[Open] Come to the Feast!

[three_leaves]

Her last conversation with Iggy has given Nellas an idea, finally, about a thank you for the bearskin and for people being her friends - and for getting to know others. Surprised as she is about herself, Nellas has found she enjoys company much more than solitude, although that is good sometimes when she needs to recharge

Comments

[kamloops_rose]

Delilah might pause on her way to the lake, and be alerted by the sweet smells. She'll crouch at a polite distance, and clear her throat.

She remembers how nervous Nellas was when they met, and doesn't want to scare her away.

[three_leaves]

Once again it shows that Nellas has rapidly gained trust in her surroundings, and she remembers Delilah favourably, more so now that Nellas knows of her help with the bearskin. So the elf beams at her, and gestures to come closer, and she grabs a plate to pile it high with the best delicacies of the feast (in her opinion). That she carries over to Delilah.

"For you!" she says, and offers the food. "As a thank you."

[kamloops_rose]

Delilah is... delightedly surprised, and accepts the plate with wide eyes - food is a serious matter, in her world, and this is a bigger deal than Nellas might suspect.

"-- thank you -- it wasn't much, really...."

But she's already taking the plate. "-- will you eat with me?"

[three_leaves]

"It was!" She smiles to see Delilah accept the food. "It's still cold at night. Only now I have the bearskin to keep me warm."

And you don't decline an invitation or request, and Nellas reaches for a plate herself. "I hope you like it. I think it is very different from what other people eat. I did not take anything from the kitchen. Only the spices. I could not find them in the forest."

[kamloops_rose]

Delilah grins. "And I see that you are cooking like my grandmother did," she tells her. "--- or at least, that --" she points at the cooking pit, "--really looks like what I imagined when Anabel Okanagan told me stories of how her mother's mother would cook."

She takes a piece of meat, tastes it and makes a very appreciative sound.

[three_leaves]

Nellas beams at the appreciative sound, at any rate, and moves to poke the cooking pit and uncover it so Delilah can see come over and for herself. But thanks to all the water she poured down there, steam rises and beads on her face, and the shorter hairs on her forehead curl, but then she should really know better than to look down her own cooking pit like that. Nellas grimaces and laughs.

"Now I smell like crayfish! But it's the way we mostly cooked at home. You can't make too many fires in a forest. The trees don't like it, so we make pits. And put in hot stones for cooking." She smiles. Sometimes it doesn't even hurt to talk of home anymore, and that's good. She doesn't want to remember it and feel hurt.

"Was Anabel Okanagan from Kamloopsbeecee too?"

[kamloops_rose]

Delilah is amused by Nellas' antics, and does observe with interest. "Well," she tells her, "you smell like food, and that's good."

"But yes, Anabel was," Delilah replies, "and she was my best friend, even if she was much older than me. She made the best stuffed beaver in the whole Okanagan valley."

And grinning. "Maybe you are too, since you cook like my grandmother..."

[three_leaves]

"I'm from Doriath," she says with a headshake. And my mother said the Old Ones learned to cook this way at Cuiviénen. But I was born long after Sunrise. Maybe your people and my people met? They say that Edain also came from the East. Like we did."

Her eyes go round again, but in a friendly manner. "Beaver? We don't eat beaver, but I hope you like this as well. And my best friend was Túrin. He was much younger than me, but he grew up, and then he was older." And then he left, and did not return, which makes her sad, a little. but she only has to think of Iggy, who isn't going to leave her, and that makes her brighten up again.

"Do you want a look?" she asks eventually, gesturing at the uncovered pit. "Maybe you know if it is really like your grandmother cooked."

[kamloops_rose]

Delilah leaves her plate aside and does wander in to look, holding her hair in a bunch to avoid it being burned or stray little ones effectively falling into the food.

"-- it --- really does look like it," she says, after a moment of disbelieving gawking. "Or, at least, it fits perfectly the tales I heard."

She blinks at Nellas a bit. "-- but you are not Secwepemc..."

And this confuses her. But she likes Nellas a bit more for it (not that she needed to, but.)

[three_leaves]

She shakes her head, and once Delilah had her look, carefully re-places the layers that cover the cooking pit, at last dragging the skin back into place.

"I'm not Secwe-- one of your people. But I'm from Doriath. We cook like this too. Perhaps my people taught yours." Because she still doesn't believe there are different worlds. Somehow they must all fit together.

[kamloops_rose]

Delilah ponders this, nods, just once. "That's possible," she replies. "Daeron -- I think he was amongst my people, once, a long time ago. I don't think he would have been the one to teach them to cook, though."

And there's a bit of amusement there, but she's mostly speaking with incredible fondness.