sixthiterationlogs | Let us eat quickly-- let us fill ourselves up. {Harvest Feast}

Entry tags:

Let us eat quickly-- let us fill ourselves up. {Harvest Feast}

WHO: Kate Kelly
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: 24th November
OPEN TO: E V E R Y O N E
WARNINGS: TBA
STATUS: OPEN

Aside from the days when she'd been too drunk or too hungover to get up, Kate's kept a farmer's hours all her life. Even in winter, when the bitterly cold winds that'd come up from the south and make its way through the cracks and holes in her ma's hut, she'd get up, get dressed, do her chores. But lately, it's been harder to extract herself from her bed. Benedict's been sharing her bed more often than not lately, and the chasteness of their interactions does nothing to change how warm and safe she feels. How little she wants to get up, get dressed, go out into the colder spaces of the Inn and do her work.

So, today, she's late getting out of bed - at least, by her standards. She's late getting down the stairs. She's late, so she's hurrying; she lazed in bed, and now she needs to start the fire in the main room. Start the fire, open the shutters, show that the Inn is standing and warm. And welcome, so she moves the -

No, Kate doesn't move the chairs stacked precariously at the front door as a rudimentary alarm of someone, something, coming through, because the chairs are gone. She neither dismisses it as one of the residents not getting the message, nor panics. Instead, she just opens the shutters to let in the dawn light and see if there are footprints, except, no, the snow has mostly cleared. The day is sunny. As welcome as it is, that doesn't help at all. Miss Hoppity jumps down from the foyer's desk to rub her face against Kate's skirt, apparently entirely unconcerned.

Kate eyes the cat for a moment, then approaches the closed doors leading to the main room. Closed, but with light coming through the cracks between door and floor, door and door frame. Cautiously, Kate opens one of the doors and peers in.

Then, she gapes.

The fire is blazing - hot, cheery - but so are the candles. The candles: candles on the unused candlesticks, candles clustered on tables, light up sideboards. Candles bobbing in bowls of water and apples. Candles white, yellow and red, when the village had none. Boughs of wheat, corn, decorate tables and the mantle over the fire, apples and pumpkins and collections of yellow, orange, red flowers seem to be everywhere.

And the food.

Each table is piled high with food. Roasted, baked, cooked on stoves and Kate knows how to cook, she knows how long this would all take, how many people, and it's impossible. What she's seeing is impossible to have done with the resources on hand: even an attempt would have woken up the whole building.

Disbelieving, Kate walks in. For a moment, she's entirely dumbfounded. Miss Hoppity, however, is nothing of the sort. The cat has leapt up onto the sideboard next to Kate and - well, Kate isn't sure what happens next. Just that suddenly there's movement and something large seems to lunge at her. Miss Hoppity yowls and speeds off: Kate screams as she battles something, falling backwards and hitting the floor along with a broken bowl of water, spilled apples and some tiny candles, and her attacker.

Pushing the food-turkey off her, Kate sits up and is, for once, entirely lost for words.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was the flowers that meant more to her than the overabundance of food. She had forgotten what true beauty looked like. It was as though she were peering through a mirror and seeing the woman she used to be. The perfumes of High Garden were returned to her, the warmth of summer breaking through the cold and reminding Margaery of the things she loved.

She took many of the flowers and fashioned a crown for herself, placing it on her head and allowing it to contrast against her auburn hair. She felt drunk, despite only having one glass of wine. The pastries were almost overwhelming, sharp in taste against her tongue.

She wanted to eat everything, to try every drink. Even if this was a game or some sort of lure, she didn't care. There were so little luxuries in this place and she wanted to indulge herself.

Nerys hasn't been expecting the flowers, nor for anyone to make a crown of them--but if there's anyone the look suits most, Margaery is it, and Nerys smiles brightly as she notices her friend. She's got her second cup of coffee now, working off the first pass at the buffet tables before she thinks about her second, and waves at her with the hand that's not holding the precious beverage.

"I'm not sure what all this is," she says, "or if it's all a trick. But if I'm offered some coffee and food, and there's not an immediate danger, I'm going to take it."

"I don't believe I have had coffee before," she said with a bright grin, offering Nerys the chair across from her. "I'm rather afraid to try some of the unfamiliar things. We won't have all of this next month and I will be longing for them. I have to do without perfume, long summers and my own gowns. I'd rather not have a longing for sweets that we didn't have in my world."

Yet she is trying them anyway because hunger overpowers reason.

"To be honest with you...it's an acquired taste," Nerys agrees, and nods as she takes the chair, smiling still. "But if it's quality--and this is--the scent is heavenly even if you don't care to drink it. I'm almost tempted to try and store some." She has no idea how, and knows that reheated coffee isn't very good anyway, but it would be stupid not to try.

"Perfume and summer and gowns," she says and sighs a little. It's foreign to her, but it does sound pretty damn pleasant, particularly in comparison to this place. That is, until she remembers what exactly life was like from other descriptions Margaery's told her, a bit of a gilded cage.

"Well, those are chocolate truffles," she says, gesturing towards a bowl on the dessert table. "They're cream and chocolate whipped up together, super rich. Good with coffee, actually. Probably have liquor in some of them?" Fine chocolate was a quadrant-wide Earth export and she'd had more than a few with Jadzia.

"But I don't know most of them either, so we may need to explore together."

Edited 2016-11-29 22:06 (UTC)

"How is it that coffee is made? Perhaps we could find the means to make it here?" They would never be able to replicate it, but they could get a passable substitute with the right materials. It would at least stave off the craving that it might create.

She wouldn't mind the cage so much, as it was never enough to fully restrain her to begin with. Simply to feel clean and coiffed once more. It was such a distant memory.

The sight of the chocolates makes her mouth water. "We will have to find a way to ration these. There is so much food, I hope to enjoy it for days." Even if it didn't taste as delicious as leftovers, it didn't matter.

"I rather like the ones dusted with chocolate." She plucked one from her plate, biting into it. "Chocolate surrounded by chocolate and dusted with chocolate."

"I think it's grown on trees or bushes or something, like tea," says Nerys, face wrinkling up in thought. "Everyone always says 'coffee beans', and they look like seeds--people grind them up and then pour hot water over, then strain it, I think." The only reason she knows this is because a number of her colleagues are connoisseurs, though. For Nerys, this sort of thing usually just comes out of a replicator.

"The chocolates will last for a while, if you can bear not to eat them all at once," she adds. "The rest of it...well. Coffee's not great warmed back up, though around here we can't really be choosy. Hopefully the food doesn't disappear into thin air like in a storybook."

"That sounds rather horrid," she wrinkled her nose, laughing at the idea. 'Bean water?' She had tasted some vile things, especially in this place (usually her own cooking), but that seemed a bit too much for her. "I like the smell, but I don't know if I want to drink it."

She had a rather good buzz from smell alone.

"I hope I have such restraint." She doubted she would. The delicious feeling that biting into chocolate brought her was addicting. "Disappearing as easily as it appeared." She had at least the good sense to watch and wait as the others ate the food first, but it didn't abate her fears. "I wonder what the celebration is for?"

"Tea is just leaf water!" Nerys points out, laughing, gently protective of the Earth drink regardless of it not being hers to defend. She's not actually upset--the notion of bean water does seem vaguely repulsive. It's probably fortunate for them both that Nerys doesn't know chocolate is also made from 'beans'. "But it really is an acquired taste, so you're probably best just smelling mine, and eating your chocolate. They go well together."

She turns at Margaery's musing to look around the room. "I think it's some kind of start of winter or harvest kind of thing," she says. "Judging by the time of year and the cobs of corn and things. I don't really understand the big birds, though?" Particularly a cornucopia that's shaped like (though she'd never know this) a turkey. "It's kind of weird, the birds. And all the orange."

That was true, but somehow that didn't sound as repulsive as "bean water". Perhaps she was biased, having grown up with tea. If she had been around coffee, would she be as excited about it as others seemed to be now? "The smell is strong. Is the taste strong too?"

"They didn't have large birds at the feasts in your world?" She asked, plucking off a large hunk of meat from the turkey. She offered it out to Nerys, encouraging her to try it. "They are quite succulent. The oranges are wonderful. I didn't know how much I missed them until now."

Nerys considers the meat (it's a light shade, moist, with not much fat) and does have to admit it smells tempting. She takes it daintily from Margaery, breaks it in half, and pops it into her mouth, then chews, swallows. "Pretty good," she admits. "But no, our birds go up to...oh, maybe the size of a chicken," Nerys knows what this is from the ones that have come around recently, as well as the occasional DS9 gathering, "and then there's nothing bigger until a verdanis, which..."

She laughs at the idea of eating verdanis at a feast. Maybe if you were starving, but certainly not for celebrations.

"They're huge--we ride them, so that makes them stringy and tough, not really good for eating." Sipping her coffee, she inhales the cooling scent, and goes back to Margaery's first question. "And coffee, the taste is very strong. Quite bitter, like tea that's been stewed too long, but not as...it doesn't make your mouth pucker up like that does."

"Some of ours grow large, depending on the birds. However, I don't think we can actually ride them." She said, taking a bite herself, letting her eyes close as she surrounded herself with the taste of home. "Feasts would be filled with so many different meats and dishes, quite like this."

She forgot how much she enjoyed the pageantry. It had been so long, so much of her life filled with schemes and intrigue. Given the dangers in this world, this was the last place that she believed a feast could be possible.

"I wonder why they decided to do this now." Whoever was behind it.

"We sort of lost our understanding of feasts, back on Bajor," Nerys says, thinking aloud. "Along with a lot of our culture. Plenty of records and the old folks' memories, but if you didn't have the food to have a feast, and you lose the habit of a party, you don't really celebrate in the same way if you start back up again. Peldor is still a lot of fun, but it's not a big sit-down meal like this. More street food, eating on the go, not stuff on plates."

She pauses, then adds quickly, "Not that that's a bad thing at all. I'll take this meal if I get it, and I guess it must be some kind of harvest commemoration, maybe a human one from where other people are from, but you're right that it's strange to have it now. Quite late, for harvest."

"That sounds rather festive though. Traveling from vendor to vendor, tasting the different wares that they offer. I did something similar in King's Landing." It was to help support the poorer subjects and give them more revenue for their businesses. Yet there was something fun about it. As though she were exploring, trying new worlds.

"It seems strange to have a harvest feast before we have even had a harvest." She frowned, pushing the food about her plate.

"It's certainly festive, yeah," Nerys agrees, thinking of the last time they'd thrown a festival on DS9. "So much fun. I don't even know how I'd try to recreate it anywhere that's not home, though, or rather somewhere like here, where we don't even know what food we'll have from day to day. If I ever get a chance, I'll make you something, but I'm not a very good cook even with the right materials."

She sighs and looks down at her own plate for a moment. "It is kind of weird. Eating all these things that we didn't bring in...and that we don't even know who did. We can't say 'this farmer raised this bird' or something."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Let us eat quickly-- let us fill ourselves up. {Harvest Feast}

OTA

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject