faderift | [ Open ] You are a Giant Redwood, Falling on a Family of Deer

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[ Open ] You are a Giant Redwood, Falling on a Family of Deer

WHO: Avery and OPEN
WHAT: Another post-shardbearer-plot (this one) post! This one a slightly wider spread catch-all
WHEN: Late September/early October
WHERE: Around Skyhold
NOTES: Warning for grouchy, injured baker! Also, potential references to violence and torture and gore from said shardbearer plot

Kitchens

Anyone coming in for a visit or just down here passing by over these few weeks is probably going to be hearing a lot more banging and clattering and cursing than usual before they even reach the doors. Sounds which further investigation will reveal to be the sweet music of a very frustrated Avery trying to navigate the narrow spaces between counters in here sporting a sling on one arm and a crutch under the other. What with her junked-up shoulder and still heavily bandaged leg, y'know?

If they're lucky, they might even get the pleasure of seeing her fumble at doing simple tasks one-handed or knock over a tray of breadrolls with her crutch and transcend anger into a quantum state of silent fuming. The kitchen has never betrayed her like this before.

Healing Tents

Hopefully it won't be like that for too much longer though. And it's this hope that has Avery diligently visiting the healing tents at the appropriate intervals to have the progress of her wounds checked on. The shoulder, thankfully, is not so bad, as long as she makes sure to keep from moving it around too much for a while, but the leg... Well, it turns out giant, magical wolf bites don't really give a damn about magical healing. They're stubborn like that and refuse to go away on anyone's schedule but their own!

Stables

During those moments when Avery doesn't have reason to visit the healing tents but has been shooed out of the kitchen to do this thing called... relaxing? (She thinks she might have heard of it once, but she really has no idea what such a strange and foreign concept could truly be. It sounds like a trap.) She usually wanders down to the stables to check in with some of her favorite horses and maybe have a go at brushing out their manes and tails while she's at it. Hopefully without being disturbed by anyone, but everyone knows how likely that is to work out for her.

Training Grounds

Though lately she's been spending a little time watching the soldiers train as well. She's not a terrible fighter herself, but most of what she knows is about how to make your average bully or mugger eat their own teeth. If she'd had real battle training like these people, would things have gone differently on that last mission? She can't help but wonder about it as she silently observes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's a part of her that wants to balk at admitting she needs help, but most of her knows that it's completely true right now. Still, she waffles on how to respond.

Sure, Avery has other people in the kitchen she works with, but having someone basically be her hands is a lot closer. Not just physically but in the sense of communication as well, and communication is far from her strongest (or most comfortable) skill to exercise. Eventually though, she shrugs and checks, "You sure you want to?"

"I did come in here to cook," she points out. "Helping you would be doing so." While Christine likes baking things more than straight cooking, she's done the latter too. It's good to have a skill that was never taught to her in the Circle, and she wants to keep honing it.

"Now, what are you making?" Besides flying dinner rolls.

"I was thinking something simple, since..." She pulls a wry face and shrugs her good shoulder. Duh. "Meat and potato pie? Maybe some carrots or something on the side."

Glancing over at her dear, departed rolls, Avery sighs and explains, "The beef and onions has had to simmer for a while, so I figured I'd whip those up while I waited. See if I could still manage." The results so far: disappointing, clearly.

The results are easy to see and Christine wisely doesn't point that out. Instead she clasps her hands together and looks around her.

"Well! I do know my way around a pie crust. Shall I make one up for you?"

She's not quite sure whether to find the enthusiasm amusing or annoying at the moment, so Avery just rubs at the bridge of her nose. "A couple would be good actually. And I'll see what I can do about those potatoes."

It's less enthusiasm and more a signal to stop talking and get started, but Christine won't blame Avery for thinking she's excited. Christine does love coming into the kitchens to create something.

"Very well. I will fetch whatever you require as well." But for the moment she starts gathering ingredients for the crusts.

"I can--" she starts to protest, then stops and takes a long breath through her nose. Eventually Avery will get her instincts under control. Eventually.

"I'll let you know," she says instead, sounding almost calm about it, before she grabs a nearby bowl of potatoes (thankfully, already peeled and washed by someone a little earlier) and starts prepping to chop them up.

Christine is more than used to stubborn patients. She can be one herself, so she doesn't comment on Avery's slip and simply gets to work, mixing ingredients and rolling out the dough on the floured countertop.

"I have made fruit pies so far," she starts. "But not meat and potato." It sounds far too Fereldan for her. "Is the meat cooked prior to going into the pie, or will it cook enough within the shell?"

"It's cooking right now," Avery explains, nodding to a pot simmering nearby. "Once the crusts are ready and the potatoes are boiling, we'll make the gravy. Then we'll put it all together and pop it in to bake and do the carrots while we wait."

She gives Christine a good look over then. She's seen her around of course, but even on her best days, Avery isn't the most sociable person, so she honestly doesn't know much about her. Orlesian, possibly from an upper class family, healer of some sort, maybe a mage? She's not completely sure about the details, but either way it doesn't really add up to aspiring chef in her mind.

"So you like doing this sort of thing?" she eventually asks.

Edited 2016-09-24 18:35 (UTC)

"Oh yes," Christine replies, continuing to work as she talks. "We were never taught to cook in the Circle." So that's one question answered for Avery. "I enjoy being able to create something like this, especially when others can enjoy it too."

She glances over then, to see how Avery is coming along.

"And what of yourself? How long have you been a cook?"

Well, it's slow work, admittedly, but at least it's her non-dominant arm in the sling, so she doesn't have to use it for much other than steadying. Still, it takes more of her concentration than usual, so there's a short pause before Avery answers, "Forever?"

She stops what she's doing and taps the knife on the counter for a second as she actually thinks about it. "My mum married a baker about... fifteen years ago? Something like that. So I guess I started learning about then."

"Oh, a baker?" Christine laughs. "How are you not much larger? If I had been raised by a baker, I would have become very fat from his pastries. It sounds a very good place to start learning." Christine, on the other hand, has learned from books. Unfortunately, not all recipe books use exact measurements, or the measurements aren't standardized, so she's had to use common sense and hasn't gotten everything perfect. She does pride herself on following instructions well, however, and hasn't made anything inedible yet.

"It wasn't bad," she says as she resumes her cutting. And then the Blight happened just a few years later, but boy does no one want to get into that.

Instead, Avery dryly comments, "And mostly I kept the weight off by sweating in front of those bloody ovens all day."

"Mmm, they are quite hot." She glances in the direction of one. "Very useful while cooking in the winter, but I confess I did not spend as much time here during the summer months." Because she doesn't like to sweat. It makes her scalp itch and then she's smelly and it's just an awful time all around.

"Do you happen to have a favorite meal you like to cook?"

"Some of us don't get to pick and choose like that," she comments with a small, sarcastic smirk. They just get to deal with being itchy and smelly after their shifts year-round.

The she shrugs. "And not really. Stews are convenient, I guess. Just leave them to do their thing and have time to get other work done." A very Fereldan answer.

"True, but some of us have lived in a tent all year, including during the winter," she replies. At least she had the bear slanket Asher made her to get through those frigid nights.

"Oh? I like making pies." Stews are so simple. How can they be a favorite?

Not interested in getting into the discomfort Olympics, Avery decides to avoid the topic of how she spent much of last winter (feverish and nearly dying in the Hinterlands) and instead simply asks, "So I'd bet you're pretty glad of the barracks being done now, yeah?"

As for the stews, they're probably not actually her favorite. They're just very useful when you're trying to feed as many people as there are here. They're simple and don't require much tending so she can be baking bread or restocking the stores or whatever at the same time. And because this is a job to her, when Christine says the word "favorite," Avery hears "efficient," not "enjoyable."

Nodding though, she suggests, "You should ask Burly to show you his specialties sometime. I've seen those desserts bring grown men to tears."

"Well," she pauses in her rolling out of dough to stare down at it a moment. "I was not planning on relocating there. I stay in a tent by the healing tents so I may be available at night in case I am needed." Plus the tent is her own little space. In the Circle she didn't have that, nor would she if she moves into the barracks. Being able to have these things -- a tent of her own, the ability to cook for herself and others -- is precious to her.

"Ah," she adds, going back to rolling. "I do not need pie to do that to grown men." There is a hint of humor to her voice, but who knows if she's being serious or not?

Eyebrows raised quite dramatically, Avery simply asks, "You have a lot of experience with that, do you?"

"You see many things when you are a healer, and men like to make such a fuss over a stubbed toe or a splinter. I am quite certain that is why women are the ones who endure childbirth. Men are such crybabies." Christine has to wonder why some of them are even here if they can't handle a bruise. They should return home where their mothers will soothe them with soup and a blanket.

She laughs at that, a single little huff of amusement, and then wryly says, "I don't know. Stubbed toes are pretty bad. I'd say those are about even, wouldn't you?"

"Well," she takes a moment to consider this before smirking a little. "I shall make an allowance if the stubbed toe is actually broken. Does that sound like a fair compromise?"

Avery shrugs. "Maybe. Depends on how much he's whinging. I've a lot more sympathy for injured men when they're quiet about it."

She stops and tilts her head slightly, pondering, "Actually, I have more patience for men in general when they're not talking."

Christine exhales a laugh. It's often been her opinion that some men just shouldn't speak because they never have anything worth saying. And then there are men like Church, who use two hundred words when he could have gotten his point across in twenty. At least he eventually has something worth saying, and he's been very good to her lately as she deals with her grief.

"I have found that to be the case as well. Oh well. At least we can quiet them with meat pie, yes?"

"I hope so," she answers with a wry look. "Otherwise, what's the point?"

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