July 24th, 199 NWC, 17:45
Almeida had been pretty tired of all the Academy bullshit. Dealing with the kids turned out to be less tiring than dealing with the Headmaster and the bureaucracy. How in the world was she even supposed to 'study' whatever was going on with Elisa? She hated being made responsible for something that was far beyond her, especially as it was risking the mental and physical well-being of such an adorable kid. Sadly enough, no amount of rants or complaints worked, she had realised that after only her single and first attempt a few days ago, so she just tried figuring out how to deal with it.
Now, near the end of such a long and tiring day, she figured she'd cook away all her frustration. Literally, as she was vigorously chopping onions, with a neat piece of beef already simmering in a pan, but a fair amount of vegetables still waiting their turn. The smell of clove and bay leaves was also filling up the small kitchen (which she wasn't even sure she was allowed to use, but who cares, right?), as the herbs were simmering into a thick looking gravy that surrounded the earlier piece of beef. It also seemed like a surprisingly amount of potatoes was awaiting their turn to be washed and pealed.
Hibiscus, after a long day of school, was pretty tired of all the hullabaloo and just wanted to relax doing something. What that something was, she did not know. At her home she usually entertained herself by watching the gardeners do their work or by watching the working class work. Whatever Hibiscus did usually involved watching others do their work. She didn’t lead what she thought was a boring life, but in hindsight she led a boring life. She wasn’t allowed to do the gardening or cooking herself for some reason because her parents forbid it, but Hibiscus had the feeling they may have wanted her to do as little as possible to avoid her awakening her powers. Well, it was the thought that counts.
As it was, having had her powers awaken, Hibiscus now had nothing to do in life save for training, and training was awfully boring, especially by herself when all she could do was heal. Although Lyka did say that an attack spell was a possibility for battle, it was not nearly going to happen yet. So with all that, Hibiscus’s only method of non-boredom was to explore the school. During this time, she smelled the most wonderful smell, like someone at home was making a nice soup, except with more meat. Hibiscus rubbed her tummy, which just started to growl, and followed the source of the smell, finding a small kitchen where her fellow student, Almeida, was making food, “
Oh, hello there! Aren’t you from my classroom? I didn’t know it was you cooking that wonderful smell! What are you making?” Hibiscus said, walking into the room and looking around at the change of scenery.
Almeida was in the midst of chopping onions when she was surprised by a relatively new face, which was extremely relative, as the girl in question had joined only a few days later than the rest of them.
"Ah, hello~ Yes, and I'm making a beef stew." A slightly devious plan formed in Almeida's mind. Peeling potatoes was boring and labour intensive, but fairly easy to do. Maybe she could get the kid to help out.
"You can help out, if you want~ Would you mind peeling some potatoes?"
The girl said in reply that she was making beef stew, and asked Hibiscus to peel potatoes, “
I’d love to!” While Almeida thought it was easy, however, Hibiscus did not. Although she watched other people do it before, it still took her a few potatoes to successfully be able to peel one without wasting too much of the potato itself. After a few more potatoes, she was able to perfect the potato peeling craft and peel the potato without losing too much of the potato. Hibiscus decided to make some small talk after finally learning the ways of the potato, “
So, how long have you been cooking, Miss…?” Hibiscus asked, wanting to also learn the name of the person who put her into this
slave labour grueling task.
It was odd how quickly Hibiscus was able to pick up on the art of peeling a potato, but Almeida was glad to see it happen before there was a severe risk at the amount of 'peel' being higher than the amount of 'potato' by the time Hibby was done. As to the question how long she'd been cooking for...
“To be honest, I can't quite recall when I first started to help out in the kitchen, but I think I've made the first meal entirely on my own when I was fourteen or something, so a year or seven, I guess.” As for the less explicit question.
“Oh, and I'm Almeida, nice to meet you~” Technically she'd already seen the girl before, but as they
apparently hadn't exchanged names yet, a slightly more formal introduction felt in place.
“Oh, and once you're done with the potatoes, you can put them in the pan over there.” Almeida said, as she added the finely diced onions to the beef and gravy that was slowly cooking on the fire whilst starting to clean and cut some carrots.
Hibiscus dumped the potatoes into the pan specified, then watched as Almeida did more cooking, “
I’ve never been able to cook for myself, my father never allowed me to, as he was afraid of anything that might awaken mage powers. My name is Hibiscus, by the way, you can call me Hibby if you want!” She said enthusiastically, to which a small voice prodded at her with “
Hey wait a second, I thought I was the only one allowed to call you that..,” To which Hibiscus shyly replied, “
S-Sorry Lyka, but I thought it’d be nice to have another friend…” To which her spirit said nothing but simmered silently in her orb. Hibiscus seemed somewhat embarrassed, “
I’m sorry about that, Almeida, that’s my spirit, Lyka. She can get moody sometimes. Anyways-!” Hibiscus said, wanting to lighten up the mood she felt had gotten dreary, “
Do you think you can teach me to cook? I only ever watched other people do it, so I don’t have any experience much with cooking, but I want to learn how!”
Almeida couldn't help herself from thinking
'Such bitter irony.' when Hibby told her that she hadn't even been allowed to cook in an attempt to prevent mage powers, considering she still ended up in this place regardless of the effort. She was surprised by the intervention of the spirit, as she was quite different than Valerius. She couldn't ever imagine Valerius being concerned about what others named Almeida, as he wasn't even concerned about what others named him. Hibby ended with a request to learn how to cook.
“Sure~” 'One more potato peeler joins the labour force!' “It's not that difficult though, and judging from how easily you picked up peeling potatoes, it'll be a walk in the park.”
Almeida figured she'd go over the basics of her dish.
“The beef's been on the stove for quite some time, slowly cooking so that it gets really soft and mixes with the flavours of the herbs, we're now just adding some onions to it to spice it up. We're going for a pretty thick gravy here, so we'll need to boil out the fluids a bit more as well. We'll then boil the potato with some carrots and parsnip in a separate pan and mash them together with a slight bit of milk to get a nice mashed mixture to poor the gravy and beef on.” With regards to that...
“You can clean and cut the parsnip, if you want. It's the white carrot-like things over there, which clean the same way as I'm doing with the carrots, although they're a bit softer, so they require less force to be scraped clean.”
Having given all the instruction, Almeida figured she'd change the topic a bit.
“So, how'd you meet Lyka?” Truth be told, she was fairly interested in learning how someone kept so far away from all things was still able to end up with a spirit.
Almeida was more than willing to teach Hibiscus, and she was pretty happy that someone was willing to do that for someone they didn’t even know. Hibiscus tried her best to remember what Almeida was saying about the soup. Apparently a thicker soup needed more time to boil, and Almeida also wanted Hibiscus to cut parsnips, which were cut and cleaned like carrots, which Hibiscus was able to do after watching Almeida do the carrots. While cleaning and cutting the parsnips, Hibiscus answered the question given by Almeida, covering her mouth a bit at embarrassment, “
It’s a bit embarrassing actually… I was looking around the home finding something to do in the garden, when I tripped and fell into the rose bushes. I got stabbed by all the thorns and bled from the points. It just so happened that Lyka’s spirit core was buried in the ground beneath, laying dormant, and my blood just so happened to drip into the ground and onto the orb, which woke her up and made her call out to me…” She said, clearing her throat as Lyka replied, “
Yea, Hibby is a clutz.” To which Hibiscus’s face turned red as she tried to deflect the conversation away from that, “
A-Anyways, as you saw in the gym earlier, Lyka’s affinity is for blood, and that’s why she woke up with it. That’s also how my powers started. Anyways, what’s your spirit’s name and how’d you meet them, Almeida?” Hibiscus said, just starting to finish off cutting up the Parsnips.
It turned out Hibby's spirit bonding was kind-off grotesque, with the blood and all. Their spirit also seemed to be a pain to deal with, so she didn't envy the kid in the slightest.
“We all trip sometimes, and for you to do so just then and there sounds more like some kind of destiny than it sounds like just being a clutz.” It was a fairly gruesome destiny, but Almeida figured that part was better left unmentioned. As for how a similar destiny had befallen Almeida... she was glad she had a kid-friendly version prepared, as she had been expecting the return question.
“I met Valerius after getting lost in a cave, and bonded with him so we could find a way out of it together.” Leaving out how she'd seen all her friends die and how she had been on the verge of death, really did make it sound a lot kid-friendlier.
Having cut all the vegetables, Almeida waited for Hibby to finish the parsnips before adding them to the pan of boiling water. Considering everything was cut fairly small, it wouldn't need to boil for long. Now was a good time to try the gravy the meat was simmering in, as Almeida took a spoon full of it out of the pan to try it.
“Hmmm... how are you with spices? It could use a bit more black pepper.” Otherwise, Almeida was fairly happy about how it was turning out.
Once the vegetables were done boiling, Almeida poured out the boiling water and let them dry-cook for a bit.
“It's important to let it stand around for a few minutes, so the remainder of the moister evaporates.” After the explanation, she took a masher
or whatever it's called in English to mash the potatoes, carrots and parsnips together into a semi-rough blend. With that final step out of the way, she'd add some black pepper (unless Hibby gave her a reason to abstain from doing so) and took two plates out of a cupboard to divide the food among them. First was the mixture of mashed vegetables, with the gravy (now thickened to an almost syrupy consistency), onions and meat on top of it.
Suddenly, Almeida realised she forgot the same thing she always forgot.
“Oh, I left the bay leaves in it again...” Taking some cutlery, Almeida pulled a bay leaf out of the gravy-meat mixture.
“These aren't edible, they're just there to add flavour, but I always forget to take them out afterwards.” Otherwise, the dish seemed pretty successfully made.
“Anyhow, it's done, so let's dig in~”
Almeida’s story seemed sorta short to Hibiscus, but maybe it was a boring story, so she left out a bunch of details. Little did Hibiscus know, it was an interesting story, just very gruesome, and the gruesome parts were left out, leaving just a short story. After Almeida asked how Hibiscus was with spices, she got flustered, “
W-What? Spices? Oh, you mean it needs something else.” Hibiscus said, taking a small sip of it with another spoon. It tasted a bit watery, not as thick as Hibiscus thought, but then Almeida added that it had to stand for a bit to let the rest of the water evaporate. That was something Hibiscus did not know about, and it was interesting to learn about it. Almeida then roughly mashed all the vegetables together, adding the soup with onions and meat on top of it. Hibiscus didn’t care about the black pepper at all, so she watched as Almeida added that as well. As Almeida had said, she forgot to take the bay leaves out, and Hibiscus managed to find one herself in her part of the meal. She took it out and nibbled on it to see if it really was edible. It wasn’t. It just tasted bland, but it was hard to eat and just felt like a normal leaf to Hibiscus, so she put it to the side and started to eat, “
Wow, it’s delicious!” She said, digging into it.
Hibiscus hadn’t done much to help, but she knew the meal would have taken a lot longer to cook if it was just Almeida cutting the potatoes and parsnips, even if she was much more skilled at it than Hibiscus. So she felt proud of herself for finally being able to help cook something, even if her part was rather miniscule, “
Thank you for letting me help, Almeida. If you ever need help with cooking again, please let me know. I’d love to know more about cooking and about you too!” Hibiscus said, taking Almeida’s hand and shaking it lightly.
Somehow, Hibby still started trying to eat a bay leaf...
'Right, kids being kids and all that.' She'd better make sure never to try preparing puffer-fish. Not that'd she'd know how to do so, but it was the thought that counted. Luckily enough, the kid seemed to enjoy the rest of it.
“Thanks, and thank you for your help as well~” It seemed like the girl was eager to learn more, both about cooking and about her, the latter being a tad bit awkward considering the pretty big age difference, but it was sort-off cute, in a sense, probably...
“Sure~” If Almeida hadn't already been pushed into the position of the classes' big sister, she'd surely have gotten the final push then and there. It was an odd contrast to the more professional handshake, but Almeida accepted it regardless.