knifewithnoname | Interaction Post: Voidtrecker

( He's a lifetime away from being the street orphan who trusted few and ran from the dogs, who scrounged from the vegetable scraps, the ones the dogs haunted last, and ate what he could in fistfuls and tucked away moments, glad for the warmth. glad for anything not yet rotten, that filled the pit in his stomach to fuel the escape, yet again, from the dogs.

he can remember being small only as that, and the day it ended, with a fresh, hot bun in hand and scarfed down so fast he doesn't recall anything about what it tasted like, only the heat. jiang fengmian, for all his faults, was also a man of many strengths and kindnesses. just... not enough to offset the harm visited to his family, his lack of clarity that... well.

speak not ill of the dead. honour them, as they should be honoured. )

It's rice, mostly, and anything else you feel like adding. Some chicken? From the curry, I think, and some sliced scallion.

( work with me here it now exists for at least this one thread laksdjf

he nudges the bowl closer to her, along with a spoon, and chopsticks. )

Fingers work too, ( said offhand, one more way to consume ) but the heat can be a bother.

[Rice with anything he felt like adding. Chicken, scallion. It looks good. It doesn't explain why he is giving it to her but friends. On this train. This was how things were. She clambered up onto a seat, putting the hedgehod on the table next to her and pulling the bowl towards her.]

I do be knowing how to be using them.

[Sure back home she hate ate with her hands and sometimes a spoon but a year on the train means she knows how to use forks, knives for eating (rather than stabbing) and the chopsticks.]

I do be thanking you. [She began to eat, wrinkling her nose a little at the spice but it's not too hot, not bad enough to complain about. Not when he gave it to her.]

( He beams, something that only grows wider when she eats without more than the wrinkling of her nose. He knows his tendencies with spice, but his version of light is not strictly light enough for anyone not from Yunmeng: Jiang Cheng, where are you to drag into a taste of home? )

Makes you better versed than this old man is. Tell me, think you can show me how those tined utensils work? These are so much easier for me to use.

( He sighs, indicating his chopsticks, and the ... soup spoon. Forks are a mystery of why people think stabbing food is an easier way to eat anything. )

You're welcome! If you like it, I can make more for you in the mornings, though we can't use the singing machine. Leaves it too dry for congee. Great for everything else.

( Said with a happy sigh. Rice is... okay, plain. But it's consistent, and it's familiar, and he'll take that over so much else. )

They do all be being weird. [She sighed. He will probably notice that her chopstick use is... It's clear she hasn't actually been taught how to use them, she just watched other people and copied them. It's functional, it wouldn't pass in polite company.

Nor would be knife and fork use. Honestly.] Where I do be coming from we do be having bread. But no bread like here. It do be being thin and big. [Holding her arms out to show just how big, ignoring the rice that goes flying from the chopstick as she does so.] We do be using that to eat. No of these things. [Just another obstacle between her and food, annoying things. But people here expected it.

She tilted her head.]

The singing machine do be being weird but it can be making lots of rice so that do be being useful and it do no even be getting all stuck and messy. You do no be needing to scrub it for hours.

Oh? Big flatbreads? We have one that you add scallions to, ( he says, using his chopsticks to pick out one of the sliced ones in his bowl to show her; ) sesame seeds too if you like. Makes it easy to sop things up with, but I like your way even more. Have you convinced anyone to try and make it here?

( Popping the scallion into his mouth, he chews and swallows, struck by another idea. )

Can you make it, do you think?

( Wei Wuxian, willing to try bread-eating to eat everything when it sounds like a great, sensible, no-utensil needing way to handle some meals around here. )

Ah, yes, all this is true. I haven't used it much myself yet, it's fairly new, right? Or was it here the whole time and I just missed it until it started serenading me.

( He looks like he's seriously pondering this, but no, for months there's been no sign of anything like it, so he rather doubts that's the case. )

[Scallions would be good on flatbread. It was true. She nodded at him and then tilted her head.]

No. I do no be knowing how... [It was likely difficult. The baker started work so early after all. Often it would be the only window lit, when she was coming back from a mission.]

It do be being new. Only this last platform, that's when it did be coming.

Hmm...

( Setting his chopsticks to the side, he picks up the spoon with its flat bottom. After slurping up a good serving of congee, he nods, more to himself than otherwise. )

Can't say I'll be able to manage the bread you know, but the scallion pancakes, that I should. Feel like enduring however that goes?

( He slides her a look, a lift of his lips at the corner. He will, whatever the end result, and to degrees of understanding, he thinks she will too. )

Right, right, so barely any time at all. A good addition, considering the number of us fond of rice here, and having it be regularly in the stores.

Yes. I will be trying. [Even if they tasted terrible, she is always up for experimentation and it sounded like he would enjoy it too.]

We did no be having such things where I do be coming from. We did be making rice in a pan.

Good! Good, then I'll make that for our next platform. I was thinking of having a little picnic out on a blanket, though if it's trying to have weather for us, we might need to tuck underneath something rooflike.

( Here he is, planning for a theoretical rainy day. )

Rice in pans...! Very efficient. We usually had this big woks, like pans, or steamed it all in bamboo rounds with a top.

( He uses his hands to gesture, roughly building out a bamboo steamer as something circular and raised high some degree, with a rounded top over it. )

Place that in the wok, with water in it, and keep it hot. Eventually, rice! Or anything else you had in the bamboo steamer. My shijie...

( Trailing off for a moment, taking a spoonful of the congee. Swallowing. )

She was really good at cooking. I can manage the rice, some simple things. Not the real tasty stuff, but ah, we all have strengths, right?

What do a shijie be being?

[She keeps eating too. She knows bamboo, there had been a mission with a lot of it. So she's trying to imagine bamboo made into pans. Wouldn't they just set on fire? Though he had said you put them in water...]

I do no be being great at it. I did be helping cook, but I did just be doing what I did be being told to.

An elder female disciple in the sect we shared. It's respectful, ( he says, leaning a touch toward her and winking; ) to call Jiang Yanli my shijie. Though I have called her jiejie before—big sister, in a more family sense.

( Eating is nice and settling and keeps him from considering crawling back to bed for a nap. It's not worth it in the end: he dreams, and his dreams aren't restful, so alas, alack, alay. Congee it is. )

Mm, that's what I'm better at too. Especially chopping! Or adding in spices when no one's looking, which is probably why no one should trust me alone in a kitchen.

( He doesn't sound concerned about this, though it is true enough, historically speaking. Not so much these days, but as a younger man, in his teen years. )

[Ah it was a title of respect. She nodded and then wrinkled her nose.]

You do be lucky you do no be getting in trouble for that. [Adding spices, a terrible crime. He could ruin everything.

She took another spoonful of congee and idly poked the spiky stuffed creature he had give her.]

What animal do this be being?

I'd be very lucky, and luck was never something I could depend on.

( So he says, and so was true enough, especially in the life he'd lived to his death, and the life he'd found himself living after being pulled back and learning he'd never died in the first place.

He blinks at the stuffed hedgehog, and smiles, holding the spoon before his mouth. )

A hedgehog. All this, ( he says, gesturing with his spoon ) on the real ones are spines, used to defend themselves and attack if anything's so reckless as to think them being cute and small means they're defenceless."

You should never be thinking something do be being defenceless just because it do be being small.

[A hedgehog, made of spines. Their very skin a weapon to kill their enemies.]

Do they really be being this small?

Exactly. The fact people do is something to hold against them, and take advantage of, right?

( Not just because she's small, but because every one of them has been small, has been young. He learned how to play into and off of expectations surviving on the streets, and later, in how you project what people want to believe so they never question what you really are.

Such a way, living like that. He smiles, and nods his head, letting those thoughts slide away. )

That small, and some smaller. They'd fit in my hands.

( He sets down the spoon to hold his hands out, cupping them to a size smaller than the plush by a good margin. )

You'd see them every so often when we were out hunting. I think they eat bugs, but I'm not sure—maybe small animals, maybe plants. They like ants.

Yes, if people do be underestimating small people it do be being their own fault if they do be getting... robbed.

[She had been about to stay stabbed, but he might frown at that. But he knows Wei Qing so she's sure he won't be too scrunch nosed mad about stealing.

Especially stealing from stupid people.]

It would no be taking much of a spike to be killing an ant.

( A quirk of his brows, like he suspects that was a word choice replacement, though he doesn't press it. Just agrees with a nod of his head: )

Some people are just unwise enough to set themselves up for, ah, robbery and exchanges of goods not strictly agreed on, yes.

( Not just a phenomena of his childhood, but to be fair, he did try to give equivalent stuff... if radishes and turnips counted. )

Mm, not much at all. I think they just lick them up, like they're drinking water. I've seen different animals do that before.

[It was true. Some people were stupid. It was just the way it was.

She tried to imagine licking up ants. She couldn't help herself, she giggled.]

Do they be having long tongues?

Long enough to lick past their own nose!

( which he attempts to demonstrate, only to prove that wei wuxian, alas, cannot lick his own nose. )

That long?

[She tries as well, crossing her eyes as she tries to make her tongue touch her nose. She giggles as she finds out it is practically impossible.]

That long!

( though he's laughing too, and ultimately shakes his head. )

I think the only thing I've ever managed, aside from sticking my nose into other people's business, is getting a spoon to stay on my nose for a matter of heartbeats. Hedgehogs, they're far more talented with tongues and noses. Bet they smell things at least five times better than any of us can.

Sticking a spoon on your nose?

[That sounded pretty silly too. But hedgehogs? They sounded very talented.]

They can be smelling danger then, before they do be attacking it.

Yes! Think I can still manage it now?

( should he see? it's all silly, but that's half the point. let things be silly, too; serious is enough of their lives. )

Yes, exactly. Also important when finding the tastiest dinners.

Yes you should be trying. [She wants to try this spoon balancing. It would be funny.

She looked at the soft hedgehog. They did sound cool, with their good noses, long tongues and weapon spikes.]

Hah! As you wish.

( his look of concentration is particularly silly for this, and he has a good false start, a second go that almost works before the spoon just flat out falls off his nose, and then the third attempt...

... he gets to stick! )

Interaction Post: Voidtrecker

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