The museum reopens [Mingle]

[ourearth]

Date:14-03-19
Characters: Open!
Note: Like all welcome mingles, this is a SoL free-for-all mingle meant to get new characters involved by centering around something relevant to them. This one has the special addition of two NPCs wandering around in the backround so your character can encounter them, if you’d like. Without further ado, please welcome Felicity Sirrell!

---

The clean-up efforts after the tsunami are well underway. The streets have been cleaned, the debris on public and private property has mostly been removed, and while much still stands to be renovated or replaced, Mossgate and Tarwich look more or less like they always do once again.

What better time to have a little event? More precisely, what better time to reopen with a bang. Which is what the town museum on the end of the High Street is doing. Like most houses on that street, the building got hit by the tsunami, but it got lucky insofar as it got only hit by the tail end of it and much of the collections had been evacuated anyway due to the building work in the aftermath of the bomb threat last year. Plus the tsunami did not hit the public library part of the museum, so all the books remained unharmed.

Which is why the museum can reopen now, looking all fresh and… well, not new, but a bit better than before with renovated bathrooms and a new coffee machine in the cafeteria.

And also a special exhibit. It’s been advertised all over town for the last few weeks: The library is reopening, and there will be a temporary exhibit about Bible Errata!

A whole room in the museum has been dedicated to this, showcasing a few original books and having posters and informational material around them and many other examples of failed typesettings and misprints of the Bible that are funny or amusing. It features, among other things, the Book of Kells (in which Matthew 10:34b should read "I came not to send peace, but the sword". However rather than "gladium" which means "sword", Kells has "gaudium" meaning "joy". Rendering the verse: "I came not [only] to send peace, but [also] joy"), the Manchester Edition (in which the heading on Chapter 3 of Leviticus and the first verse has "bees" rather than "beeves" (plural of beef) so that it reads: "How the peace offerings must be of bees, sheep, lambs and goats") and various misprintings of the King James Bible.

The special pride of…. Okay, maybe not the museum, but at least the local gay clubs, which have actually run a fundraiser or two to bring that specific Bible here, is the "Affinity Bible" from 1927, which contains a table of family affinities that includes the line "A man may not marry his grandmother's wife."

On the day the exhibit opens, the cafeteria serves special amounts of cake on top of their usual fare of coffee, tea and scones. There’s a tombola (because why not do fundraising where you can?). And obviously there are speeches at some point, a children’s choir sings, and everyone of distinction drops by to be seen, say a thing, and show appreciation of the reopening.

Comments

[saveournpcs]

Just that as she opens her eyes again, the man is gone. Likely he's just wandered on to another room - but it's quite a coincidence, isn't it?

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie grimaces as she feels her ears shift in alarm, moving her hat ever so slightly.

"Buggery. Right. You did this, you're going to help me fix this."

Sadie picks up the cat, relying on all of her experience at the RSPCA and with her own cats to deal with any potential cat shenanigans when she does so.

[saveournpcs]

The cat is ...really, exceedingly easy to pick up. It gives off an air of annoyance about the indignity of it, but even that ceases almost immediately when it gets comfortable in Sadie's arms.

Of course its human servants will carry it around a lot. Go on, mighty steed.

This cat is along for the ride. And really, quite comfortable here. ...And surprisingly lightweight for a cat its size.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie spends a moment fussing the cat like it deserves once she has it comfortably cradled in her arms, a good couple of ear or chin scratches depending on what the fluff is more inclined towards.

"Let's go find your human, it wasn't very responsible of him to leave you here was it?" She asks the cat in an attempt to take her mind off of the dread of talking to the Man again. Sadie starts to wander, cat in arm, occasionally stopping to ask other people at the Museum if they had seen the Man, he gave her the creeps but noone should be catless.

[saveournpcs]

Some people have seen him, but it's always a case of "oh, he was here a little while ago, maybe ten minutes, half an hour". They wander for a while before the cat suddenly perks up, very alert, and fixates on a nearby exhibit - the ancient boat, specifically. The cat's tail swishes, and a spot near the helm of the boat now has the cat's undivided attention.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie slowly gets more and more annoyed with the Man the longer it takes to find him. Forget her being scared of him, now she's angry at his seeming lack of responsible pet ownership and she is mentally planning on exactly how much of a piece of her mind she is going to give him when the cat hones in on the boat's helm.

Marching over, giving the cat a congratulatory ear scratch for locating it's human, Sadie rounds the side of the boat.

"Excuse me, but I believe that you belong to this cat?"

[saveournpcs]

...There is nobody there.

Only empty space, and a little old lady on the other side of the room, who looks up in confusion at Sadie's appearance.

The cat pays no attention to her. It's fixated on the boat, much like a cat might fixate on the dresser that a mouse is hiding under.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie winces and her cheeks start to blush, "Sorry," She calls out to the old woman before scowling down at the cat.

"What's got your attention?" She whispers to it as she gets closer to the boat and starts looking for any clues or anything unusual with it.

[saveournpcs]

The cat hisses at the boat, and then abruptly it struggles free, using its weight, the fact that cats are in fact liquid, and also claws if necessary to break free.

And dashes into the boat. Sadie can, if she looks very closely, see a tiny flurry of motion scurry out of her line of sight where the cat is headed. It's too late what it is, but it seems like the cat spotted something interesting to hunt in the boat.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie flails as the cat turns to feline liquid and escapes her hold. "Cat, stop!" Unfortunately, being a cat, it completely ignores Sadie completely in pursuit of its quarry.

Sadie just groans and tries to follow the cat's progress along the boat, looking for an opportunity to grab the feline before it causes any damage to the exhibit."

[saveournpcs]

There is some scuffling and scratching in a portion of the boat that can still be defined as "under deck", and then Sadie can see a tiny animal squeeze through a gap between two planks and take a desperate leap to the ground, landing on its feet before scurrying away and vanishing somewhere along the wall.

The cat's paw can be seen to try and reach for it, poking through the hole, but the prey is already gone.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie glances about, trying to see if there is any way that she can grab the cat. If not, she might have to get creative when it comes to luring the fluffy bugger out of the boat.

[saveournpcs]

The cat paw retreats, and there's a little bit of movement inside the boat... and then nothing. If she walks around and peers down the boat towards the end where the cat is, she'll be able to spy the cat having lied down and washing itself like that was the very original reason why it retreated there.

Nothing like a failed chase, no, not at all. It was just looking for some quiet, clearly.

[dragoonrouge]

This cat was going to be the death of her. Glancing about, Sadie leans in closer to where the cat has hidden in the boat and starts chirping and chittering at the cat inside, coaxing it towards her.

[saveournpcs]

After a bit of coaxing, the cat gets up and wanders towards Sadie... and then right past her, jumping to the ground and wandering away if Sadie doesn't interrupt it and picks it up.

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie grabs the cat, cuddling it close and scratching its ears, "You're just a heap of trouble, aren't you? Let's go and find your owner." And the hunt through the museum continues.

[saveournpcs]

She will wander for a good while without finding the man, until eventually she is approved by a very nervous constable.

"Excuse me, miss, can you explain to me why you're carrying a cat?"

[dragoonrouge]

"Oh!" Sadie brightens at the appearance of the constable and looks very clearly relieved, "The cat was left here, I was hoping to return it to its owner...I wasn't sure if I should contact the police or not..."

[saveournpcs]

The constable eyes the cat one more time and then pays it no more heed - okay, no. But he tries to focus on Sadie. "We were contacted by someone else to see if we could find the owner of this cat. We were told that he was carrying it, though...?"

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie nods, "Right. The owner was a man, I've seen him before. But he vanished after the cat came over to me."

[saveournpcs]

The constable's face lights up a bit when she says that she's seen the man before, but then sinks when she remarks that he vanished. "So you have not seen him since?"

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie shakes her head, "No and I've been keeping an eye out. He left his cat behind." She tells the constable, clearly unimpressed with the bomb man's display of terrible pet ownership.

[saveournpcs]

The constable looks down at the cat, then at Sadie, and then around in hopes of spotting a colleague. No such luck. He takes a step back. Please don't hand the cat to him.

"...The cat seems to like you. Would you mind holding on to it until we've found the owner or ascertained that he is not here any more, and if we can't find it help us bring it to a shelter?"

because this couldnt potentially backfire

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie blinks, eyes wide, at the constable and splutters a little, "I-Yes? I could try. Err, if it doesn't work out with my cats I could take him to the RSPCA. I volunteer there and I'd phone to let you know of such a change?"

trust me it's entirely harmless and good for you /corporate voice

[saveournpcs]

"Oh, that would be most helpful!" His face lights up for real now. No Cat Duty Is Best Duty. "Would you mind giving me your contact data then?" He pulls out a notebook and a pen and looks at her expectantly, all decorum forgotten in the face of someone will take the cat off my hands.