Comfort Food (Pregame 2 LA, Cafeteria)

[John Slaktare]

"Cow-lliope, Cow-laudia, Moo-esha, Moo-llie, Milk-ania, Dairy-anne, Dairy-sue..." he says listing off a few of them. "Milk and cow based versions of female names. I particularly liked Calf-erine." So he had something of a sense of humor at one point in his life.

"And I can picture you gettin followed around by ducks. Tossing 'em feed pellets and bread crumbs," he says with a nod.

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

A big smile settled on her face and she clapped. The clapping turned into table slapping as she laughed. "I love it! Oh! How about Winnie the Moo? Or The Moo-na Lisa? Aha! The J Man has one of those funny bones in his body I see. I'll start making a list for later. We'll have to keep some of the good names in mind. Good, good."

[John Slaktare]

"Those are good ones," he agrees with a nod. "List sounds good. If I think of anymore I'll let you know so you can add em."

"Ducks, huh? I heard they can be mean. That true?"

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

Hrafna flipped through the small notebook she already had out when she was making notes about what not to say. On a blank page she wrote 'animal names' and added the two she had thought of.

"Some can have sour moods and all. Some are sweet though. Hmm...I did have to make sure to separate a few, they just didn't get along. Hit or miss I suppose. Oh yeah, we had to be careful come mating time. Things could get a little rough. I don't think we'll find any on the planet we're heading to, but maybe the one after that."

With that she starting writing again. On the next blank page she wrote 'animals for Big J and Hrafna farm of wonder'. Under the his heading she wrote cows, ducks, and horses. Horses was followed by a question mark. Setting her own down, sh e turned the notebook to show John what she had so far.

[John Slaktare]

He nods at her writings. "Ah, yeah. Mating the cows could get pretty dangerous. Bulls get pretty aggressive," he says with a nod. He usually wasn't prone to such things, but he tried to actually picture it, the two of them working together on a farm. And the image was something that he thought was nice. And then six names scrolled through his mind and he knew he didn't really deserve something so nice. His knee jerk reaction was to say something that might piss her off but he knew that was pointless. Anything he could say would be laughed off as a joke, willfully interpreted into it's most favorable understanding, or assumed to be some sort of problem she'd try to help with. He'd dug this hole and had to live with the fact that at least one person seemed to actually like him.

So he just kept on. "Horses eh? You can ride? If so, I'll need to get you to teach me. We never had em."

He reaches to take the pen from her hand to add the goats category to the list before handing the pen back. His handwriting was, for someone that didn't finish highschool, actually nice. Always had a talent for fine motor control. But he did accidentally write 'gaots'.

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

"I have ridden a few times, we only had a handful. I have...well I had a bit of trouble get up there on those horses. The ones we had were these really tall guys. I had to use a stool. There were many jokes about that. But hey now, I made the stool and it was pretty neat. It's back home though so I'll have to think about making another one. I'll teach you, it will be easy for you to jump right up on their backs. I think you can get it real quick." Her eyes move with the pen and she tilts her head a bit at the writing.

"Goat names, goat names. Let's see now....aha! How about Goatzart and Captain Hoof to start. You see Big J, naming the animals is the most important part of this whole thing." And again she laughed at her own joke.

[John Slaktare]

"I bet it was a real sturdy stool too," he says with a nod. "If you ever want some tall help though, you can ask me. Don't need a stool with tall folks around."

He writes down the suggestions, making minor spelling mistakes. Then adds a few of his own, sounding them out as he writes. "Beardthoven? And Ram-sey?"

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

"I can make one for you too! Oh, wait...yeah...unless it's to get something really high up. Okay, okay. Something to think about." A smile spread across her face as she read the names. "I'll tell you this J Man, this farm of ours will have the best named animals anywhere. J and H Farms. Hmm...not bad for a first try. What do you think?"

[John Slaktare]

"I would suggest alphabetical order, but H and J would end up getting called H J farm and that's another innuendo," he replied.

"But if we're gonna have a good name for each animal, we can take some time to think of a good name for the farm too."

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

Hrafna took out her vidphone and put it on the table for John to see. "HJ? That's just out names, what's wrong with that? How do I search what that means? Since it has our names in it do I include something about me? Farm girl HJ? Will that work?" Without waiting for an answer she started typing those very words into the search menu.

[John Slaktare]

"Bout to see something sexual if you look that up. HJ is short for hand job. Which is when one person uses their hand on a sex partner," he explained, still entirely unembarrassed.

"So you're bout to see porn. Probably some fun stuff too."

He doesn't stop her. Not his place to be a gatekeeper. But providing heads up seems at least appropriate.

"Could just make up something completely new. Orange Farms? Since you got red hair and I got blonde. Red and yellow make orange. Then people will ask why an orange farm makes milk instead of juice."

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

Just as Hrafna was about to hit search, she looked up at John. "Oh. I see. Thank you for being des...descr...thanking for describing it to me. I think I'll save learning about that for another time." And with that she closed the window and put her phone away.

"I like that name. Or Oakey Dokey Acres. Or Good Times Meadows. Oh! Orange Valley Pastures! We got both our heads in there and the pastures for all of the animals we have names for. Gotta have them in there. Perfect. Look at this Big J, we got pages full of ideas here. I'll draw up a layout and show you the next time we meet. I have had many ideas for stuff like this in the past. In faaaaact I might even have some old stuff still written out. I never throw that kind of stuff away. Nope, gotta keep it all for times like this. Good, good."

[John Slaktare]

"Oh? For another time? Still gonna look it up?" he asks, teasing a bit.

"We'll keep coming up with plenty of ideas and find the perfect name. Something that is descriptive, interesting and good for both of us."

"Been working on anything fun during the trip out here?"

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

"I think it would be best if I knew what I was talkin' about should it ever come up again." She flipped through her notes. "I already got all of these things about not saying other things. Figure I should know about somethin', this and that, that and this. As much as it would be nice I can't have you around all of the time explainin' all this stuff to me each time. So I'll do some learnin' no matter how scary it may be."

She slipped back to the possible names section and smiled. "Ah, a few drawings for things to make you mech peeps have it a little easier. Nothin' big yet, nothin' solid either, but I'm workin' on it. Upgrades, goodies, that stuff. We'll, if they'll let me do it."

[John Slaktare]

"Hope they let you. You're a creator so it's good if you get the chance to do so. What kinda plans you got? Adding features or making upgrades?"

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

The notebook it set down in front of John and Hrafna's slender fingers flip through the pages. She settled on a drawing of a generic looking mech, it doesn't appear to resemble any known model though it has features of many. The writing that crowds the pages appears to be scribbles but a couple of parts might look familiar to John as it's written in an old Icelandic dialect.

"You see here? Top to bottom. So many new things it'll make your eyes pop out. Look at this, a new cockpit set up. Oh! Right here! Different joint arti...articu...the joints move in different ways. Got an idea for a longer lastin' power source too. That will take some time to work out though. Some of this stuff here will take a while to work out but I have this start here. All good stuff, all stuff meant to bring you and the others back in one piece."

[John Slaktare]

"Articulate I think? I'm not actually sure on that one. Usually only hear folks say it talking about mechs moving," he shakes his head, not really sure how to use that one in a sentence.

"A whole new mech? That'll take some doing to get done. Does the different joint movement make them more flexible? Or does it make them stronger?"

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

"Arr-tik-yoo-late? Yeah, that's it. I heard that word once about an action figure I had but I could never get it right. Flexible is the idea, Big J. You'll have the chance to snake those gun on the end of the arms around in way more ways. Bang! Around a corner. Boom! Behind your back! Kapow! Between your legs. It'll almost be like you are holding a gun yourself. You wanna trick shoot? Well then jump on into this here mech and trick shoot till the crows come home. Yeah, less res...restri...re-stick-shuns. Some of those mechs out there can only shoot at what they are fully facing. Can't even turn at the waist. Others turn but still have to face what they want to blast. Not this guy right here. It's going to take a long time but I got this dream right here. What do you think?"

[John Slaktare]

"I think it's great to remove mech restrictions for movement and shooting. I kinda got a thing for the up close and personal fight though. This one got close combat options?"

"And how quick do you think your mech would be? This a quick one?"

[Hrafnhildur Ylfasdottir]

"Aha! I think this is where you can come in and we can work together. I don't know much about close fightin' stuff but you sure do. But I figure we take those guns off and put all kinds of different hatchets and clubs and stuff like that. I'd have to make sure the arms move quick enough to make it worth the while." She made a few more notes as they spoke, none in English. "Those legs should be able to move pretty quick, I can have a light one, a quick one, and a heavier one with more armor and guns. Right, right, good, good."