04 - Mulled Cider and Wine; Eel and Root Vegetable Hand Pies; Creamy Cod Chowder

[tisfinished]

1: The Milk Run, docked at Flotsam

Senshi seems unusually focused and far less chatty than usual as he serves up hearty winter fare; in addition to the headline items from this post's title, he has hot tea, coffee and cocoa available as well as pork pies and (as a vegetarian option) mushroom pies and an array of pickled vegetables.

He tries to be friendly as ever, but it's clear something weighs heavily on his mind.

2: The Vault's Practice Halls

Senshi is in need of a sparring partner. He's practicing with axe and shield - curiously, practicing with a cage strapped to his chest - and the poor wooden practice dummies he's been whaling on have been taking a serious beating.

"Think maybe I need an actual opponent," he says, his voice unusually clipped.

3: Solstice Gift-Giving

Beware: if you've done any kindnesses to the weird dwarf that loves to cook with monster meat (even more so than most Flotsam pirates, at any rate) then you're liable to find a box outside your home or apartment door wrapped in a ribbon.

While there is no name identifying who could have left them, the fact that they are exquisite, frosted gingerbread monsters narrows down the possible culprits significantly.

Comments

[harlequinchimera]

"Ahh, you know your fish - they're fatty and of a good size, so plenty to work with, certainly, also plenty of potential for stock and the like."

She flicked eyebrows and wings alike, chuckling. "Leavened and stretched bread dough, seasoned, not too heavily, add a layer of shredded cheese, a layer of robust red sauce, and top with finely sliced meats and veg, bake in an oven though, for best results, until edges brown and center's liquid. Be sure a good bake, depending on how thick the crust is, around a quarter of an hour."

She chuckled. "The overall shape depends, a rectangle or a circle, just cut evenly - be sure the crust has a crunch, but a fine chew."

She laughed then, genuinely. "The items it is topped with have nearly led to wars. The shape of it, sauce - all are your canvas, in the end."

She sobered and looked sidelong, giving the dwarf a look at her profile.

"It's serious business, those fireworks. Outside of my training besides very specific uses. I wish them success and precision, honestly. A line of work at least as dangerous as my own." She turned her off-colored eyes back to the dwarf. "Is that what's troubling you?"

[tisfinished]

“Mmph.” Senshi curls up from the cold a bit, thinking how best to answer Oki’s last.

“Used to be a miner for the Empire, a long time ago,” he allows. “Most of the scut work is done by slaves now, of course, but there are still well paid engineers. Going to be hard to get them to see they’re in the same boat as the slaves, and that the Imps put em there.”

His thoughts on pizza can wait until he gets the measure of Oki’s response.

[harlequinchimera]

She nods, relaxing a bit, "That's a real tall order. They will not see that the coin is the collar that they wear. It's a real challenge getting one to see how one is so bound. Simply because they row the boat, they believe that they are free of it, but their hands are chained to the oars, bound just as those caged below are."

She settled, sighted and tilted her head. "I don't want any of the slaves killed or anyone else, not needlessly. It's my own thinking that the workers must be spared, but the work itself broken - but that would still mean dire consequences for them." She took a long breath. "It's not going to be easy, you're right about that."

[tisfinished]

“I owe it to my old team to get in there and save as many as I can,” he says. “Knowing that if even if we succeed, some folk who don’t deserve it are going to die… If we’re doing the necessary evil I need to make sure we do it right.”

He sips his drink.

“When I come back, I’ll be glad to talk about pizza toppings and how best to clean whole fish again,” he says. “Feeding folk is good work, if you can get it.”

[harlequinchimera]

She nodded at this, emphatically.

"Honor is something I understand very well, to my very bones." She looked sidelong for a moment, a small frown on her face and she gave a slight tilt of her head.

"If I found myself in such a mission, I would do as you plan to do, to make the operation as clean as possible and see just how many of the team and support could be liberated. But I admit, it would still bite at me."

She pauses and shrugs, giving a characteristic movement of shoulders and wings.

"It still does."

She nods to the second and chuckles. "It is worthy work - I've seen fish prepared enough times for storage and for table, that I can offer advice, even if I can actually eat them on their own." She gave a very bright and toothy smile. "Until then. I wish you success."

[tisfinished]

"Getting people out will be the hard part," he agrees. "Much happier being the fleet's victualler than their demolitions expert. But duty calls for both."

He does manage smile at the fish talk. "One kid was astounded that smoking a fish was an option. Figured out it's because of his impatience - it's a day's worth of smoking, and he has places to go and people to duel."

[harlequinchimera]

Oki nodded, looking a shade more somber at the first. "I could not say which of my duties brings me greater or lesser happiness. Truly. I do my best to keep my emotions from affecting my work, but that's not always cut and dried, in what I do."

She gave a shrug. "Lifetime professional, after all."

At the change of subject, her manner softened. "Smoking, frying, even treating the meat like cutlets. There's even a condiment made from a long fermentation of it. Smoking brings out its own kind of flavor, and it can be a true delight."