From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
Theres always time to learn. Peter found himself nodding at that, at the ease with which she offered to teach him, despite her, his, their discomfort. Maybe he’d like to learn. To be able to surprise Adam with something that had his hands in it. He keeps nodding as she turns, trills of lavender in her hair -was that new?-, and walks into the back.
When she returns, Peter’s not nodding anymore. He’s stepped closer to the counter, still on the other side, still giving her her space, and has his hands folded neatly on it, waiting to be guided. Another smile valiantly tried to struggle to his face, still nervous and pinched, but trying. ”I... how do you start?”
PETER
I always thought I might be bad
Now I'm sure that it's true
'cause I think you're so good
And I'm nothing like you
She cants say she's not surprised when she returns and finds Peter still there, now closer to the counter. A bemused expression passes over her face; swiftly Amalia shakes it away, though the echoes remain in her dark eyes. Instead of asking why or what changed, she answers his question with a smile: "Dry ingredients."
She's brought out flour, salt, and soda, and she presses these items closer to him along with a large bowl. "Have you baked... Anything, before?" she asks with a curious tilt of her head.
The fact that he was still there really wasn’t that surprising. After all, Amalia had never asked him to leave. ”Dry ingredients.” Peter repeated, brows pulling together in an immediate question. ”There’s... wet ones then?”
The three powders she pushes across the counter look nearly identical to him, and Peter has to resist the urge to immediately reach out and dip his fingers into each of them. He shakes his head in response to the question. ”No baking. I... I’ve cooked on a fire? Or... burned things.”
PETER
I always thought I might be bad
Now I'm sure that it's true
'cause I think you're so good
And I'm nothing like you
02-17-2020, 04:34 PM (This post was last modified: 02-17-2020, 04:34 PM by Amalia.)
Amalia
stop thinking so much
"Of course there are!" she can't help it - she laughs good-naturedly, arching an eyebrow playfully at Peter and his truly impressive naivete. "You need wet ingredients - and binding agents - to keep the dry ingredients together and give them shape. Otherwise you'd just have... powder."
To demonstrate she begins to add ingredients, explaining each one as she goes. He's so new to it all, so woefully uneducated; for a moment Amalia slips into teacher mode and forgets that this is Peter, her best friend's one true love. "The foundation of baked goods - it's flour. But honestly, flour tastes terrible uncooked. Here, have a taste." She pushes the measuring cup toward him then demonstrates, licking her finger and putting it in the now empty cup to swipe up some of the remnants. Licking if off, she wrinkles her nose.
"The other big dry ingredient is a leavening agent - like baking soda. It's what makes the cake rise up and get fluffy when it's cooked, but it also tastes horrendous so you have to mix it in really well."
This is all much more technical than he’d expected, though baking, cooking in general had always been a mystery to Peter. He didn’t join in on her laughter, but his face did shift, brows rising, eyes wide in an expression of intense curiosity. Each new ingredient added draws his gaze, his head turning this way and that as things piece together.
It helps that Amalia seems to have grown more comfortable. Peter still isn’t sure what’s changed, or how to repeat this effect, but for the moment he just lets himself be swept up by her masterful hand and sudden calm. ”So... flour is in everything.” He nods, then dutifully reaches out to take a swipe of it, popping it in his mouth without a second thought, then immediately regretting it.
”How does the... how does a taste like that mix into something good?”
PETER
I always thought I might be bad
Now I'm sure that it's true
'cause I think you're so good
And I'm nothing like you
If she is more comfortable it is because she is in her world, a place she knows how to navigate, where the rules and the guidelines make sense. Follow the recipe and it all comes together- it's predictable, reliable, unlike dealing with people.
"Almost everything," Amalia agrees, resting her head on the back of her hands. "In baking, at least." She raises an eyebrow in wry amusement at his expression of distaste. The question is one she remembers asking her grandmother often as a child.
"My grandmother used to say that baking was a kind of magic." With deft fingers Amalia pours in the remaining dry ingredients, her voice taking on a distant tone. "It takes all the elements to bake - you need heat, and air, and water, and earth. The dry ingredients are earth."
With the pride of an artist Amalia pushes her jars of spices towards Peter, each one carefully labeled. "Well put ginger in this - here -" she gestures to the bottle "- but you can go ahead and smell the other ones. See which flavors you think will go well with the ginger." She hasn't made this challenge particularly hard: there's cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg and cardamom, as well as the somewhat less appropriate savory and sweet herbs, and some curled up peel of orange.
All the information Amalia imparts is accepted easily, Peter a dry sponge, nodding in response when ever she says something particularly interesting to him. Which is nearly everything. He's solemn still, serious, though it's more silly than uncomfortable in this moment, like he's learning hoe to perform surgery instead of how to bake a cake. Really, this might be even more important to him.
The spices are chosen with an equally serious face, despite the fact that he sniffs too quickly more than once, and makes himself sneeze, turning so hes well away from the food. Eventually, he settles on a mix he likes, that he thinks Adam will like, and he eagerly leans in to hear the next step, and the next.
There's something like a smile on his face when Peter leaves, a while later, cake held carefully in his arms. There was still an awkwardness between them, it would take more time to ease that, but it was a beginning, a step in the right direction.
PETER
I always thought I might be bad
Now I'm sure that it's true
'cause I think you're so good
And I'm nothing like you
