@nephero
It was the morning light shining directly into Mei Yi's closed eyes that finally roused her. Even filtered through the dingy window it was still bright enough to bother, and with a yawn and a groan, she threw her arm over her face. Bleh. She was normally an early bird, rising at dawn with a perkiness that made the night owls cringe, but her head felt achy and she didn't want to move.
Except the rest of her was kind of sore, too, now that she was awake enough to notice. Probably had something to do with the chair she was curled up in.
...chair?
Cracking her eyes open and rubbing the sleep away, Mei flicked a look around the familiar room with a mixture of confusion and...
triumph. Huh! So she'd earned room and board after all! Or something like that! She didn't actually remember how; she remembered dinner and talking over wine, and it was right around the history lesson that things started to get fuzzy. She didn't remember how she'd gone from the stool to the chair, and worst of all, she couldn't remember if she'd finished the lesson or given the appropriate quizzes to check comprehension and retention. Ohhhh boy. Hopefully it hadn't gone
completely off topic. It had been a while since she'd had that much wine at once, but any beverage was a danger in her vicinity when she was on a roll, as she tended to be a mindless sipper.
With another yawn and a stretch that made her spine crack, she slid out of the chair. It was early still, and quiet. Shea must be asleep or otherwise occupied. Whatever the case may be, she
had promised breakfast, right? Or maybe he had? Ah, it didn't matter! She was hungry, not
quite hungover but also kind of sort of, and she certainly owed him for letting her crash instead of shooing her out the door.
And that's how she ended up back in his kitchen. She found one of her books open on the table—not her notebook, but a smaller one she'd brought with her from a library in Thanatos. She instantly recognized it:
Saya Ling's Compendium of Beasts, Vol 2, and currently it was opened to a page on the Thunderblacks. Oh. Ohhh, yes, it seemed their history lesson
had taken a turn at some point (or, optimistically, she'd finished and then segued into dragons, because oh man, she loved dragons) and she couldn't remember what that was about.
After discreetly closing it and plopping it back into her bag to clear up space, she put more poultice on her leg (it was looking, and feeling, much better), rolled up her sleeves, and got to work.
Soon, Shea's kitchen had become a research project.
Mei gathered a few veggies from his garden and then set about raiding his cupboards and ice box—and got distracted by both. With extra time on her hands now that they weren't both hogging space and trying to whip up dinner, she took a moment to really examine the contraption. She even drew up a rough sketch and labeled all the parts she could see and remember from his description. Truly, it was
magnificent! There
must be a way to accomplish the same effect without using forbidden magics, surely? She made a note to explore that line of thought more later.
Then as she plundered his spices, that became another detour of its own as there were a few herbs she didn't recognize, perhaps ones native to this area. Those went into her notebook in the section on plants. As she set aside the spices she wanted and put away the ones she didn't, she casually reorganized them. Alphabetically. Using his language of course, not hers, because that wouldn't make sense for him. It was good practice, though, since she spoke the Trader's Tongue more than she wrote it.
...And breakfast still wasn't made and she still didn't know what she was making with the ingredients she had spread out over the counter and grouped into loose meal ideas. Some sort of potato fry up or something? But there was a hiccup: she had no idea where to get water since Shea had provided it via magic last time.
Alright. Plan B!
He had flour, salt, and milk, and there was butter. Gathering those up on the counter and searching until she found a suitable mixing bowl and spoons, she combined ingredients until it looked like roughly the consistency she needed. She had a flint so she lit the hearth and grabbed a pan.
Soon enough, Mei was settled comfortably by the hearth flipping dough with her hands, which were covered to the wrist in flour—along with a significant portion of the entire front of her as well as his floor.
The kitchen was a mess of half finished and abandoned projects.
But hey! Fresh flatbread!
