Post by Greenie on Apr 3, 2008 20:10:43 GMT -5
'slong.
... 'sreally long. >__>
“Stay in the kitchens for two days? What kind of bloody test is this, anyways? That’s like asking me to dance and sing with my mother for three hours: TORTURE.” Dysthymia muttered under his breath as he stomped his way down to the kitchens. He was less displeased and more outright confused, despite his mild ranting about it—he was a decent chef, thanks to his mother’s many “lessons”, so it wasn’t the task in front of him that presented a problem. Being under her nose for two days, however, annoyed him considerably, as he’d spent the past nineteen years of his life avoiding her as much as possible.
Clearly, Varestes sought to fix this ‘issue’.
Once he reached the door, the ferret sat in front it, not knocking or making any motion to go in. Mia was mentally preparing himself for sitting in the hottest room in the building for two days straight (--was he allowed to leave to sleep? .. or PEE?) and be under the direction of his mother, though he had every intention of praying to the suits that she was busy elsewhere. Maybe he would get lucky and Varestes wouldn’t inform her that he’d just dictated her son slave away in the kitchens.
Heh. Right. That was like saying Quinn could pass up a shiny object..
After what seemed like hours—but was really about two minutes—the door flew open in his face and he let out an “OOMPH” as it slammed into his face. He quickly backed up, rubbing his nose, and was awarded with a strange look from the girl that walked out and past him. Mia sighed, straightened, and walked in. He might as well start this sooner rather than later, right?
WRONG.
Immediately all four (FOUR!) cooks turned to look at him. One was wearing this sadistically amused grin, another looked as if he was smoking something, the third was annoyed, and the fourth at least was decent enough to look vaguely sympathetic to the plight they all obviously knew about. Mia stared back at them until the first one—a tubby bipedal Corvie wearing an apron that said “Kiss me, I’m Corvie” and a massive chef hat—approached him, still grinning like a maniac.
“Welcome, welcome, Mia!” The man practically yelled, and slapped Mia on the back heartily, nearly toppling him over. “We’re glad to have you here, right guys? Eh, eh?”
The other three figures stared at him. One coughed.
The Corvie blinked, then shrugged, still grinning. “Well, I am at least! Let’s get you started, eh? I have some potatoes over here that need peeling and you look like JUST the man to do it!”
“….. Great?” Mia managed to get out, once he could breathe again. Damn, that man hit hard. He allowed himself to be led over to a stool and an absolutely massive pile of potatoes and was handed a peeler. The ferret stared at it for a moment, trying to collect his wits, before he grabbed a potato and resigned himself to at least an hour’s worth of almost skinning his fingers off—his encounters with peelers had yet to go overly well. Thankfully the hustle and bustle that he had always associated with the kitchens commenced as soon as the cooks forgot he existed—thank the SUITS—and he became more comfortable with his surroundings once they all stopped /staring/ at him.
A half an hour later the fourth cook, a pretty Avington mouse, approached him. “How’re you doin’, hun?” She asked, smiling down at him. Mia jumped a bit, as he’d been lost in his thoughts, and shrugged up at her and showed her the half-peeled potato he was working on.. and was careful to keep his palm down, so as not to show the several cuts he’d gotten already.
“Fine, I suppose. I’m about half-done,” He said, indicating the pile of finished potatoes. She looked around, her brow furrowed, her gaze landing on the Corvie.
“Sheldon, you don’t really need ALL of these potatoes peeled, do you?” She yelled over the noise, an eyebrow raised.
The Corvie turned around, immediately looking a bit sheepish. “Well, I’m making a potato casserole for dinner tonight, but… no, not really.” He shrugged and grinned his usual toothy grin at Mia, who was starting to really wonder what Varestes had thrown him into. Mia stared back, trying his best not to glare at the man and throw a potato at him—that wouldn’t get him very far, despite having a nice satisfaction level. The Avington tsked at Sheldon, sighed, and looked back down at Mia.
“You can stop peeling those, I suspect he only needed about a fourth of what you did. Come on, you can help me over here. Do you know how to whisk eggs?”
“Yeah,” He replied, and gratefully set the potato back down onto the pile, then got up and followed her over to her work station.
“There you are, then,” She said as she handed him a giant bowl and a carton of eggs. “I need about ten done, let me see when you get to about seven, though.” The Avington directed him, then began chopping at a hunk of meat that was lying on the cutting block next to him.
“Alright,” Mia responded and began carefully breaking a few eggs into the bowl to begin the process of beating at them. If nothing else, this was a better venting activity than peeling potatoes, and had a lot less self-harm potential as well.
“So, what exactly are you stuck in here for?” She began, amidst her chopping. “We were told that this was a test, but not much else.” She glanced over curiously at him.
Mia rose an eyebrow, wondering how much they had been told. It seemed to him as if the Corvie, if anyone, knew what was going on, but that could easily be an act to mess with him, just like the potatoes had been. “It’s for my titling. Varestes instructed me to spend two days in here, but I don’t know the reasoning behind it myself.” He replied with a bit of a shrug. The ferret assumed it had something to do with testing his patience abilities—Sheldon was already trying them—and maybe some other skills, but since he wasn’t intending to spend his official Jack time in the kitchens he doubted the actual cooking aspect applied.
“Oh, really? Well good luck then, I hope you pass,” She said with a smile. After a minute she set the meat aside and rinsed her hands off, then began working with some greens.
“Tha—“ Mia started, but was cut off by a loud CLANG, followed by some muted swearing, from the other side of the kitchen. The Avington frowned, set the celery she’d been working with down, and rushed over. Mia followed her, curious as to what had happened—it couldn’t have been an ordinary pot dropping, not as loud as that had been.
They were greeted with the sight of the second man, an intensely skinny Midori antelope that looked as if he’d had way, way too much weed, under a pile of shelving and various pots, pants, and other silvery pieces of equipment.
“Melvin! Are you okay, Mel?” The Avington called out as she began carefully picking the pots and pans off of him.
Once his head had been cleared of the cooking ware he blinked dazedly up at her, his brow furrowed as if he wasn’t entirely sure who she was or why he was covered in pots. “Uhhh.. yeah. Yeah.” He mumbled, making no effort whatsoever to get himself out from under the mess. “It… … fell? Uhhh..”
“I can see that,” She replied, exasperated, though she seemed to be more upset that he couldn’t remember than over the pots actually falling down. “Mia, give me a hand, will you?” She called over her shoulder.
The ferret immediately responded, and began digging the shelves themselves out while she worked on clearing the pots away. Once he had the bottom one out and leaning against the wall he started to put it back up when he realized that the entire screw was out—not just loosened, but on the floor. “Do you have a screwdriver, by chance?” He asked with a frown.
“I imagine so, why?”
“The entire screw is gone, it’s probably why it collapsed on him.”
A bit doubting, she set the pot she was holding down and came to look, but it was fairly obvious what conclusion she could come to. Finally she shrugged, and told him where to find the screwdriver.
Ten minutes later all the shelves were back up and the pots and pans were back in their places. Melvin was sitting on a stool in the emptiest corner of the kitchens—no doubt to keep him out of any more trouble—with an icepacks literally strapped onto his body. The antelope had been having trouble remembering to hold them up, not surprisingly. Mia and the Avington had returned to their tasks, but within a few minutes she rushed out, looking as green as her mostly-blueish fur would allow for. When she returned, Mia raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m.. pregnant. Don’t tell, okay?” She said in a hushed tone, her body bent over her work station. “It’s just morning sickness, it hits every day. No one else has noticed yet, but that’s no surprise.”
“Oh!” Mia replied. “Congratulations…?” The ferret said hesitantly. By the way she had spoken he wasn’t entirely sure how planned this pregnancy had been, and while keeping it a secret was hardly unusual, he wasn’t sure what to say.
“Heh, thanks. I wasn’t expecting it, but I suppose that’s what I get for eloping with my boyfriend. Vessatha nearly blew my head off when I got back, but it was worth it, Gregory wouldn’t have married me otherwise.” She stated rather smugly, and hit a carrot so hard that the end piece flew off the counter and hit the wall with a smack. She stared at it, then quickly went and picked it up with a sheepish grin.
Mia chuckled as he cracked the last egg open. “She’s like that, sometimes. Change isn’t always her forte, especially when it’s change no one bothered to inform her about, she seems to think it’s some kind of personal attack.” The ferret commented with a sigh.
“Do you know her?” The Avington asked curiously, tilting her head at him.
Dysthymia stared at her in disbelief. Did he know her? Was the bright pink fur and assorted spots not enough to prove his genetic heritage? The only two things he’d inherited from Harlequinn were his bindings and the lack of blue, but unless you actually SAW the otter, that was hardly obvious. “She’s my mother,” He stated dryly.
“She’s your WHAT? Oh dear lord I’m sor—“ The mouse cut herself off and turned bright red. “Oh crap! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, I promise! Vessatha’s a wonderful person, I mean no insult!”
The ferret burst out laughing. Insult him about his mother? Was it really possible? With Quinn, perhaps it was, as Mia held a BIT more fondness for the Tulgey-Torque mix than he did the Kahmdener, but he took little offense to either of them. “Don’t be!” He managed to get out between his varied snorts and giggles. “My mother is her own person, I take no offense to anything you say about her,” He stated, once he’d managed to calm down enough to get a sentence out.
She was visibly relieved, and the tension drained out of her body. “Well, still, I don’t like insulting people’s mothers. I really do like Vessatha..” She said, somewhat lamely, trying to make up for accidentally speaking her thoughts. “Are you done with the eggs?” She asked, abruptly changing the subject.
“Yeah,” The ferret replied, then handed her the bowl. She nodded and began pouring various things into it, then hmmed as she looked around her workstation.
“Well, I don’t have anything for you to do anymore. Why don’t you go see if Tiyana needs your help?” She said with a smile. “Not that I’m trying to get rid of you, but I imagine Sheldon will yell at both of us if we don’t keep busy.”
“It’s fine, I might as well be productive while I’m here,” Mia said with a shrug, then moved over to where she had indicated. The girl in front of him, a Villa en Miir canine, literally scowled down at him.
“What do you want?” She spit out, vigorously stirring whatever was in her bowl.
“Jia sent me over here, to see if you needed any help,” He said, trying to keep his expression patiently neutral as well as his tone. It was obvious he wasn’t well-liked over here, for some reason, despite having just met her, but he wasn’t about to piss her off for the hell of it.
“Humph.” She snorted, but eyed her table regardless. “Go beat that dough over there until it’s flat, and I mean no thicker than a centimeter or you’ll be eating it raw,” She snapped at him, then turned her body away from him in a blatant dismissal. Dysthymia resisted the urge to simply stick his tongue out at her childishly and quickly moved over to the bread. It took him nearly thirty minutes to get it to what he judged to be a centimeter thick—a combination of his lack of experience and badly prepared paws. He brought it over for her inspection. She didn’t bother responding, but merely snatched it out of his paws and set it aside, then shooed him away.
The ferret blinked, shrugged, and went to see if anyone else had something he could do.
The rest of his day, and the one following it kept mostly the same routine: He went from station to station (with the exception of Melvin, who rarely was actually doing something productive) doing whatever they needed to get done. He ended up forming a friendship with Jia, who he quickly found had a sense of humor that paralleled his. Sheldon he tried to stay away from, mostly because the man liked to try to trick him (though he’d gotten him back the second day by telling him he’d mashed the potatoes, when all he’d really done was put a bunch of marshmallows in it), and Tiyana still didn’t like him, despite the fact that she’d begun liking having him around to do her work.
When he woke up after his two days, there was a letter under his door congratulating him on his title with a fancy key and directions to come to Varestes’ door around four a clock.
Sweet.
Maybe the kitchens weren’t so bad afterall.
... 'sreally long. >__>
“Stay in the kitchens for two days? What kind of bloody test is this, anyways? That’s like asking me to dance and sing with my mother for three hours: TORTURE.” Dysthymia muttered under his breath as he stomped his way down to the kitchens. He was less displeased and more outright confused, despite his mild ranting about it—he was a decent chef, thanks to his mother’s many “lessons”, so it wasn’t the task in front of him that presented a problem. Being under her nose for two days, however, annoyed him considerably, as he’d spent the past nineteen years of his life avoiding her as much as possible.
Clearly, Varestes sought to fix this ‘issue’.
Once he reached the door, the ferret sat in front it, not knocking or making any motion to go in. Mia was mentally preparing himself for sitting in the hottest room in the building for two days straight (--was he allowed to leave to sleep? .. or PEE?) and be under the direction of his mother, though he had every intention of praying to the suits that she was busy elsewhere. Maybe he would get lucky and Varestes wouldn’t inform her that he’d just dictated her son slave away in the kitchens.
Heh. Right. That was like saying Quinn could pass up a shiny object..
After what seemed like hours—but was really about two minutes—the door flew open in his face and he let out an “OOMPH” as it slammed into his face. He quickly backed up, rubbing his nose, and was awarded with a strange look from the girl that walked out and past him. Mia sighed, straightened, and walked in. He might as well start this sooner rather than later, right?
WRONG.
Immediately all four (FOUR!) cooks turned to look at him. One was wearing this sadistically amused grin, another looked as if he was smoking something, the third was annoyed, and the fourth at least was decent enough to look vaguely sympathetic to the plight they all obviously knew about. Mia stared back at them until the first one—a tubby bipedal Corvie wearing an apron that said “Kiss me, I’m Corvie” and a massive chef hat—approached him, still grinning like a maniac.
“Welcome, welcome, Mia!” The man practically yelled, and slapped Mia on the back heartily, nearly toppling him over. “We’re glad to have you here, right guys? Eh, eh?”
The other three figures stared at him. One coughed.
The Corvie blinked, then shrugged, still grinning. “Well, I am at least! Let’s get you started, eh? I have some potatoes over here that need peeling and you look like JUST the man to do it!”
“….. Great?” Mia managed to get out, once he could breathe again. Damn, that man hit hard. He allowed himself to be led over to a stool and an absolutely massive pile of potatoes and was handed a peeler. The ferret stared at it for a moment, trying to collect his wits, before he grabbed a potato and resigned himself to at least an hour’s worth of almost skinning his fingers off—his encounters with peelers had yet to go overly well. Thankfully the hustle and bustle that he had always associated with the kitchens commenced as soon as the cooks forgot he existed—thank the SUITS—and he became more comfortable with his surroundings once they all stopped /staring/ at him.
A half an hour later the fourth cook, a pretty Avington mouse, approached him. “How’re you doin’, hun?” She asked, smiling down at him. Mia jumped a bit, as he’d been lost in his thoughts, and shrugged up at her and showed her the half-peeled potato he was working on.. and was careful to keep his palm down, so as not to show the several cuts he’d gotten already.
“Fine, I suppose. I’m about half-done,” He said, indicating the pile of finished potatoes. She looked around, her brow furrowed, her gaze landing on the Corvie.
“Sheldon, you don’t really need ALL of these potatoes peeled, do you?” She yelled over the noise, an eyebrow raised.
The Corvie turned around, immediately looking a bit sheepish. “Well, I’m making a potato casserole for dinner tonight, but… no, not really.” He shrugged and grinned his usual toothy grin at Mia, who was starting to really wonder what Varestes had thrown him into. Mia stared back, trying his best not to glare at the man and throw a potato at him—that wouldn’t get him very far, despite having a nice satisfaction level. The Avington tsked at Sheldon, sighed, and looked back down at Mia.
“You can stop peeling those, I suspect he only needed about a fourth of what you did. Come on, you can help me over here. Do you know how to whisk eggs?”
“Yeah,” He replied, and gratefully set the potato back down onto the pile, then got up and followed her over to her work station.
“There you are, then,” She said as she handed him a giant bowl and a carton of eggs. “I need about ten done, let me see when you get to about seven, though.” The Avington directed him, then began chopping at a hunk of meat that was lying on the cutting block next to him.
“Alright,” Mia responded and began carefully breaking a few eggs into the bowl to begin the process of beating at them. If nothing else, this was a better venting activity than peeling potatoes, and had a lot less self-harm potential as well.
“So, what exactly are you stuck in here for?” She began, amidst her chopping. “We were told that this was a test, but not much else.” She glanced over curiously at him.
Mia rose an eyebrow, wondering how much they had been told. It seemed to him as if the Corvie, if anyone, knew what was going on, but that could easily be an act to mess with him, just like the potatoes had been. “It’s for my titling. Varestes instructed me to spend two days in here, but I don’t know the reasoning behind it myself.” He replied with a bit of a shrug. The ferret assumed it had something to do with testing his patience abilities—Sheldon was already trying them—and maybe some other skills, but since he wasn’t intending to spend his official Jack time in the kitchens he doubted the actual cooking aspect applied.
“Oh, really? Well good luck then, I hope you pass,” She said with a smile. After a minute she set the meat aside and rinsed her hands off, then began working with some greens.
“Tha—“ Mia started, but was cut off by a loud CLANG, followed by some muted swearing, from the other side of the kitchen. The Avington frowned, set the celery she’d been working with down, and rushed over. Mia followed her, curious as to what had happened—it couldn’t have been an ordinary pot dropping, not as loud as that had been.
They were greeted with the sight of the second man, an intensely skinny Midori antelope that looked as if he’d had way, way too much weed, under a pile of shelving and various pots, pants, and other silvery pieces of equipment.
“Melvin! Are you okay, Mel?” The Avington called out as she began carefully picking the pots and pans off of him.
Once his head had been cleared of the cooking ware he blinked dazedly up at her, his brow furrowed as if he wasn’t entirely sure who she was or why he was covered in pots. “Uhhh.. yeah. Yeah.” He mumbled, making no effort whatsoever to get himself out from under the mess. “It… … fell? Uhhh..”
“I can see that,” She replied, exasperated, though she seemed to be more upset that he couldn’t remember than over the pots actually falling down. “Mia, give me a hand, will you?” She called over her shoulder.
The ferret immediately responded, and began digging the shelves themselves out while she worked on clearing the pots away. Once he had the bottom one out and leaning against the wall he started to put it back up when he realized that the entire screw was out—not just loosened, but on the floor. “Do you have a screwdriver, by chance?” He asked with a frown.
“I imagine so, why?”
“The entire screw is gone, it’s probably why it collapsed on him.”
A bit doubting, she set the pot she was holding down and came to look, but it was fairly obvious what conclusion she could come to. Finally she shrugged, and told him where to find the screwdriver.
Ten minutes later all the shelves were back up and the pots and pans were back in their places. Melvin was sitting on a stool in the emptiest corner of the kitchens—no doubt to keep him out of any more trouble—with an icepacks literally strapped onto his body. The antelope had been having trouble remembering to hold them up, not surprisingly. Mia and the Avington had returned to their tasks, but within a few minutes she rushed out, looking as green as her mostly-blueish fur would allow for. When she returned, Mia raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m.. pregnant. Don’t tell, okay?” She said in a hushed tone, her body bent over her work station. “It’s just morning sickness, it hits every day. No one else has noticed yet, but that’s no surprise.”
“Oh!” Mia replied. “Congratulations…?” The ferret said hesitantly. By the way she had spoken he wasn’t entirely sure how planned this pregnancy had been, and while keeping it a secret was hardly unusual, he wasn’t sure what to say.
“Heh, thanks. I wasn’t expecting it, but I suppose that’s what I get for eloping with my boyfriend. Vessatha nearly blew my head off when I got back, but it was worth it, Gregory wouldn’t have married me otherwise.” She stated rather smugly, and hit a carrot so hard that the end piece flew off the counter and hit the wall with a smack. She stared at it, then quickly went and picked it up with a sheepish grin.
Mia chuckled as he cracked the last egg open. “She’s like that, sometimes. Change isn’t always her forte, especially when it’s change no one bothered to inform her about, she seems to think it’s some kind of personal attack.” The ferret commented with a sigh.
“Do you know her?” The Avington asked curiously, tilting her head at him.
Dysthymia stared at her in disbelief. Did he know her? Was the bright pink fur and assorted spots not enough to prove his genetic heritage? The only two things he’d inherited from Harlequinn were his bindings and the lack of blue, but unless you actually SAW the otter, that was hardly obvious. “She’s my mother,” He stated dryly.
“She’s your WHAT? Oh dear lord I’m sor—“ The mouse cut herself off and turned bright red. “Oh crap! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, I promise! Vessatha’s a wonderful person, I mean no insult!”
The ferret burst out laughing. Insult him about his mother? Was it really possible? With Quinn, perhaps it was, as Mia held a BIT more fondness for the Tulgey-Torque mix than he did the Kahmdener, but he took little offense to either of them. “Don’t be!” He managed to get out between his varied snorts and giggles. “My mother is her own person, I take no offense to anything you say about her,” He stated, once he’d managed to calm down enough to get a sentence out.
She was visibly relieved, and the tension drained out of her body. “Well, still, I don’t like insulting people’s mothers. I really do like Vessatha..” She said, somewhat lamely, trying to make up for accidentally speaking her thoughts. “Are you done with the eggs?” She asked, abruptly changing the subject.
“Yeah,” The ferret replied, then handed her the bowl. She nodded and began pouring various things into it, then hmmed as she looked around her workstation.
“Well, I don’t have anything for you to do anymore. Why don’t you go see if Tiyana needs your help?” She said with a smile. “Not that I’m trying to get rid of you, but I imagine Sheldon will yell at both of us if we don’t keep busy.”
“It’s fine, I might as well be productive while I’m here,” Mia said with a shrug, then moved over to where she had indicated. The girl in front of him, a Villa en Miir canine, literally scowled down at him.
“What do you want?” She spit out, vigorously stirring whatever was in her bowl.
“Jia sent me over here, to see if you needed any help,” He said, trying to keep his expression patiently neutral as well as his tone. It was obvious he wasn’t well-liked over here, for some reason, despite having just met her, but he wasn’t about to piss her off for the hell of it.
“Humph.” She snorted, but eyed her table regardless. “Go beat that dough over there until it’s flat, and I mean no thicker than a centimeter or you’ll be eating it raw,” She snapped at him, then turned her body away from him in a blatant dismissal. Dysthymia resisted the urge to simply stick his tongue out at her childishly and quickly moved over to the bread. It took him nearly thirty minutes to get it to what he judged to be a centimeter thick—a combination of his lack of experience and badly prepared paws. He brought it over for her inspection. She didn’t bother responding, but merely snatched it out of his paws and set it aside, then shooed him away.
The ferret blinked, shrugged, and went to see if anyone else had something he could do.
The rest of his day, and the one following it kept mostly the same routine: He went from station to station (with the exception of Melvin, who rarely was actually doing something productive) doing whatever they needed to get done. He ended up forming a friendship with Jia, who he quickly found had a sense of humor that paralleled his. Sheldon he tried to stay away from, mostly because the man liked to try to trick him (though he’d gotten him back the second day by telling him he’d mashed the potatoes, when all he’d really done was put a bunch of marshmallows in it), and Tiyana still didn’t like him, despite the fact that she’d begun liking having him around to do her work.
When he woke up after his two days, there was a letter under his door congratulating him on his title with a fancy key and directions to come to Varestes’ door around four a clock.
Sweet.
Maybe the kitchens weren’t so bad afterall.
