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!
my whole life is mine, but whoever says so will deprive me,
for it is infinite.
Amun had sent Maea a note to meet him at a location both of them were probably a bit too familiar with. After gathering supplies, he'd arrived far earlier than he'd told her to be there. Staring at the door for a while, he'd finally sighed and entered into the Chandrakant bakery.
The hinges to the door screeched and he winced. Inside, it was dusty and surprisingly broken down; not for the first time the potter wondered if there was some force in the Hollowed Ground that caused things to decay more rapidly. Shaking his head, he got to work tidying up and repairing what he could, setting his supplies on the cleanest looking counter.
When Maea arrived, he'd glanced up. "Hey. Thanks for coming." He looked around at the space. "I know the whole thing is...complicated, but I thought it would be a shame if the bakery didn't contribute something to Ludo and the spirits. Tradition and all that. Unfortunately, I'm a terrible chef."
It felt like some weird and unusual kind of torture, to set foot in the bakery. Even if the place had been cold and empty for a good while, and though she couldn't actually smell anything, just stepping inside brought to mind the heady fragrance of newly baked bread, of spices and sweetness lingering on the tongue. Old laughter and murmuring voices seemed to bounce between the rafters, loud enough that they all but drowned out Amun's voice.
Maea shook herself, and tried a fleeting smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "It's a good thought," she sighed, "I just don't know that I'll be of much use, either. Amalia was the baker, not me. What did you have in mind..?"
At least she somewhat knew her way around. Enough to be able to bring out bowls and ladles, measuring cups and pans. After a long, measured look at the oven, she gave him a speculative look. "Something that doesn't require baking, I hope?"
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
my whole life is mine, but whoever says so will deprive me,
for it is infinite.
Shrugging, Amun shot Maea a smile. Then he ducked underneath the counter. "Noted. I figure just some basic cookies or scones or something can't be too hard to figure out." As she commented that she'd prefer to avoid the ovens, he snorted. "I'll see what I can do."
Underneath the counters didn't yield anything, so he shifted to checking the cupboards. Eventually, he found a few books tucked away. Taking them out, he flipped through them after blowing the dust off the cover. Finally, he found a recipe that might work.
"How about this?" It was a blueberry mousse, which basically required just some blueberry jam and some cream. Luckily, he'd brought both. Taking out the jam, he nodded at them. "Why don't you dump those into a bowl while I whisk some cream?" Taking up a bowl, he started pouring cream into it.
The recipe was somewhat familiar, and after sneaking a peek at it, Maea nodded. "Sure." Cooking for dummies, it was, but better that than trying and failing to make something more complicated. Taking the jam, she measured out enough into a bowl, and then flipped through the cook book to see what else there might be.
Out of habit she swiped some of the jam from the spoon and popped it into her mouth.
"Ach. This is so underwhelming," she mumbled, disappointed when no firework of flavor registered on the tongue. Only the barest echo of it, there and gone again. "I thought you didn't like Ludo? So why are you making sweets for it?"
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
my whole life is mine, but whoever says so will deprive me,
for it is infinite.
"I'll save you some mousse to take to the room later, how does that sound?" Unable to stifle the laugh, Amun picked up the whisk. Rather than beat it by hand, he activated his metal manipulation upgrade to make the tool spin as quickly as he could manage.
Making sure nothing splash out of the blow, he arched an eyebrow at Maea's question. "Hm?" Looking up, he shrugged. "I'm not doing it for Ludo," he corrected. "I'm doing it for the spirits." Grinning, he winked at her. "You know, those same spirits that you were so ready to tear the Temple apart for." He stuck out his tongue.
"Cheat," she accused under breath, on seeing how exactly Amun went about beating the cream. "And no thanks. I'll only get depressed. Not tasting anything takes all the fun out of eating."
Finding a simple reference to a base on which mousse might be placed to create more of a tart, Maea rummaged through the supplies Amun had brought, and produced crackers and butter. It was a simple matter of crushing one and mixing in the other, and it gave her something to do while he worked on the cream.
She aimed a playful kick at him when he brought up the Temple. "Don't remind me," she groaned. "So? Is this a peace offering, then?"
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
my whole life is mine, but whoever says so will deprive me,
for it is infinite.
Chuckling at the accusation, Amun narrowed his eyes at Maea. He held up the bowl so she could get a better look at his efforts in beating the cream. "I wasn't aware there were rules. What else should I know, so I can go ahead and break them?" As she turned down his offer, he inclined his head.
Grinning, he nodded as she worked on a base for their treat. Shrugging, he inspected the cream before pouring it into the bowl with the jam and beginning to stir them together with a spoon. "Peace offering, distraction, desperate effort to make them like me more, call it what you will."
"Supposedly baking is a labor of love," she explained patiently, with an exaggerated snobbish twang to her voice that some of the more well-off families in the region had acquired. "It is all about the details, and the effort one puts in... or something like that." She dropped the accent and grinned at him. "Can't say I believe it, though. You whip your cream however you want, brother dearest."
After digging through a cupboard, Maea found little tartlette-moulds and scooped some of the crumble mixture into them. Pressing down with the back of a spoon, she lined them up to be filled, once the mousse mixture was ready.
"Hm, I guess that makes more sense. Though really, they tried to pile books on you; from where I'm standing, that's basically being showered in love. I got the shelf, so... maybe it's just me they don't like." She gave him a wry smile.
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
my whole life is mine, but whoever says so will deprive me,
for it is infinite.
Humming, Amun gave the jam and the cream a thorough mixing. "I love my upgrade, and I'm using it, so that should count for something." He waggled his eyebrows at her as he tucked the bowl in the crook of his arm.
As soon as she was done lining the tray, he brought the mixture over. "But I don't love books, so no, those spirits knew exactly how to hurt us." Half scooping, half pouring, he'd put a bit of the filling on each base. When he got to the end, he added more to the ones that he'd skimped on. Then he set the bowl down. "I guess we just clean up and leave it to sit for a bit? Then just...put it on the doorstep?" He scratched his chin.
Maea laughed and nodded. "I'd say it does, yes. And it is quicker, I'll give you that." Which was a good thing, all in all, because while the conversation was pleasant as always, the locale was not. While she had never been one to see spirits, ghosts of a not so distant past kept whispering in her ear as they worked, and every moment of quiet was filled to the brim with melancholy.
Stepping aside to let Amun fill up the trays, Maea took the empty bowls and nodded her agreement. "Yes, that should be it. I think they would let these sort of things sit in an ice box for a while before serving, but since it's an offering for spirits... I think it's good like this."
They hadn't really made much of a mess, so cleaning was quickly done. They even left the place with a little less dust than it had when they arrived, which perhaps wasn't the best thing for the little tarts they had created. But she reasoned that spirits must be used to dust motes and cobweb; perhaps it simply enhanced the flavor.
{FIN}
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
