video;

[effective]

[Katniss is looking as cheerful as ever. Which is to say, not at all.]

Even if all these investigations find a way to fix the turtle, what's going to be done about the game? The kedan are coming to us for food, and what you can call a forest has basically been stripped clean. Unless we're just all living off vegetables until the next few breeding seasons have passed.

Comments

video.

[langsyne]

[Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa.]

Sorry, but did you just say—breeding season?

video.

[effective]

[Staring] Most animals don't breed year-round. If they did, this wouldn't be such a problem.

video.

[langsyne]

Yeah, I knew that but why are you bringing it up? Are you planning on breeding cats or something?

[Don't judge him, he's 200% a city boy and thinks hunting only exists in dystopian movies.]

video.

[effective]

[s t a r i n g] If there aren't any animals to kill, you can't eat them.

[Funny that you mention that :'D]

video.

[langsyne]

[STOOOOOOOP IT also Scott still doesn't get it and so he's just going to. Blink some more.]

...Isn't that what farms and butchers are for?

video.

[effective]

[Katniss has decided he must have been dropped on his head as a child] The kedan are coming to us for food.

Guess who was doing the farming and butchering.

video.

[langsyne]

[It's definitely a possibility. But he kinda sorta gets it now.]

Because of the rationing thing? Is it really that bad?

video.

[effective]

If people don't find a way to fix the turtle, we're all going to starve to death. And even if they do, we'll still be living off fish and what vegetables we can grow. It's possible, but-- [She shrugs. Katniss has starved before, but she's pretty sure most other people in this place haven't]

video.

[langsyne]

[Of all the ways Scott's imagined himself dying - and mind, it's not something he does often - starving has never been high on the list, or on the list at all. Getting trampled on maybe, or getting stabbed and killed by some alien force...he's prepared for those, waiting for those even.

But starving? In a way, it's more sobering and more real than all the rest.]

...How long's it been like this?

video.

[effective]

[A shrug] Months. Things have only gotten this bad since the turtle stopped swimming, but food doesn't just magically replenish because people make it possible for it to grow again.

video.

[langsyne]

[There's a really large part of him that wants to ask how food even grows on the back of a turtle but he refrains because he's pretty sure he's already made himself look stupider than humanly possible.]

Growing all of that will take months though. [No duh, Scott.] Is there at least technology that'll maximize crop production in the shortest amount of time possible?

[He's no farmer, but that stuff has to exist, right?]

video.

[effective]

That's usually how supplying your own food works, yes. [Katniss is usually this much of a jerk tbh, but something about this guy has gotten under his skin. Maybe it's the easy way he doesn't seem to have thought about any of this before now]

I hunt, I garden, and I trade. I'm not the person to ask about that, it's why I made this post to begin with.

video.

[langsyne]

[There's a long pause before Scott replies, largely because he doesn't know how to reply. Hunting, farming, scavenging? They're all totally out of his element, and he doesn't have the faintest clue how to even start understanding natural ecosystems and food chains that don't involve peanut peanut and jelly sandwiches.]

So...what do we do then? I've never hunted before. I've never even gardened before.

video.

[effective]

[Katniss isn't used to being asked what to do, and she's not sure she likes it. The last time she took charge of anything, a lot of people died.]

Hunting should...stop for now anyway. Animals need to be conserved, given time to recover their numbers. There's a water garden that's supplying more of the food now, you can talk to someone called Bruce Banner or Annabeth Chase about how to help with that,

video.

[langsyne]

Got it, thanks.

[Bruce Banner and Annabeth Chase. He'll remember those names for later, maybe see if he can hunt them down in a few days.]

I'll watch what I eat and buy in the meantime.

video.

[effective]

[Talking for so long to so many different people is starting to have a visibly wearying effect on Katniss. She rubs one burn-scarred hand over her face]

Right. That'll help so much. [The sarcasm is strong in this one]

video.

[langsyne]

[Well, he had been planning on giving Katniss one less person to have to talk to but sorry, that sarcasm is not going unnoticed.]

Would you prefer I starve?

[She's not the only sarcastic one on this turtle today.]

video.

[effective]

There aren't a lot of people who deserve to die that way. [Some people, though! She eyes him for a moment] I don't know you well enough to say if you're one of them or not.

[She's so cheerful]

video.

[langsyne]

[Never change, Katniss.]

I've already died once, I could do it again. [There are some days he doesn't think he'd mind.] Starving's low on my list of ways to die though, right before 'getting eaten alive by pirahnas.'