Pastry Regret
kitchen.jpg


Xanadu Weyr - Kitchens
As you enter this room from outside, good smells assail you from everywhere. State of the art equipment has been brought in from the various crafts to be used - stoves and large ovens replacing the 2 hearths that used to be in here. Three baking ovens are usually going full bore 12 hours of the day, while the nighttime hours bring the smaller stove beside the door to the main hall into use. This is where you find late night meals of stew and soup simmering in pots, and pitchers of klah and tea in their electric units to be kept warm. Large windows take up the entire of the western wall, generally open wide to the mountainous landscape beyond allowing the cool breezes in to keep the kitchen's temperature to a desirable level. Tables, cabinets, and counters take up the remaining spaces and walls. It is here the majority of the work is done, and spices, herbs, and other foodstuffs found.
Beside the night hearth in the southern wall is the door that leads out into the living cavern.


Between breakfast and lunch, Marel has found her way to the kitchens to retrieve a snack, weaving her way past and between counters and tables to innocently steal away a fresh bread roll and the almost-burnt end slice of that cake there, with the ease and quiet cheekiness of one who has been doing much the same for turn upon turn. The smiles she has for the resident cooks and kitchen hands are meant to be sweetly charming, and one of them earns her a pastry fresh from the ovens added to her plate as she slips away and off to occupy one of the tables currently not in use. Hopping up onto a stool, she sets her plate down in-front of her and begins to tear apart the pastry.

Dragonhealers go through a lot of klah, and when it's as hot as this summer has been, they also go through a lot of ice. Soriana'd just gotten back from morning classes, except on the way out the door, someone said, "Oh, one more thing!" and told her to bring back the empty ice pitchers to the kitchen. So she's got an armful of those, some of them still with a bit of brown liquid in the bottom, or traces of stickiness from lemonade or… well, whatever, really. The point is, she hasn't dropped any of them yet.

Marel is right in the middle of pastry regret, that is, regretting pulling it apart while steam so readily rises from it and catches her fingertips, now biting down on her lip to keep from uttering something she shouldn't, when her gaze finds Soriana and she observes her progress for a few moments. Rather than keep watching her, she waits for the tips of her fingers to stop protesting and slips down from her stool, arms lifting as if she'd assist with the pitchers by claiming one or more. "Need a hand?" she offers.

This armful was much more manageable back when she was outside. Now that Soriana's in the kitchens - which are even hotter than outside, just for the record - she's having to dodge busy kitchen hands. Or be dodged by them, as they grumble about having someone in the way. Not only that, she can feel one of the ones in the middle starting to shift. Just a little, but… these things are carefully stacked. One shifting could mean the whole thing cascading. A third hand would be really, really useful around now, and Soriana is just starting to try and jigger-lean-nudge when… a third hand appears! Along with a fourth. "Yes please!" She grins gratefully to Marel. "They're just going to the washtubs."

Studying the situation, Marel hesitates, torn between simply trying to help support and balance the whole lot in an awkward, hugging sort of gesture, or trying to offload a pitcher or two. Or more. She opts for the latter, seeking to carefully pry two of them free, ever-vigilant for the falling of others. Pressing close to a counter to avoid the path of a harried cook, she holds her burden close so as not to fling them to the ground after all that, then dives through an opening in the flow of traffic and heads for the washtubs. "Where did they all come from?" she asks over her shoulder as she goes. "Were you planning on building a fort with them?"

It's like one of those games with trying to extract one stick from the pile without disturbing the others, only… with pitchers! Maybe next gather that'll be one of the booths. Soriana works with Marel, to try and work her fingers back to release only just the ones she means to without dropping the rest. There! Now she's got them balanced. Temporarily, anyhow, but that's good enough. They've just got to get them delivered to the washtubs, where the grumpy dishwasher will surely love the extra work just in time to make sure he doesn't get a break before lunch. Soriana pursues Marel through that gap, clinging to the pitchers as she replies, "Annex. Seems like half the dragonhealers bring a pitcher of something cold on shift with them, and of course none of them ever bring it back themselves…" She rolls her eyes a little.

Marel tries her meant-to-be-charming smile on the worker currently tasked with washing the dishes, but it doesn't get her anywhere, her only reward a grunt of a noise, so she cuts her losses and steps back to let Soriana deposit her own pitchers. "Maybe it's an academic thing," she supposes, willing to give the dragonhealers the benefit of the doubt. For now. "You know, getting caught up and forgetting some basic stuff, like taking pitchers back." She waits, though begins to edge her way back towards her table and her abandoned, not quite stolen goodies. "Do you need to take anything back with you?"

Soriana tries a smile too. It doesn't work any better for her, so she just settles for a, "Thanks!" after the last of her pitchers is put down. Another grunt, and she decides that's good enough, turning back to Marel. "Thanks for the help," she says with a somewhat crooked smile. "A few moments longer, and I might have crashed into something." Now that she's done with that, she doesn't seem to be in any rush, trailing vaguely after Marel. "Maybe. For some of them, anyhow. Some of them may just figure that's what they've got the grade ones for." There's a grin for that. "Could be worse, anyhow." She shrugs, then shakes her head at the question. "Nah. I'm done 'til afternoon."

"You're welcome," Marel assures, reclaiming her spot at the table to dare a nibble at one of the pieces of her now cooled pastry. "Day off," she says of her own timetable, though she doesn't appear all too thrilled by it, and shrugs one shoulder dismissively. "But is that really how you get treated by superiors in that sort of thing? I mean, do Journeymen of a craft, say, use the apprentices to do work that they don't want to?" It's an honest, somewhat innocent enquiry, yet just how sheltered she sounds isn't lost on her, and, though her expression alters little, a faint blush colours her cheeks.

Soriana snags herself a seat near Marel, watching the bustle of the kitchens for a moment before looking back to the other girl. "Well…" she says, considering a moment. "Sometimes. It depends on the journeyman. Like, Kale's had to babysit a kid because his journeyman owed someone a favor." She halfway grins at those one. "And any apprentice is going to have some amount of running errands and doing chores. It's sort of how you pay for lessons. Most of the time, it's stuff that's still part of the craft, like… the grade ones are the ones that boil syringes and chop redwort. It's important, it's kinda dull, but someone has to do it."

"Babysitting?" Marel repeats between bites, moving onto the stolen piece of loaf cake, a neat little corner piece halfway to her mouth when she utters that single word with an edge of disbelief. "Isn't that just taking advantage because apprentices can't really refuse to do as they're told?" That bite vanishes as she frowns and shakes her head just a touch. "I get doing chores and errands related to the craft, but I'm not sure I'd want to run the risk of being expected to do personal errands for people because I had to." Which might well be one reason she hasn't signed up for a craft herself. "No offense," she hastens to say. "I guess if I really loved the craft, I'd do whatever I had to do."

Soriana grins a bit, nodding at the preposterousness of it, but then the smile fades. "Yeah, I guess it is, sorta. And I mean… it makes a big difference who your journeyman is. Orik - that's Kale's journeyman - asks weird stuff sometimes, but he's pretty good. From what Idrissa's said about Jarse…" Soriana frowns. "Horrible. And I'm sure she hasn't even told me the half of it." She gives her head a brisk shake, but the frown lingers a moment. "Well, there's appeals and such, if a journeyman's going too far… and things are different at the Halls." She shrugs a little, then smiles. "None taken. It's kinda different for me, anyhow. I do enough lessons at the School… well, I guess D'ren'd be the closest I've got? Or maybe Fallian, she's the one who does the schedules."

"There should be rules." So says the outsider. "I mean, even if there /are/ some, there should be more that say clearly what an Journeyman can and can't ask." Marel grimaces, her reaction spawned predominantly of 'horrible' more than the rest. But she won't dwell too much on that and asks, "Are things any better for Idrissa? She said something about getting back into her craft and I didn't want to… be /too/ rude and ask what she meant." She polishes off the cake pretty quickly, trying to be as delicate as possible and not speak with her mouth full, but it remains quite clear that she approves of the bake, near burnt or not.

"Yeah, there should be," agrees Soriana. She ponders for a moment. "Maybe there are, even, I don't know." One side of her mouth quirks up. "Dragonhealers aren't quite like one of the crafts. Not that some people believe me." Though she doesn't actually name any names, and then she's distracted by the mention of Idrissa. "Getting back in…?" There's a momentary grin. "I hadn't heard. I've been cross shifts from her. But yeah, that'd definitely be good." A thoughtful expression supplants the grin. "I wonder why… maybe the letter got there." She shrugs to herself, then returns her attention to Marel. "It… well. Jarse is horrible." She leans a little closer, in case any of the cooks here happen to be his friend or something. "He took her knot away, and she didn't even really do anything."

"/Trying/ to get back in," Marel clarifies, no further enlightened as to why such a thing would be needed, until she processes the last of Soriana's words. "What?" she queries in a low whisper, likewise leaning closer to try and ensure relative privacy in an otherwise busy environment. "He sounds awful. Why would someone do something like that?" Except she's had her own run-ins with awful people of late of adds, in a murmur, "…If only to be petty and make people miserable." She sighs, trying to push such thoughts aside, and declares, "Well, I hope she /does/ get back in, however horrible he is. He shouldn't stop her." With time edging ever closer to midday, she makes to stand, brushing stray crumbs from her dress. "I owe someone a visit," she explains. "…He might even be awake by now." Muttered, misery touching her voice. "Enjoy your afternoon!" And for all that her afternoon doesn't sound so fun, she's sincere in her wish for Soriana's.

Soriana ohs at that clarification, and her face falls a little before she sighs and shakes her head. "Yeah. Because he's a horrible jerk and a bully, and Idrissa won't go charging to the Hall to protest and he knows it." She scowls. "And she should, and he should be kicked out." So go on, world, get on that! Become fair. … hmm. Okay, she'll give you a couple months to get things in order, but then… watch out. Soriana nods again to Marel, though she can't hide a brief wince at what she catches of that mutter. "Good luck," she replies, whatever that actually means under the circumstances, and the luck and the smile and wave to go with are sincere even if she does sigh afterward.


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