Work Text:
“So what am I doing here again?”
Bonnie stuck out their tongue. The ingredients line up in a row on the counter. “Dummy Za having Frin memory problems,” they say, “You wanted to learn how to cook better, right?”
“I- do remember saying that at some point.”
More importantly in privacy! To his beloved partners! What in the world has this kid been up to… Isabeau sighed, scratching the back of his neck.
“And um,” Bonnie started to fidget, their fingers pressed firm against their nails. “Considering I have to go back to school and all, it would be nice if someone else could cook for Frin.”
That was one of the rules Petronille set down all those years ago when the group approached them in the wake of Dormont and with it the timeloop.
“So what are we starting off with, master cooker?”
“Behold!”
They take a bow, gesturing to the whole… pile of ingredients on the counter. “Everything you could possibly need to make one meal of chicken adobe.”
“Sounds-”
“Even kids can make it. That’s what Nille told me.”
“Hey!”
Isabeau barely restrained his embarrassment, protesting against the term. But the gleam in Bonnie’s eye burns bright.
“So you want to peel the garlic first,” Bonnie said, picking out the heads of garlic from the bag. One, two, then three. “They taste way better when you get them whole.”
Isabeau tried to follow the same motions. The problem with crafting bigger hands is that they’re hardly the best for more fiddling things. He plucked one clove out of the head by the time Bonnie makes their way through two whole heads.
And they let out an exasperated huff, seeing the way Isabeau tries and tries to pull the skin away from the flesh. “You should use the knife.”
“The knife?”
Bonnie moves rather than talking. They stare Isabeau dead in the eyes as they smash the last of the garlic cloves in with the back of the knife. The garlic splinters easily.
Ah, that would’ve been easier…
“Here! You! Go! Now for the soy sauce!” Bonnie grabbed some bottles from their place on the counter. “It’s not really- trad- usually done! But it makes the adobe taste all nice and savory!”
Isabeau dumped the chicken into a larger bowl, scrapping the garlic out of the smaller one. With a nod from Bonnie, he tried to work the mixture into the chicken thighs, digging his fingers under the skin. He washed up after.
“What now?”
“We wait,” Bonnie said. Their face pulled into a little pout at the reminder. “At least a hour.”
“At least?” Isabeau asked, tilting his head.
They nodded and hopped away from the counter. They stopped right in the middle of heading for the door when they spun around, shouting- “I forgot the rice! That’s the most important part!”
“Not the rice!”
They dug out ladle after ladle of rice from the bag in the bottom of the cabinet. Two cups for each of the group- they have to do something with this much chicken after all. And even if it doesn’t amount for much, they still can make up for it with side dishes. Bonnie’s words. Not his. Eating rice can be great but cooking rice- Isabeau winced, the cold water running over and through his fingers. Bonnie whistled to themself, shaking the strainer back and forth.
The water runs clean at some point which means they can dump the soaked through rice into an actual bowl. Bonnie lets their shoulders go lax as they took a step back from the counter now.
With nothing but time to spare, Isabeau brought out two chairs from the dining room and they sat down to shoot the air. It might as well as have been years since the last time they had the chance to talk to each other without the others to run counter-course. And now that Isabeau sat across from Bonnie, he could not help but notice something.
He really doesn’t have anything to talk to them about in the first place. They are different from the kid Isabeau used to be. So like what he wanted to be and not.
It’s strange.
For one- The schools in Bambouche are different from the ones he used to go to in Jouvente. Less funded for one, lacking the economy the city used to bear from places that no longer existed. One of the many reasons why Petronille relented to going along with the group- each of them had proven themselves capable of teaching Bonnie a thing or two they wouldn’t have in the classroom while on the road. Even Isabeau strangely enough.
(Mostly to himself. Siffrin always looked at him as if he’d known all along what he was capable of, cutting him down to the bone again and again.)
“What about your sew- clothes stuff? How are you planning to do that on the road?”
Isabeau considered the details of the plan going through the House, watching over Siffrin, the past few years learning how to sew something suitable to sell. More than he would admit to the others. Clothes mostly for Siffrin to wear.
That was the wish they made under the Favor Tree, didn’t he?
And the sky grows dark outside the windows as they chat. The soft steps of the others coming back from the beach, helping carry back today’s haul- the majority sold off to the market.
Bonnie cut themself short as they started up the rice in the pot, sticking their finger against the surface. “This is how Nille taught me how to make rice,” they say with overwhelming pride. “I watched her do this a bunch of times and it never fails!”
Oil drizzle across the pan, a circle of darkless fluid rolling around the corners as Bonnie rummages through the pantry for toasted garlic. Extra special, they swear, for the occasion. Isabeau can already feel his mouth tingle at all the garlic going into the dish.
And a cut of vinegar dashed into the sauce, piling past the chicken thighs until he barely can make out the shape of them before Bonnie gives them a quick toss into the rest of the ingredients already getting tossed into the mixture.
“That’s how you get the adobe all tangy and stuff,” Bonnie said as an explanation. “Usually it’s done earlier like how the dead people do it but this way the vine- gar sticks out more!”
The other ingredient added at this step being whole peppercorns, roughly broken down to extract as much of the flavor as possible. Isabeau nodded along. Sounded about right.
And the aroma sharp and savory but more importantly delicious fills up the room as they stare at the pot simmering over the fire. His stomach growled. Bonnie’s stomach growled as well. And as much as it would be great to grab a snack out of the ice box, dinner’s all but finished so Bonnie challenged Isabeau to a game of rock paper scissors in order to pass the rest of the time between stirring up the pot.
Bonnie dismissed Isabeau to grab the bowls out of the cabinets. Years of living with Petronille and years of growing up has not left the younger without the habit of asking someone else to grab the plates for them. Years and years of balancing on stools.
He stands in the center of the kitchen and wonders.
And rounding out the meal are the leftover potatoes from lunch and the veggies this morning speckled with chili peppers heated up quick like over the stove while Isabeau taken the rice off of the stove, breaking up the grains for what Bonnie called a fluffy texture.
Very healthy things- something for everyone and something for Siffrin who’d rather crawl under the table than admit as much.
Bonnie hurried over to give the pot one last stir. Leaned in to take a deep breath. Isabeau waited with baited breath before a small smile curled over Bonnie’s lips. “Okay, it smells good now! Dinner’s finished! Go get the others! They must be starving!”
Isabeau slipped out of the kitchen to find the others crammed around and over the couches in the living room just a few feet away, chatting about the various kinds of craft and what they could be capable of. The discussion seemed to be getting pretty heated though as Mirabelle tried to describe how to apply the CARROT method to Piercing Craft in order to create her signature shields. Meanwhile Siffrin nodded along, looking dumbfounded as ever. M’dame nodded along in the background while adding little notes to her journal here and there.
And Bonnie’s sister sitting on the floor, looking up over at Mirabelle as she tried to get the conversation back on Healing Craft.
“Oh? Are they done?”
“Sure are.”
Siffrin leaned over helping Petronille off the ground and they made their way into the dining room, a little table with plates and bowls and warmth.