Hopeful - November 24th meeting

Morgan found it difficult to approach the rest of Tanglewood for a time after the two major deaths the previous week. A part of him almost went back to how he was in October - he felt ineffectual, useless, and above all, an awful leader. Yet, another part of him knew that this was not necessarily true; he just needed to get up and actually do something. So, once he felt ready enough, he called for a meeting and stood upon the broken statue.

"Thank you all for gathering here today,"

he began, clearing his throat and taking a quick breath.

[b]"I'm sorry I became a bit reclusive this week. After losing two of our ranks so violently, I just... I felt like I lost some of my family."

Morgan lowered his head, shuddering the slightest bit. Images of Delilah's death flickered in his mind's eye, but he tried his best to remain concentrated. It hurt.

[b]"Things... Things'll be alright, though. We'll keep moving forward. We'll move forward to the best of our ability -- for the good of Tanglewood."

[b]"Continuing on from that, to start I want to welcome all the new Tanglers this week. Amhika, Eimi, Hanzo, Roy, and Usagi - welcome to our humble little family."

A genuine smile found its way onto his fluffy face, and he paused before continuing,

[b]"I've got two promotions this week: Beck and Kiira're both Medics now, in Delilah's stead."

The General was proud of both of them; Beck's apparent amnesia and Kiira's general shyness didn't stop them from wanting to help their fellow Tanglers.

[b]"It's my hope that we'll build up the Tanglewood Medical Team enough that further deaths will be prevented."

He tilted his head.

[b]"That reminds me of another announcement I'd like to make, but I'll talk about that later. For now, I've got a badge to give out."

Pulling out a single pin from his satchel, Morgan smiled once more.

[b]"This here's a Host badge - Kiira's the recipient this time. Thank you for being around so often for newcomers and others recently, young Medic."

He pulled a bit of water out of a bottle in his bag surrounded the metal item with it, levitating it to its destination.

[b]"Now, for shout-outs: I've got a couple for two newer Tanglers, Eimi and Jim. I'm glad to be seeing plenty of you guys out and about."

The last set of announcements was ready to be given.

[b]"Once again, the hunt continues; I will also be putting together a small similar event to work on our farm. We'll need more than just gator meat in our diets, right?"

He hoped things would continue to improve as they gathered and compiled more food - perhaps soon enough they would be able to build things once more.

[b]"I'm also planning out a bit of training. This won't be for a particular raid or anything, but with-- with recent events, being able to defend ourselves is key to our survival in the future. I'm still not sure if the Rosebloods set up those murders themselves or if they just had a rogue member or two, but either way, we could use more battle training."

Taking a deep breath, the samoyed continued,

[b]"Finally, I'll talk about the bit I mentioned earlier. I'm hoping to set up some medical training pretty soon, too, similar to the self-defense training I just talked about. One thing that's bothered me for a long time has been this... this..."

He took a moment to think of the word.

"This dichotomy of warriors and medics. Wouldn't we be better off if everyone here could fight and help heal themselves and others?"

He paused for effect; surely he was not the only one to have thought of that, so he expected some level of agreement from the crowd. Regardless, he said,

[b]"So I'm thinking of getting rid of the current system of ranks. Why have a separate team of Medics and a separate team of Guardsmen? That 'overspecialization' is what leaves many of us defenseless. It's what lost us our only Medic just last week."

He looked around next, curious about how his fellow Tanglers would react.

[b]"Of course, I'm not gonna do all this right away. That'd be unfair to you all. I'll need some more time to talk about this with others before deciding on something so big, but don't be surprised if these changes come in the near future."

Finally done talking, Morgan stepped down from the statue. There was nothing else to be said, and he was prepared to interact more with his family in the coming weeks - especially given the potential changes he had proposed.

[b]TL;DR

Welcome Amhika, Eimi, Hanzo, Roy, & Usagi!
Beck and Kiira are now Medics!
Kiira receives the Host badge!
Shout-outs to Eimi and Jim!
Another reminder that the gator hunting thread exists - a farm-based thread in a similar vein will be up later this week.
A self-defense training thread will also be up later in the week - this will serve for power practice as well as just general fighting practice.
A medical training thread may be in the works as well.
The clear split between Medics and Guardsmen may or may not be abolished in the near future, but I'll be talking to you all about it when I get the chance since it's a relatively big change.

Morgan was not particularly used to being personally approached by someone directly after a meeting, but there was a first time for everything. He had not seen very much of Usagi since she originally joined, but was glad to see the relatively new Tangler appear to have a chat. The chat, however, turned rather serious in just a few short moments.

"Er..."

The samoyed was not immediately sure what to say. An internal fight for control seemed like something he had not really seen previously, which worried him a bit.

"Usagi, right? You... you need some help from me with this 'something', then?"

The General thought to himself a moment. He had never personally trained someone for very long before. Usually, he just did small activities to train powers, or gave bits of advice and widespread training events, but he had otherwise rarely done much for individual Tanglers. That made it all the more both exciting and anxiety-inducing; however, he forced himself to realize that he had to do his best for the sake of his people. He nodded as calmly as he could, then said,

"If you need me to help you personally, I'd be happy to do whatever I can."

[member=2826]Usagi Smallpaw[/member]