no guarantee that it is. A married couple finds out they're three months pregnant? Congratulations on the happy occasion! A girl finds out she's three months pregnant and has no idea who the father is -- that doesn't sound very much fun at all. I'm all for single mothers being able to raise a child just fine but I suspect most of them would like a say in when. Maybe we should just... run the office pool kind of quietly, at least until we find out who the Veil volunteered up for archetypal trope duty this time."

"I am real good at 'get off my lawn,'" Conner replies with a mild twitch of a smile. "It's part of my job as I'm 'old dude.'" Ask him how many times he's been addressed as 'Hey Old Dude?' It's a lot. More than he'd like. He's not even 50 yet! Okay, it's coming. Soon.

"Let's just run it as a donation pool," he suggests. "Because yeah. It would be traumatizing. I wouldn't say it's for the poor girl who wound up mysteriously pregnant and hopefully not in the Rosemary's Baby portion of the story. I'd just say it's for 'clean up efforts.' Leave it vague. Those who know, know. Those who won't know...won't. And that will be all to the best. If we want to run it as a betting pool make it for something harmless. Like...we ask that DJ who is real good, I forget his name, to pick a playlist for this weirness and people can bet on what it will be and whomever gets the most correct wins."

"Yeah a generic donation pool sounds best while we feel out what's what." Fern mused, sitting up a straighter in her chair. "Because yeah, I'm sure there's all sorts of crazy stuff people are waking up to. Married, pregnant, divorced?? Wouldn't that be a mind fuck." She laughed. "You both lost time and wake up divorced. Oh lord. Speaking of. I have no idea what I said when I apparently drunk dialed my ex. But he's married now. So, I feel sorry for that chick." Fern shook her head again.

" Song of the Century " Fern grinned. "Let the DJ pick it out and everyone else votes on what it is. That could be fun. I have no idea who you're talking about though. So I'm not much help in that department. Clearly I need to get out more. Maybe? I'm hoping I didn't do anything super stupid and just stayed inside for three months."

Ravn scarfs down his cheeseburger and looks blank. "I don't listen to radio much but if you got a contact on a local radio station -- press is press. There was a radio guy who visited the shelter but I don't think he was there to interview people or talk about it. Which is probably good given that he was nearly killed by supernatural weasels because Gray Harbor, so -- I mean, his review might not have been very good. One-ten, would not get chewed on by mustelidae again, something."

He closes his eyes and then takes a sip of his water. "Tell me about it. I am pretty certain that I managed to fuck up an important relationship. But I'll bite the bullet and find out, later."

"I don't have a contact but I can make a contact," Conner replies, shrugging his shoulder. "I like his show, and given what he says on it he knows what's going on, as much as any of us really knows what's going on. I'll see if I can't get a few minutes with him to ask."

He blinks, suddenly, like a startled owl. This...is exactly the kind of thing that would have filled him with anxiety and sent him to binge eat Haagen-Daaz less than a year ago. Now he's talking like just dialing up a stranger and asking them to do things is...nothing at all. It's another one of those weird revelations, many of which he seems to have standing right in this very building.

But of the clear and present anxieties he says: "Whatever happened you guys will fix it. It'll be okay. Just have faith in your ability to figure it out."

"Oh! Ashley." Fern says suddenly in recognition. "I know who you're talking about now, yeah. I've only talked with him once or twice but he seems chill and like he'd go for it." She nodded. Looking to Ravn, she gave him a sympathetic smile. "Only way you'll find out is if you get in touch with them. But if you want someone with you when you do, I'll be happy to be there for you." She offers as she takes another bite of her burger before starting to wrap up the rest.

"It's all be okay in the end." Fern agreed. "Whatever happens or has happened...we'll figure out our way through it." She starts to stand and then grimaces. "And I think I need to excuse myself for a moment." She turns and quickly starts walking towards the back area where the bathrooms are.

"Better you than me," Ravn murmurs to Conner, a little sheepishly. "The idea of just -- talking to someone on the radio or from a newspaper has me sweating blood every time. Always hated it. Cameras start flashing, you can be ninety nine percent certain I'm as far away from them as I can get."

And that of course prompts the man to stare after Fern and exclaim, in a slightly panicked voice, "Wait, what? Why am I talking to press? Half the reason I left my bloody home country was to avoid having to talk to press!"

"I'll talk to the press," Conner says, pat-patting the air and looking after Fern with some concern. Well, she probably just overdid it on the diner food. Hopefully. "Or at least, I'll talk to radio guy. You don't have to talk to anybody. You do enough around here, you should get to take a pass on the thing you absolutely don't want to do. And you've got a bunch of conversations you wanna have with people you're worried about. Preserve your energy for that."

He gives him a quick, sympathetic smile.

Fern didn't get a chance to respond to Ravn's exclamation. She's gone for maybe 10 minutes and comes out looking just a little peaky but the bits of hair framing her face are damp so she likely tried to splash her face. "I live." She picked up her soda and took a small sip. "I think I haven't been eating too much either." She gave a wry smile as she settled back into her seat. Looking to Ravn, "Before, I meant talking to the person you think you've ruined a relationship with." She elaborated. "If you want someone there while you reach out to them, I'd sit with you."

"I'm sure it will be fine," Ravn murmurs and busies himself with peeling the wrapper off another burger. "At the rate this is going -- well, if it affects everyone like us I've spoken to so far, it might very well affect all of us. In which case anyone I ghosted for three months also ghosted me, so it evens out. I'm more worried about what we all did or didn't do. My calendar and calls list suggests I really just ... graded papers, taught online, and in one case, remembered to return books to the library. I've apparently had so little social life I even forgot to pick up my boat and my cat from the family looking after both for me during the storm. Hell, my cat apparently sent 12 weeks prancing around the Veil with its other side counterpart."

"If this was a Veil event, and it surely was, this shift in time," Conner says, words coming slow as he reasons it out, "then it would make sense that we did the must mundane possible things. The Veil can't cover itself if we're doing outrageous things. But it either has a sense of humor, or it just...doesn't understand how to People. So we end up with...inconsistencies in our behavior. So it's unlikely we'll discover any of us, say, committed a murder while under the influence of the time shift. Doing things that are regrettable, foolish, worrisome, hard on our finances or stomachs, sure. Life altering, in the case of any pregnant individuals. But even that is just the result of a smaller thing, a thing the Veil might find to be routine for a human person to be doing."

He frowns, and looks up thoughtfully. "All this to say...it's probably going to be okay, and the kind of thing you, at least, lacking a pregnancy, will be laughing about in a year."

"Probably." Fern agreed. "The world hasn't ended, the town is cleaned up some from the storm. I don't think anything too terrible happened either. Objectively speaking." She pushes a hand through her hair lightly. "I do sort of want to take a trip to the other side and see what's what but I also don't know if I want to know." Her nose wrinkled slightly and she looked to Ravn. "It did?" Asking about the cat. "How do you know?"

"The Veil counterpart dropped my cat off with Kailey Holt yesterday, for a dinner of tuna and meow," Ravn murmurs. "Holt tamed the thing somehow -- the Veil version, that is. I have no idea how she did it, but I suspect it involved a couple of truckloads of fish. This -- Uncat -- takes an interest in its real world counterpart. They seem to be getting along well enough -- which is mildly terrifying in the fashion that you don't really want to annoy a cat who has friends like that."

He scratches his chin. "I think -- our best bet right now is to quietly reach out to whoever we can, make sure that people know they're not alone with the time loss. And that if something happened -- they might not be able to be held accountable for it. There's probably going to be a couple of -- less than great situations. But there might also be some happy ones. And most will probably just be plain confused, bit worried, like the three of us. Nothing dramatic happened but losing twelve weeks' worth of memories is frightening in as of itself."

"It's true," Conner agrees, frowning thoughtfully. And then: "Uncat. Like unbirthday. A very merry one. Or in this case, a very feline one."

He gives a soft nod about reaching out, though says, "I'll see what I can do. I'll maybe start with my residents, it's my job to take care of them anyway. And I was going to run a BBQ for them. It might be a good time for me to take everybody's pulse."

Taking care of them is something that's felt a lot more literal to Conner of late.

"Interesting. Maybe I should get some tips from her. Could be useful to know how to tame a veil creature." Fern mused. "Though..dangerous probably. " Fern takes another sip of soda and shakes her head. "Anywho..."

"Yes, I'll do a few rounds, check in with my clients and-" Ferns eyes widened. "Oh shoot! I need to figure out what's been going on with my clients." She rubbed a hand over her face. The yoga instructor had forgotten all about her clients and the few acrobatics students she had. "Okay, that's first on the list then. Figure out if I still have enough of a client base and also check in on all of them. And drop in to my usual spots also and see how people are."

She looks towards the bulletin board. "Maybe I'll make a flyer or something for an AA meeting too. Or like a 'we all have problems, come share yours' sort of thing."

"Check your calendar," Ravn advises to Fern. "Mine makes it very clear I took care of my work. I've graded essays, I've tutored my students. I've done all the boring, menial stuff on autopilot, it seems. If the Veil really wanted to fuck with us, all it'd need to do would be -- not doing those things. I mean, most our lives would collapse -- bills to pay, friends lost, jobs lost."

He gets up to pace around a little; as always, the Dane seems to move between extremes -- languid and relaxed, or wired like a cat that stepped in a puddle. "I know several people in City Hall -- I'll check on whether anything major went down there, someone sold half the town to development or something. And I'll try to -- get this place up and running, make sure someone's here twenty-four seven for walk-ins. I guess we skipped the house warming party but we're in business?"

Beat. "Of course that means now's a good time to think about projects and raising funds for them. There's a lot of people along the Chehalis who lost their homes, still finding their feet even if it's three months later. We could look into doing some kind of support for them too. Veil's got to have the perfect crop of despair there, people who have lost everything to the river flooding."

"Just have another party and don't call it a house warming," Conner advises. "Call it a fundraising dinner and use it to raise some funds for the people who lost their homes. That gets the party going, gets a bunch of people in one room to check in on at once, and raises money. Three ducks, one row." Because Conner, you see, would never go around killing birds with stones. At least, not unless they were venomous carnivorous Veil birds or something.

A pause, and he notes: "It will be a good time to recruit more volunteers, too."

"A fundraiser dinner is a good way to spin it. Maybe we can put on some kind of recruitment drive as well." Fern agreed. "Set up to have proceeds go to the people in Chehalis and other areas who still need help with the clean up. For the recruitment drive maybe we can put on a weekend soon where we're doing clean up around the area, invite people to come out and they can sign up to volunteer if they want to. And depending on how it goes we could try to do a weekend like that every month or every other month. Even if we don't' get a lot of actual volunteers signing on, at least we have people thinking about us. "

The Dane taps his lip with a gloved finger. "Fundraiser dinner does sound like a good idea. And like my personal nightmare," he admits. "I'm really not that kind of person -- the social gathering, shake hands with the Mayor and the main donators, wear a tie and grease people up kind of bloke. Which isn't to say it shouldn't be an option on the table with the rest. I'd kind of considered the idea of charity calendars -- invite people and shops to send in a picture of their shop and somebody looking good. Pick the twelve best pictures for a printed calendar. I mean, up to people and shops what they want to put on paper, and I'm positive Sweet Retreats will be Everett Woods in a Speedo, but whatever works?"

"Whatever works," Conner agrees, though one can bet there will not be any pictures of Conner in any sort of swimwear out in front of the Broadleaf. That's just not his style.

"You could gather local recipes too. Put together a Grey Harbor cookbook that people might want to buy. There's all sorts of things we could do that might be fun and foster that community spirit. We could hold, if you don't want a dinner...we could hold a little fair. You know, dunking booth, bake sale, bounce house, that sort of thing. Big lunch with burgers and hot dogs. Let people let their kids run around. We'd need a spot to do it but...I mean the Mayor might still show up and want to shake hands, but at least you're likely to be wearing a t-shirt when he does it, and so is he?"

"I mean it doesn't have to be a formal sort of dinner. More like the barbecue Conner was saying he's going to put together for his tenants. Something casual and whatnot." Fern mused with a light shrug. "I'm down for helping with whatever is decided and I'm not particularly set on an idea. They're all good ones." She smiled. "The fair idea would be good for a recruitment drive aspect too. Get people in a lighter mood..." She looked outside and then back to them. 'What about some kind of Fall Festival? We could plan it for the middle of October or something? Companies can rent space for stalls, we can maybe do a haunted hay ride or something? Definitely would have to figure out a big enough spot for everything but that could be pretty fun."

"I think those are all excellent ideas -- and I will get in a suit if I have to, just please don't put me anywhere I need to give a press interview or a speech." Ravn's features speak plainly: Not unless you want to have to drag me screaming out from underneath a table. "I like the fair idea very much. That kind of comes with a date on -- Halloween, right? The cookbook and the calendar, we got a little more time."

He glances to Conner, catching that look a moment ago. "And nope, I'm not going to be draped across our doorstep in nothing but optimism and a carefully positioned fig leaf, either. Wouldn't have to be an erotic theme, though -- Pātisserie Vydal isn't going to have a naked girl advertising their newest creations either, and the Poorhouse probably will want Davis flogging their karaoke nights."

"Do we know of a photographer who could help us put it all together?" Conner asks, his lips twitching at what will and won't be making a calendar. He nods his head about companies renting space for stalls. "And renting out stalls will probably bring in a fair sight, no puns intended, more money than the ticket sales will. Though if we already have calendars and cookbooks available for sale, then yeah. Get everyone spending their donation money at one place, while they're having fun, so they don't get donation fatigue, and we can help ensure that the costs of the fundraiser don't outstrip the amount of funds raised. Which. Could happen. If we're not careful."

He exhales and says, "Okay. We need a concrete plan now. Otherwise we're not going to get any forward momentum. Start to finish what we need to do, and who does what, or who we're going to ask to do what, and who does the asking."

Fern stood up, wandering around and rifling for a few moments before finding a notebook and pen and returning to the table. She started to write out something quickly, but neatly and eventually spoke up again after another sip of soda. "Okay. To-Do list." She starts reading off the paper. "Reach out to local businesses to ask about participation in a cookbook, calendar, and/or Fall Festival. Reach out to printing companies - maybe one local if there is one? - for pricing on putting together a cookbook and calendar. Find a plot of land where we can host the Festival. Maybe look into permitting around town like they did that Masquerade thing a while back?" Fern speculated. "We could just turn the whole town into the Festival spot and have a hay ride that loops around through the forest and back into town." She tapped her chin. "And then we figure out pricing for everything."

"Halloween office party too," Ravn murmurs. "Something low key, just -- come and go, bring the kids, carve a pumpkin. Nothing big -- need to make sure that when we're not trying to raise funds we connect ordinary people, instead of trying to be fancy. I'll get on printing services and talking to the local shops -- pretty sure that if I hit up Vydal and Gyre, rumour will spread and shops will start coming to us lest they get left out. A plot of land ought to be possible -- they had a festival in the park last year, and well, we have friends in town hall. I do like the idea of using the whole town as a fairground, encourage people to put up their own stands and activities."

"Yeah, the whole town saves a multitude of ills, and then people can just go into the local businesses, maybe some they've never been in before. I know there are a bunch of stores in this town I've just never gotten around to setting foot in," Conner muses thoughtfully. "Okay. What do you want me to say when I talk to the radio guy? Ashley, that's his name. Am I promoting the festival, the Halloween thing, getting yourself in the calendar, or am I encouraging people to seek help, or both? Or even just asking for donations and saying what we're doing to help the community, or just encouraging people to visit our website? Do we have one? Where do you want the focus of that conversation to be?"

"I think focus on the calendar and cookbook would be a good start personally. And taking out some space to advertise the help groups. The Festival is going to be a little trickier to set up and so we want to make sure we have the backbone in place before doing anything more than an interest check. I'll start looking into what we need to make the Festival happen. Like permits and everything. And can help with reaching out to the locals. Maybe print up a few flyers to put up around town and spread the work about the calendar and book." She started to stand up again and put on another smile. "I think we have a good plan in the works. It'll be exciting to see it all come together! Oh and yes an office party would be good too. We don't want to get too big for our britches." Fern agreed.

"I think I need to lay down now though. I'm still not up to hundred percent. But this is a good new focus. And Ravn, once you have an idea on pricing , let me know and we can start workshopping some prices."

Ravn taps a gloved finger against his lips a moment and looks to Conner, thinking about his inquiry. After a moment he suggests, "Maybe talk about what it is we do? There are charities enough begging people for money or trying to guilt people. Never thought I'd say it but we've actually got more money than we need right now -- startup donations have been rather larger than I expected, for one. So while that money won't last forever, we can afford to approach media with an attitude of connecting communities, rather than asking for financial help. If this Ashley bloke wants a tour, give him one. If he's like most media people I ever had to deal with, he'll just ask for a few lines he can quote on the air rather than an actual interview."

He shrugs and adds, "Of course, if the bloke actually wants an interview, find out whether he wants to talk to just you, or have a go at all three of us. I don't like press but I'll survive it. I have an appointment with -- uh, some Addington lawyer I'm not familiar with, too, wants to look at our finances for some reason."

He nods at Fern and smiles before getting up himself. "Maybe we should call it a day. It's certainly been an interesting day. I'm as of yet not certain whether I have one roommate or two, and in case of the latter, who the second roommate even is."