audio | un: sparkler | forward-dated to the 31st

[flashystyle]

[When a voice comes over the device, its tone is stern and mildly demanding.]

I've had quite enough of all this doom and gloom.

We are having a meeting. The Thesa Station, before the latest patch of unfortunate souls join us. I'm preparing a room for all of us, and by the bloody Maker you all are going to join me. Bring something to write with, because I will implore you to take notes. If you can't make it, I'll just assume you'll listen to my soothing voice over these devices anyway.

[With a click, it almost ends there—but Dorian quickly resumes the stream.]

... Also, if anyone with the strength to lift a few kegs, chairs, and other heavy objects would join me beforehand, I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, perhaps, someone who can work a stove. And... also someone with more technical know-how than I—I am quite necessary in this equation, rest assured, but it would make things much easier. Cheers.

[And, finally, it ends there.]

Comments

[flashystyle]

[He places a hand on his hip, turning to properly consider the kitchen, and all the work it's going to take. She can probably see his hopes and dreams shrivel up a little at the idea, but.]

There must be... cookbooks somewhere. Recipes that can help us transcend beyond our limited palette. You and I both like reading, so let's pour over them and pick a select few out. Something I know, something you know, something they might know. Then we'll just make things until we perish.

[originallutece]

I can already do meat pies, actually. I can start on those . . .

[She narrows her eyes at him, a silent warning not to start on her choice before he says anything. Rosalind heads for the pantry, starting to dig through it.]

The one thing I subsided on when I was seventeen and out of the Lutece manor. And then, thank god, my patron found me, and I could go back to eating hideously expensive things without having to prepare them.

[flashystyle]

[Dorian opens his mouth to protest, but all his judgement dies on his lips with the look she gives him. Instead he just groans, trudging past her to start going through the cabinets for books.]

The most I've cooked is a few kills over a campfire. Imagine me, camping, all on my lonesome! It was awful work for someone who could just have the servants back home prepare something.

[originallutece]

Good grief. I'm surprised you survived.

[That's kind of a joke and it kind of isn't. She knows Dorian well enough to know that he's both intelligent enough and, beneath all that flash and pomp, tough enough to make it out in the wilderness, but on the other hand . . . who would want to?

A horrible sort of thought occurs to her, and she turns back to him as she sets a pan on a stove.]

Did you have to-- you know-- skin them and everything?

[flashystyle]

[He looks over his shoulder to give her an incredulous look.]

No, I ate them with the skin on. There's nothing more appetizing than a mouthful of fur.

[originallutece]

[She looks even more horrified, if possible.]

Good god, Dorian. Weren't there any taverns around? Or-- I don't know-- little villages?

[flashystyle]

Maker's breath, Rosalind, I am joking. They were skinned. I simply didn't have the means to go to the little villages and taverns, as I'd long since ran out of money.

[originallutece]

I'm aware you were joking, that's what makes it so much worse.

[SKINNING AN ANIMAL IS DISGUSTING??]

I'm surprised you couldn't earn a few Eagles-- or silver, or whatever the hell your world called money-- with your magic. But perhaps it's hard to put on a show when an entire world is used to magic.

[flashystyle]

[He can't believe he's getting shit for being a productive member of society.]

If I'd openly performed magic anywhere south of my homeland, I suspect I would have been murdered in my first week. They didn't take kindly to that sort of thing. Magic is meant to serve man, not rule over him, ah-blah-blah-blah.

[originallutece]

Really?

[Well, now she's just interested in hearing more about his home. She knows bits of it-- she'd have to be an idiot not to have picked up some things over the past few months-- but nothing in detail.]

You could make an argument it was serving man, or at least one man in particular. What on earth would have driven them to murder? Arrest, perhaps, but . . . was it so uncommon?

[That meat pie is starting to smell pretty good, by the way. Not amazing, but better than nothing. She looks quite pleased by that, and starts in on making a large tray of them.]

[flashystyle]

[Dorian's loathe to admit it's actually turning out. His stomach growls, betraying him, but he chooses to ignore it.]

It wasn't uncommon at all, actually. They'd just rather pull a blanket over their heads and pretend every mage is a monster out to get them, rather than admitting they shit the bed over nothing.

In my homeland, mages are the ruling party, at the cost of... well, morals, I suppose. In the south, mages were locked away in towers if they so much as lit a candle on their own. By the time I came down there, there was a war between them and their captors. You could go out into an open field and trip over dozens of corpses.

[originallutece]

I don't blame them.

[She's quiet for a long few seconds. Then:]

There was something like that at home. An uprising from the downtrodden. It was deserved, but . . . it was a hideous thing. Bloody. The riots in Wyver reminded me of it.

[But that's not really something she wants to linger on.]

In any case. What made you go down there? Here--

[She offers a bit of cooked meat. It's not exactly a meal, but she hears that growling.]