[Wild Roses] post wars
Title: surprisingly resigned to his probable fate
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Jonathan, An Impending Sense of Doom, Hazel, Sascha
Prompt: 13B "hope"
Word Count: 538
Notes: not very long after the theory of continental drift.
Jonathan paused, hungry, several rooms short of the kitchen. Which was giggling.
He was pretty sure the sound of female laughter hadn't always filled him with a sense of impending doom. In fact, female laughter had used to mean his mother was visiting and he'd likely have new books and interesting presents besides.
These days, in contrast, laughter usually meant Sascha was up to something, and that if he wasn't involved already he soon would be.
So it was with considerable caution that he sidled into the kitchen, still holding out faint hope that he'd be able to find a snack and escape intact.
"So we're supposed to separate the pith from the peel, and drop just the peel into the syrup," Hazel was interpreting from a spiral-bound book she had propped on her knees as he came in.
Which meant it was Sascha at the stove.
He hoped the explosion would be smallish. Just the house, maybe, no adjoining buildings and certainly not the whole block?
Sascha peered into the pot, which uttered a 'blup' of greeting as a response to her interest, then raised her head and considered the disemboweled remains of several oranges scattered around the kitchen. "Do they say how we're supposed to remove the pith? I usually use my teeth."
Jonathan bit his lip, hard, but couldn't resist the "Why?" that bubbled inevitably to the top of his brain and out his mouth.
Sascha looked up, gave him a delighted grin. "Because it tastes good! It doesn't burst on my teeth like the peel does, and it doesn't go all gooey like the sections, but it still tastes all orange-y."
Her tone was the 'of course!' he'd come to associate with her dragon ancestry. He really, really hoped he never met her mother, because he was not going to be able to resist asking if it was her fault, or uncle Fintain's.
"We're making candied orange peel to go with orange ices," Hazel supplied, grinning demonically up from the cookbook. "It might save some of the poor oranges."
"It will not!" Sascha replied, obviously walking old ground, "I still like oranges as oranges, not just crunchy and sweet."
"Do you know how to get pith off the normal way?" Hazel asked him, loftily ignoring her sister, and Jonathan had to shrug, lift both his hands to emphasize his ignorance.
"I can make sandwiches, but that's about the limit of my skills. I always got chased out of the kitchen."
"Really?" Hazel, who as far as he'd been able to determine was the favourite pet of the entire keep's staff, replied blankly, then held up her cookbook. "Here, you can help me--"
"Hey!" Sascha protested loudly. "You wouldn't let me see--"
"You tried to eat a page!" Hazel flared back, thumbed her nose and then curled her fingertips at her sister in some kind of specific rude gesture Sascha knew, based on the flared nostrils and narrowed eyes, but he had no idea how to interpret.
He was going to get turned into something one of these days. Hopefully aunt Arianhrod would be able to turn him back, when presented with former-him by his no doubt arguing about whose fault it was cousins.
'Verse/characters: Wild Roses; Jonathan, An Impending Sense of Doom, Hazel, Sascha
Prompt: 13B "hope"
Word Count: 538
Notes: not very long after the theory of continental drift.
Jonathan paused, hungry, several rooms short of the kitchen. Which was giggling.
He was pretty sure the sound of female laughter hadn't always filled him with a sense of impending doom. In fact, female laughter had used to mean his mother was visiting and he'd likely have new books and interesting presents besides.
These days, in contrast, laughter usually meant Sascha was up to something, and that if he wasn't involved already he soon would be.
So it was with considerable caution that he sidled into the kitchen, still holding out faint hope that he'd be able to find a snack and escape intact.
"So we're supposed to separate the pith from the peel, and drop just the peel into the syrup," Hazel was interpreting from a spiral-bound book she had propped on her knees as he came in.
Which meant it was Sascha at the stove.
He hoped the explosion would be smallish. Just the house, maybe, no adjoining buildings and certainly not the whole block?
Sascha peered into the pot, which uttered a 'blup' of greeting as a response to her interest, then raised her head and considered the disemboweled remains of several oranges scattered around the kitchen. "Do they say how we're supposed to remove the pith? I usually use my teeth."
Jonathan bit his lip, hard, but couldn't resist the "Why?" that bubbled inevitably to the top of his brain and out his mouth.
Sascha looked up, gave him a delighted grin. "Because it tastes good! It doesn't burst on my teeth like the peel does, and it doesn't go all gooey like the sections, but it still tastes all orange-y."
Her tone was the 'of course!' he'd come to associate with her dragon ancestry. He really, really hoped he never met her mother, because he was not going to be able to resist asking if it was her fault, or uncle Fintain's.
"We're making candied orange peel to go with orange ices," Hazel supplied, grinning demonically up from the cookbook. "It might save some of the poor oranges."
"It will not!" Sascha replied, obviously walking old ground, "I still like oranges as oranges, not just crunchy and sweet."
"Do you know how to get pith off the normal way?" Hazel asked him, loftily ignoring her sister, and Jonathan had to shrug, lift both his hands to emphasize his ignorance.
"I can make sandwiches, but that's about the limit of my skills. I always got chased out of the kitchen."
"Really?" Hazel, who as far as he'd been able to determine was the favourite pet of the entire keep's staff, replied blankly, then held up her cookbook. "Here, you can help me--"
"Hey!" Sascha protested loudly. "You wouldn't let me see--"
"You tried to eat a page!" Hazel flared back, thumbed her nose and then curled her fingertips at her sister in some kind of specific rude gesture Sascha knew, based on the flared nostrils and narrowed eyes, but he had no idea how to interpret.
He was going to get turned into something one of these days. Hopefully aunt Arianhrod would be able to turn him back, when presented with former-him by his no doubt arguing about whose fault it was cousins.