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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 0:42:23 GMT -6
"Oh, that's very kind of you, but no, I can read," Seveth said. As if that had ever been a matter of doubt -- of course he could read. Did he look like the kind of person who couldn't?
"Good! That's very good. You can just follow the recipes then," the man concluded. "Here, hold these." As he spoke, he had been picking out boxes and jars from the drawer, and from a pantry overhead too. Now he handed the bulk of these to Seveth, one or two at a time. At first Seveth held them in his arms without too much trouble, but as the items accumulated, he had to balance them in increasingly precarious positions against himself. By the time the man was done, Seveth could barely see over the pile of things -- and he was still carrying them all with one arm, the other being trapped in the man's hand.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 0:42:34 GMT -6
"Wouldn't it be easier if--" you let go, Seveth had been about to say, but the man tugged him forward again and the rest of the words were lost as Seveth tried desperately not to spill the contents of everything he had just been given. He managed, if only just. If this was the man's tactic for shutting him up, Seveth had to admit that it was incredibly effective. Keeping a hold of his cargo took all the attention and mental energy he had, leaving no room for speaking -- or indeed, for thinking about much else. The only thought he had in his head now was that he hoped the kitchens were close. He didn't know how much longer he could manage like this.
After what seemed like an eternity, they finally came to a stop -- though that was a minor hazard in his own right, since the man didn't give him any warning.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 0:42:48 GMT -6
Seveth nearly crashed into him, which would have been a disaster. As it was, he had to skid very suddenly to a halt when he realized the Mammalian had stopped, and he nearly tipped over. "Here we are!" said the man, much too late; and when Seveth had the wherewithal to look around again, he could see that they were in fact in a kitchen. Or in the doorway of one, anyway. The kitchen itself was flush with people, already in the throes of cooking. The smells were wonderful, if a bit cacophonous; Seveth could detect the scents of desserts as well as savory dishes.
All the counters were teeming with things. Piles of vegetables in varying states of preparation, meats resting in bowls or on cutting boards, dirty dishes stacked up seemingly wherever there was room for them... There was already one sink full nearly to overflowing with pots and pans.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 0:42:58 GMT -6
A harried-looking child was scrubbing away, but more dishes joined the suds every time they managed to clear away a few. It was a Sisyphean task if Seveth had ever seen one, and his heart went out to the child... Though not enough to offer to help, or to replace them.
"W-Where should I put these?" Seveth said. He had already given up on escaping, though it was maybe a stretch as of yet to say that he was fully resigned to his fate. The one good thing was that he still hadn't heard any chickens, and since he was indoors, hopefully he wouldn't be expected to wrangle any after all. That felt enough like getting away with something that Seveth would take it as a small victory, even if he wasn't particularly eager to get to cooking.
"Oh, just anywhere," said the Mammalian. "Greta, we got the things you asked for!"
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 0:43:12 GMT -6
At last, Seveth found his arm freed once more, and immediately he lifted it up to better support the load that he was carrying. The Mammalian had wandered off to bring his things to someone else, leaving Seveth with those unhelpful instructions. Seveth didn't even know who would be using the things he had brought, though presumably someone would. He thought maybe he ought to follow the Mammalian, that the things he'd been given were a part of what this 'Greta' had asked for, but then he was accosted by another Mammalian.
"You got the corn starch?" said a woman, who turned out only to be a little less portly than the man who had greeted Seveth at the door. And then, in what was beginning to seem like a pattern, she grabbed a jar from him without waiting for him to answer. "Good, we'd been running low on this."
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 1:13:57 GMT -6
Well, that was one less thing he had to deal with. But he still had a bunch of other things that she hadn't taken from him, and now that the possibility of being abandoned again was looming, he shuffled after her as best he could. "Wait," he said. "What about the rest of these? Did you need these too?"
The woman stopped, then took a good look at him, as if only just now noticing how much he was carrying. "Haven't seen you before. You must be here for the feast," she said. "Let me help you with that. You look like you're about to tip over." And then things were being plucked from his arms with surprising speed, and set on the counter wherever there was room -- just as the man had told him to do. Seveth supposed there really hadn't been a plan for these things, though there also wasn't anywhere to put them.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 1:17:03 GMT -6
Or at least there hadn't been when he was looking, anyway. The woman helping him now was clearing space as she worked, moving things out of the way and sometimes stacking them on top of one another. There wasn't room, but she was going to make room.
If Seveth were any better at organizing, he would have tried to help. Then again, it wasn't his kitchen, and he was also at a loss as to what the... etiquette was here. Or the way things were laid out. After all, he was no stranger to being messy, but he liked to think that he had a certain order to the way he laid out his things. It was just that San didn't understand that order; and for that matter, Ichaival also often didn't, even though Chai could literally read his mind. If this was like that, then he was better off keeping his hands to himself.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 1:20:46 GMT -6
Once they were done setting down all the things that Seveth was carrying, the woman took another good look at him. This also gave Seveth the chance to study her. The resemblance between this woman and the man from earlier was readily apparent, but Seveth wasn't sure as to their relative ages. Was this a daughter? A sister? She didn't look old enough to be his mother, but beyond that, any sort of blood relation was possible, wasn't it?
"You don't look like you know your way around a kitchen," she pronounced, which informed Seveth quite readily what she had been thinking about while he made his guesses.
But hey, well, she was right. And it was better to be honest about this kind of thing. "Right you are, ma'am," he said, without a hint of shame. Now that he was in the kitchen, no longer accosted, and free from chickens, some of his usual energy had returned.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 1:21:16 GMT -6
The woman laughed. "Don't you be calling me 'ma'am'. That's my ma, and she ain't with us anymore. I'm Beatrice, though most folks call me Bee. Who are you supposed to be?"
She sounded young. Seveth decided, tentatively, that she was a daughter. "My condolences," he said first, because it was the polite thing to do, though Bee waved off his words. "I'm Linyü, though I feel like most people find it easier to call me Lin." This wasn't, strictly speaking, what he and San had agreed on -- nicknames, that is -- but it was true that people had a hard time pronouncing the name that San had chosen for their shared identity. Seveth himself had to be drilled endlessly on how to say it properly, since it would have been weird if he couldn't pronounce his own name right roughly half the time. But he did always wonder why San had chosen it.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 1:24:20 GMT -6
Personally he thought that San would have made it easier on them both if he had picked something easier -- like San's own name, for example. Or just Lin, really. It was the second syllable people struggled with, every time.
And sure enough, Bee wrinkled her nose. "Lin-who?" she said. "No, you're right, I think I'm just gonna call you Lin. Anyway, as you can see, we don't have time to be--" wasting, was probably what she had meant to say, but a dreadful cacophony interrupted her words. Everyone in the kitchen stopped, and as one, they turned to look out the window in the direction the sound had come from. Seveth couldn't help it; he looked too. And what he saw really had to be seen to be believed.
Chai was there; Seveth would recognize the dragon's green hide anywhere. It was just as well that he did though, since he didn't get a good look.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 1:27:03 GMT -6
There wasn't time. Chai sped by about as fast as Seveth had ever seen it go -- and Chai didn't often run, for any reason. That alone piqued Seveth's curiosity, and he found himself drifting closer to the window to get a better angle on whatever was going on. A few of the other people in the kitchen were also still rubbernecking, though some had already returned to their task, and on the other side of the kitchen, Seveth could hear another woman chastising those around her to stop gawking and get back to work. Fortunately, she hadn't reached him yet, so Seveth had a few more moments -- by his estimation, anyway -- to see if he could figure out what had lit a fire under Ichaival's tail.
At first, the yard itself was what caught his attention. This place was almost as much of a mess as the kitchen he was standing in.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 2:06:28 GMT -6
It made him feel a little better, actually, to know that people were out there inviting other people to their homes on a scale as public as putting up an ad on the quest board, all while their houses looked like this. If that was possible, maybe his own habits weren't so bad. He doubted Ichaival would see it that way, and he doubted it would sway San, but even so...
A blur of movement careened across his view from the left, though this time it was much too small to be Chai. It was also the wrong color: a reddish orange-ish hue, he thought. Then it ran a little further, and he got a better look at it, and he realized what he was looking at.
That was one of the chickens.
"What in the nine hells are they doing?" said Bee, who had drawn alongside Seveth to look.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 2:20:29 GMT -6
She hadn't been collared back into doing her job either, he noted, and there were still other people besides thronged around the window. One of them now gasped, which drew Seveth's attention back to the increasingly ridiculous tableau: Ichaival had sprung back view, apparently in pursuit of the chickens, which explained where it had gotten off to while Seveth was being corralled into doing kitchen work. How Ichaival had gotten itself into this, Seveth would have dearly loved to know. No, actually, he had something of an inkling, though the audacity of whichever family member had managed it was something to be lauded. Seveth was a lot easier to bully than Ichaival generally was -- and looked it too.
"Look at that one go," said Bee, whistling low. "Oop, looks like Marge got the better of him."
"Marge?" said Seveth.
"That's the hen, that one." Bee pointed at one of the chickens.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 2:26:03 GMT -6
Seveth tried to figure out which she was pointing at, but there was a small throng now -- or a scattering, that was probably a more accurate descriptor. The yard wasn't terribly large, but it was full of chickens, dashing every which way imaginable and evading Ichaival's grasp with surprising nimbleness. "She's the one with the reddest comb," Bee added, as if that would help. Maybe to someone who was more used to looking at chickens, it would be. Sadly, Seveth was not among that number.
"Beautiful dodge from Cheryl!" cheered another windowside viewer.
"Who do you think will get caught first? My money's on Diane. She's a slow one," said someone else.
"Nah, I figure it'll be Penny, since she's the youngest."
"What about Elaine?"
It had somehow turned into a proper spectatorship. People were actively discussing the odds of each chicken, which was such a bizarre thing to witness.
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Post by Linyü on Jan 28, 2023 2:28:56 GMT -6
Everyone seemed to have an opinion. Even Bee was drawn into the conversation when her apparent favorite was named by someone else, eliciting a heated rebuttal from her.
And then the woman who had been working her way through the kitchen finally reached their little crowd, and everyone scattered and tried to look occupied. Except for Seveth, who hadn't known what he was doing anyway, but he was soon manhandled into peeling vegetables since, as the woman said, "You don't look like you'll be good for much else."
She was right. He was actually also not that good at peeling vegetables. But no matter how browbeaten he became when the woman came back to see what he had made of her poor potatoes, Seveth resolved not to feel too badly about it. After all, there was nothing anyone could say to him that would be worse than Ichaival's fate of becoming a chicken wrangler.
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