crescentview | winter catch-all

[Well, color him convinced.]

Hm. I suppose that’s nice enough.

[The box drops back onto the counter, so now Owen can focus on the real important things - cookies.]

It’s a kind of cookie, I guess. Pretty sturdy, but you usually see them decorated with icing to make little houses or people.

[Or large houses, if you’re Owen.]

[Heheh. He'll give a kiss to his jawline, a quiet "thanks" as he untangles himself to go rescue the tea leaves.]

House-shaped cookies...? That sounds a little strange, but I guess you can shape them into whatever you want, right?

You can still eat the houses, I hope.

You make the walls and the roof out of cookies and then stick them together with icing.

[Obviously. Gosh, Otegine.]

Of course you can eat them. Who would waste food like that?

[Maybe if you leave the house sitting long enough to go stale, but that's stupid. Nobody is that stupid.

Granted, most people also don't have magic that can keep cookies and cakes fresh for centuries like Owen does.]

[He pauses, thinking. Walls? Roof? This is a complicated cookie. He holds the tea box in one hand as he mimics the shape in front of him, visualizing.

He's trying really hard.]

Like... a box? Made of cookie?

You can do that?

Why wouldn't you be able to do that?

[Otegine. Otegine it's not that hard.

He's so lucky Owen likes his men stupid.]

[sugoi......

Creative avenues are being opened, he has new eyes.]

Wait, but... wouldn't it go bad? How big are they?

Maybe if a human makes it?

[He's never had problems with things going bad??? He's not a professional, though.]

You can make them as big as you want. I made a whole house for myself once, but that wasn't by hand like this.

[The house even had a basement!]

You really like your sweets, don't you...

[As he portions out the tea while the kettle starts to whistle:]

Can we make one? You and me?

Not a big one or anything, but... heh. I'd love to say I got to eat a house.

I heard kids talking about a witch living in a candy house once.

[You TEASE Miette?]

Of course. We can even make people to live in it.

[He starts getting the ingredients ready, weighing and measuring as needed. Does Otegine even like sweets... Do they even have food dye? He doesn't even usually need to worry about dye, but Otegine might want to color things himself...

He'll figure it out.]

Small people. Maybe as big as your hand. [...] My hand.

[He looks at his own hand for a second, contemplating pensively, before shrugging. Eh. He does have big hands.]

Well, how can I help? I'll have this steeping again in a minute here...

I've, uh... I've never done this kind of cooking before. But so long as you show me, I'll try my best.

[Big hands and they have limited oven space. And patience.

Owen shoves an empty bowl towards Otegine.]

Mix all the dry things in this bowl and think about what you want our house to look like. Maybe draw it out.

[He has something to draw with… somewhere? Probably in his suitcase, like most things.]

[Dry things... well, he can at least assume the flour and sugar as Owen portions them out, coughing a bit into his elbow at the cloud the flour produces.]

Mm... well, um...

Maybe like one of the farmhouses? The only other kind of house I'm used to isn't anything like these...

You have a manor back home, right?

There was a manor the Sage’s wizards could live in if they wished, but it might be hard to replicate for your first try.

[Considering it housed over 20 people, it’s pretty hecking big.

He plonks all the spices they’ll need next to Otegine.]

A farm house is fine.

[He double checks that the oven is getting hot, before glancing back to Otegine.]

It’s as good a home as any.

Mn.

It's probably easier this way. The citadel I'm used to is way too big.

[50+ people staying in one complex and memories of nothing but castles leads for weird expectations of "home".

The spices are curiously examined one by one as he tips them in, idly mixing as he thinks.]

...It had little pink flowers on the grounds. Right?

[Perhaps wisely, he won't mention where he heard of them. It had been a while since the little Owen had brought them up... maybe this Owen would remember what they were.]

[They have to keep their expectations low.]

…It did. There were a lot of flowerbeds around the manor.

[It’s no real mystery how he knows that, but… he can at least begrudgingly appreciate not drawing attention to it.

Unfortunately, though…]

I don’t really know what most of them were. Native to Central, probably, but they weren’t magical in nature.

[So he didn’t bother to learn what they were… He just knows they wouldn’t have flourished in the North.]

Mn...

Well, Oriphi's got a flowershop in town now. Maybe you could show me sometime if there's something there that matches it?

[They never did find anything, he and the little one... but Ori had some interesting powers. Maybe they'd get surprised.

He settles the mixed bowl down against the counter, glancing at the worn watch against his wrist.]

Ah... I can keep going with this if you want to check the tea. What else does this need?

[He gestures at the rest of the ingredients he has spread out on the counter - good luck finding out what to do next, because he doesn't have a recipe to share. If Otegine beefs it, Owen can fix it.]

All of that.

[help

this is not the proper way to make cookies]

...Does she have much knowledge of other worlds and their flowers?

Oh.

[He looks at the rest of what's laid out, with cups and spoons that he doesn't understand, then looks back at Owen.]

Uh. Just... as it is?

[That's a lot of eggs. Like, a lot of eggs.

He picks one up, studying it.]

I don't know! She knows more than I do, and she knows it well enough to have a shop around it. The least we can do is ask, right?

No? You’d just… be making a gross omelette at that rate or something?

[Let him actually manage to pour the tea this time, looking back at Otegine to make sure he didn’t irreparably ruin the cookies.]

…She’s the healing woman, right?

Yeah, that's her. Short with the horns and the colorful complexion, friendly, kind of shy... she's not a wizard, but she does magic like you do.

[meanwhile: cue the dial up tones as he continues to squint at the egg]

So... not all of them, then.

Uh, how much?

Mm. She has a store about… flowers? Why?

[Buying flowers seems stupid when you can just go out and pick them, but if she knows anything about them… Maybe she’d recognize some of the flowers that grow back home.

He squints at Otegine, placing the cups of tea on the table.]

Just one.

Mn. Thank you.

[One egg only, it is. Time to whisk vigorously.

As for Ori?]

Who knows? She's good at what she does, and she's happy. Does there have to be another reason??

She makes crafts and arrangements. She has some pre-made stuff, but people can also ask her for things like special bouquets and she'll find and arrange certain types or colors of flowers for them.

Do people really need flowers that much?

[Surprisingly, he’s not asking that just to be an asshole. He legitimately doesn’t get why flowers are such a big deal and why you’d have to arrange them…

Maybe spending most of his time in a forest has skewed his perspective.]

Well, whatever. How’s the dough looking?

I don't really know! You can use some of them as medicine, but I don't think that's what she likes? It's more... art, I guess. Something to look pretty and make people feel happier.

[He's a piece of art, not an artist. He doesn't really get all the details.

Hm. he looks at the dough, still mostly dry with One Egg now at least trying to have a party.]

Uh. Crumbly, not really dough. We still have butter out and... uh, what is this... [He picks up the jar set on the counter, studying the label.] "Molasses"?

I can't really do "one" of these ones.

[None of this makes any sense to Owen. That all seems pointless, but if people will give her money for it...

Well. Whatever.]

Well, taste it, then add as much as you like to the cookies.

[He absolutely knows this is going to go terribly but he also wants to see how Otegine handles molasses. It's getting warmer in the kitchen as the oven comes to temperature, but it's still a bit nippy in the farmhouse. That's how Owen likes it, though.

These poor cookies.]

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