#rivervale_lodge

((Bowing out, but others can continue if they wish.))

Rowan has not been sidelined, but they didn't sit at the main table. Then again a lot of folks didn't. With Gerd and Dagmar busy, they end up near a Centaur named Jordan. He looks tense about the crowd but shakes it off and just is glad he's near a hallway. The Redcap Dirk is pretty close too, now that he's returning. The piskie, Serenity spied on him through a window

Proof there are more than trolls here

Oddball table. That's cool. "Hey, Jordan, pass the rolls?"

"Yeah, sure" He hands it over "Rowan, right?"

"That's me." They pluck a roll from the basket and offer it along to Dirk as he resumes his seat. "Why so jumpy?" to Jordan.

"Centaur thing... we're a rare kith so I don't blame you for not knowing but we get kind of panicy if trapped in or blocked" He shrugs "Pain in the ass... you can bet I don't go on Black Friday sales, not that I would anyway but I might freak. "

"Not a lot of stadium concerts either, I'm guessing?"

"Or neighborhood raves, I guess."

"Good guess, Batman," A smirk

"Batman? New one." An amused smirk. "This food is pretty damn good."

"YEah, no doubt Kerri rocks, but Olgar is a real grill master too." He says with respect for the Storm "Actually we got so many good cooks it's almost hard to get in the kitchen some days here. But if you have a favorite dish, mention it, they'll probably make it happen"

"Huh. Maybe I'll see if they can do a half-decent crab cake."

"If you can get Siv to go to Sea for you they might even get the crabs fresh" he chews on his own bit of Emu, chews with mouth closed then talks again "I can tell you they actually made me like carrots here. And yeah yeah, horse boy likes carrots... not normally I didn't before I got Kerri's take."

(After dinner, Dagmar seems fairly occupied with a sluagh - their foreheads nearly touching as they whisper together. So apparently she can do something other than glower.)

"Okay, so since you bring it up, because I've been dying to know..." Rowan turns to face him. "How does the whole human stomach and horse stomach thing work? Like, meat gets to your omnivore stomach first, right? But then what happens further down the line?"

"I shit" he says with another smirk, "I mean, at the end of the line, crap comes out."

A tilt of head that might be an eye roll behind those glasses. "I figured it wasn't gonna be petunias. Seriously, though...you don't get a belly ache at either point?"

"It all runs pretty smoothly. Way I see it, the horse stomach is more chimerical than the original human one, so chimerical food is probably handled by the horse part stomach, mundane food more likely the old human torso gut. Symon once hinted he'd love to cut me open to see then would have me healed back. Hard Pass, no pun intended."

"Okay, that's an answer I wasn't expecting, but it makes perfect sense." They toast him with their wine glass. "Symon...that's...that one over there, right? With Hammerstrike?"

"Symon the Denier, and like most sluagh, he likes his secrets so I won't go too much beyond that. I will say he's pretty cool. I can be an asshole, but he never gave me much shit about it. "

"I can respect that." Which part of the statement is getting the respect might be unclear. "Unusual couple," they observe before taking another bite of roll.

"Oh maybe anywhere else, but here? We got that couple, we got a throuple, we got long distancers, and we got solid trads. we got swingers, we got slingers, we got somethings I don't wanna know about and I maybe jaded but I'm njot narrow minded."

"A lot going on with these upright-fae-citizens, huh? Where do you fit in that whole mix?"

"Apparently seeing the cloud around every silver lining s a turn off for a lot of women so I am dateless. And you? "

"Unattached and defying definition." A grin and another toast with the wine glass.

"Ha" He actually grins and he toasts them back "Definition is for video screens"

"Nice. I used to say that I put the 'I' in 'identity politics.' But that was before I knew just how much freakier the freaks can get in the big world."

"I'm distrustful of everyone equally, which I think is a dark kind of enightened state." He says "But yeah, everytime you think you know the way it is, you learn the boundaries are leaking like a broken poached egg."

A nod of appreciation for the vivid imagery. "Certain knowledge is a moving target, yeah."

"Scues me" he says 'Looks like Olgar wants to talk to me. I patrol the trods a lot so ... maybe it's about that, or escorting some of the refugees when they go. I'll be back for dessert"

And he leaves Rowan to muse over what they are learning

(Fade but open)