They should have stuck to talking about Ella's cake.
RL Date: 8/8/09
IC Date: 6/4/20
Kitchen, Fort Weyr
Fort's kitchens are both immense and well-appointed, which ensures that the kitchen staff is able to feed the Weyr's populace as efficiently as possible. The counters are carved out of the native granite, smoothed and polished through turns of use; there are several stoves and ovens placed along the walls, leaving plenty of room for various cooks to do their job and not be tripping over their fellows. Any ingredients or tools they may need can be found in drawers and cabinets, either within arm's reach or within reach of drudges. Hanging from the ceiling and on hooks on the wall are copper utensils, pots, and pans, all quite well-worn, but still serviceable.
In the middle of this room are a couple of 'islands', composed of wood and with marble countertops, to allow assistants to prepare things and not need to get in the way of the cooks using the main counters. Dumb waiters are located out of the way, but still convenient for getting food down to the living cavern, rather than needing to send people down the stairs. Despite the constant motion and activity -- which slows only at night, but never fully ceases -- everything is meticulously kept clean, from top to bottom.
This late in the day, Jaeyi's largely free from her regular shifts. So it's purely the pleasure and the practice that trap her here as the afternoon wears on, has her at her station in the back corner with a funnel of cream and half-assembled cookies, wafers that get a nice bit of filling before they get squished together. The occupation of piping sugar-filling onto wafers may not be the most exhilarating, but she goes about it with cheerful energy, humming happily and pausing now and then to squish down the top layer of a half-dozen or so in a row-- a stilted assembly line.
Fiorella doesn't often find herself in the kitchens so much as she once used to. Chores having been switched over from such duties as dishes and things to helping out in the infirmary having taken place just shy of a turn ago has that effect. It does seem however that she's in search of something in particular as she ducks out of the way of someone with hands precariously full. "I was hoping I might find you here," the girl announces, hands clasped behind her back, when she finally finds Jaeyi hiding in that corner.
\A child's voice, any child's voice, prompts this particular reaction: "No, you can't have any, they aren't done." Total knee-jerk. By the time she turns, Jaeyi does seem to have realized that this particular child hasn't come looking for hand-outs, and she scrunches her nose in the beginning of an apology when she faces Ella. "Sorry, just comes out now, I don't even have to think about it any more." At that, with a beckoning wave of her one hand, she welcomes the girl to her little sanctuary in the kitchen. "What can I do for you, Miss Ella?" she continues cheerfully.
"I wasn't going.." Fiorella starts, trailing off as Jaeyi begins that apology. Quickly enough the frown that had begun to form is changed to a smile and the girl rocks back on her heels just a bit before stepping forward. "Well... I a little bird," otherwise known as the Weyrleader, "Told me that my favorite baker was making a cake for me..."
"At this /exact/ moment?" Jaeyi looks dubious down at the trays of cookies, then back at Ella, like she's mistaking the girl's assumptions. "I'm making cookies. Try one?" See, most kids just get told to go away, but she waves a hand to indicate the done trays off to her right and resumes working on the unfinished, unstacked cookies still lined up to her left. "Buuuuut! Yes, I will be making a cake for you. I'm betting the same little birdie told me you like green?"
Fiorella shakes her head, "No thankyou," she replies about the cookie, turning to lean back against the counter where she hopes is out of the way for Jaeyi to continue her work. "I bet it was," she grins, "And I do, but everything else for the party is blue."
She must be out of the way, for Jaeyi says nothing to Ella about where she's stopped, just goes back to piping icing onto the cookies, easy enough to chatter and work. "Everything else for the party is blue," she echoes, making a face-- which might be because she's overfilled a cookie and has to reach for a little knife to scrape some off, bother. "What color cake do /you/ want?"
"Well not everything, I suppose," Fiorella replies, "But my dress is at least," she clarifies. "So blue would be nice for the cake too. What do you think?" she inquires, leaning over to catch a better look at those cookies though she's not reaching for one just yet.
"I think," Jaeyi begins, straightening up from the piping task to give Ella a look, then a shrug, "that you should have whatever color cake you want. I can make green or blue or purple or pink-- T'rev told me you don't like pink, so never mind that. You could have brown or gray or white or whatever you want, really. Except black, black is one color I have not figured out yet." Not for lack of trying, if the determined frown is any indicator.
Fiorella shrugs lightly, bouncing just a bit away from the counter on which she leans and then falling back in a subtle repetitive motion. "I don't not like pink, there are just other colors I like better and T'rev doesn't think it's my color so.." There she pauses for a second, lips twisting a bit in thought. "I like blue, and my dress is blue like I said its kind of a slate color I guess. You should see it."
Vanity; "I'm not making a slate blue cake, no matter how well it would match your dress." Jaeyi goes back a few steps in her progress, putting the tops on frosted cookies, making little cream sandwiches. A glance chases Ella's bouncing, fidgeting, whatever it is, then she resumes her work. "What's it look like?" she invites girlishly. Yay, dresses~!
Fiorella giggles. "I'm not asking you to. I'm sure you'll make one that's just perfect." That said Ella offers up a smile. Oh, yes. The dress! "Amerie is doing a wonderful job with it," she starts. "The top is fitted, just off the shoulder, and the neck goes across here," she explains, fidgeting stopping for the moment while she draws the imaginary line on herself. "And it's all beaded with these little tiny silver and white beads. The skirt," And this part she doesn't seem quite as excited about, "Has some beads but not nearly as much as the top does. It's about like this," she notes, holding hands out to approximate the size.
Jaeyi listens, really, and even looks over to make sure she's getting the lay of the dress. Which probably accounts for the reason she straightens up to blink a couple times at the girl. "That sounds..." Gosh, how do you put a spin on this without it coming out harsh? "...very fancy? You, uhmn, picked it out yourself, then?"
Fiorella nods, "It is," she agrees to Jaeyi's remark of 'fancy'. "But umm, well.. not exactly," she admits with a shake of her head, "I picked out some of it though. The weaver had some ideas and so did Leoren. But I'm glad you'll be there, even if it is just in the kitchen."
"Do you like it?" Jaeyi looks doubtful on that note, her hand held out at about her own waist, trying to imagine what it would be like to have floofy skirt chasing her around. No, she would not enjoy it, and goes back to her cookies for consolation. "I get to come out and peek at the very least, once my part's all done. My journeyman says it's one of the perks of this kind of work-- open invitation to countless parties. Though yours sounds... Well, nearly as fancy as the wedding I was at, and that was quite a to-do."
"I do," Fiorella replies, though there's something about the words that might make the reply sound somehow less than convincing. "Well.. maybe the skirt is a little much. I mean I'm not so big on skirts in general but.. Leoren just want's everything to be nice is all." Excuses perhaps?
Jaeyi ruffles her own skirt with one hand, hers generally of the practical variety and not the flouncy variety. "I'm sure you're right. That he just wants everything to be nice. But, uhmn, maybe-- next time, I mean-- you should tell him if you think he might be going a little over-the-top? Men don't really know from girls' dresses, see, so he could probably use your honest opinion to help him out." If they're playing with excuses, she'll try one on for size.
"Maybe..." Fiorella agrees a touch reluctantly. "But would you tell you father it wasn't exactly what you wanted if he was throwing you a special party?" she inquires turning the question back in a fashion. "It might not be perfect, but nothing is and at least he's trying..."
"Yeeeeah." Jaeyi cringes a little at her own verging heartlessness, but she doesn't retract the statement. "I think-- well, don't you think he'd be happier, in the end, giving you exactly what you wanted than thinking you didn't wanna tell him exactly what you wanted? I think people appreciate honesty. And he'll never learn if you don't tell him the truth."
Fiorella thinks about that for a moment before she shakes her head, "I think ... I think I want this party to just as well as Leoren. And no, I don't think he'd be .. I just want to be able to go home. And I wish T'rev wasn't so paranoid about it all the time." she replies quietly. She pauses for a breath. "You're busy though, I shouldn't have bothered you here..."
"He worries, Ella." Jaeyi doesn't try to sugar-coat that, to glaze it the way she did whatever she really thinks of Leoren's cake and his dress and his fancy party. "It's what he does, it's what he's supposed to do. You're his fosterling, right? If he wasn't worried about you, he'd be doing a pretty bad job of being a foster parent. I know he wants your party to be nice." Busy, yes, but it's not like walking and chewing gum at the same time, she can still pipe frosting and discuss birthday parties and all they entail. "It's okay. I mean, if I was /really/ busy, I'd have chased you off with a rolling pin or something," she promises, somehow meaning to make the girl feel better at that.
Fiorella glances down towards her feet, then back up towards the baker. "I know he does, but .." she hesitates to say anything further. "I really do appreciate everything he's done for me, but I'd like to think he'd be more worried about me going away to the hall or something instead of going home. I mean he practically said he wants me to go away already." That rolling pin comment does earn a smile despite the rest of the conversation.
"I--" Jaeyi starts, stop, and then starts looking for a word or two again. Nothing comes out, and she turns her attention to the last few cookies that need filling while she searches around for an appropriate response. "Are you sure he said that? That he wants you to go away already? Because I don't think..." Putting away the funnel, she leans her hip briefly against the counter to look back at Ella. "T'rev just wants you to go to the hall because that's what you want to do. It's not because he wants you to leave."
"No," Fiorella replies with a quick shake of her head. "But he might as well have," she adds quickly. "I thought about being a healer, but then I was thinking maybe I wanted to be a dragon healer instead and that way I could stay here too, but he said 'It ain't a craft'." Of course its taken out of context, but give a girl time to think on things...
With a deep breath, one that seems harsh over her teeth, Jaeyi looks away from Ella to her cookies, starts putting lids on them while she struggles with a very fine line-- between what she might know and what she might not ought to say. "It's not a craft, though, he's right. And, well. There's a certain protection? That you get from being part of a craft. It's like-- like, even if T'rev were to vanish into thin air someday, a craft would still take care of you until you can take care of yourself. Like, you wouldn't ever have to get married or anything unless you wanted to." Her brows knit at her own inefficiency of explanation, leaving her with; "It's complicated, but you'd still sort of belong to your brother if you were a dragon healer, but you'd belong to the hall if you were a healer. See?"
"I don't .belong. to anyone," Fiorella retorts. "Leoren isn't my father, and neither is T'rev. Besides, don't you think that if Leoren wanted to keep me at home he would have .done. something about it by now. It's been a whole turn since we ran into each other at the gather."
Another start. Another stop. "I'm sorry," Jaeyi says finally, fixated on her cookies, happy little things that they are. "Maybe you should talk about this with someone else?" Really slowly pronounced, that bit. "I don't really-- I mean, if you wanna know about baking a cake, I'm your gal, but I don't think I'm doing a very good job at this conversation." Apology in the smile.
"You could just listen," Fiorella replies, pushing off the counter behind her. "I didn't really want to talk to you anyway," she adds as she moves towards the door back to the main caverns. She stops only a few steps away to turn a glance back, "Thanks for agreeing to make the cake Jaeyi.."
Again, "I'm sorry." Jaeyi does look it, at least as long as she actually looks back at Ella. Really, cookies don't seem to inspire quite as much ineptitude, and she goes back to them like there's a sudden need to finish them, like she hasn't been plodding along at her own pace all this time. "Of course!" she offers brightly at the last, smile in evidence though she's not going to chase the girl out with another look. "I'm happy to be asked, and I think it'll be nice and everyone will like it." Apparently, not being able to please all the people all the time hasn't really sunk in yet.
"I'm sure it will be perfect," Ella agrees, "And... well.. Thanks for listening," she adds, taking a step back towards the door which just might not being the smartest thing. Walking in the kitchen without looking that is.
Fortunately, though Jaeyi is fixed on her cookies and the badness of that conversation, one of the older cooks-- probably one with grandkids just about Ella's age-- has the smarts to reach for the girl's shoulders before she gets bowled over by the workers bringing in dishes from the living cavern. "Watch yourself, dearie! Nothing will do your day worse than the crash of a hundred broken plates all at once!" she advises with kind humor, running interference to avoid a collision.
Fiorella starts with that touch from the older woman. Something else that comes from not paying enough attention. "Sorry," she mumbles, giving an idle nod for the advice even as she sends a second glance back towards Jaeyi before finding her way out of the kitchen.
The old woman seems unfazed, just part of her daily life! Jaeyi shoots a look at the brief commotion, crinkles her nose up in sympathy for Ella, and adds a mumble of gratitude for the woman for saving T'rev's fosterling from certain doom. *dun dun duuuun*
IC Date: 6/4/20
Kitchen, Fort Weyr
Fort's kitchens are both immense and well-appointed, which ensures that the kitchen staff is able to feed the Weyr's populace as efficiently as possible. The counters are carved out of the native granite, smoothed and polished through turns of use; there are several stoves and ovens placed along the walls, leaving plenty of room for various cooks to do their job and not be tripping over their fellows. Any ingredients or tools they may need can be found in drawers and cabinets, either within arm's reach or within reach of drudges. Hanging from the ceiling and on hooks on the wall are copper utensils, pots, and pans, all quite well-worn, but still serviceable.
In the middle of this room are a couple of 'islands', composed of wood and with marble countertops, to allow assistants to prepare things and not need to get in the way of the cooks using the main counters. Dumb waiters are located out of the way, but still convenient for getting food down to the living cavern, rather than needing to send people down the stairs. Despite the constant motion and activity -- which slows only at night, but never fully ceases -- everything is meticulously kept clean, from top to bottom.
This late in the day, Jaeyi's largely free from her regular shifts. So it's purely the pleasure and the practice that trap her here as the afternoon wears on, has her at her station in the back corner with a funnel of cream and half-assembled cookies, wafers that get a nice bit of filling before they get squished together. The occupation of piping sugar-filling onto wafers may not be the most exhilarating, but she goes about it with cheerful energy, humming happily and pausing now and then to squish down the top layer of a half-dozen or so in a row-- a stilted assembly line.
Fiorella doesn't often find herself in the kitchens so much as she once used to. Chores having been switched over from such duties as dishes and things to helping out in the infirmary having taken place just shy of a turn ago has that effect. It does seem however that she's in search of something in particular as she ducks out of the way of someone with hands precariously full. "I was hoping I might find you here," the girl announces, hands clasped behind her back, when she finally finds Jaeyi hiding in that corner.
\A child's voice, any child's voice, prompts this particular reaction: "No, you can't have any, they aren't done." Total knee-jerk. By the time she turns, Jaeyi does seem to have realized that this particular child hasn't come looking for hand-outs, and she scrunches her nose in the beginning of an apology when she faces Ella. "Sorry, just comes out now, I don't even have to think about it any more." At that, with a beckoning wave of her one hand, she welcomes the girl to her little sanctuary in the kitchen. "What can I do for you, Miss Ella?" she continues cheerfully.
"I wasn't going.." Fiorella starts, trailing off as Jaeyi begins that apology. Quickly enough the frown that had begun to form is changed to a smile and the girl rocks back on her heels just a bit before stepping forward. "Well... I a little bird," otherwise known as the Weyrleader, "Told me that my favorite baker was making a cake for me..."
"At this /exact/ moment?" Jaeyi looks dubious down at the trays of cookies, then back at Ella, like she's mistaking the girl's assumptions. "I'm making cookies. Try one?" See, most kids just get told to go away, but she waves a hand to indicate the done trays off to her right and resumes working on the unfinished, unstacked cookies still lined up to her left. "Buuuuut! Yes, I will be making a cake for you. I'm betting the same little birdie told me you like green?"
Fiorella shakes her head, "No thankyou," she replies about the cookie, turning to lean back against the counter where she hopes is out of the way for Jaeyi to continue her work. "I bet it was," she grins, "And I do, but everything else for the party is blue."
She must be out of the way, for Jaeyi says nothing to Ella about where she's stopped, just goes back to piping icing onto the cookies, easy enough to chatter and work. "Everything else for the party is blue," she echoes, making a face-- which might be because she's overfilled a cookie and has to reach for a little knife to scrape some off, bother. "What color cake do /you/ want?"
"Well not everything, I suppose," Fiorella replies, "But my dress is at least," she clarifies. "So blue would be nice for the cake too. What do you think?" she inquires, leaning over to catch a better look at those cookies though she's not reaching for one just yet.
"I think," Jaeyi begins, straightening up from the piping task to give Ella a look, then a shrug, "that you should have whatever color cake you want. I can make green or blue or purple or pink-- T'rev told me you don't like pink, so never mind that. You could have brown or gray or white or whatever you want, really. Except black, black is one color I have not figured out yet." Not for lack of trying, if the determined frown is any indicator.
Fiorella shrugs lightly, bouncing just a bit away from the counter on which she leans and then falling back in a subtle repetitive motion. "I don't not like pink, there are just other colors I like better and T'rev doesn't think it's my color so.." There she pauses for a second, lips twisting a bit in thought. "I like blue, and my dress is blue like I said its kind of a slate color I guess. You should see it."
Vanity; "I'm not making a slate blue cake, no matter how well it would match your dress." Jaeyi goes back a few steps in her progress, putting the tops on frosted cookies, making little cream sandwiches. A glance chases Ella's bouncing, fidgeting, whatever it is, then she resumes her work. "What's it look like?" she invites girlishly. Yay, dresses~!
Fiorella giggles. "I'm not asking you to. I'm sure you'll make one that's just perfect." That said Ella offers up a smile. Oh, yes. The dress! "Amerie is doing a wonderful job with it," she starts. "The top is fitted, just off the shoulder, and the neck goes across here," she explains, fidgeting stopping for the moment while she draws the imaginary line on herself. "And it's all beaded with these little tiny silver and white beads. The skirt," And this part she doesn't seem quite as excited about, "Has some beads but not nearly as much as the top does. It's about like this," she notes, holding hands out to approximate the size.
Jaeyi listens, really, and even looks over to make sure she's getting the lay of the dress. Which probably accounts for the reason she straightens up to blink a couple times at the girl. "That sounds..." Gosh, how do you put a spin on this without it coming out harsh? "...very fancy? You, uhmn, picked it out yourself, then?"
Fiorella nods, "It is," she agrees to Jaeyi's remark of 'fancy'. "But umm, well.. not exactly," she admits with a shake of her head, "I picked out some of it though. The weaver had some ideas and so did Leoren. But I'm glad you'll be there, even if it is just in the kitchen."
"Do you like it?" Jaeyi looks doubtful on that note, her hand held out at about her own waist, trying to imagine what it would be like to have floofy skirt chasing her around. No, she would not enjoy it, and goes back to her cookies for consolation. "I get to come out and peek at the very least, once my part's all done. My journeyman says it's one of the perks of this kind of work-- open invitation to countless parties. Though yours sounds... Well, nearly as fancy as the wedding I was at, and that was quite a to-do."
"I do," Fiorella replies, though there's something about the words that might make the reply sound somehow less than convincing. "Well.. maybe the skirt is a little much. I mean I'm not so big on skirts in general but.. Leoren just want's everything to be nice is all." Excuses perhaps?
Jaeyi ruffles her own skirt with one hand, hers generally of the practical variety and not the flouncy variety. "I'm sure you're right. That he just wants everything to be nice. But, uhmn, maybe-- next time, I mean-- you should tell him if you think he might be going a little over-the-top? Men don't really know from girls' dresses, see, so he could probably use your honest opinion to help him out." If they're playing with excuses, she'll try one on for size.
"Maybe..." Fiorella agrees a touch reluctantly. "But would you tell you father it wasn't exactly what you wanted if he was throwing you a special party?" she inquires turning the question back in a fashion. "It might not be perfect, but nothing is and at least he's trying..."
"Yeeeeah." Jaeyi cringes a little at her own verging heartlessness, but she doesn't retract the statement. "I think-- well, don't you think he'd be happier, in the end, giving you exactly what you wanted than thinking you didn't wanna tell him exactly what you wanted? I think people appreciate honesty. And he'll never learn if you don't tell him the truth."
Fiorella thinks about that for a moment before she shakes her head, "I think ... I think I want this party to just as well as Leoren. And no, I don't think he'd be .. I just want to be able to go home. And I wish T'rev wasn't so paranoid about it all the time." she replies quietly. She pauses for a breath. "You're busy though, I shouldn't have bothered you here..."
"He worries, Ella." Jaeyi doesn't try to sugar-coat that, to glaze it the way she did whatever she really thinks of Leoren's cake and his dress and his fancy party. "It's what he does, it's what he's supposed to do. You're his fosterling, right? If he wasn't worried about you, he'd be doing a pretty bad job of being a foster parent. I know he wants your party to be nice." Busy, yes, but it's not like walking and chewing gum at the same time, she can still pipe frosting and discuss birthday parties and all they entail. "It's okay. I mean, if I was /really/ busy, I'd have chased you off with a rolling pin or something," she promises, somehow meaning to make the girl feel better at that.
Fiorella glances down towards her feet, then back up towards the baker. "I know he does, but .." she hesitates to say anything further. "I really do appreciate everything he's done for me, but I'd like to think he'd be more worried about me going away to the hall or something instead of going home. I mean he practically said he wants me to go away already." That rolling pin comment does earn a smile despite the rest of the conversation.
"I--" Jaeyi starts, stop, and then starts looking for a word or two again. Nothing comes out, and she turns her attention to the last few cookies that need filling while she searches around for an appropriate response. "Are you sure he said that? That he wants you to go away already? Because I don't think..." Putting away the funnel, she leans her hip briefly against the counter to look back at Ella. "T'rev just wants you to go to the hall because that's what you want to do. It's not because he wants you to leave."
"No," Fiorella replies with a quick shake of her head. "But he might as well have," she adds quickly. "I thought about being a healer, but then I was thinking maybe I wanted to be a dragon healer instead and that way I could stay here too, but he said 'It ain't a craft'." Of course its taken out of context, but give a girl time to think on things...
With a deep breath, one that seems harsh over her teeth, Jaeyi looks away from Ella to her cookies, starts putting lids on them while she struggles with a very fine line-- between what she might know and what she might not ought to say. "It's not a craft, though, he's right. And, well. There's a certain protection? That you get from being part of a craft. It's like-- like, even if T'rev were to vanish into thin air someday, a craft would still take care of you until you can take care of yourself. Like, you wouldn't ever have to get married or anything unless you wanted to." Her brows knit at her own inefficiency of explanation, leaving her with; "It's complicated, but you'd still sort of belong to your brother if you were a dragon healer, but you'd belong to the hall if you were a healer. See?"
"I don't .belong. to anyone," Fiorella retorts. "Leoren isn't my father, and neither is T'rev. Besides, don't you think that if Leoren wanted to keep me at home he would have .done. something about it by now. It's been a whole turn since we ran into each other at the gather."
Another start. Another stop. "I'm sorry," Jaeyi says finally, fixated on her cookies, happy little things that they are. "Maybe you should talk about this with someone else?" Really slowly pronounced, that bit. "I don't really-- I mean, if you wanna know about baking a cake, I'm your gal, but I don't think I'm doing a very good job at this conversation." Apology in the smile.
"You could just listen," Fiorella replies, pushing off the counter behind her. "I didn't really want to talk to you anyway," she adds as she moves towards the door back to the main caverns. She stops only a few steps away to turn a glance back, "Thanks for agreeing to make the cake Jaeyi.."
Again, "I'm sorry." Jaeyi does look it, at least as long as she actually looks back at Ella. Really, cookies don't seem to inspire quite as much ineptitude, and she goes back to them like there's a sudden need to finish them, like she hasn't been plodding along at her own pace all this time. "Of course!" she offers brightly at the last, smile in evidence though she's not going to chase the girl out with another look. "I'm happy to be asked, and I think it'll be nice and everyone will like it." Apparently, not being able to please all the people all the time hasn't really sunk in yet.
"I'm sure it will be perfect," Ella agrees, "And... well.. Thanks for listening," she adds, taking a step back towards the door which just might not being the smartest thing. Walking in the kitchen without looking that is.
Fortunately, though Jaeyi is fixed on her cookies and the badness of that conversation, one of the older cooks-- probably one with grandkids just about Ella's age-- has the smarts to reach for the girl's shoulders before she gets bowled over by the workers bringing in dishes from the living cavern. "Watch yourself, dearie! Nothing will do your day worse than the crash of a hundred broken plates all at once!" she advises with kind humor, running interference to avoid a collision.
Fiorella starts with that touch from the older woman. Something else that comes from not paying enough attention. "Sorry," she mumbles, giving an idle nod for the advice even as she sends a second glance back towards Jaeyi before finding her way out of the kitchen.
The old woman seems unfazed, just part of her daily life! Jaeyi shoots a look at the brief commotion, crinkles her nose up in sympathy for Ella, and adds a mumble of gratitude for the woman for saving T'rev's fosterling from certain doom. *dun dun duuuun*