Just Soup-er
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Kitchens
The kitchen is large and well-stocked with technology as well as those with culinary skill. State of the art equipment has been brought in from the various crafts to be used - stoves and large ovens replacing the hearths that used to be in here. Three baking ovens are usually going full bore half the day, from early morning through to mid-afternoon. 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. Various spices, herbs, and other foodstuffs are found here, and what's not ready at hand is tucked away back in the storage caverns or the massive cold-room large enough to walk inside.
The night hearth beside the door to the main caverns has been kept out of a sense of nostalgia, but the smaller stove set beside it is what's actually used to prepare late-night food. 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.


Something has dared disturb the normal flow of the hustling, bustling weyr kitchens. Sure, there's still all the normal commotion going on as folks still got to be fed, but Rhodelia is certainly #sorrynotsorry for any delays in the food to the living caverns this afternoon. Step foot in the kitchen and no doubt she's at least partially the cause for disruption, having somehow claimed the giantest of giant pots the kitchen has to offer, an even bigger spoon, a chef's hat and step stool as well. There are jars and pots of various things strewn on the counter-top nearby as she attempts science cooking. "Has anybody seen the citrus? Can't have wherry soup without citrus!" Somehow… there's no response from the kitchen staff as they pretend they might as well be deaf doing their regular cooking wherever else they can. Doesn't seem to phase Rhodelia as she just starts digging through what other odds and ends she found…

Technically speaking, D'lei doesn't belong back here either. He's not a baker, or a cook, or even a scullery-boy or root-peeler! So maybe that's why he's the one who not only notices Rhodelia but doesn't try to block her out of his consciousness? Well, maybe. His actual excuse for being here in the first place is in the form of an (empty) jar that he's bringing back to… well, to the scullery, because while he did clean it to not-the-kitchen standards, there's probably some kind of special soap they want to use or something. And, well. Once he's here, he does notice what the big cooking deal is! (Not that Rhody herself is big, per se, but… anyhow!) So, once he's deposited his goods, he drifts his way through the kitchen without collecting too many glares to lean up on tiptoes and peek shamelessly into Rhodelia's pot. He even lives dangerously and inhales a sniff!

Rhodelia is certainly a lot taller with that hat… at least a foot! And despite the heat of the kitchens (all those ovens and… SUMMER), she's wearing a pretty bulky yellow sweater even as she stirs and rummages with her other hand, trying to streeeeetch and really just knocking some tubers and carrots and a jar of mystery paste to the floor. Luckily it's a sturdy jar and just rollllls right on over towards D'lei. "Can you pass me that?" Something would smell really fishy if the jar was sniffed… seeing as it's fish paste. As for the pot… there might be two wherry carcasses stuffed in… and some pretty murky water. And a confusing concotion of smells that certinaly isn't grandma's old fashioned recipe. Spice… flowers… bacon?

Hats absolutely count as real and genuine height. It's the rule. D'lei might not have meant to let his gaze linger on the pot, but… well, he certainly recognizes some of the ingredients in there. Wherry does go in most wherry soups! But… as for the rest… "Mmh." He might have been able to figure this out, but he doesn't get the chance, because there's some very suspicious things going round… and round… and bumping in against his toes. "…likely enough," he admits, as he bends down to pick it up… and looks to the soup, and then back to the jar, and then to Rhodelia in her impressive hat and nice warm sweater that is also impressive in the way how, despite that and the kitchens and the summer, she doesn't actually seem to be on the verge of heatstroke. WONDERS. They never cease! "See, usually I'd recommend slathering it on before the simmer step," he says as he offers that jar over to the chef-in-charge, "But I suppose sometimes you're in a rush." His expression is pretty well deadpan, which is rather appropriate given that consuming this soup might well end up with someone being dead.

Rhodelia is only maybe lightly glistening and certainly wouldn't admit to sweating… even if her face is turning a bit red from the heat. And the sweater. "Slather it on before???" It's like the idea had never occured to her as she takes the jar and steps back up onto her little step stool to promptly scoop the entire jar into the pot, the massiveness of it probably still overwhelmed by the pungent fish now. Along with whatever was going on before. "I guess could have put it on before roasting the wherry but then I'd have to have roasted the wherry… When Geshi was so nice to have set some aside for me. THANKS, GESHI!!!!" She hollers and waves to one of the cooks trying to ignore this chaos, even more so when name-checked. Distracted she might be, but Rhody still notices the eyeing of her soup and completely grins. "Did you come for soup? It should be ready soooooooon…." Dun dun dun.

D'lei nods. "Mmmhmm." He's helping! …with questionable life choices, admittedly, but it surely stll counts for something. And… "Oooh, can really smell it, can't you?" he says, which is very much true, especially when the hot liquid turns the fishy pungent-ness into steam laden with those aromas. Never mind delaying dinner, this is probably going to make half the dishes taste like fish-pasted wherry. "I mean, this way still works. And besides, it's a good way to use up the scraps, and some people probably wouldn't like it in their wherry-roast." D'lei shrugs one shoulder, as if to imply that nobody can truly account for the tastes of those some people. As for why he, himself, is here? "Truth be told, I just came by to return a jar I'd borrowed. Didn't even realize it was a soup day until I got here!" The real question is why, having discovered just what travesties Rhodelia was conducting, he decided to stay instead of being a sensible man and running.

"Since you returned a jar, that means you can take a jar!" Rhodelia explains, waving her spoon and splashing the fish-wherry-broth even further. "I should toss more leftovers in the soup… I already added the rolls. Probably should have waited on that…. Or add mashed potatoes. To thicken it up…" She might be able to see some flaws in her soup-construction-process, but still seems committed to going with it!

"True enough! And while I'm sure there's plenty who would love a bowl," D'lei looks around, with a grin as he observes all those studiedly, desperately oblivious people, then back to the soup-in-progress, "I'm sure they wouldn't begrudge me having some." He leans a bit, to peer into the simmering pot, and hmms. "Have you added oatmeal yet? They might still have some leftover from this morning, if we can save the kettle from the dishwashers, and that'll give it a nice crumb and a bit of gloop."

"That's the plan! Nothing keeps someone healthy like soup!" Rhodelia crows, even if her own soup more likely to turn stomachs than settle them. Her face lights up at the mention of oatmeal. "Perfect for the digestion!" And so with that, she hops off the stool again and spins off a few feet to where the leftovers are normally stored. Certainly some cereal… granola… oatmeal! All three are taken over and promptly dumped in, no measuring required when using units of all.

"The healers should be thanking you," D'lei agrees with a nod. Admittedly, the 'gratitude' would probably be more along the lines of 'for keeping them busy' or 'providing training for apprentices', but hey. Let's not be picky! Rhody certainly isn't. While she goes to fetch more supplies for the soup, D'lei makes himself useful and stirs the pot. That, or he does it to satisfy his morbid curiosity about just what's lurking in those murky depths. "Mmh… ah! There we are," he says, greeting Rhodelia's return with a grin, and holds the spoon out of the way for her to dump in all the delicious supplies. "The more the merrier, right?"

"Everybody should be thanking me!" Rhodelia has absolutely no shame about how wonderful her magical soup of wherry mystery might be… Along the way with grabbing assorted breakfast items she also grabbed a few leafy items as well… what they are she has no idea. Someone wouldn't store inedible ingredients in a kitchen would they? Hopefully not, cause they's also getting lobbed into after the oatmeal and she wipes her hands. "Just keep stirring until it congeals a bit… when it sets, that's when you know it's solid. And right, too many cooks spoil the pot, but two cooks isn't too many!" For this soup, any cooks were probably too many if someone were honest.

Those leaves might be herbs! Or they might be tea. Or … they might be someone's private stash of 'herbs' for when they need to take a little break from kitchen-work and zone out. Who knows? Definitely not D'lei, and not Rhodelia either, and as for the actual kitchen-staff… well, some of them might know, but they're not paying attention, now are they? So they don't get to have an opinion on this! D'lei nods firmly. "That, I can do!" he says, and grins as he stirs… watching as oatmeal gums together, and granola slowly melts in the liquid, and various things bob up and down in the… broth, we can probably still call this broth. "I mean, most of the time, there's an entire kitchen worth of cooks, so two should be just fine. Though, really, you're the expert here, I'm just an adequate pot-stirrer doing my part."

Eventually someone will be tasting the soup and maybe they can confirm! If they can even distinguish the leafs from under however many other ingredients where dumped in. They will certainly be entitled to opinions! And seeing as D'lei has he stirring down, Rhodelia goes to grab two bowls and two normal sized spoons… and a ladle. "Pot stirring is a very vital skill. Wouldn't want things to stick to the bottom, so…. how does it look?" She tiptoes to peek over the edge of the giant pot. "Ready to taste?" She's got a spoon ready, held out towards him.

"Definitely not," D'lei agrees. "Especially not the oatmeal, it wants to settle… but I shan't let it!" He grins. Admittedly, there were significant sludge-clumping problems long before the oatmeal, but … it definitely didn't help. That said, this soup was likely beyond help, and all D'lei's done is helped along its glorious (if you like disasters) cascade into… this. At Rhody's question, D'lei lifts up the big spoon, carefully observing the soup thereon (piece of granola half-coated in black fish-slime, stringy reddish chunk of indeterminant vegetable, several globules of fat) before he gives a firm nod. "Yeah. Let's do this!" he says, and takes the spoon from her and transfers a mouthful from big-spoon to little-spoon and then… pops it into his mouth. He doesn't even hesitate. If any mindhealers are watching, they're probably going to downgrade his case from 'may need therapy' to 'asylum, now'.

D'lei's first for this! Rhodelia has her own spoon in hand but she watches, grinning and eager as the bronzerider takes one giant step for mankind with that bite into… whatever the mystery sludge/oatmeal ball 'soup' might be. And seeing as he doesn't immeidately spew it out or even hesitate, she actually jumps up and down, clapping at SUCH SUCCESS!!! Such success which also inspires her to then ladle out a full serving of the travesty into her bowl, raising a spoonful to "Cheers!" before she promptly slurps a noodle and some oatmeal blob up before just as quickly gagging on it as she forces herself not to spit it up, trying to hide the grimace. "It. is. nutritious. Certainly nutritious." WHY ELSE WOULD ANYBODY MAKE OR EAT THIS?

See, the thing is, D'lei has practice. There are multiple small children who have given him things that have, as actual and genuine ingredients, mud. And … okay, we're still not really getting around the fact that he makes terrible life choices sometimes, or the fact that his poker face is also responsible for Rhodelia getting herself into trouble (okay, she kind of did start this whole thing, but that's just details), but… he does, at the very least, scoop up an entire bowl for himself, because… misery loves company, apparently. "It must be," he agrees with her, with a firm nod. "We put in so many things with nutrition!" He takes a spoonful, this one a dappled thing of fat-glistens and fishpaste-dark. "Mmh." His brow furrows slightly, and then he follows it up with another spoonful. "Did you add pickles, or is that just the fishpaste I'm tasting?"

Rhodelia has a long, long history of making horrible decisions. Even without the added influence of an extra-exhuberant Inasyth humming along constantly in the back of her mind at the moment. And while she might be making a face of a feline that's just been give medicine as she works through the first bite, she's NOT QUITTING!!! Eventually she at least gets the first bite out of her mouth even if the taste is gonna linger and linger, and then she goes in for another, spearing a chunk of… something very, very red. "That might be the pickled eggs. or pickled beets. Or maybe there were some regular pickles too… I can't remember. I wanted there to be something for everybody…" There's a little sniffle even as she forces herself to swallow that second bite.

Well, if Rhodelia is going to persist, then so is D'lei. They aren't quitters, either of them! Which … admittedly, is kind of why this soup turned out so terrible, because nobody quit adding things, but who even learns from past mistakes or other foolish things like that? D'lei nods as she explains herself, and has another spoonful, tilting his head back a bit as if he's swishing it like a win to really savor the … experience. "…I think it's the pickled egg," he concludes after he swallows. "That'd make more sense, with the yolk giving it that bit of fatty taste in with the salt." And then another spoonful, because sometimes you have to really commit to the bad idea. Especially when there's an entire pot of it!

Hopefully they do eventually quit… that entire pot of soup would cause problems for two people to consume even if it was a perfectly normal and fit for human consumption. "I never really had pickled eggs… had some folks at the Wherry insist pickled onions where the superior martini garnish instead of olives. I always liked lemon twists better than either." She eyes cautiously the soup vat sitting over there, taunting her. "Maybe it would have been better with some citrus zest." She never did find the citrus she had been looking for when he arrived.

D'lei nods, then hehs. "Suppose you could use a pickled egg as a garnish, too… but that seems just a bit excessive." And this isn't? "Like something they'd give high-rollers to make them feel special." A crooked grin, a shrug, and then he has another spoonful. "I think," he says after he's swallowed it down, "the problem might have been too few cooks. See, if you'd had enough minions, you could have kept more things stirred, so you'd be able to do lots of small experiments to see which ones worked best."

"High rollers… I wonder if that gambling boat they found in Ressac has anything like that…" Rhodelia wonders, a bit distracted at the though seeing as she still hasn't managed to actually visit the Lure in all this time and so rumors just keep growing and growing in her head. As for trying to get through the soup, she seems to be going with teeny-tiny sips at a time. As if a lot of little sips might be less bad than a few huge ones. As for the idea about cooks, she considers for a moment before shrugging. "I did ask for some help. But someone said nobody eats soup in this weather. Even if it is good for them."

"Heh. Anywhere with gambling has high rollers," D'lei says. "Some just go higher than others… well, and some place are more interested in repeat customers." That gets a wry not-quite-smile, followed by another bite of soup. (This one is a bite, because the oatmeal has globbed together various other bits of things into a lump that could almost be mistaken for a dumpling if you didn't know better! It's definitely chewy, though, so it takes him a while to gnaw his way through, and he just nods along to Rhodelia's tale of culinary rejection and woe.

Rhodelia peers over at D'lei and his oatmeal-dumpling. "You… were from somewhere with casinos? Worked on casinos?" The details are real hazy at the moment. "Do you ever go back?" She scrapes her spoon on the bottom of her bowl and brings up a sludge bit that might have been one of the rolls she mentioned earlier and takes a waaaay too soggy bite of the carb-blob.

"Mmhmm. Paradise River," D'lei finally says once he's finished getting enough oat-gunk off his teeth. "Though, now that Monaco Weyr's got its resort, that's… been kind of bad for the tourist trade." A faint grimace, but only for a moment. "My mom worked on the machines there. That's how I learned my first bits of tech." He smiles. "So yeah, I go back to visit my parents sometimes, but mostly I stay away from the casino part of things. As much as I can, anyhow." He shrugs, just a bit.

Rhodelia sniffles again, though this time more for Paradise River's poor tourist trade. "That's sad too! Maybe we should send Paradise River some soup to cheer them up?" Just… some soup. Maybe not this soup. Although disposing of this monstrosity between would probably be a wise decision. "I wonder… how much different people's lives would have been if their parents just had different crafts. Cause think about how many people just follow in the footsteps of their parents? I even tried… for a while." When she was a horrible vintner apprentice… and even bartending was booze-adjacent.

"Mmh… or. Or." D'lei grins, brandishing his spoon. "We send soup to Monaco, and tell the tourists there that if they want more delicious experiences, they should go find them at Paradise River. Ehhh?" That grin is wide, and why shouldn't it be? It's a clever plan that even works if the soup is terrible, because then they can imply that it's Monaco what has terrible cooking and that Paradise River is, in fact, more delicious. (Or maybe it's not a good idea at all, and this particular soup may or may not be to blame for it. Either way.) D'lei has another spoonful of the terrible idea, and hehs. "Yeah. For me… like, I could see myself having turned harper, if I'd seen that as a kid instead of tech."

The plan to pawn of The Soup to Monaco actually has Rhodelia's eyes light up. "Do you… do you think you could sneak it over there? I would but…." She gives a little wave at her current unseasonal sweater get-up even as Inasyth yells out for the entire Weyr to hear « I STICK OUT LIKE A BONFIRE AT A MOTH PARTY!!! EVERYBODY WANTS ME!!! » "That." She nods, sure even if D'lei didn't hear the gold, Garouth almost certainly did. "My sister's a harper. My brother's well on his way to also becoming a master vintner. I don't know what else I would have done if I'd seen it… maybe just admin stuff if hadn't been in a family that focused solely on the importance of CRAFTS over everything else."

Whether he heard Inasyth directly or at a remove, D'lei certainly grins, and also nods. "I can absolutely do that." It's far better than being expected to eat it himself! …not that he hasn't been making progress on his bowl, but still. Having the same food gets boring after a while, even when it's as … exciting … as this particular variety-packed meal. With a plan in place for that problem, he nods as he listens to Rhodelia recount her family and where they've ended up. "Yeah, I could see that. Like… there's some people where it feels like they've got vocations, almost destinies, and you… you're kind of more… the sort who can do a bit of everything." Or put it in her soup. "You're like… an interface." He's thoughtful, and then it shifts it a playful grin. "The oil that greases whichever wheels you see fit."

"I'll make sure it's even on the schedule today!" Not like Meteor really has much in the way of schedules, but Rhodelia does keep some schedules somewhere and can always add some more. She's got the power! D'LEI: SUPER IMPORTANT DELIVERY TO MONACO. EXTRA URGENT. And then said schedule will also be lost to whatever passes as her organization system. The mention of oil and grease comes up right about the time she hits an oil slick in the soup that has her gagging and actually calling it quits, bowl set down and pushes away. "I think that might be one of the few times I've heard being called greasy as a compliment."

"Yesss," D'lei says as Rhodelia promises to add his very important mission to a schedule, and he grins wide. "I will find myself some formal leathers. This will be magnificent." Funny, how that nearly rhymes with 'political incident'. Must be a coincidence. Just like the coincidence of timing that has her finding a visual (and textural!) aid for D'lei's description, and while he doesn't laugh at that… he does laugh at her observation. "I suppose I could call it… keeping the right glasses topped up? Is that the appropriate metaphor from tending bar?"

"Excellent!" Rhodelia grins (and that also rhymes with both magnificent and political incident). What remains of her soup bowl is just pushed away, napkin stuffed in it so nobody can see she's not a member of the Clean Plate Bowl Club. "It can probably work. If you keep everyone drunk enough, they're not going to argue with you. Except for the ones that will argue with anything but just need to keep pouring more and eventually they won't be able to stand even to cause trouble…" It is definitely not the soundest of bar management theories. But nobody died on her watch. Or from the soup. Yet. "But for now, I think I need to go oil Inasyth. That's gonna take all day." That's a whole lot of dragon to wash and then oil after all. "Thanks for taking care of the soup!" And before she departs, she transfers the hat from her head to D'lei… and then just waltzes out. Absolutely no effort made to clean up the chaos left in her wake.

Compared to some years, no fatalities is a fabulous success. Better yet, even if there are a few fatalities, just flip back the Weyr records a few centuries to the era of thread, and those results can still be excellent, magnificent, and other similar things. D'lei grins as he listens to Rhodelia expound on her theory of bar management, his spoon idly shifting in the bowl that amply demonstrates her theories on culinary creation, then nods as she brings up Inasyth. "She, too, requires grease." He grins. "The better to gleam and attract every single moth." Once that hat's on his head, he brushes fingers to it in a salute that's notably sharper than the vast majority of them he ever gives to anyone (though that grin isn't exactly regulation) as Rhodelia does what she do best and escapes the consequences of her actions. In her wake, just about every cook breathes a massive sigh of relief, and - strangely enough - when D'lei asks for a large vat with a lid, he's somehow become no-longer-invisible and manages to get acknowledged long enough to get one. Monaco Bay Weyr? Be afraid. SOUP IS COMING.


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