06 - Hearty fish chowder; fresh bread and butter; char-grilled eels on rice; coffee

[tisfinished]

01: sustenance
With refugees in the Vault, the Milk Run as a business is less important than making sure the new ones, the strangers, are properly fed. Senshi and anyone capable who cares to help him have set themselves to this task, making sure there’s enough nice hot soup and bread for any starving miner or factory worker, now cut off from their old life, to at least not have to worry about their next meal.

Whenever possible Senshi takes a moment to make sure the new uns are settled in and have a warm bed, and does his best to make them feel welcome, but he knows with a crowd this size that’s not always possible. So many mouths, so little time. Still, he makes the new arrivals feel human whenever he can.

02: luxury
Senshi is going around with a survey, asking new and old what luxury foods and ingredients they most miss from the Empire and carefully noting down the answers in a notebook.

If asked why, he says, “Simple: next time I’m out shopping with the Milk Run, I’ll try to find some.”

He’s dead serious.

What flavors and treats do you miss most?

Comments

01: sustenance

[bearsperminute]

Well, after getting a lecture from him earlier about the importance of keeping her station clean, how could she not come and help out everyone else getting their daily bread?

Besides, it can't all be sorties in the Flotsam detachments. "Here, here." She gives the coin scattered on the counter a brief hairy eyeball.

"... Just take that as payin' it forward, huh..."

[tisfinished]

“A lot of the new folk feel the need. If that one’s already gone, we put it towards the general kitchen funds. Like you said, paying it forward.”

He ladles up another bowl, and the steam wafting from the golden broth and the generous chunks of cod, potato and carrot are inviting.

“Thanks for helping me with the serving, Kanna.”

[bearsperminute]

"I'd've helped you with the prep and the cooking, but you were mostly done by the time I got here," Kanna said. "Thank you, regardless."

"Here, here, one bowl-- that's a way."

[tisfinished]

"And hup -"

He takes it and slides it down the counter to a grateful, hungry newcomer.

"Where'd you learn to cook, anyway? It's not a common hobby for an armor-jock. Not much time or opportunity I'm told."

[bearsperminute]

She passes it on, and keeps the rolls coming. "Oh, that? That was before I became an armor-jock. Even leaving aside that Dad used to take me on wilderness training, actresses and servants hardly get their own cooks, you know?

"So I learned to make do. Came in handy even as an armor-jock, come to think..."

[tisfinished]

"It's handy for anyone, but yeah. Apologies, I had you figured for an aristo, not one of-"

He wants to say 'one of us' and stops himself.

"Not from a working-class background, like I was."

[bearsperminute]

She laughs for a second. "Maybe my family was, what with a family fighting style and a lot of weird worship traditions. But, well, the Empire likes their own aristos, so if we were, it's out of the living memory of even my grand-dad. We were doin' our damnedest just to keep it alive."

"Right--" she serves up some more. "In good health to you--"