-- Interlude -- Not from Kevin's PoV --

-- 1 year ago -- on the plains outside the forest --

Rick: “I hereby call this meeting to order. Everyone shut up.”

Gemma: “Who died and elected you God.”

Rick: “Roberts.”

Leah: “Dread Pirate Roberts?”

“Oh Wesley!”

“My name is Inigo Montoya. You keel my father. Prepare to die.”

“Incontheivable”

Rick, louder: “Roberts rules. Everyone shut up. This one’s important.”

Once the murmuring quiets down, Rick continues.

“Snake is thinking of leaving. He’s unhappy here.”

Lee: “And?”

Chaim: “And if he leaves then everyone here, except Gemma, will have to go back to meditating more than we’re awake. He’s an enormous benefit to our entire community. Not only are we all richer, we’re all better and more practiced because he’s around.”

Tanya: “What’s the meeting for?”

Rick: “We were hoping that we could collectively find a way to convince him to stay.”

Mary: “If we want him to stay, we have to figure out what he would want, in order to stay.”

Zeke: “If he wants to go, he should go.”

Ray: “I don’t think he wants to go. I think he just doesn’t have a reason to stay.”

Flynn: “So give him a reason to stay.”

Angela: “Maybe he needs a friend.”

Tony: “Friends are great. What’s he into?”

Everyone else: “Drums”

Tony: “Anything else?”

Silence fills the meeting for a moment.

Alika: “He stares at all the women except Tay and Angela. More than the rest of you perverts.”

Flynn: “Someone go slobber his knob. He’ll stay. Are we done?”

Rick: “Flynn, shut up.”

Leah: “We could pay him more.”

Gwynnyth: “Are we writing these down?”

Zeke grabs a big bark off a tree, Tanya makes a large charcoal, and Al sets up a hill and some rock “clips” to make a post-apocalyptic whiteboard.

Cad: “I’ll be secretary here.” He takes the charcoal, and begins to write:

Cheaper to Keep him options

Bribe Honeypot Band

Flynn: “You can shorten Honeypot.”

Cad: “Honey?”

Flynn: “Shorter.”

Mary+Rick: “Shut up Flynn.”

Cad: “Any other ideas.”

Lee: “Let him go.”

Flynn: “Torture.”

Everyone: “Shut up, Flynn.”

Zeke: “I’ve seen him control his sound. If he’s not happy, and trying to help, it’s not going to work.”

Chaim: “Besides, we’re a commune, not a government, and he’s faster than anyone here.”

Angela: “Not me. He can’t fly.”

Dan: “I can keep up too.”

Chaim: “That’s not the point. We don’t have police who can bring him back if he leaves, and we can’t make him play well for us, even if we could stop him from leaving.”

Cad: “Are we agreed we’re trying to persuade him to stay?”

The vote is 16:3 in favor.

Cad: “Seems like we’re trying to keep him nicely. Do we have any further suggestions on how?”

After half a minute of murmuring, but no answers, he continues. “I don’t know how we’re going to get people to do this.”

Gwynnyth hops up to the front smiling. “Sit down grampa. Let us kids take it from here.” He smiles back, and hands her the charcoal.

Gwynnyth: “Okay. First things first. Which is top priority? What do we have to do? There’s three choices. Everyone vote for their top choice.”

6:6:6 -- Tie

Gwynnyth: “That didn’t help us at all. Let’s try a different path. How much…” she trails off. “No let’s do it this way. Snake is doubling our collective income and ability to train, practice, and generally live. He’s currently getting 10% of the collective take. Can we up the amount we pay into town taxes? Can we up it to, say, a third?”

Al: “That’s a lot.”

Gwynnyth: “I don’t think we can keep him with much less. Can we get a vote.”

13:5 -- In favor

Gwynnyth: “Will those who either voted against or abstained accept the collective decision?”

6:0 -- In favor

Gwynnyth: “We need to figure out how we’re going to split the extra twenty-three percent between Snake, and the volunteers for sharing his band and his bed."

Chaim: "I'm not terribly comfortable prostituting our friends to get more thaums. That would make the rest of us a pimp, or organized crime."

Leah: "I'd be a madame."

Gwynnyth: "We're not prostituting anyone. This is like getting a sugar daddy in school. We're not insisting on sex. We're looking for lovely, enticing companionship."

Flynn: "Get real, we're pimping."

Several voices: "Shut up, Flynn."

Gwynnyth: "And this is all volunteer. We're not coercing anyone.

She continues, "Best way to do this is a silent auction. Lowest bid pays second lowest price. I assume the bedwarmer position is going to be the expensive one. Ladies, everyone come up here and tell me how much it would cost for you to seduce Snake. Preferably in percentage of thaums per month.”

Gwynnyth: “Angela, Taylor, sit down. You’re too young. Jace, you wanker, he doesn’t swing that way.”

Lots of conferring and conversation between Gwynnyth and individual ladies occurs.

Gwynnyth: “The cheapest volunteer is willing to provide companionship for Snake for eleven percent of the town’s income. Let’s vote. Is that a worthwhile expenditure?”

17:2 -- in favor

Gwynnyth: “Yulia, we are indebted to you. You'll start soon, we hope."

Yulia: "This world has no place for wimps and procrastinators."

Gwynnyth: "Thank you. Next order of business. Bandmates. We will also need to make sure that one of the ladies participates here. But we need at least two bandmates. Who can sing, drum, play the guitar, or something?”

Half the audience raises a hand.

“Each of you, one at a time, come up here to make a bid on how much it’ll cost to get you to participate in the band.”

Another bunch of short conversations results in a solution.

Gwynnyth: “We can spend two percent of our income on getting an aspiring guitarist and a singer to start a band. Is it worth it?”

Unanimously in favor

Gwynneth continues: “Thank you, Cad and Gemma. And what shall we do with the rest of the funds?”

After the conversation, the crowd decides that Snake will have his gifts doubled.

With everything decided, the discussions become louder and more chaotic.

Alika bangs a summoned stone gavel on a stand, making some noise, but no one shuts up.

Victor does the same, thing with metal. The clang is sufficient to get everyone to quiet down.

Rick: “Okay all, remember, we were just out hunting. Nothing from here ever gets mentioned again. Now go hunt.”