You'll find my time free enough if you're willing to join in light kitchen duties within the city, your compatriot Lord Wrath has likewise been part of such things with me. How do you happen to feel about bread?
( he also sends along descriptive directions to the place he is, which is essentially... a sort of basic fare cooking house that's providing for the displaced persons of the city who need feeding, having lost much of everything else. )
I've worked in a kitchen all my life, and I feel that I should put that to good use, with bread and whatever else may be needed. I'll be there soon with what supply I've been able to gather.
( her focus the past few days has admittedly been the plant life sundered by the huntress. emilia may no longer aspire to what she used to, but she still has a green thumb. she can still make things grow. and when she steps into the cooking house with a basket in tow, the environment far more familiar to her than the palace, she thinks she remembers that. she thinks she remembers that she once would have chosen to nurture than destroy. )
( it's a feeling wei wuxian would understand, if they spoke of it. he prefers to nurture, he thrives on it, but he's been tasked with and asked to destroy, and been unfairly good at its thanklessness. here, he can be simpler than he is usually, he can be less the brilliant, fate-crossed cultivator, he can be nothing of the rogue cultivator, he can be some person, who does not have to think about how his will was seduced by the calls of undead lords, who can be helping hands and eyes on baking bread and that's nothing more than a patience he doesn't often have and a focus often divided and over inquisitive.
thus he is there, flour dusting him unequally across a cheek, his chest, his half skirt dress, and yet not in the beard he's been letting grow, past its first scraggly weeks and into something proper, but not yet plush as it promises to me. what a studied contrast he is, as the bread is encouraged off the wooden paddle into a waiting, linen lined basket. )
So far I've managed to largely not burn them, and it's a flat bread, so things look very... flat?
( this is his smile and hello without saying hello, just a scooping motion of his hand for her to roll up metaphorical sleeves and join in. people are busy here, and no one lingers beyond their station. baking, they're set back, open to outside, but mostly for the air that flows in, offsetting the brick oven's heat. )
( the glint in her eye suggests a warmer sort of amusement, albeit subdued by their less-than-ideal circumstances. emilia doesn't know that she'll ever step into a kitchen and not be hit with a crushing wave of despair, with or without sieges, but the sight of wei wuxian bedecked with flour is welcome. )
Indeed. I see you've everything perfectly under control.
( let no one say that she cannot be generous.
needing no further prompting, emilia makes her way over. a few decisive steps and she's at his side, pulling her hair back with a ribbon and setting her basket down on the counter's edge. ) Don't worry. We'll make sure the next ones have some air pockets.
( he at least looks charmingly confused at this, a man who has literally folded ingredients into buns for steaming before, but doesn't understand what air pockets in flatbread are or what it means, or how the density changes, because it's so far outside of anything he's had to worry about. even at his most starving, they ate vegetable stews; bread has not been much of a part of his life, and it shows. )
You'll see. ( this next reassurance manages to convey the resolve with which emilia tends to approach all things. the flatbread she's accustomed to requires precious few ingredients and is easy to make, which doesn't mean it can't taste delicious. it's far from the most important thing right now, she knows.
but providing something warm for tired and aching bellies is a very small, very big thing sometimes.
she reaches for a rolling pin nearby and settles into a rhythm. she can never introduce wei wuxian to sea&vine. can never introduce him, or any one of them, to the symphony of sounds her family made as they worked on their dishes. the magic and comfort that it gave. but this still feels familiar, somehow.
after a small moment of silence, she adds, ) I'd meant to ask how you were faring.
( emilia saw the effect the huntress had on wrath. the torment — )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
( he also sends along descriptive directions to the place he is, which is essentially... a sort of basic fare cooking house that's providing for the displaced persons of the city who need feeding, having lost much of everything else. )
no subject
I've worked in a kitchen all my life, and I feel that I should put that to good use, with bread and whatever else may be needed. I'll be there soon with what supply I've been able to gather.
( her focus the past few days has admittedly been the plant life sundered by the huntress. emilia may no longer aspire to what she used to, but she still has a green thumb. she can still make things grow. and when she steps into the cooking house with a basket in tow, the environment far more familiar to her than the palace, she thinks she remembers that. she thinks she remembers that she once would have chosen to nurture than destroy. )
no subject
thus he is there, flour dusting him unequally across a cheek, his chest, his half skirt dress, and yet not in the beard he's been letting grow, past its first scraggly weeks and into something proper, but not yet plush as it promises to me. what a studied contrast he is, as the bread is encouraged off the wooden paddle into a waiting, linen lined basket. )
So far I've managed to largely not burn them, and it's a flat bread, so things look very... flat?
( this is his smile and hello without saying hello, just a scooping motion of his hand for her to roll up metaphorical sleeves and join in. people are busy here, and no one lingers beyond their station. baking, they're set back, open to outside, but mostly for the air that flows in, offsetting the brick oven's heat. )
no subject
Indeed. I see you've everything perfectly under control.
( let no one say that she cannot be generous.
needing no further prompting, emilia makes her way over. a few decisive steps and she's at his side, pulling her hair back with a ribbon and setting her basket down on the counter's edge. ) Don't worry. We'll make sure the next ones have some air pockets.
( you're in good hands, sir. )
no subject
( he at least looks charmingly confused at this, a man who has literally folded ingredients into buns for steaming before, but doesn't understand what air pockets in flatbread are or what it means, or how the density changes, because it's so far outside of anything he's had to worry about. even at his most starving, they ate vegetable stews; bread has not been much of a part of his life, and it shows. )
no subject
but providing something warm for tired and aching bellies is a very small, very big thing sometimes.
she reaches for a rolling pin nearby and settles into a rhythm. she can never introduce wei wuxian to sea&vine. can never introduce him, or any one of them, to the symphony of sounds her family made as they worked on their dishes. the magic and comfort that it gave. but this still feels familiar, somehow.
after a small moment of silence, she adds, ) I'd meant to ask how you were faring.
( emilia saw the effect the huntress had on wrath. the torment — )