(Untitled)

[madewithclove]

Who: Shelley Peterson (PETER'S WIFE) and Ema Sepp (PETER PUMPKIN EATER)
What: Peter and his wife finally meet! And Loren pops my threading cherry.
When: Today, late morning.
Where: The Pentamerone kitchen.
Rating: PG? Can't see how it could get worse than that.

Comments

[sellseashelley]

It worked out in Shelley's favor that she had Sunday morning off duty, mainly because she also had a lot on her mind. A lot of it had to do with a rape case she had just closed, but there wasn't much she could do about that. Instead, she was dealing with what she could: Tale stuff. In some ways, Tale life seemed so much easier than real life. Once she found out a bit about someone's tale, she could form a basic idea of what they were like. It was like people coming with ready-made warning labels. She liked it; it was easy and straightforward, or so she thought.

Shelley had first encountered the new incarnation of Peter over the Compendiums recently, and quite by accident. She had mentioned her tale, and suddenly found herself attacked by capital letters and broken English. Peter? Peter. She flipped back through her Compendium, looking for this incarnation's entries. Ema Sepp was a teenaged girl, and a culinary student living in the Pentamerone. She actually seemed... harmless. Well, that had shattered expectations a bit. Shelley wasn't sure what to make of the situation, so she had decided to visit the Pentamerone and make sense of it in the flesh. This girl was the reincarnation of her abusive husband. There had to be something off about her. Besides her English, anyway.

Walking in through the large double doors, Shelley bypassed Bob's desk. She'd check around the living areas first, and then go back and ask for a room number, if she had to. She didn't entirely enjoy dealing with the guard. He was just so... heterosexual male. She popped her head into the game room, but she knew Ema wouldn't be there. She could just feel it, the way she had known she was a tale so long ago. It was almost as though there were some invisible string tugging her along towards the kitchen. So towards the kitchen she went. The gut feeling doubled. The girl standing there, flour peppering her blouse, had to be Peter. Ema. Whatever.

"Emma?" Shelley asked, giving what she didn't know was a complete mispronunciation of the Montenegrin girl's name.

[madewithclove]

Cookies safely fluffing in the oven, Ema settled back against the counter just long enough to hear her mangled name from the doorway. She turned, a grin breaking across her face as she saw Shelley. She'd never seen the woman before in her life, but that feeling in her gut told her everything she needed to know. Then there was the guilt: seeping through her so that the words escaped her lips before she could even think. "Hello!" Ema shouted, unable to control her utter enthusiasm at actually being able to interact with her tale's counterpart. She waved brightly and rushed over to Shelley, clasping the blonde's hands in her own, beaming.

"What is name?" She inquired, having forgotten and not had the sense to check her handy dandy electric pocket dictionary for a more polite phrase. She was slightly phased by the fact that Shelley had mispronounced her name, but she passed that off as well - after all, Peter had put her in a pumpkin, so how was it up to her to correct anything Shelley did or said? She was just happy that Shelley wasn't blatantly angry. Ema nodded, grinning, and still holding Shelley's hands, led her further into the kitchen. "You see Bob friend? I cook."

[sellseashelley]

Had to be her, Shelley thought, as soon as the cooking girl ran up to her and took her arms. As soon as Ema touched her, it was like that invisible string stopped tugging. What happened next? Shelley had no idea. She tried to recall everything she remembered about her past lives, hoping history held some clue. Starting with Peter himself, the memories didn't unfold very pleasantly. There was that one, brief lifetime in which the two of them, Peter and his wife, had tried to make their relationship work in spite of history, but even that was fleeting. Peter had simply done too much to his wife over the years. Shelley couldn't recall a single instance where Peter hadn't held power over her. She couldn't trust his newest incarnation, no matter how harmless she seemed.

But then, Peter had never been a girl before. Maybe this time would be different. There was always a chance that seeing things from the other side of the gender barrier could change Peter's influence on Ema, but if not, Shelley had a few inches on her, and she was certainly built much sturdier. However, if push came to shove, Ema knew where the knives were kept in this kitchen and Shelley did not. That didn't bode well. Shelley eyed her warily. "Great," she said, her voice wavering with uncharacteristic uncertainty. "I'm Shelley. We met. Over the Compendiums."

[madewithclove]

Ema didn't have the clearest recollection of previous incarnations, but there were enough memories that popped into her head that she knew why Shelley was being apprehensive, at least more so than what Ema was used to. The slight tremble of her chin went away as soon as it had come, but her smile and bright eyes were unwavering. While the girl did seem harmless, there was a confidence and sharpness to her naive, bizarre charm that wasn't entirely her own. She could be persuasive and just being around her made some people want to do her bidding - which was result of a sweetness acquired in being female, instead of the mostly creepy male asshole types she'd been before. Whereas in past lives she'd gotten her way through force, this time around, she used butter, sugar, and cream.

While Shelley contemplated kitchen knives and the merits of having a more built figure than Ema's quite wispy physique, Ema had drifted off into some sort of imaginary dream land where she and Shelley overcame the obstacles between them, were best friends with friendship bracelets stacked up their arms, and were engaging in conversation over tea and scones. Snapping back, Ema lifted her hands to place them on Shelley's shoulders, pressing down as if to affirm the woman's presence in front of her. There was a certain fondness in her brown eyes as she looked her over, but she didn't linger on. There was a pot on the stove that needed tending, and Ema's allegiance was always to her creations. Taking a step back to go and turn the heat off and stir its contents absently, Ema spoke up again. "I am Ema," she said in a sing-song voice. "Yes! Met on Com-pen-di-ums." It was all so very thrilling to her. She stuck a wooden spoon into the risotto and scooping out a little, offered it to Shelley for a taste, Ema's hand back on her tale-wife's shoulder.

[sellseashelley]

What an awkward situation. If Shelley were the blushing sort, she might have blushed at realizing that she'd mispronounced Ema's name. She might even have turned red at having a stranger being so touchy-feely with her. With the exception of her girlfriends, and even then only after at least a few weeks of dating, Shelley wasn't a tactile person. The hands on her shoulders, the warm looks... it was unsettling. On some level, Shelley the Tale knew that she knew this girl, that the two of them had known each other, in some way or another, throughout their respective existences. She also knew that Ema wasn't a girl, or hadn't been until now. However, Shelley the woman couldn't quite wrap her mind around everything.

The question remained: what to do? Shelley went for the path of least resistance, and she plucked the spoon from Ema's hand and gave it a sniff. The action had no practical purpose; she could already smell the delicious fumes wafting from the pot on the stove and she doubted the risotto was laced with anything. She hadn't warned Ema about her coming or anything, and certainly someone would notice if a tale wound up drugged in the kitchen. Besides, if there were anything in the food, it would likely be GHB, and Shelley knew that was odorless. Having no proof otherwise, she would simply have to trust it. Shelley licked the rice off the end of the spoon. "Wow," she said, bringing her other hand to her lips. "That's amazing!"

[madewithclove]

Shelley may have been embarrassed, but Ema was busily rocking back and forth on her toes, anxious as to what Shelley thought of her cooking. Once the woman praised it, Ema's eyes bulged wide with happiness and pride. At least she did something right! Something still didn't seem quite right about the aromas wafting about the room. Then she realized her mistake, biting down on her lip as she remembered the pumpkin cookies. She'd seen that Shelley didn't like pumpkins, which made sense, after all, but also didn't want to mess them up by taking them out too soon. Trembling with indecision, she decided to just leave them be and hope that Shelley didn't notice. "Yes! You like!" She exclaimed loudly, retracting the spoon from Shelley's grasp.

Still buzzing around lightly on her toes, Ema started to pull out plates from one of the cabinets. "Shelley work?" She inquired, looking back over her shoulder as she hefted a large serving bowl for the rice. Barely over a hundred-some pounds, Ema wasn't the most muscular. She wasn't as frail as she looked, though, as was evident when she attempted to carry the stacks of dishware and cutlery over to the counter. Ema beamed once more at Shelley. "I make for Answer. Bob too! You help want?"

I suck at tagging on time. D:

[sellseashelley]

The language barrier had reared its ugly head some time ago, but it hadn't roared until just now. Shelley couldn't tell whether Ema was asking her what her job was or asking her to help. Was it both? She decided not to answer unless Ema asked again, more specifically. That case had been difficult, and the last thing Shelley wanted at the moment was to think about more rapists and molesters.

That wasn't going to be easy, considering the present company. As much as Shelley knew the soul embedded in that lithe body had committed horrible crimes against women, its current shell could just as easily become a victim as any other girl. Shelley was, however, somewhat impressed when the tiny girl lifted a towering stack of assorted kitchenware. It was more than she'd expected of her, but she still decided to give Ema a hand. She'd asked. "Here, let me," Shelley said, lifting about two thirds of Ema's teetering stack and deftly depositing it on the counter. She worked out regularly, mainly to keep within the standards of fitness required by the force. It helped.