[Open] The Mapo Tofu affair

[showsnopiety]

Who: Everyone! If you can smell it, you can find it!
When: 6/8-610
Where: Hall of Glory Parlour in Caissa
What: Caren found out she can make mapo tofu and is sharing with everyone. Heaven help us all.
Rating: So far none but will change when things happen.





THe Halls of Glory smell a little different today. Instead of the usual fare that the others might know from the weekly menu, there's a different scent. Something that may remind heroes of Airy, Ma Jiang dishes, or maybe, more simply, of home.

This was the result of Caren's cooking and some hunting on her part. And the results may be quite appealing. There are pots of rice, still steaming, and various bowls filled with the result known as mapo tofu. Some of them are spicer then others, and she hasn't seen fit to label which are very spicy, and which are quite mild. The only thing she has labelled, with a rim of green around the bowls, are the vegan variations, for those who can't, or do not, eat meat or meat by products.

Consider it a game of spice roulette. Because there are other bowls as well, with crushed cucumber-hot pepper salad, spicy tofu, and something that has spewed spinach and garlicy noodles within. But hey! You may be able to cool off with one of the pots of tea around the place-or with one of the rare tubs of ice cream of various flavors, kept chilled with an icy spell.

The cutlery and bowls are disposable, and there are trashbags to clean up after yourself. She's not going to do it for you!

But hey. Who can say no to free food?

Comments

[babbylon]

So I might spend time with you.

[Forget romance. This was just straight up tsundere judging from that pout.]

[showsnopiety]

[She's just. Going to stare at him. Da hell Gil.]

Mm. I see.

[She's just going to turn away now. There are six different retorts she could think of but. Nope.]

[babbylon]

[Cool, cool.

Remember that sweet, almost fond threading fingers through her hair mere moments ago? Now he's just going to pull on it. Like a five-year-old.]

[showsnopiety]

[Oh my god Gilgamesh will you stop]

Gilgamesh.

[Just that. She's warning him.]

[babbylon]

[Tug, tug, tug! Now he's just having fun with it. Heheheh.]

Is there a problem?

[showsnopiety]

Yes.

[What a brat.]

You see, my fist is feeling a sudden attraction to your face.

[babbylon]

That brazen sort of fetish seems slightly extreme for this stage in our relationship.

[This sure took a Turn.]

[showsnopiety]

And yet, look at you, tugging my hair. You've become rather brazen yourself.

[She's going to end up hitting him anyway, isn't she.]

[babbylon]

Because you're supposed to be making my food, woman, and you're dawdling! Hurry up!!

[His affection blazed like a candle: intense, but very short-lived.]

[showsnopiety]

I am not, you perverted egomaniac.

Don't you know how to cook? The sauce has to thicken. Unless you want soupy mapo tofu?

[This really does feel like old times.]

[babbylon]

I most certainly know how!

[He most certainly doesn't.]

[showsnopiety]

Oh ho. The golden bull wouldn't know how.

It's a flaw in his education.

[babbylon]

[CRITICAL WEAKNESS DETECTED

ABORT, ABORT, ABORT]

Th... th... there's nothing flawed about me whatsoever! I'm perfect! Perfect, damn you!

[showsnopiety]

Perfect? You're being perfectly annoying.

[She points to the counter space.]

Over there. Now.

[babbylon]

[Caren employed a COMMAND SEAL! It's super effective!

Gilgamesh doesn't even try to protest. He just withers and wilts towards the directed area, and proceeds to wait patiently from that point onward. Well done, Caren, you have wrangled the wild Gil. If teased, he'll look away and refuse to answer.]

[showsnopiety]

[Where's that pokeball when she needs one, she can't capture a fainted Gil!

Thankfully he hasn't been left to wither all by his lonesome. Even if she should. It takes her a few moments, before she checks what's going on with the oven, before gathering a few things from the fridge and comes back. Fresh ingredients. For what? Who's to say. Something green, from the looks of it.]

I've thought that cooking may be a good idea for bishops to learn. Particularly those who make potions. However, a Queen can not stop learning.

[She smiles.]

Be thankful wench. I'm about to help you expand your knowledge.

[babbylon]

[Alright, no, there are certain degrees of insult Gilgamesh can tolerate and wench is not among them.]

Repeat yourself. Your words did not quite reach me.

[The killing intent in the air is near palpable... care to try that again, Caren?]

[showsnopiety]

[She stares up at him. And she taps her fingers against the counter, before turning to face him fully.]

I'm not having that sort of fight in the kitchen. If you want to kill me, do it outside.

[babbylon]

[Sharply, if cautiously:]

You speak as though it hasn't been the first time.

[showsnopiety]

[Her laugh is sharp, if cut short.]

That I've been killed? No. It has not.

[babbylon]

[...not exactly where he was going with that. He's so surprised that he's forgotten all his anger, leaping upon immediate curiosity instead.]

Truly? Tell me more.

[showsnopiety]

[Nope, but that threw him off enough that he wasn't going to break her neck over getting a bowl of mapo tofu.

Not yet at least.]

What do you want to know more? How I survived, or the details of those deaths?

[babbylon]

Everything.

[And it's a bit shameful to admit, but...]

You fascinate me.

CW: violence, gore, death

[showsnopiety]

You're full of flattery today.

[She shakes her head, but she doesn't refuse him.]

Technically, I didn't. But it was the time anomaly; I could die a number of times within that cycle, but when it reset, I was alive once again. But since I was inserted into an empty role, I remembered. Every time I died, I remembered what it felt like.

Once, it was simply a matter of staying too close to Angra Mainyu, and I could not suppress my body's reaction to demonic presences. Not only did I die, but the person I was supposed to be protecting did as well. It was one of the last things I recall from that instance. I regret that.

[A shrug. Moving on.]

Another time, Rider-Medusa-became a little too affected by her surroundings, and attacked me. I couldn't defend myself, and it was...over and over, right in the guts.

It might have been elsewhere too, but that's what I recall the most. It's rather painful. I think she kept missing the veins and arteries that would have killed me quickly on purpose.

[She reports it calmly, as if this is nothing to her. Old news, and she doesn't even have the scars for it. She remembers. And that's all.]

[babbylon]

[Gilgamesh listens calmly. None of it really triggers any faint sense of empathy he might have; he doesn't feel sorry for her, and he knows she wouldn't want him to. Even so, he's able to make one very succinct conclusion that hints at some fleeting emotion.]

You are cursed.

[A cursed body, a cursed soul. It was unfortunate, but it also truly marked her as Kotomine's daughter. In a sense, it was to be expected.]

Do you feel that pain here? Or has this world also freed you?