78th Day of Spring, Year 218
The Beauty
Warbler
The sun moves behind the clouds over a bend in the river as The Beauty and its crew continue to sail atop its murky depths. The bizarre changes in the wildlife, wounded fishmen, the rampant destruction, giant talking serpents, and now the dead rising it’s all just so … “CAW!!!” A rivergull cries out startling Warbler awake from his third nap of the day in the modest garden he’s been tending on deck.
The cloudy sky rumbles, echoing across the surrounding landscape, and as if in response so too does Ringo’s stomach.
He looks down at his belly, as it groans once more, and gives a handful of seeds to the rivergull that he probably should not have started feeding several days ago. He brushes the dirt from his shirt and trousers, picks a few ingredients, and begins to make his way to the galley.
“I’m cooking today; if we have just potatoes again I’m going to turn into a spud.”
Ethan
As best Ethan could tell, York was a creature of routine. He had a way of doing things that worked for him and deviations were not his favorite behavior to indulge. And, for the most part, this worked fine for Ethan; he wasn’t a chef, after all. Just a competent second pair of hands in the kitchen, which was why York seemed to tolerate his presence in the galley (which, in some ways, was high praise coming from the dwarf). So York told him what to do and Ethan did it.
The one or two things Ethan did know how to cook on his own (and cook well) were begrudgingly admitted to be “…ok,” although the initial spark of delight in his eyes spoiled any poker face York was attempting to maintain. He only knew how to cook a couple things, but Ethan knew those things to be very fucking, “ok.”
Regardless, most meals were planned and curated by the dwarf and Ethan simply went along with helping to make that happen faster and easier, and with a second pair of hands assisting with clean up. Clean up was its own clash of standards and personalities because York would always give the cookware a second, cursory cleaning; it seemed almost compulsive. No matter how clean Ethan made something, it was still getting a second rub and rinse from York.
Tonight, however, was going to be slightly different… not the clean-up, that was going to be the same. No changing that. But Ethan had in mind a new manner of cooking potatoes. He’d experimented a little bit (much to the consternation of the dwarf who chastised him each time he was caught trying something on his own) and discovered that frying pieces in oil had some potential. The thin flakes he’d fried quickly became a little too burnt and crisp, but Ethan suspected a different shape with a little more thickness might turn out better. He was not certain what tonight’s menu entailed, but he was going to try to work in the novel fried potatoes as a potential compliment to whatever was on the agenda.
York
The expression on York’s was something between wonder and suspicion as he stared down into the bubbling pot of oil and sliced potatoes.
“Not sure why you started it by ruinin’m,” the dwarf murmured through the comb of his mustache as black eyes peered down from a sun-weathered face, his arms crossed over his apron in a subconscious gesture that protected him from the very idea that something so ludicrous could be delicious.
The ship’s cooking standing beside the island counter made it apparent why all the fixtures in the kitchen were so abnormally low in stature—they were all the perfect height for the dwarf himself, and by some contrast Ethan seemed somehow abnormally large. The ceiling wasn’t actually lower, of course, it just felt that way, or at least so Ethan had been assured.
“You wan’ put tha’ with fish?”
It was always fish.
Ethan
“Oh yeah!” he said confidently.
“Especially with fish…”
In truth, Ethan had no idea how the pairing would go. He wasn’t even certain the thin, carrot-shaped potato sticks would cook any better than the flat slices that burned almost instantly. This attempt was just educated guesswork.
But if he was confident and his guess turned out to be correct, he would gain a little standing with the cook; if he was hesitant and the fried potatoes turned out well, York would brush the experiment off as Ethan getting lucky.
And if the potatoes turned out burnt and terrible, well… he would lose some of his sous-chef credibly either way.
“…it’s gonna be great!” He continued to bluff.
He watched as Warbler made his way into the galley, the three of them offering any bystanders a very confusing perspective on the furniture that looked equal parts too tall or too short depending on which figure you considered average in size.
Warbler
Warbler’s hair and bare feet were all that was visible as he approached the room behind the two burlap sacks overflowing with plants ranging from dried herbs to bright green peppers that were barely contained in his small arms. As he stumbled towards the room, swaying precariously to and fro with the movement of the ship, it seemed as if the sacks would collapse in an avalanche and descend upon the kitchen burying the dwarf and half-elf in a wave of green at any moment.
“Look out! Corner! Hot peppers! Coming through!” could be heard muffled from behind the bags as he approached.
Miraculously, he passed through the threshold and dropped the two sacks onto a mostly empty table with a resounding thud without spilling a thing. Ringo lowered himself back down from his tip-toes and beamed at York and Ethan with a bright and over-eager smile, a small bright red pepper resting atop his left ear, and said.
“Oh, hey! I wasn’t sure if you’d already started preparing dinner. I … um, I thought maybe I could contribute to tonight’s meal. I’m no chef, obviously …” he nodded humbly towards York, “but, my aunt Wiora was, at the inn back home. She used to make this spiced green curry … and, and let me pick the ingredients.”
“I promise not to get in the way, but …” Ringo stammered as he lowered his eyes to the floor, “I thought I could help … I’m not very good at keeping watch … or much of anything on the ship, really.”
He looks up at York, then Ethan, and back at York again “Do you think you could use these … “ he waves his hand towards the pile of plants on the work table “and maybe if I described Wiora’s green flame curry I could contribute to the meal? I’m sure it would go great on fish and potatoes!”
Because I know it’s fish and potatoes, it’s always bloody fish and potatoes, he thinks to himself while maintaining his nervous grin.
Ethan
Ethan looks to York.
It’s your kitchen, his look said. I just work here…
He pushed the potatoes around in the pan, trying to avoid the smattering of hot grease that occasionally popped onto his exposed forearms.
The spuds were frying up rather nicely so far. Maybe these would turn out well after all! He thought with a smile.
York
“Mm?!”
The dwarf snapped a look toward the tumble of sacks-and-halfling as Warbler approached and slowly narrowed his eyes as the thud preluded the rolling of a few stray peppers across the countertop. “…from tha’ unnadural garden no doub’. Weir’ peppers comin’ from tha’ funny business,” York mumbled with a suspicious stare down at the sacks.
The dwarf glanced back and forth between the two, before huffed and headed off toward the line of counters closest to the wall and grabbed a fish from it’s hook, before slapping it down into the cutting board.
“Meh fine fine, ruined spuds migh’ as well ‘ave cursed vegetables too. Be quick about eh then kids can’ even jus’ ea a potato, gah meh eh squares and turnin’ fire green and horses jus’ standin’ round on boats.”
Warbler
Ringo squinted in concentration as he hung on York’s every word. He did his best to parse out what was being said through the dwarf’s gruff accent, and picked up what appeared to be a begrudging nod, and what sounded like …
“Of course, vegetables!” Warbler exclaimed with a smile.
He hopped around the space and gathered a board, a blade, and a mortar and pestle. Then carefully arranged six of the thin bright green peppers, a couple of red ones, several green leaves of various shapes and sizes, and a few small round roots that appeared to be distant relatives of an onion and began rapidly chopping.
“I think you’re gonna love this” Ringo said emphatically as he worked “nothing I ate in the north had any heat to it! The peppers aren’t as hot as back home, but they should still pack a punch.”
Ethan
Ethan smiled to himself at the minor miscommunication, by now quite familiar with the cook’s thick accent and penchant for mumbling to himself in Dwarvish. He decided to let the misconception slide (where was the harm in allowing Warbler to think York was more excited for the vegetables than he actually was?) but then a different idea occurred to him…
Dwarvish was a language Ethan knew. He was not fluent in the same way he was with Elvish - a language he not only knew but could perfectly emulate several different regional accents (complete with geographically appropriate aphorisms); he’d learned Elvish from an actual elf, after all, and his time in Last Harbor brought him into contact with people from all across the barony. Elvish may be equally understood across the world, but a sharp ear could pick up on where exactly the language was learned.
Dwarvish was… well, the only consistent dwarvish he’d encountered thus far was from miners in Northgate while serving food from Small Potatoes. He’d encountered plenty of dwarves in Last Harbor as well, but he hadn’t known the language well enough at the time to really pick up on any subtle differences, if they existed.
His Dwarvish was well suited to conversing with the sailor he shared a kitchen with currently, however, so either Dwarvish had less variations or Ethan just hadn’t been exposed to it yet; or maybe York was originally from a similar place as those miners - who knows?
Regardless, the common tongue helped to present opportunities like the one he found before him right now.
“The vegetables aren’t cursed,” he said jovially in common, moving past the dwarf as he transferred a batch of crisp looking fried potato slices out of the frying pan and into a bowl. He then threw a glance in Warbler direction; seeing the halfling preoccupied with preparing the vegetables, his face took on a deadly serious expression as he leaned in to whisper in Dwarvish just loud enough for both to hear, “…except for those green peppers. They whispered to me some nights on watch…!”
He cast another furtive, dramatic glance back in Warbler’s direction, before locking eyes with the dwarf. He shook his head in a subtle but serious warning, his deadpan expression never faltering.
Then he moved back to preparing a second batch of fried potatoes.
Warbler
Warbler kept his head down as he began to grind the chopped ingredients into a smooth paste using the mortar and pestle. A smirk slowly spreading from ear to ear, and with a mischievous twinkle in his eye he thought. “Cursed peppers, huh.”
The lights in the room dimmed ever so slightly, all but one … the light shining on a lone unchopped bright green bird’s eye pepper. Out of the corner of the cooks’ eyes’ they could swear it moved … just a twitch really … probably just the changing shadows in the dimming light.
… Then there was a whisper of a sound … a sound that could only be coming from one place in the room …
“Heh… heh… heh…”
York
The dwarf stared at Ethan for a moment, before a soft grunt came out from beneath his mustache and he turned back toward the fish-at-hand, but there was something slower and distracted about his movements as he began to move the small, curved knife through the white-pink of the meat there on the counter.
It didn’t make any sense. It was ridiculous, of course. The vegetables had all come from the same blasted garden, how could some of them be innocent, while others were…
The dwarf’s movement stopped completely, the small knife hovering just above the fish beneath him. There was a barrel, now sealed and wrapped in rope, with a large stone sitting atop the lid. All the crew could imagine, of course, the wide variety of nebulous horror that was taking shape inside, but no one had dared to open it.
What if…
York slowly set the small knife down on the wooden cutting board beside the fish, with a slow glance toward Ethan and a cold sweat beginning to find its way to the surface of his weathered skin.
“Ac’ nadural, lad.”
The moment hung on the air, thick in the room, and then just when a breath began to release from the dwarf’s mouth there came a laugh from behind.
Ethan had barely had time to see York grab the cleaver from the knife block, before the dwarf was sailing through the air with his eyes wide and his face twisted in severity, a mumbled and muffled scream roaring from his frowning mouth somewhere under a sea of beard.
Warbler
Back on the deck of the Beauty the table was almost set. Warbler straightened the components of the final place settings as he looked out across the spread.
Wooden bowls filled with green-flame curry, crispy potato poles, perfectly fried morsels of fish, and …
He had to stifle a laugh as he looked at the enthusiastically diced peppers that would be used as a garnish …
“Who knew he could move that fast!” Warbler muttered to himself as he chuckled loudly, unable to hold back his amusement despite his best efforts.
He climbed up onto a stool to take in the full view.
It’s not home … he considered with a half-cocked smile, but it’s starting to feel like family …
“I really hope they like it …” Warbler whispered as he made his way back up into the crow’s nest for one more pre-meal nap.
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