Broken Souls (Peregrine x Levy)

Through the slightly misty view of the small crystal in front of him, Karl watched Hana's desperate efforts with a frown. It wasn't as though he feared her graceless hacking would do any particular damage to the door. As the main entrance to the house, if an amateur swinging around a sword could actually do anything to it, his house would long since have been raided for everything it possessed. Even the wood from the front door had been grown from a seed of the Indestructible Banyan Tree, and even the enchanted swords that helped guard the door wouldn't leave so much as a scratch on it. No, it was the excessive display itself that caused him to frown.

It had been apparent from the moment she'd first arrived, when the house had sounded the guest's bell rather than any sort of alarm upon her entry, that the house had thoroughly recognized her as a guest. That despite the fact that she carried around an abyssal artifact with her everywhere she went. At first, he'd attributed her arrival exclusively to the house desiring to contain the cube, and Hana becoming an unfortunate tagalong for the ride. But that was no explanation for the house's careful treatment of her.

He'd dismissed it beforehand, not particularly caring enough to bother about Hana's treatment. Now, however, as he stared at Hana wielding a sword that should not have come loose from the wall no matter how hard she tugged on it, he knew the actual answer. After all, he'd seen the traces of it in her soul only a few days ago.

Numerous artifacts had gone into the creation of this house. In truth, there was no one thing that made up "the house". Its existence was instead something that had been created from the artful interweaving of countless artifacts, whose combined effects created something far greater than the sum of its parts.

Many of those artifacts had been divine in origin. Just like the corrupted angel soul that guarded the room of souls, divine artifacts were natural protectors and healers, and were all but guaranteed to be far, far more merciful than their abyssal counterparts.

And Hana had saintly energy in her soul. Those divine artifacts would have sensed that long before Karl had even noticed her arrival, and would have adjusted their behavior accordingly. If she was under proper mentorship from a true saint and a divine artifact, it was possible Hana could mature into a true saint herself. Of course they would start pampering her.

In frustration, Karl grabbed the little crystal ball and hurled it towards the wall. Hana's santliness certainly didn't bother him. He'd met more than a few saints in his time, and while they were generally meddlesome busybodies, they also had their uses. There was no one in the world who could channel more divine energy than a saint. No, what frustrated him was that Karl had just been forced to acknowledge there was probably no way he'd be able to lock Hana and that cube in the depths of his house. It would probably just let her out again the moment she asked.

For the second time in incredibly short succession, Karl felt a stab of betrayal from the behavior of his residence, which was supposed to be loyal to him above almost all else.

Having no desire to think about Hana any further, Karl turned back to his work, temporarily pushing the memories of Hana deep into the vault of his mind.


Many hours later, and Karl had completed his project. The man was now making his way towards the kitchen with a leisurely stride, trying to decide what he wanted for dinner. However, upon arriving at the kitchen, he was brought to a halt by the sight of an absolute mess in front of him.

The counters were covered in various bowls, filled with the residue of countless foods. Flour seemed to have been scattered around the place as though someone had been attempting to imitate a snowstorm. And there, standing next to a counter near the stove, stood a particular black haired girl who Karl had no desire to think about at the moment. Dough surrounded the counter near her, with a few bowls near her.

"Fleskepanne..." Karl muttered, before his indignation flared. "What are you doing to my kitchen?!"

"Fleskepanne" - "Meathead" (Norwegian)
 
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Eventually, after a while of contemplation at the entrance, Hana had made her way back to her room.

She tossed the tote bag onto her bed, and followed suit by flopping unceremoniously onto the pile of blankets and pillows. She laid face down like that, unmoving, for quite some time, but she didn't cry. It seemed that she had exhausted all of her tears. She fell asleep again, just like that, and woke up a few hours later.

Bobbing up, she groaned, remembering her failed excursion around the house. Since she walked into that house, it felt like nothing had worked out in her favor, like she had been cursed with the worst streak of bad luck imaginable. There were literal closed doors everywhere she turned. After some time, it finally settled in that there was nothing else she could do. For now, at least. She was up shit's creek with no paddle, and hardly even a boat.

And having woken up from her slumber, she discovered that she was sore all damn over; her shoulders and hips already began to hurt, the soles of her feet had worn out, and she completely forgot about her bleeding hand. The adrenaline already left her system, and it left her feeling all the repercussions of slamming her whole entire body into not one, not two, but several doors.

Looking up, she spotted gauze and medical tape sitting on her night stand. She had never even noticed it come in.

"Thanks, house." She sighed, picking up the items. Leaving to rinse the cuts on her hand with soap and water, she debarked to the bathroom to then perform a (shoddy, at best) patch up job on it. Oh, well. It would do for now.

As she plopped back down, she was suddenly reminded of her mom. It had been a while since she'd called or even texted. She owed her at least that much. Picking up her phone from the dresser, she read the notifications she missed during her four day isolation period.

Umma 💕
I miss you. Call me!!!!

(13) Missed Calls from Umma 💕

(9) Missed Calls from Umma 💕

Are you eating good? Take care of yourself.

(3) Missed Calls from Umma 💕

Hania, do you want me to come visit? I will bring a jar of my kimchi and make mandu for us.

She practically dropped her phone as she scrambled to call her back.


Many, many hours or so later, she found herself in the middle of the kitchen, though it would be more accurately described as a disaster zone. After getting off the phone with her mom, she figured that if there was nothing else she could do to help her situation now, then there was no use sulking about it. Her mom's mandu never failed to cheer her up, and though she couldn't be here to help her make them, she could at the very least honor her spirit.

Or so, that was the plan. It turns out, mandu-making was not a one woman task. Even when she was in grade school, Hana's mom would round up whatever extended friends or family were nearby and they would all make mandu together. It was as much of a meal as it was a bonding activity. Hers would always turn out lumpy and either overstuffed or understuffed, with clumsy pleating, but she scarfed them down when they were done all the same.

The pork mixture was sitting on the counter across from her, with haphazardly chopped garlic, green onions, napa cabbage, and various earthy seasonings blended into the bowl. The knife she used to chop sat sprawled over the cutting board, discarded vegetable bits sat spewed over the counter, and an unidentified sticky substance coated parts of the granite.

Oh, and the flour. God, the flour. She didn't even realize that it had gotten everywhere until she looked up and it did. The dough had been... sort of formed, but it was dreadfully sticky. She could only use her one non-injured hand to knead, and clearly, it wasn't working very well for her.

She certainly didn't notice Karl walking in, not until she heard him behind her, making her jump. She looked over her shoulder sheepishly.

"M.. Mandu. I'm making mandu. Pork dumplings." She pointed to the bowl of pork on the opposite counter with her sticky dough hand. "I'm sorry for trashing your kitchen—but I really have to make these dumplings. I swear I'll clean up once I'm done." She realized that, in fact, this was not her kitchen, so she might've been slightly in the wrong for creating a gigantic mess. But she really needed to make those dumplings. She pursed her lips to the side, puffing her cheeks up a bit.

"Do you want some when they're done? I'm gonna steam them." She said it quietly. In her head, her mom would be severely disappointed in her if she didn't offer any to him, though she doubted he wanted anything to do with her or her dumplings.
 
"Pork. Dumplings." Karl repeated, his tone mocking and scathing. "You're not making verflucht mandu, you're making a fucking mess."

Hana's apology did little to soothe him. Judging by the various messes Hana had created, who knew how long it would take for her to get the place into a presentable state. However, her follow up to that seemed to have an even worse effect.

"Do I..." Hana's final words almost seemed to cause Karl to momentarily choke on his own words. "Do I want some? No I don't goddamn want any. Look at this! Your dough is barely even holding together. And what the hell is with that stuffing? Did you just shove an entire maudite head of cabbage into raw pork and call it good? Did you even remember the soy sauce? Sesame oil? Faens salt and pepper? They're going to taste like cardboard, and that's assuming they even hold together in the pot and you don't end up drinking telur soup."

Still fuming, Karl's eyes once more roamed around the dirty kitchen. Between cleaning this up and waiting for Hana to get her meal, who knew how long it was going to be before he was able to eat.

"If you want food," Karl said, his voice restrained in a way that made it clear he was speaking around clenched teeth. "Just ask the kitchen to make it. Jap chae, bibimpap, bo ssam, even your precious mandu, it knows how to make them all, and obviously far better than you do."

Finally working his way past the doorway threshold, Karl's fingers swept out towards the counter filled with dirty dishes. Said dishes lifted themselves politely, but seemed to hesitate for a second, and Karl's frown instantly turned several times worse. "Goddamnit, did you even tell it not to clean up after you? How long are you intending to lock down the place?"

As if it wasn't bad enough that she'd barged her way uninvited into his house, now she was even going to take over his kitchen. And he couldn't even get the goddamn bowls to go clean themselves.

"Verflucht" - "Cursed/damned" (German)
"Maudite " - "Cursed/damned" (French)
"Faens" - "Fucking" (Noregian)
"Telur" - "Ballsack" (Malaysian)
 
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"Hey!" Hana began to protest, but she stopped when she realized that he was kind of actually bringing up some solid points. She puffed out her cheeks in irritation. "No..." she fumbled with the dough, "I forgot about the seasoning." She admitted, pouting. She'd have to do it after she finished up with the dough, which, indeed, did not look like it was coming together at all.

She grabbed some more flour with the fingers of her free hand, making sure not to get any stuck in the bandages, and sprinkled it onto the dough and around the work surface. With her sticky dough hand, she began kneading the new flour into the dough to try to curb its stickiness, her bandaged hand resting beside her.

She couldn't keep from rolling her eyes at his next comment, but her head shot up at him in mild shock as he listed off a bunch of traditional korean dishes the kitchen could make for her, all of which she loved. Logically, she knew that he probably had tasted way more foods than she'd ever even heard of, and Becker even mentioned his extensive knowledge of language and the diversity of his culinary palate, but it was a little surprising to hear a clearly white man speak of foods of her own country in such a casual tone.

But still, she cocked her head to the side in disagreement. "That's not the point, dummy. I'm sure to hot shot immortals like you, cooking may seem like a mundane thing that you'd skip on if you can, and you certainly can, but it's no fun that way! Eating is only half the experience." She smiled, before continuing.

"And, yeah, there are times when I just want my food served to me, but this is not one of those times. I. Have. To make these dumplings." She looked up again as he tried to clean up after her.

"Yes! I did." She said, grinning at him. "But I promise it won't take much longer. Just, um, maybe a few more hours, because the dough has to rest... and then I have to fix the pork, but I'll be out of your hair after that! And your kitchen will be just like you left it."

For all the reassuring that she was doing, the fact that she could only use one hand to knead seemed to be more of a problem than she anticipated. It was largely inefficient because her hands were small to begin with, and coupled with her apparent lack of arm strength in her non dominant hand, she didn't seem to be getting much real kneading done. She hummed in concentration, though, as she kept at it.
 
Hana's words, and her fierce, slightly proud expression, brought Karl momentarily to a halt. His frown grew slightly larger, but for a moment, his expression seemed to lean more towards distaste than anger.

Karl knew how to cook. As a matter of fact, he knew how to cook quite well. He had, after all, been cooking for several hundred years before he'd ever gotten even the faintest glimpse of artifacts like the Rhygenydd Ysgolhaig or the Skatert-Samobranka, which were able to create food. However, ever since he had succeeded in automating the process, he had not bothered with cooking anything again. To him, the entire point of the process was the result, so if he could get the result without bothering with the process, why wouldn't he?

But, not everyone who Karl had worked with had a similar thought process. There had been a few, not many, but a few, who had insisted on using Karl's kitchen as an actual kitchen. They had been the kind of people who'd influenced Karl to build his kitchen into the shape it currently resembled, a space for people to gather and hang out while food was being prepared. For one moment, as little as he liked it, he saw the ghosts of those people hiding in Hana's smile.

And then she continued to speak, and the illusion was shattered.

"A couple more hours?" Karl repeated, his face suddenly going livid again. The feeling of deep-seated frustration that he'd felt building inside of him suddenly exploded. He'd watched her roam through his house like he'd given her the goddamn key, his house, his home, his sanctuary was practically turning against him in her favor, and now she wasn't even going to let him eat when he wanted to? "You barge into my house uninvited," he said, voice slowly growing in both volume and temper. "Demand I help you when I have absolutely no reason to, pester me with questions constantly, lie to my face, and now I even have to get my meals on your schedule?"

He was getting so goddamn tired of this girl, and everything she represented.

Striding further into the kitchen, Karl physically nudged Hana out of the way, taking her position in front of the dough. He stretched out his fingers briefly, before grabbing a small handful of flour, scattering it artfully across the top of the slightly soppy dough. "If I am going to be stuck," he began, fingers digging into the dough and quickly starting to knead it. "Eating whatever piece of shit meal you leave me with." One hand lifted, bringing the dough along with it, before he grabbed another pinch of flour, dusting the counter and setting the dough down once more before resuming his kneading. "I am at least going to have to make sure it's edible."

His eyes turned to glare at Hana, as though daring her to object. "Go get the spices. And more of the goddamn pork, or we're never going to be able to salvage this salad you made."
 
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Karl's borderline shouting made her recoil a little. Sure, she had done all of those things, but he didn't have to be mean about it. "I didn't demand, I just asked..." Hana murmured, her face still pouting.

After being nudged to the side, Hana opened her mouth to protest again, and then closed it as she saw him begin to knead the dough more artfully than she'd ever be able to manage. She stared at him, and then the dough, and then back at him again. A small smile crept up on her face.

He was helping her. Big scary goblin man was making dumplings with her. And it looked like he was a lot better than her at it. She tried her best to contain her giggles, but a few managed to escape.

"Yes, sir." Hana washed her hands at the sink first, mostly to get sticky dough and flour off her hands, and then moved to check some of the cabinets for seasonings. She found the soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper as she recounted Karl saying, and carried all of them precariously in her arms, setting them down before the pork bowl. With a butter knife, she transferred the rest of the ground pork from the bowl it arrived in.

If she remembered correctly, she'd already put in the ginger, garlic, and scallions. She poured in equal amounts of soy and sesame, before eyeballing the salt and pepper. With a wooden spoon, she folded in all the ingredients until they were all incorporated in the pork meat matrix, holding the bowl close to her for support.

When she was done, she glanced at him. "Karl, is this enough?" She tilted the bowl towards him. "I put in what you told me to add."
 
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As Hana scampered about the kitchen gathering the required materials to fix the stuffing, Karl continued to devote most of his attention to the dough in front of him. It had been a long time since he'd cooked anything, and while he'd been able to blast out his critiques of Hana's dumpling making skills in his pique from moments ago, most of the related knowledge had long since been buried away in the depths of his mind.

As his fingers continued to pull rhythmically at the dough, blending it together, his eyes glazed over slightly, in the same manner that Hana might recognize from his behavior in the library several days ago when he'd been examining her cube. Karl was once more searching through the vaults of his memory, and by the time Hana presented the bowl to him, his fingers were moving even more smoothly than they had been before.

Looking away from the dough, Karl observed Hana's bowl with a critical eye. At the very least, it no longer looked like there was as much vegetable in the mix as there was meat, which was far closer to the proper ratio. With quick movements, his flour coated fingers detached from the dough, before pinching a small piece of filling from the bowl and sticking it in his mouth.

"Still needs more salt," he instructed, hands going back to kneading the dough. "Another teaspoon, two at most. Don't over salt it."
 
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Hana watched in horror as Karl dipped his fingers into the pork and brought it to his tongue to taste. She parted her mouth shock, staring at him as though he'd sprouted a second head while he promptly went back to kneading like it was no big deal. "K-Karl!" She finally managed to yell. "Y-you just ate raw pork! Oh my god, spit it back up! Do you feel okay?" She slammed the bowl back down on the counter and stepped closer to, peering at him left and right.

"Who just eats raw meat like that..?" Hana mumbled, still clearly flabbergasted. She frowned, before stepping back. "I guess you're immortal so it doesn't even matter, but still!" She went back to the salt container and measured out about a teaspoon and a half before dumping it into the bowl. With the same spoon, she stirred to incorporate it, still shaking her head in disbelief.

She occasionally glanced back at him as he kneaded, his hands seeming to work mechanically like the hands of a seasoned chef. Maybe she was onto something when she first called him a cook, stomping towards her with a rag and a kitchen spoon.
 
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Karl, who had been prepared to return to the dough as soon as he finished giving Hana her instructions, frowned suddenly at her shout. A frown almost immediately crossed his face. "What the hell are you caterwauling for, puella?" he said, voice coming out like a low growl. "You aren't a goddamned banshee, so there's no need to start screaming like one."

As Hana turned back to her own work, Karl returned to the dough. However, the frown on his face hadn't lessened one bit. Rather than focusing on what his fingers were doing, he instead continued to frown at her. "Me trying it has nothing to do with me being immortal," he stated, voice sounding unexpectedly offended. "You can eat it too, and perfectly safely. My kitchen doesn't create food with parasites in it, so there's no godverdoem way for you to get sick from eating it."

Still seeming somewhat offended that she'd even suggest the possibility that his kitchen might create bad food, Karl's fingers momentarily dug into the dough with slightly more aggressiveness than was strictly necessary. However, a second later, and a somewhat vengeful thought suddenly passed through his mind. "Next time you want to eat, I'll have the house make mett for you."

Let's see how she liked it when she wasn't able to eat what she wanted when she wanted it.

"Godverdoem" - "Goddamned" (Afrikaans)
 
Hana stuck out her tongue at him as a cursory cross gesture, going back to the bowl. But when she felt his eyes glaring holes into her, she blinked at him, figuring that he was obviously deeply upset by something she said. She knitted her brows at him as he continued, squinting her eyes down at the pork mixture, and then back up at him. It took her a few more moments of vacant staring before she popped back and opened her mouth to gasp, a metaphoric lightbulb moment.

"Oh! I see, I never thought about that. It's dangerous when it comes from actual farm raised animals, but less so when it's produced by an artifact. I guess that does make sense..." She trailed off, but her face soured as she scrunched up her nose. "But I think I'm good, raw pork sounds, um, unsavory at best." She mumbled, turning back to the mixture to stir. The thought of it made her cringe, so she shook away the thought.

When she finished stirring, she set the bowl back and went to pick up all the dirty dishes, stacking them up in her hands as she moved around the kitchen. "Mett?" She racked her brain for a few moments, extending her hand into Karl's working space to pick up a stay ceramic dish. "What's that? Is it good?" She asked, before carefully walking down to the sink in the scullery and setting down all the dishes.

On the way back, she grabbed a rag that was lying off to the side and ran it under warm water, before wringing it out. Promptly, she got to work cleaning up the nearest surface of all the flour she scattered.
 
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"Oh, yeah," Karl replied, eyes focused on kneading the dough. His voice was unexpectedly light, the trace of humor buried in the back of his throat causing little more than a smile to tug at the corners of his lips. His fingers had finally managed to work the dough into a smooth texture, and it wouldn't be long before he'd be done with it and get to wash his fingers off. "It's a famous German dish. I'm sure you'll love it."

Giving the dough a few final rolls to shape it into a lump, Karl finally removed his fingers. They were lightly coated in a mixture of sticky dough and dry flour, and he couldn't help but frown at the sight of them. Honestly, why someone would get their hands so dirty when there were alternatives that would produce much better results was a complete mystery to him.

Karl moved over to the sink, quickly washing his hands clean of flour under the warm tap water. As soon as he was sure that his hands were completely clean, he reached out to the wall, his hand palm up. Like when the thunderstone had first appeared, a little gap appeared in the wall. However, rather than a stone, this time it was a small hourglass that appeared, no taller than the length of a finger. Folding it carefully in his palm, Karl moved back over towards the dough.
 
Hana raised her eyebrows at him, tilting her head slightly. She blinked as he grinned. Was that... a genuine smile? That was probably the first time she saw him smile like that. "That good?" She asked, keeping her gaze on him for a few more moments before turning back to the cabinets, continuing to clean up all the flour. Huh. He must really, really like the dish.

She swept down the flour that had gotten on the cabinets, and then swept up the counters, drawing up the flour into a small circle and sliding it into her left hand. It really had gotten everywhere. She wasn't sure how she even managed it, but she dutifully kept scrubbing at the surface of the granite.

"Oh, are you done?" She perked up as he moved to wash his hands. Balling up the rag, she peeked over from behind him to look at the dough that he shaped into a smooth ball. "I think my mom usually lets this dough rest for an hour." She said, her eyes following the antique that he held in his palm. "Is that an hourglass?" She hadn't seen one be put to practical use, so her interest was thoroughly piqued.
 
"Mmmm," Karl agreed, his response little more than a hum. The faint noise did not sound particularly pleased, but it was also lacking any of Karl's usual rancor.

"It's a Fae Glass," he responded instead, walking up in front of the dough and studying it for a second, before he took a carefully measured step backwards. In his hand, the hourglass began to float, turning over. As Karl watched it carefully, sand began to drop into the other side of the glass, one grain at a time. However, rather than behaving like a normal hourglass where the sand would fall in a steady stream, the sand in this glass seemed to fall more like dripping water, one grain and then a pause, before another grain would follow. Under Karl's careful observation the sand "dripping" began to speed up, quickly growing from one a second to several every moment.
 
"A Fae Glass." She corrected herself. Her eyes followed the grains as they fell at an increasingly faster speed, and she let out a mystified "oooh," at the clearly magical display. Looking up at Karl, she furrowed her brows, thinking carefully about her next words. "What.. is it for, exactly?" She asked, trying to downplay her inquisitiveness. If she wanted to get anywhere, it would probably not do her a lot of good to be barraging him with questions, especially when she's invading in his clearly sensitive territory.

Hana resumed cleaning up the mess of flour on the cabinets and countertops, dusting the rag occasionally. "It looks super cool though," She glanced back at the hour glass, admiring the delicate curvature and the intricate woodwork on the top and bottom surface of the artifact.
 
Frowning slightly at the sound of Hana's question, Karl instead focused more intently on the sand falling through the glass. His other, free hand, was tapping against his leg rhythmically, counting out a series of beats. Suddenly, Karl abruptly flipped the glass over twice, before tossing it accurately at the mound of dough.

As though it had been caught by an invisible hand, the glass hovered half a foot over the dough, before a small, distorted space appeared around it in a foot and a half bubble radius.

Only then did Karl turn to face Hana. He was still frowning slightly, before grudgingly answering her question. "It's for changing the flow of time in an area," he replied. "I have no intention of waiting several hours for the food to be ready."
 
Hana paused as she turned her head to follow the tapping on Karl's leg, before catching the distortion of the air surrounding the dough. Her lips parted into a charmed gasp as she quickly bent down to the dough's level, resting her chin atop the granite counter beside her hands. "Ohhh! I see! Then, I... probably shouldn't poke it, right?" Hana said, a smile forming from her wonder at this probably insignificant, but yet clearly engrossing show of magic.

The fact that she'd just asserted to keep magical conveniences out of the dumpling-making process was... overruled. For learning purposes, obviously.

Once the initial fascination waned, she looked up at him from her spot perched on the counter. "I don't know a lot about Fae things—in fact, I think the only folklore about Fae I've ever encountered was probably in a Disney movie—but what do those guys have to do with the flow of time?" She asked, standing up finally.

Of course, she wanted to ask about what other time-related artifacts he knew of, if it was possible to travel through time at all, if it was every bit science fiction-y as she imagined it to be, and if the danger of breaking the space-time continuum was even a thing at all. But, she also realized that that might get her thrown out of the kitchen completely, so she refrained from the machine gun style inquisition, settling for just the one question.
 
Karl snorted. "Sure, poke away, if you want the tip of your finger to necrotize." Any flesh that entered the time distortion without the accompaniment of the rest of the body would be separated from the flow of blood, connected to a heart that beat far more slowly than the time it was passing through. Of course, this fae glass wasn't strong enough to have quite that dramatic of an effect—it would have to be converting seconds into hours or days, rather than minutes—but Karl had absolutely no intention of clarifying his exaggeration. "Or get a little closer and you might lose the tip of your nose."

Leaving Hana to stare at the dough, even though there was no particular transformation and nothing to watch other than the faint shimmer in the air, Karl instead began to gather the empty, dirty bowls into one corner of the kitchen. He had absolutely zero intentions of helping Hana with the dishes, that would be her job and her job alone once they were done cooking, but at the moment there was nowhere near enough room to prepare the dumplings. The quickest way to get that space was to simply stack the bowls out of the way.

Hana's question earned another snort from Karl, however this one sounded... unexpectedly amused, albeit no less derisive. "What, like Peter Pan? Pixie dust that makes you fly?" He let out a sudden, short laugh, before shaking his head, letting out a sigh that was more like a groan. "We're not talking those silly, cutesy children's fairies. It's old Fae, Celtic lore from the middle ages. The times when people thought fairies would steal their children and leave behind a changeling in its place. Have you never heard stories of people who would visit the faery court for a day, only to come back and realize that twenty years had passed while they were away? That's a Fae Glass."

As though responding to his words, the glass began to tremble. The last drop of sand flowed back into the base, and the distorted air abruptly disappeared. With the faint sound of glass hitting against stone, the hourglass dropped to the counter and showed no further signs of activity.

Finished stacking the bowls, Karl turned back towards the dough, quickly scooping up the hourglass before there was any chance Hana could touch it. However, as he moved back towards the slot in the wall to return the glass to wherever it had come from, he suddenly paused, seemingly considering something. "Or, well, at least the principle behind it," he amended. "This is a small, weak Fae Glass. Firstly, its hardly capable of such massive time dilation. Secondly, I tricked it into working backwards, so that time inside passes faster than the rest of the world, rather than slower."

Seemingly satisfied with his correction, Karl returned the glass to the wall.
 
Hana sharply withdrew her hands from the counter top, and covered the tip of her nose with her fingertips sheepishly. She would very much like to keep her sniffer attached to the rest of her face.

Giving one last glance to the distorted sphere in the air, she picked up the rag again and began dusting the rest of the countertop. At that point, she had gotten rid of about half the flour that covered the kitchen's surfaces.

Karl's jibes at what she considered a widely beloved Disney movie made her part her mouth, clearly appalled and a little offended. "Hey! Leave Peter Pan alone. He was a childhood classic, you old grouch!" She puffed out her cheeks and knitted her brows in vexation, continuing slowly. "But no, I haven't... I think they stopped telling stories like that after, like, the eighteenth century. And probably for the best, geez. That sounds scary." She mumbled.

She supposed he was right in one sense. Compared to what fairy tales used to be, the Disney adaptations were much more... PG.

As she noticed the bowls he'd stacked up, she went over to collect them all, balancing them in her arms before setting them down in the scullery sink. She heard his additions to his previous statements about the Fae Glass as she walked back into the kitchen, and hummed in understanding. "And we're using it to rest dough?" She looked down at the counter, smiling a little.

"That's kind of cute." She remarked to herself. Hana, at this point, was still trying to wrap her head around the world of magic—and for the past however many days, she had been fed dangerous tales of Becker's misadventures with artifacts of the brutal and vicious variety. Seeing a small, simple hourglass that came from the same world as that speed up her dumpling wrapper resting time was an endearingly mundane change of pace that she desperately needed.

She set down the rag and gave her hands a cursory wash before rolling up her sleeves and walking over to the magically rested dough. "Now, for the wrappers. I think I remember how to do it..." She took the dough ball in her left hand and rolled it out to a log of uniform width, using the finger tips of her bandages hand for leverage.

She grabbed a wooden bench scraper that had been sitting off to the side and divided the log in half, and then those halves into halves, and so on, until she chopped up the whole thing into roughly one inch bits of dough. Very roughly. She had her tongue peeking out of her mouth in concentration as she tried to gauge the exact center of each of the divided logs. Then, she scooted all the little balls into one corner of the counter, covering them with a damp towel, and rolled out each of them into mostly circular wrappers, dusting with flour appropriately.

Each dumpling wrapper she finished got stacked under the same damp towel so as to not dry them out, until it yielded a tall stack of about 30 wrappers. Feeling triumphant with that, she gleefully moved the pork bowl closer to her station, and set about the task of filling the wrappers and pleating. Before starting, she laid out a small bowl of water and a round tray to hold all the finished dumplings.

She slipped one hand under the damp towel and pulled a wrapper from the top of the stack. It sunk neatly into her cupped palm, and she used her free hand to scoop in a spoonful of the pork-vegetable mixture. With that same hand, she dipped her forefinger into the bowl of warm water, and traced a circle around the circumference of the wrapper to help the pleating stay.

Unfortunately, her pleating technique was... crude, at best. Her crimping was clumsy, she struggled to crease it properly, having to use her non dominant hand, and she could barely get through the first dumpling. She set it down on the sheet tray once finished, sitting in a sad clump. The next few yielded similar misshapen results, but she continued assembling them persistently.
 
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Although he'd helped with the dough, Karl had no particular intention to help Hana with the remainder of her ill-conceived project. The only reason he'd intervened in the first place was because Hana's behavior had made it clear that this was all he was going to be getting to eat within a reasonable period of time. However, unless he was worried about whether Hana's poor attempts at cooking would ruin the dish, he had no intention of intruding again.

Karl settled in one of the lowered seats that were interspersed among the counters, resting one elbow on the counter and supporting the side of his head with two fingers. As for Hana's comment on his use of the Fae Glass, he gave no remark. As far as Karl was concerned, tools were tools, magical or mundane. What mattered was what they were used for. The problem was, most people were too irresponsible to be left alone with such capable 'tools'.

As for the Fae Glass, many of its larger cousins were put to use in the house already. Some artifacts would never become peaceful, no matter how long they'd been trapped. Karl's solution to their disruptive behavior was to simply shove them into a time flow which made their "frequent" occurrences only actually happen once in a blue moon.

His thoughts gradually pulling out of memories of the various methods he'd used to contain artifacts in the house, Karl's eyes were drawn to the malformed lumps of dough that had gathered on a metal sheet. The frown once again appeared on his face, and he stood up with an audible groan.

"Enough," he scolded, once more moving forward and nudging Hana out of the way. "Those aren't going to hold together. I suppose I should have figured that someone incapable of making dough wouldn't be able to form a dumpling, either. Just... fill the wrappers, and I'll finish it. With less filling than you shoved in those bloated monstrosities, capisci?"

"Capisci" - "Understood" (Italian)
 
Gasping a little when her concentration was broken by Karl's nudge to her side, disrespecting her and her arguably lumpy dumplings, she bounced back on her heels. Her face went through a series of offended open-jawed glowers and cross looks, and she was about to protest, before she huffed. Irritatingly, he had a point, as he always seemed to have. And assembly would definitely go a whole lot faster with an extra pair of hands, as opposed to her one and a half. Slowly, she nodded.

"... Okay."

Hana slid the bowl and stack of wrappers closer to her, before beginning to fill them. With one hand cupping a wrapper, she used the other to scoop a full spoon of filling, before pausing, scraping a little off on the inside of the bowl, and plopping it in the center of the dough. Turning to Karl, she held her hand out to slide the wrapper into his palm.

Only a few more dumplings in, she glanced up at him, before back down to her hands as she spooned another clump into a wrapper, her mouth curled into an discontent pout.

"I rolled out the dough and made the wrappers on my own." She mumbled, defending herself from what he said a few minutes ago. "They weren't bloated monstrosities, they were a little overstuffed. You're so dramatic. And I could've pleated them better if I could use my dominant hand." Hana said, sliding the next stuffed wrapper into his hand. If she was being honest, that little blurb was mostly to assuage herself than to really spark any debate about her culinary competence.

"But," She looked around the room awkwardly, filling the next dumpling, and sliding it into his hand again like clock work. She held her hand there for a second longer, she gave him another fleeting glance.

"Thank you. For helping me with the dumplings. I know you're doing it because you want your kitchen back faster, but thank you still. It would've taken me double time for probably way crappier dumplings." She paused, shaking her head from side to side in contemplation. "Even though you were kind of ass about it." She said, laughing.
 
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