paradisalogs | [closed] Can anybody find me somebody

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[closed] Can anybody find me somebody

Who: Clow Reed (

legacydeck) and Vanyel Ashkevron (

peacockherald
What: Dinner!
When: The day after this conversation, shortly before sunset
Where: On a nice quiet stretch of the Castle roof
Rating: PG

When all was said and done, getting the food from the kitchen to the roof had been the hardest part. Clow knew he could have simply wished it up or created it with a spell - but he liked cooking, when it came down to it. And it had been quite a while since he'd set out to make a serious meal of the food he'd grown up with as a child. So the time in the kitchen, cheerfully humming as he cooked, was more than worth it, and, well, a little levitation spell didn't hurt to help get it to it's destination.

He did wish up a table an chairs, though - simpler than trying to haul something out - and set his magelights hovering in the air around them as soft illumination. He'd picked dishes that wouldn't be too unusual - steamed dumplings of pork and vegetables, roast squab, stir-fried noodles with shrimp and vegetables, rice garnished with century egg, wonton soup - and well, if Vanyel didn't find the seasoned jellyfish strips to his liking, he was rather fond of them himself. One of the place settings had only a pair of chopsticks next to it; the other, chopsticks and Western utensils. He briefly considered flowers - but they weren't the type of people for that. The magelights were enough decoration, anyway - he himself had dressed down a little, eschewing his robes for a more traditional brocade shirt with cloth ties, over plain, Western trousers. Now all that remained was for his guest to arrive.

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Vanyel found himself pacing in his rooms as he waited for the sun to reach the appointed place in the sky. Thanks to that stunt from the castle, he understood the concept of a 'date'. It was a bit like courting, and while he wasn't sure how to feel about that, Yfandes surely did. She was encouraging him, the minx, reminding him that finding happiness was not an affront to the memory of Tylendel. 'Lendel would want him to be happy.

He checked in the mirror a last time - smoothing the dark blue tunic, belted at his waist, doe-skin trousers dyed white beneath that and his soft knee-high indoor boots of a quiet gray. He kept his dark black hair down and brushed, with the single silver streak highlighted against his temple. His gaze found the little Kero doll in his window in the mirror, the creature smiling at him, as if encouraging him too.

Sighing, he left the room and made his way to the roof, pausing in befuddled surprise at the set up. He had not expected Clow to make so much....

"Good evening," he finally got his mind back into the present, looking to Clow and finding himself smiling.

Clow smiled in return. "Good evening." He gave Vanyel an appraising glance, although not too heavy-handed - but he liked what he saw. The old-fashioned clothing suited him - and he got the sense Vanyel knew it.

He pulled one of the chairs out for the other man, and gestured for him to have a seat.

"The mix is a little eclectic, but I picked some dishes I grew up with that I thought you might like."

Vanyel padded forward, surprisingly quiet, but habits died hard. Inwardly, he put up shields to keep Yfandes out, though he knew this would make the mare pout. He sat down and nodded to Clow in thanks, a smile slipping onto his face.

"They certainly look interesting," offered the herald peacock, his eyes moving over the dishes - half in an effort to understand what he was looking at and half in an effort not to stare to long at Clow. The man really was handsome.

Clow took his own seat and picked up his chopsticks. He gestured at each dish in turn. "Those are jiǎozi - pork dumplings; that's rǔgē - roasted squab; this is rice and, hmm - well, it's a kind preserved egg. They're called pídàn, century eggs, though tye're not actually that old. The noodles with shrimp are a kind of chǎomiàn, and the other stuff here that looks like noodles is hǎizhé, which is seasoned jellyfish. The soup has a different kind of dumpling in it - pork and shrimp."

He sat back a little, and grinned. "Don't worry about the names, really."

He laughed. "I was going to say, that was quite a bit to take in!"

He looked over the myriad of dishes and finally took a sampling of those nearest him.

"How about I taste them, and those I like you tell me the names of?" he suggested. "Seems a bit easier."

He took the two offered sticks though, holding them each separately in his hands and looked at a total and complete loss. It was almost cute, really, the expression on his face as he looked at the food and then the sticks, as if bewildered anyone thought these made proper utensils.

Clow had to choke back a laugh at the expression of complete bewilderment on Vanyel's face.

"You hold them in one hand. A bit like holding two pens at once." He held up his own hand to demonstrate. "There's a knife and fork there, too, though. If you're not up to learning new utensils as well as new food."

He looked to Clow's hand as demonstration, trying to mimic him. They were not soft, like the quills of his world, and he supposed by 'pen' the other meant something entirely different. It was not the main issue right now of course, as his fingers fumbled with holding them.

He held them up to Clow, almost right, but not quite.

"Something like this?" he asked, inexplicably wanting to have it right more than he probably should care, at least wanting to try before going to the utensils he knew best. He had to wonder what Yfandes would think of all this, but dismissed it when he practically heard her teasing in his head. That mischievous girl...

"It feels a bit like holding reigns."

It wasn't perfect - but sometimes, it didn't need to be. Clow wasn't going to be his mother and slap the back of the other man's hand until he did it right.

"Can you get the tips to come together like this?" He demonstrated with his own set. That was the only part that really mattered, when it came to eating.

He concentrated, and after a moment he smiled as he got the tips to come together.

"Well, here goes nothing, I suppose. Forgive me for being ungraceful with them," he chuckled as his sticks dipped down to try and pick up a piece of meat, which looked more doable than the noodles or rice.

Clow smiled as he reached for food for his own plate. "Entirely forgiven already." Dumplings and jellyfish to start, though he knew the soup would be best before it cooled too much.

"Grace is secondary to the actual act of eating - and when I cook, Kero usually nearly inhales the food, so you're in the lead on both counts, I think."

"Kero? You mean the doll you gave me? He needs to be fed?" he paused, bewildered, a piece of meat dangling from his sticks awkwardly, fingers contorted around the sticks as he tried to keep a hold unconsciously.

Clow shook his head as he finished the bite of food he had, and then smiled.

"No, not the doll - the real one I based him on. And even in that form he could put food away, though watching a two-hundred-kilo cat eat a cake in two bites is far more amusing, I think."

"A two hundred kilo...?" he frowned, trying to understand the weight reference, but getting that it was quite large. "Ah, you did say he could transform. I'm assuming the big cat and Kero are the same thing?"

Clow nodded, smiling. "Yes - he's quite a bit easier to hide when he's small! His full form looks like this-"

He focused, briefly, and an image appeared in the air above the table of a winged cat, curled up to sleep. He released the illusion again with a grin.

"That wasn't to scale, obviously - he's a good three feet tall at the shoulder."

His eyes widened. "Like a frost drake," he murmured. "Though a fair bit warmer, I would hope."

His bit of meat hit his plate and he looked down with a slight twist of his brows. Biting his lip, he reached down, managing to get it again and bring it to his lips with only the minimum amount of fumbling and awkward bending.

"Oh, this is delicious!"

"I'm not entirely certain what a frost drake is, but by name alone I can guess that yes, he's a fair bit warmer," Clow said with an amused smile. "Rather like having ten large house cats trying to climb on you at once."

He dished out some more food for himself, and then continued.

"I'm glad you like the food, though. It's nice to have an appreciative audience."

"Ah, I might have to pass on that," he chuckled. "Ten house cats seems like far to many in my opinion."

His smile widened as he took nibbles over the other pieces offered, seeming to delight in each, though a few he politely did not take bites of again rather than declare his dislike.

"Where did you learn to cook like this?" he asked him as he tucked into one of the meatier dishes with lots of spices once more.

Clow made a mental note of which dishes Van went for seconds of, and which he didn't - all good to know if there ws going to be a second of these dinners.

"I taught myself out of books, mostly. Though I used to watch our cook prepare dumplings when I was young."

At this rate? Yes, there definitely would be. Though next time he would have to try and treat Clow to dishes from his own world. Even if he could not make them, wishing them up was easy enough.

"Dumplings are these, yes?" he picked up one of the doughy pieces of food and set it on his plate, dribbling sauce on it before popping it in his mouth with obvious relish. "So you are a child of the upper class, I presume, if you had a cook?"

Clow smiled. "Yes, those are. They're still something of a comfort food for me, even though I've learned a lot more regional styles as well."

He selected some more food for his own plate, and after a few bites, replied to Vanyel's question.

"Yes, I was - on both sides, actually, though my father was only very minor nobility. But my mother's clan was old and powerful, both magically and politically."

"Did you... like growing up like that?" he asked, not to be rude, because he had grown up privileged as well, but he often found it interesting to see how others fared in his station. His relationship with his father had been no better for it, though with his mother it seemed to work.

He cut open a dumpling, removing the dough to get at the meat in its center, popping that into his mouth and leaving the limp shell behind.

That question actually gave Clow pause - it was rare that he was asked about his family, and it had been a great many years. He ate in silence for a few moments, flipping the thought around a little before actually answering - and, out of respect for what they both knew of each other, it was an honest answer.

"It's... hard to say if I liked it - I don't have anything else to compare it to, obviously. I wasn't unhappy, but I wasn't particularly close to either of my parents, and I was always obviously marked as 'different' in a culture that valued conformity."

There was no bitterness in the words - any that had been there had washed away decades ago. It was hard to feel angry about things that had happened well over a century ago.

Oddly, that was... comforting. It had been much the same for Vanyel growing up. He was different, not what his father wanted, and it had cost him much in the way of emotional trauma over the years when it came to his family. Honestly, it was only in the last few years that they had begun to heal, the chasms that lay between them closing inch by inch. It was still hard, but it was getting better.

"I think I can understand that," he smiled, sipping his drink and skinning another dumpling, his face falling a bit. "I can understand that quite a bit. I am... an oddity, in my world, for many reasons."

Clow raised an eyebrow in question. "Oh?" The entreaty for more information was otherwise unspoken, but the curiosity was clear in his voice. Vanyel's looks were striking, but among the European nobility he knew, that would have only been a positive. And while he could sense a fair bit of power in the younger man, it had sounded if such things were far more common, in his world.

A fair bit might be an understatement, though Vanyel was good at shielding himself now, for obvious reasons.

"I... I am the strongest Herald Mage in known history," he explained, and there was no joy in that statement, no boasting. "It tends to scare many, many people. If they do not know who I am, they treat me normally, like any Herald. And then my name comes out and it changes. I see the fear in them." There is sadness in his voice as he says this, his chopsticks stilling. "It does not help things, that many people know I am shay'a'chern on top of it all."

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