maskormenacelogs | [ SEMI-OPEN ]

WHO: Those who have been invited & anyone who would have a reason to visit Maurtia Falls #010! Wondering if you fit into that category? Just contact anyone with an involved character (Andy; Rex; Martin; Cassandra Igarashi; Dio; Archie) and ask!
WHERE: Maurtia Falls #010
WHEN: TONIGHT? TONIGHT.
WHAT: The soldierfam has decided that regular group dinners are good for Martin, and this time they've got a few party crashers!
WARNINGS: None anticipated; will change if necessary!

At a glance, one could easily mistake Maurtia Falls #010 for being entirely uninhabited. Dio rarely returns home and Rex and Marty only have a handful of belongings between the two of them and Rex is meticulously tidy, returning everything to exactly where it ought to be - if anything, it's Andy who makes the biggest mess around the place, and she doesn't even live here.

Despite every sign to the contrary, however, they do live here, and it winds up being a hub of activity whenever one of Martin's guardians - if that's truly what they can call themselves - decides that it's about time to get everyone together for dinner. In Anderson's absence, Rex has taken on the opinion that cooking can't be that hard, which is how they wind up with one window open, a casserole dish burned black soaking in the sink and an assortment of take-out on the table.

(As it turns out, it is that hard - and he found a combination pizza & Chinese food take-out place, whiich means that it can only be better.)

In all, there's not much to do or see here; there's food, Rex the goldfish in his tank, a soccer ball neatly tucked close to the house in the backyard, and a mysterious shelf called "Martin's Things" in the cupboard. Otherwise, you're stuck with nothing more than some potential awkward conversation. Have fun, kids!

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Martin's face colors a faint shade of pink, and his eyes dart away.

"I, I don't know," he admits, scratching at his elbow. "I mean-- I don't know. There's a...a lot of different kinds. All over, everywhere. And sometimes the people on the TV talk about...some being better than others. I don't really know anything about it. Sorry."

At this point, the amount of things Martin feels the need to apologize for is getting to her. Both in the sense of it happening over and over, and in how bizarre it is. Her knowledge of Martin's background isn't thorough, but this doesn't imply good things about it.

"Look, as long as it's not giving me food poisoning, I'll deal with it." She never really indulged in the benefits of fame the way many of the other gods did, after all. "And nobody here strikes me as someone who'd complain about it too much."

"I guess not."

Stupid. Obviously the food is fine, or someone would've said so. He should've figured that, but of course. Stupid. He looks toward the kitchen table and the array of picked-over things, frowning.

"Most of it...I've never heard of before," he admits, keeping his eyes on the table. "Until being here, I mean."

Cassandra strokes her chin. "That honestly makes more sense than how it is for most of us. I mean, Lachesis picks from hundreds of worlds and nearly every one happens to have the same definition of pizza? Wouldn't that be close to impossible statistically if there really are infinite worlds?"

Now she's thinking out loud. Maybe this is a little beyond poor Martin.

"I...never mind. What did you usually eat?"

He stares at her curiously as she muses on pizza. He'd offer up the point that he'd never even heard of the stuff until now, but...maybe that'd make her unhappy to hear. Best left out unless she really cares to know, perhaps.

He blinks when she questions him again.

"Um." His mouth tugs on one side in a thoughtful frown. "He-here? Or...where I was from?"

"Either."

This wasn't the kind of conversation she expected to get into, but it's hard to get her to stop being curious about something once she starts. "There's really nothing here you recognize?"

"We-well, I know what pizza is now," he says quickly, blushing. "I mean, things like...like cheeses or potatoes or, or uh...uh, beets or carrots. I know those. But, um--"

He glances over toward the kitchen table and all the takeout boxes scattered about.

"Things like...like what's in that--" Pointing at the Thai cartons. "I don't know those. Food is a lot different here."

"At least you have basic things. I was worried you were going to describe...glowing alien fruit or something."

It's getting harder to surprise her, but that doesn't stop her from feeling exhausted by every further revelation she gets from some of these people.

"What you're saying is that fast food isn't really a thing. Considering you're dealing with a monster infestation, that actually makes sense."

His mouth quirks. Why on earth would food glow? That's weird. He shakes his head, allowing himself to smile faintly.

"Lumas -- our handlers," he can't remember if he told her of them, "they take care of the food. So we eat what they give us, and it works out fine. Aside from maybe tasting weird now and then, I don't think I've ever bothered to wonder on it much."

He scratches at his cheek, thoughtful for a moment.

"I'm not sure what people do for food there, though. I'm sure they can make food like this, since they're humans, too..."

"You have handlers?"

There really isn't much Martin can say about his background, at this point, that stops her from thinking he comes from a place that's magnificently, wildly screwed, particularly in how it's made him think he's somehow not human. Every detail she gets about it just makes her more certain of that, and also makes her sure that just telling Martin that isn't going to help him understand it.

"I'm sure you could make that if you tried. There's nothing stopping you from just buying the ingredients." She glances at the charred dish. "Unless something's wrong with the stove here."

"Oh, I--I know." His mouth twitches again, his smile more nervous. "I mean, a little. It just wasn't really my place before. It's...another thing to learn here, is what I mean. Sorry."

Darkov hands weren't built for baking bread; he rubs his fingers across the grooves on his palm while thinking that, his shoulders shrugging up.

"If I have to, I can try now. I mean, I can cut potatoes all day, that's not new. That's one of the old chores. But making it into proper food is the new part."

"Did you just...eat raw potato slices?"

This is the kind of situation where she's sure she's about to hear something more wildly absurd than she could have ever predicted- something that seems sort of normal tends to rapidly get ridiculous, here.

"You don't even have to do that much with potatoes. They'd be easy to start with."

"N-no?" He frowns. Why raw? "They go in stews. With, with meats and carrots and things." He's not sure the entire scope of other things, because after a while one just stops asking when one's given the same things day after day.

Er, night after night.

"Oh. Good."

At least Martin isn't that divorced from normal food handling. She was starting to doubt it.

"See, you could make that. It would create a lot less charred burning disasters, I assume."

Despite himself, a little laugh escapes him. He's quickly embarrassed by it, red in the face and bashfully glancing away.

"May-maybe," he utters, shaking his head. "But I think-- I think if it were me? It'd go a little worse, just because I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to cook anything."

"You're not going to know unless you try," Cass says, again growing tired of Martin's sheer inability to believe he can achieve anything. It's depressing, for one, and she feels for him, but it also makes her feel like she's working with an immovable object.

"Come on. Don't you have a favorite food you'd want to make?" Wait, this is Martin she's talking to. "Or are you not supposed to have one of those?"

"Um..."

He looks from the disaster in the sink to the array out on the kitchen table. Favorite, huh? Meals were pretty samey back home -- variety not exactly a priority compared to just making sure everyone was fed and in working condition. But here? People really go all out...

"Pizza is good," he says, nodding vaguely. "When it's all cheese..."

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