Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

20 Cylus 717

Sunlight flooded in through the open windows of the kitchen and tangled its warmth with that of the bread ovens. Jachiel leaned on the window sill, with the scent of baking bread in his nose, and stared out over the fields spread out as far as he could see. The sight of the fields, each with its own green mist of new growth, filled a different hunger than the bread would, because some of those fields were his. Every year until now, his birthing trial had had a needle-reminder under the celebrations that he still didn't have a farm of his own. That maybe he would never have a farm of his own. Until now, he reminded himself again, because now he did have a farm. He smiled at that thought and turned his face up to bask in the sun for a moment longer. He was distantly aware that the sun shouldn't be out in Cylus, but it didn't seem to matter.

Eventually he turned away from the window and back into the kitchen. The achievement of a long held dream deserved a celebration, and a celebration deserved a feast. Burn scars wrapped and laced his right arm like a second, shinier, sleeve, but he paid them no mind as he surveyed the stores laid up against the cold dark seasons of the arc. There was bread already baking, of course. The scent wound through the air and out of the windows like a summons to anyone within smelling distance. Strings of onions, and slabs of salted meat hung from the rafters beside bunches of dried herbs, and the shelves along one rough stone wall held packets of dried food, and jars of preserves. Bins for flour and grain sat below the shelves, the same way they always had in his mother's kitchen when he was growing up and learning to cook. He took a jar of honey and a crock of butter down from the shelves, and set them on the big wooden work table, then stretched up to retrieve some onions.

He ducked instinctvely as the onion fell which meant it careened off his shoulder rather than his nose. He snatched for it, missed, and had to scoop it off the floor instead. "Thanks," he said, blinking a little at the small size of the other cook, but trying to roll with the situation. "I'm - Jay. Nice to meet you...." He set the onion down on the table, and absently began to strip the brown outer skin off it so that it was ready for chopping. "Uh, the wall's probably rough enough to serve as a ladder if you need it." He shook himself and went on. "I was going to make honey-onion sandwiches, if you'd like one. It's as easy to make for two as for one. My mother made them for the whole family one arc and they've been a favourite ever since."

He tipped his head to look at Ambrosia, who clearly didn't see a problem with the size difference, or even anything unusual in it, judging by his behavior, and a wry smile tugged at the corner of his mouth at the memory. "I suspect she was desperate for ideas at the time, but it worked out in the end. See, it was a big family, and one of the gifts each of us had for our birthing trial was to choose what we ate for a meal, within reason. I always asked for something that wasn't salted or dried, because by the time it got to the end of Cylus and my birthing trial, we'd been eating mostly salted and dried and preserved food for two seasons. Most times that was fine, but one arc - well it had been a bad harvest, and the only things Mother had that weren't salted or dried were a few onions, a bit of honey, and some flour." He dropped the last of the peelings in the bin for the compost pile, and shrugged. "So onions, in a honey coating, on bread, it became."

He fished a scrap of parchment with the recipe on it out of a drawer, and made a gift of it to his fellow cook, then checked on the bread and rummaged for a knife to cut the onion with.