2022-03-03 - Barnacles Have the Longest . . .

It's early morning, the there's a little buzz at the shop as the regulars stop in to get their morning fix of caffeine and to go breakfasts. Having a little bit of time before she has to go in and start setting up her new clinic, Ava has decided to eat her breakfast at a booth and enjoy the slow place. A massive pot of coffee is already sitting in front of her, and she's working on a small plate of bacon strips as she goes over some sort of paperwork in a brown folder.

She's dressed down from her usual attire, probably due to the fact that she's going to be moving things around today. Jeans, sneakers, and even a t-shirt. Who knew that she even owned them? Of course there's a blazer and a nice jacket hanging up nearby, probably hers. The mood is relaxed, her shoulders slouched and easy as she enjoys her lazy breakfast.

Some people have to look presentable for work, to meet certain dress code standards. There are rules for this sort of thing at Copenhagen University, even when teaching online. You can't turn up in a culturally appropriated costume (there was one hell of a kerfuffle in the press a few years previous when KU banned student union theme parties based on stereotypical ethnicities). They're hefty standards: For one, you have to wear clothes. As far as Ravn Abildgaard is concerned, it's almost too much to ask at the time he gets online. Bloody nine hour time zone difference, indeed.

He often ends up at Espresso Yourself or the Grizzly at some weird hour because of this, wearing what he calls his 'teacher's uniform' -- black turtleneck and matching blazer, for the casual academic look. Not casual enough to signal slack to his students, not formal enough to intimidate anyone. Business casual, or something.

Today is one of those mornings and he should know better than to go here. All he wants to do is face plant into a large cup of coffee. All he gets to faceplant in is a Strawberry milk Dalgona coffee. It's probably very nice if you're a sixteen-year-old sugar addict. He's not.

The familiar glow catches Ava's attention over the top brim of her folder, causing her to shift it down with the push of two fingers, eyes lifting to spot Ravn. She spies the drink that he ends up with and tilts her head a little bit, face screwed up in a look of horror and curiosity. "What kind of monstrosity is that?" The folder lifts so that she can gesture him over to join her with it. Thanks to the grease on her other fingers from the bacon, she is one handed for the moment, folding the folder back up and slipping it aside.

"Why is it that every time I see you here, you're always drinking some terrible, horribly sugared drink that you don't appear to be enjoying very much?" Ava wonders with a look of faint amusement. "Also, you look exhausted. Not sleep very well?"

"Oh, I haven't gone to bed yet. Afternoon in Copenhagen means very late at night here. I have a very simple sleep pattern: Most of the time I just don't." Ravn decides that this is as good an invitation as any and claims a chair at Ava's table. He thuds down on it in a not particularly graceful fashion and looks at the calorie bomb in a glass he's been handed by a brightly smiling Della the Day Manager. "And that -- is what happens when a tired and distracted Danish guy asks for an Americano and then stupidly proceeds to try to lecture an American barista on what that means."

Behind the counter, Della's smile widens.

"I'm amazed, a little flattered, even. She comes up with disasters that aren't even on the house menu. She saved pumpkin spice from autumn to serve to me in February." Ravn shakes his head and chuckles. There's a lot of energy going into this somewhat one-sided prank war, that's for sure.

Then he cants his head and takes in Ava's casual look. "Take it you're not needing to dress up for hospital and the so-called professional look today?"

"You know that that's not healthy for your body, correct? Eventually that's going to come back and bite you in a very dangerous way." Ava offers Ravn an appraising look. "I say that as a doctor. As a friend, I might just chloroform you so you get a little sleep. Sadly, it doesn't work as fast as they show it working on the big screen. That's all lies. I'd have to hit you with something in a needle." There's a laugh. She watches him glance to the drink, then to the counter. Seeing Della's grin, she understands.

"Ahhhh. See. Never piss off the baristas, darling. Coffee shop, bar. They who control the drinks, control you."

Attention is brought to her close and Ava glances down for a moment. "Oh, right. I'm actually having to do some manual labor today. Moving things into and around the clinic to get it set up. Best not to get my usual cloths dirty."

"Hell, the best thing about living abroad and working remotely is that I don't have to dress professional." Ravn grins slightly. "I am very much at my happiest in a pair of jeans and some shirt, and boots I can walk in. I will die on the hill that the only sane reason for wearing a tie is that you hope somebody will strange you with it. If clothes aren't comfortable, who are you dressing for?"

He glances at the coffee shop's large window, and out at the weather beyond. Miserable mix of rain and snow (except back on Oak Avenue where the yards of number three and five are currently experiencing the sunshine of early June). "Ugh, ghastly weather. Hard to believe that later this month I'll be scraping barnacles off my boat and hoping to get her in the water soon."

"Well, I imagine you have to dress semi-professionally. But only from here up." Ava gestures from her waist and moves the hand upwards with a grin. "That's all they could see, so you could rock some Rocky and Bullwinkle boxers with a nice sweater set if you really wanted to. You might be able to pull off the look." She studies him for a moment, head tilting side to side as if judging. Her assessment? "Eh, probably!"

"I dress for me. The feel of the clothes, the fit. Sometimes how powerful they can make you feel. Or how sexy, depending on the style. I may not even see another person that day, but I'll still know that the outfit is killer, and it'll make me feel nice." Her mug of coffee is lifted as she shifts her gaze out the window at that admission. "But then, I spend most of my time with the dead, so what do I know?" The rain and snow fall, and she watches idly. "It's not so bad. You don't find it peaceful? As long as you're inside and warm, that is." A glance towards him. "Nothing compared to a warm day out on a boat, just floating, though.

"We're in Gray Harbor," Ravn reminds with a small chuckle. "The dead here might very well have an opinion. I take it most of them at least show you the courtesy of staying dead during the autopsy? I've thought sometimes that it must be -- interesting, sometimes, working in death care in this town."

Then he nods. "I get that. Dressing for you, that makes sense aplenty, I mean, that's what I do too. I feel like me in jeans and a shirt, so that's what I usually wear. I get the idea of dressing up to feel powerful -- I know how it works, and I know that people certainly buy into it, looks are everything. But I never felt powerful in a bespoke suit -- I just feel like I'm wearing a costume. Seems silly to spend ten times as much for a high end shirt when it makes you feel like that."

"Well, I met my first ghost the other day. So the ghost have been pretty quiet so far about my fashion sense. But now that my ghost cherry has been popped, I'm wondering how long I'll be able to say that's true. When something happens once, it tends to start a flood. Or so I've noticed is a trend sometimes in things like this."

Ava tilts her mugs in a 'you got me there' sort of gesture. "If I felt powerful in jeans and a t-shirt, it'd be a lot cheaper than my current wardrobe, I give you that. There's no sense in wearing something that makes you feel anything other than amazing. If that's what does it for you, go for it. Besides, you pull it off great!" She takes another sip. "So what's her name? Assuming she's a she, of course."

"That," Ravn smiles lopsidedly, "depends on who you ask. The registry name is Vagabond -- or actually, Vagabonden since she's registered in Swedish. Someone sailed her here from Finland where she was built, and sold her off back in the seventies. This is actually a pretty common thing -- buy a sailboat in Scandinavia, sail it to the Caribbean and sell it to finance the trip."

He contemplates sipping the monstrosity in front of him and then decides against. "Whoever bought her, painted her pink and mint and grey, and used her for oceanic pot parties. Which is why if you ask Vyvyan Vydal, her name is The Good Ship Cannabis Discowhore."

"Oh, Vagabond is a very nice name. Vagabonden as well, though Swedish is not one of the languages that I know. It still sounds nice. I can't say that The Good Ship Cannabis Discowhore really rolls off the tongue quite as nicely, however." Ava glides out of the booth for a moment and hurries over to the counter. She returns a moment or two later with a second mug, which is promptly set down in front of Ravn. The massive coffee pot on the table is nudged in his direction a second later after she's reseated.

"Do you call her Vagabond, then? Or do you prefer Discowhore?"

"I call her the Vagabond." Ravn grins. "I scrubbed her clean right down to stripping the paint. Then I painted her blue, and had a couple of folks with that kind of gift even wipe her clean with the shine. Any lingering smell of pot or underage teenage girls with too much mascara is entirely on my imagination. I do get the occasional funny comment from older folks on the marina, though -- apparently she was a bit of a legend in her time."

He shakes his head. "Which explains why she was for rent cheap when I came into town and needed somewhere to stay -- and didn't feel like braving something aptly named the murder motel."

A furtive glance goes Della-wards; wouldn't want to deprive Ava of her coffee privileges. Then, with a switch almost worthy of a stage magician, the fresh cup of coffee, real honest to god coffee, is in front of him -- but behind the potted plant on the centre of the table, not immediately visible from the counter. It's a long and bloody war, this. Many casualties, much gritty.

"I'll make sure to use her proper name, then," Ava assures. "If I catch him, I'd be happy to give Mr. Vydal a little wrap on the knuckles for using the wrong one as well. If you'd like. He seems the type who doesn't have others putting him in his place very often. Much the other way around, I imagine." She smirks at the idea.

"No, murder motel is not where you'd want to stay. Finding your own boat was a good move. I'm glad you were able to find a good one, and that it was able to get so clean. For being raised around the water, I never really learned much about boats, other than to have a healthy respect for both them and the water. Also, not to go swimming here alone. Ever. In any of the water. Hell, sometimes I worry about taking baths here." Sadly, she doesn't appear to be kidding about that. "Which is a real shame, because if I do get a nice little cottage, I'm going to want one of those bear foot tubs. The big ones.

She helps tuck the coffee out of the way, making sure Della can't possibly see it from her angle.

"In my country, you can literally not get an hour's drive from the water. It's not physically possible -- Denmark is a peninsula with an archipelago surrounding. We have the Atlantic on one side and the Baltic on the other, and the peninsula is simply not wide enough that you can move one hour from the other and not be closer to the other. The King's Cruiser is the most common sailboat back home so it seemed almost -- well, like some higher power was dropping not very subtle hints when I was looking." Ravn chuckles. It's Gray Harbor. There may totally have been hints dropping but it probably did not originate with a higher power.

His thoughts wander back to the elegant, always dressed-for-a-cover-shoot Pātisserie owner and then chuckles. "It's true. Vydal's got some serious attitude on him. He's one of those people who are decent human beings, though -- I mean, I'm glad I don't work for him, and he certainly can deliver a tongue lashing with all the efficiency of his British upper class upbringing. But he's not an asshole. A lot of people with that kind of background are. Vydal is just a man with the confidence to say be up front about his likes and dislikes. I find it easier to relate to people like that, not going to lie -- at least you know what they're thinking."

"When things look like they are meant to be, sometimes you just have to take it at face value. Though, I'm not going to lie, that sort of thinking has gotten me into a pickle on occasion. But, I was younger then." Ava waves a hand dismissively as she speaks of her past self. "You took it at face value and it turned out to be a great investment, so you know exactly what I mean, right?" Her hands wrap around the cup. "I know you felt the pull to come here and all, but do you ever feel the draw to go back home? Do you miss it?"

Considering Ravn, she'll have to take his word on Vyv. She's only met him the once. He was pleasant with her, so there were no complaints there. "I would never want to work under a chef. They all seem like perfectionists. Working alone at least gives me space to think." A nail taps against the glass mug as she nods. "Forthright people are good in that you know where they stand, that's for certain."

"I tried. To go home, I mean." Ravn waits for Della to turn towards a sound in the kitchen before quickly sipping his coffee-without-heart-disease. "I came into town in July. My visa was expiring and I had some things lying about with a lawyer in Copenhagen, so I went back home to sort things out over Christmas. I wanted to find out what it would feel like somewhere else -- would I still have this feeling of belonging in Gray Harbor, or is it more of a local enchantment, so to speak?"

He hitches a shoulder. "I hadn't touched down for my overlay in Reykjavik, Iceland, before I was aching to get back. I did stay home a week, hell, a woman from here even flew out to join me for the sake of old Danish architecture, but it never felt like going home. It felt like visiting a past that isn't really relevant anymore."

"That seems like a worthwhile experiment to try out." It seems like Ava is genuinely curious about how it turned out, eyes riveted. They only turn away to follow the noise in the kitchen and watch as Della turns away for a moment. Then they are right back on Ravn.

"So you didn't even make it all the way home before it started to try to tug you back? Wow. That's not terribly surprising, but it's not encouraging at the same time. Not great if you're looking to take a long, peaceful vacation away from here." Ava's brows knit in the middle. "Part of me wants to say that it's horrible how that turns out and say sorry. But, I imagine that since it's how you -feel- now, it's somehow not the right thing to say. It's tricky like that."

"It probably matters that I don't feel I have anything much to go home to. If I had a warm, welcoming family and circle of friends back home it might be different. I feel like my friends are here, and my family isn't close." Ravn nods and offers a small smile. "I don't know. I do think there is a bit of honey trap effect. But if that's the case -- I am the fly who crawled back out of the pitcher plant, took a look around, and decided to turn around and hop back in."

He fixes those steel greys on Ava and cants his head a little. "But it's not too dissimilar for you, is it? You got out. You had a career somewhere else. And yet you came back. Your prospects of becoming Somebody in medicine aren't great here, unless by somebody you mean chief physician of some ward on a rural town hospital."

"A warm, welcoming family and friends would help, yes. I'm sorry those weren't a thing for you. But it probably would have made the irresistible draw of this place far more bittersweet in the end. So maybe it was better?" It seems like Ava is trying to make it sound a little better. "As far as honey traps goes, Gray Harbor could use a little more honey and a little less trap."

Fixed with that look, she nibbles her bottle lip for a moment and offers a one shouldered shrug. "Kind of? My intention wasn't ever to stay out. I only left to further my education, and always planned on coming back. It's where my family is." No real mention of friends though. With her schedule, maybe she doesn't really have many. "I wasn't ever looking to be some big name doctor. I just want to keep growing and learning so I can be the best I can be for Gray Harbor and it's people."

"I read an anthropological study once -- eh, to be fair, I read the summary of an anthropological study -- that suggested that humans aren't actually hardwired to cope with thinking outside of their band of roving primates." Ravn toys with a teaspoon; those gloved fingers are rarely at rest for long. "We can understand larger issues intellectually, but emotionally, it is difficult for us to genuinely feel for the world -- we can empathise with world hunger, but it's not personal for us unless we're in it. It's a lot easier for us to feel connected to a local community and ignore the world at large."

He chuckles. "Of course that study suggested that the sphere we can identify directly with is maybe a hundred people at most. Which explains, I suppose, why even in Gray Harbor, there is the community of people like us who see strange things, and the seventeen thousand and something others who don't."

"Are you Cliff Noting me an anthropological study?" Ava asks in a tone full of amusement. She laughs behind her coffee cup before taking another long drink as she considers the truth in his words. "Can you imagine what this town would be like if it were seventeen thousand of us that could see all the strange things?" A breath blows past her lips and pushes a strand of hair from her face. "That would be a nightmare."

"I like connecting with people. It's part of why I wanted to be a doctor. I've always had a connection to the flow of life around me. But outside of my family I don't know how much of a connection I've really had with many people," she explains. "I wonder if I've ever really found my band of roving primates as it were."

"I don't." Ravn chuckles. It's a pretty ridiculous comment from the guy who literally does most of the organising at the local community centre. "I'm not very good at it, either. I know it doesn't look that way now -- I've kind of found my shelf here, I suppose. I used to be someone who might not talk to others for weeks at a time and be just fine that way. Perfectly happy to just travel, and never stay anywhere long enough for anyone to learn my name or me to learn theirs. To be that Danish guy, or was he Swedish, whatever, we met at the bus stop in Florence, can't even remember what he looked like."

He twirls the teaspoon. "And then you come here, and somehow, everyone is suddenly a lot more real. Suddenly I care whether it's cold for the guys under the boardwalk, and Mrs Jankowski is worried that her neighbours' cat might turn into a monster, the mermaids did in fact eat a tourist from Olympia, and I'm plotting with my neighbour to set up a faerie landscaping service. It's weird, but in a way, it does feel like my band of gorillas, yes."

"Maybe that's the difference. From growing up outside of the bubble and then coming into it. Rather than growing and blooming inside of it. For me it was always here. I always felt those pulls, and cared about those things. It's just that little bit extra that always had a hard time clicking into place." Ava shakes her head like she's snapping herself out of a reverie.

"Sorry, that's kind of a downer. For what it's worth, it's been really easy for me to hang out with you and Una. A comradery that just kind of fits that I'm not used to. I appreciate you guys for that." She lifts her mug in cheers towards Ravn, offering a dimpled grin. "To friends and faeries. Did you walk past Una's on the way here. Is the garden still up and good?"

"Oh yes. Our yards are currently celebrating early summer. If this keeps up it's going to look funny next fall when everything else turns to red and gold and then loses its foliage. I'll look forward to seeing the Gazette's explanation for that." Ravn grins slightly. Sometimes, it's worth not playing along with the 'masquerade' just to see the pretzels reality will tie itself into, in order to perpetuate the illusion of normal small-town sleepiness.

He nods and sneaks another sip of coffee behind Della's back. "I find -- this whole situation we are in, it breaks down barriers. You fall into some pretty serious talks with people you wouldn't have looked at twice, nor they at you. I had the same experience when I came into town -- Aidan, Rosencrantz, and a couple of others, it felt like they'd been my friends for a long time, I just didn't know it yet. It's strange how that works -- also right across social boundaries. In this town you can see a street grifter have coffee with a celebrity actor or CEO, and no one thinks it's special."

"Well, we can always rework it into fall colors when the time comes. You never know, you might get bored of the look by then! I imagine it might have changed ten times by then. And that's not including what the faeries might do, after all." Ava reminds with a little smirk. "Though, you're right. I'm curious to see how the Gazette handles it.

"You think I wouldn't have looked twice at you and Una? Or the other way around? Because you and Una are great. Wonderful souls, the both of you. You glimmer beautifully. I definitely would have looked twice and tried to become friends with the both of you," she assures. "But it is nice how much easier things make it. Maybe I just had to leave for a little bit and come back for it to trigger something inside of me. It's never felt quite this easy before."

"I can't say. I know that if I'd kept living like I did before I ended up here, you probably would not have -- not because of arrogance but because we'd never likely have met. I'd be the guy busking at the bus stop and if you turned around for a chat, I'd be gone. Transient was the way I wanted it. Before that? Probably not -- I grew up in somewhat closed, conservative circles, when I wasn't running away from home to hang with carnies and grifters." Ravn chuckles. "But that's the beauty of this place -- it really doesn't matter one bit who you were. The Veil doesn't care if you're male or female or any other combination, it doesn't care if you're black or white or polka dotted. In some bizarre way, it's the great equalizer. I like that."

"Well, I think without the draw of this place, most of the people that are here wouldn't actually be here. So, you are completely right. We probably never would have met. But if you were here, by chance, I totally would have looked twice, because you are a good person. I like to think I'm drawn to good people. Whether that's due to The Veil or just dumb luck. Or maybe it was my parents teaching me all the right things growing up. Who knows?" Ava offers a slice of bacon Ravn's way. "If you were polka dotted, what colors would you want to be?"

"Well, pink and mint didn't work out so great on my boat." Ravn grins and accepts the offered slice. He's not quite hungry enough to order something of his own but bacon, man. "I don't know -- a deep blue and a dusty orange would be a daring combination. And maybe two shades of grey for days I didn't feel like drawing anyone's attention."

He chuckles. "I don't know whether I'm a good person. I suppose that's one of those things where one should let others pass judgement. I do think this town does a number on our empathy -- we either learn to listen to it because we're all in this together, or we shut down completely and it's every man for himself. There are some who feel that way, but they tend to keep quiet about it. After all, if you know that Bob will throw you to the monsters to save his own ass, you're not going to step up and take a bullet for Bob, either. It's a bad survival strategy, letting everyone else know they can't trust you in a bad situation."

You can take the man out of the community centre, but apparently it's harder to take the community centre out of the man. Ravn may realise it himself because he chuckles, again. "Someone told me a while ago that that's who I am here. I'm a guy who connects people. I guess somebody does need to be that guy, and I'm certainly not the guy holding the front line against the monsters."

"Pink and mint could look great together, just maybe not the shades that were on your boat. They would have to be the faint, pastelish shades to really work together. That would not work on any boat, though. The outside of an ice cream shop, though, maybe." Ava flexes her hands, palm up, in a light shrug. "A nice green and gold for me, I think." Not something she has really thought about before, but still the answer comes quickly. "Deep blue and dusty orange would look fabulous on you," she insists after a moment. "I'll have to get you a scarf in those colors now. Not polka dot. I wouldn't do that to you."

"For a town to work, especially a town like this one, we need people of all stripes. The front liners and the connectors are equally important. We're all little, jagged puzzle pieces that fit neatly together when we're all squished into one place. People like you make sure we're in the right place with the right people. I hope you realize how important that is." Ava wonders with a lifted brow.

"Everyone here is important in their own way. It's the nature of Dreams to challenge us -- to put us outside of our comfort zone deliberately and repeatedly." Ravn nods his agreement. "We are playing a long game in multiplayer mode, knowing that at least two guys at the table want to hurt us, and most of the others don't speak our language. One guy is secretly four chipmunks in a trenchcoat, and the moderator has gone out for coffee. Now it's up to us to figure out who's who, while surviving as a dungeon party."

Geek much? Oh yes.

"It's pretty damn amazing sometimes, watching the skills people put into use in order to survive. Once this fall I was staring at a literal dragon sitting on the high school roof, wanting to eat the lot of us sheltering from the hurricane. That's when you think you need ten big, strong guys with swords and other dragon slaying paraphernalia, right? Turns out what we did need was a tired, grumpy toddler mum telling the damn thing to shape up and fuck right back off wherever the hell it came from, because she was done with this shit."

Ava laughs. "My comfort zone is about this big." She gestures to the size of the booth. "So that isn't really that hard to do. But I've lived here so long that I can pretty much take things in stride as they come at me. I'm not always comfortable with it, but I can go with the flow. That's just how nature works. Or at least how it works here." Her head tilts a little bit as he starts to talk about chipmunks in trenchcoats and dungeon parties. "I could see you throwing a dungeon party," she teases, grinning.

She is not a geek. Her mind went a whole different way than his.

"Even if I were a giant, frightening dragon, I would not want to square up again Kailey. No thank you. As powerful as she is, and still able to handle toddlers at home on top of it? It's remarkable, honestly. I'm in awe."

Ravn grins and nods. "I mean, right? Some battles you just need to throw the towel in the ring and forfeit right away. That's one sight I will never forget. Bloody formidable -- but also, again, thinking outside the box. We could never have taken that creature on in a direct confrontation. Shaming it into slinking off would never have occurred to me."

And then that innuendo catches up. Ravn actually pauses -- and then looks sheepish. "I did mean -- you know. An elf, a dwarf, a warrior, a bird wizard in a robe. Not the other kind of party. I don't think I've ever actually attended anything that would qualify as that kind of dungeon party. The closest I've come has been having to explain a few times that I don't wear gloves because I'm some kind of BDSM dom looking for a new playmate."

"Leave it to a mom to figure out," Ava chuckles. "When all else fails, or looks like it might fail, you have to think in a way that will surprise your opponent. The best way to do that is to surprise yourself too. I mean, it stands to reason, right? But still, to be able to shame a dragon at all. That's crazy. I wish I could have seen that."

His sheepish look just makes her smile brighter. "Oh, I see. That's that game, with the dice? Right?" That's about as far as her knowledge of that goes. "Don't worry, neither have I. Gone to one of those kinds of parties, I mean. I imagine that kind of party would actually be kind of terrifying for you. There's pain and then there's pain. Which, reminds me. If I promise to pay you in gourmet coffee, how do you feel about helping me out with moving some stuff around the clinic. Then maybe we can talk a little more about what all has been tried so far. Treatment wise."

"I'm not exactly Mister Muscle, but if you wave promises of good coffee and donuts, I'd be surprised if we couldn't find me and a handful of others who'd love to help." Ravn finishes his coffee (bliss!). "That's the thing -- people here aren't just saying it, they really do want to help. I get offers of help to scrape barnacles. If you've ever prepped a boat for the season, you'll realise that this is the most ridiculously unpleasant, foul smelling and annoyingly repetitive job a man can possibly find. There's nothing sexy at all about it, either -- in fact, being reminded that barnacles have the proportionally largest dicks in the animal kingdom just makes you feel like showering twice when you're done."

He picks up the empty cup and the untouched strawberry insult to coffee. "Bauer Building, yes? Hell, we could get some folks together, get everything done, and finish with an improvised barbecue on the roof terrace."

"Bauer Building is right. Look at you using your people gathering skills to help me get the job done faster and avoid having to talk about your neuropathy. That's some skill right there." Ava offers a playful wink and gathers her things up. "No, barnacle cleaning is not sexy. Also, I did not know that about their dicks, and I don't think that I ever actually needed too. You are super lucky I don't flick you in the arm right now because ugh." She shudders.

She leaves a tip on the table for whoever has to clean up and slides on a coat. "Alright. Let's get this party started."