[OPEN] Every Little Thing She Does is Magic....

[lovelyassistant]

Who | Charlie and YOU!
What | This is a girl who has had to fight for her food for who knows how long. She's cooking!
Where | The kitchen in the Tower.
When | The week of her arrival. She cooks as often as she can, so it can be any time during the week.
Warnings/Notes | If your character would like some food, they can totally ask Charlie to cook for them. No warnings at all except perhaps non-graphic talk of possession, if her curse comes up in conversation.


The technology was more than a little boggling - but Charlie was getting the hang of it all in a hurry.

Pans were sizzling on the stove, pots were simmering with fragrant sauces, the scent of fresh bread was in the air, and the newcomer was in the thick of it all, humming merrily to herself as she bounced around from station to station. It was plainly more than she could eat, and she knew that; honestly, she was hoping to have hungry visitors drop in, perhaps for a touch of conversation. She hadn't had proper company in such a long time, after all, and the idea of it put her in a wonderful mood.

It helped, of course, that she had slept through the night. No incident, nothing else, she simply...slept.

The nervousness that fluttered in her gut like a couple of butterflies was easily drowned out by the anticipation of actually seeing live people.

She pulled the fresh loaf of bread from the oven, all pleasant smiles, dark hair bouncing around her ears. Now all she had to do was wait.

Comments

[lovelyassistant]

No, the way this man looked didn't bother her at all. That was probably a side-effect of both being alone for such a long time, and of dealing with real monsters in some capacity or other for said period of time. This guy wasn't a monster. He was just...gray. Very gray, and very horned. No big deal.

"Oh - well, that sounds nice. I hope they don't hop out of the batter."

Charlie hung back for a moment, watching Signless as he pulled things together...and then spoke up with a good-natured giggle in her voice.

"...Would you like a little bit of help? It's been a long time since I've baked with an actual oven, but it's all coming back to me pretty quickly." A brief gesture to the bread she had just finished making.

[69problems]

They weren't even very big horns, either, and his fangs weren't even all that sharp even if his prominent overbite made them obvious. Monster, definitely not. Not very experienced in the kitchen, probably, if the way his expression got sheepish when she asked if he might like help was any indication.

"Yes, if you wouldn't mind. I'm not a very experienced baker." Ovens were kind of hard to find out in the desert after all so everything he'd had to work with on Alternia had been makeshift and basic.

"I can handle the crickets, at least. They'll need to be roasted first, I can start on that."

[lovelyassistant]

The soft giggle that followed the sheepish expression was completely devoid of malice. Without missing a beat, she started to help gather things for a basic cookie recipe, movements sure and graceful.

"I don't mind one bit! I'm just having a good time getting to cook at all. It's been a long time. A very long time." How long exactly was anyone's guess. She certainly had no idea, and that thought was reflected momentarily in her expression. "Both for cooking and for company, actually. I'm Charlie."

This was nice. She forgot how much she had missed conversation! And this guy seemed like a real sweetie.

[69problems]

"The Signless," he said as he took a flat baking sheet and started methodically arranging crickets on it. How he got them to stay still was anyone's guess -- probably some kind of kindred insect communing thing. Or just practice with cooking primarily insects. At least they weren't like the ones from the last arena so there was no eye-stabbing required to keep them docile.

"And I'm glad to provide company if you need it. I find that here especially just having someone friendly to talk to can go a long way."

[lovelyassistant]

Wow. He really had that down. Usually she had to rip the legs off to get them to stay put, but she always felt a little barbaric doing that, in spite of herself. Even if she was literally on a deserted island with no one to judge her.

"It can go a long way anywhere," she chuckled, setting all the rudimentary cookie ingredients off to one side until the crickets were done. "I haven't had really anyone to talk to in...a very, very long time."

[69problems]

"Were you alone before coming here?" he asked, with genuine concern. Living in the wilderness with a very small found family had given him a great appreciation of the value of company. The idea of someone being completely alone for as long as she seemed to be implying was was sad one.

The cookie sheet of crickets went into the oven, still with minimal cricket fuss.

[lovelyassistant]

"Well...yes, basically."

It was a bit of a tender subject, but she wasn't coy about it - watching the crickets go into the oven, she paused in her preparations of cookie dough to focus her attention more fully on her company.

"I was on an island. I don't think I was really...supposed to see anyone? I know I wasn't there alone, but the only glimpses I got of other people were...short-lived."

And the one person I wanted to find the most I could never find.

[69problems]

He pauses in opening the package of chocolate chips -- they'll need to get melted down so he can dip the roasted crickets in chocolate before putting them on the cookies, but this is far more important.

"I'm so sorry. I can't even imagine how terrible that must have been." Not that being here is much better, but here at least there are people to talk to.

"I live up in the District Twelve suite, if you ever need someone to talk to."

[lovelyassistant]

"It was...well, there was a lot about it that I didn't like, but it could have been worse."

Charlie leaned on the counter, thinking a little bit about her circumstances. About all of them. Yes. The aloneness was the worst part, save perhaps for the worrying, the waiting.

Shaking herself, she smiled sadly at her new friend.

"Thank you for that. I'll probably take you up on it. I'm...not used to sleeping indoors anymore, let alone in a building around other people, so...as much as I like sleep, sometimes it doesn't like me."

[69problems]

He smiles back at that.

"I completely understand. I never slept indoors before coming here, and adjusting to sleeping at night also took quite a while. If you can't sleep there's a good chance I'll also be awake."

The trials and tribulations of being a nocturnal species in a diurnal world. Nevermind that trolls usually sleep in cocoons full of slime and he didn't even have one of those growing up in the first place; the sleeping bag he sleeps in here is still the best purchase he ever made in Panem.

[lovelyassistant]

"That's good to know. You - you really never slept indoors? Ever?"

Honest curiosity was plain in her voice - there was no malice there. Glad to carry on with the conversation (away from things that may dampen her mood), she went back to the cookie dough preparations.

Baking really was relaxing.

[69problems]

He shook his head.

"No, not really. I grew up in the wilderness and even after I started going into villages I was always more comfortable outside of them." A big, gleaming city like Panem had been one hell of a culture shock when he was used to run-down lowblood towns. Twelve, though, Twelve had been like coming home.

"Sometimes we would stay in basements or stables when trolls were friendly toward us, but that was very infrequent." He paused for a moment, ears flicking thoughtfully. "And I don't really count the ship as 'indoors'."

[lovelyassistant]

"Wow. Well, until the island, I can't say I was used to sleeping outdoors," Charlie admitted, setting the bowl of dough aside until the crickets were done toasting. "Never even went camping when I was little with my family. But it's amazing what you can learn out of necessity, isn't it?"

She started a double boiler for melting down some chocolate chips, continuing on with things that she didn't expect he would have a lot of knowledge about. Helping was nice. Friendship was nicer.

[69problems]

It was amazingly lucky that he'd managed to walk into the kitchen at the exact same time that someone who actually knew how to cook was using it. He knelt down to check on the crickets through the oven door.

"Almost done... I think. I'm used to doing this over open fire." Normally he'd just them as they were after, like popcorn. Sometimes he wouldn't even cook them, but humans seemed particularly uncomfortable with the idea of eating bugs live.

"It is amazing, I think, what people can adapt to in order to stay alive. You adapted to the wilderness. I adapted to life at sea. It's unusual for a land-dwelling troll to set foot near water unless they're powerful enough to threaten the seadwellers."

[lovelyassistant]

It was also amazingly lucky that he had walked into the kitchen when someone was in there who didn't flinch at the idea of crickets. This became readily apparent when she grabbed a pair of tongs, bustled over, reached into the oven with them, and pulled just one of the crickets off of the sheet. She blew on it a couple of times, looked it over, and then popped it in her mouth as if it were a potato chip.

"Mm...they're done enough that we can finish baking them in the cookies," she agreed once her mouth was empty. "Go on and take them out?"

Dumping the cookie dough out onto a floured cutting board, she started rolling it out.

"Wow...Troll society sounds like something else. I mean, my circumstances were kinda...unusual, but my childhood was pretty boring by comparison, I'll bet."