(no subject)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen and Scribe Cancio went to Rivet City yesterday, more or less just for the heck of it. There's not really a lot of dating destinations in the Capital Wasteland. You take what you can get. It was interesting, though, and overall it worked out really well. There was just this one bit...

Eh, well, that was yesterday. Today was get-back-to-work day. Ellen's got supply caravan escort duty; water north to Canterbury Commons, and steel and machined parts from the Pitt south to the RobCo factory. She's taken the opportunity to stop in at the Bar for a bit of a reading break.

Granted, the book in question is a copy of Mueller's Tested and Proven Recipes, With Suggestions On Table Setting, Table Serving, and Table Etiquette, but when you're on the road in a post-nuclear wasteland you take whatever reasonably intact book you can get.

Comments

[orange_lily]

"Dude, what's Elbow Macaroni?"

Yugo is imagining pasta literally made from elbows, yes.

(It's easier than imagining other things. The eclipse is barely two days away.)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I'm not entirely sure," Ellen says. "I think it's a type of noodle, but-"

She pauses to flip through the book and eventually comes across some illustrated pages.

"Apparently it's noodles that look kind of like plumbing?"

[orange_lily]

"That seems totally unnecessary when regular macaroni would work just as well, man," Yugo says, a little doubtfully, peering at the picture. "I might try that dish sometime, though."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I'll be honest," Ellen says. "I didn't really know there was more than one kind. I mean, noodles are the long squiggly ones, and macaroni is what comes in a box with powdered cheese, and... that's as much as I know about the subject."

[orange_lily]

"I only knew there was one kind too," Yugo admits. "But I'm totally not a big macaroni expert. There's probably one in the bar. My bet is on Autor."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh, you've met him too?" says Ellen. "He asks a lot of questions about things, but I don't think I've ever heard him talk about food."

[orange_lily]

"Yey-high, kind of looks like a grumpy kitten? Yep, met him. He's a good kid," Yugo says. "I've never heard him talk about food either - well, not much, at least - but he's probably brutally interrogated a chef at some point."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods, and glances down at the page. "I'll have to ask him why you would skin a frankfurter the next time I see him, then," she says. "I assume that's what those brown things on the opposite page are. They don't look like any animal I know of, either before or after you take the legs off."

[orange_lily]

Yugo tilts his head at the page. It's a movement very much like a confused bird.

"Not unless it's a very small snake. I think a frankfurter is a sausage."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh, right," Ellen says. "I've seen those. There's a woman in Megaton who makes sausage from yao guai scraps too small to eat otherwise. Mostly yao guai scraps, anyway."

[orange_lily]

"Dude, what's a yao guai?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Mutant bear," Ellen says. "Taller than me at the shoulder. Taller than you if they stand on their hind legs. Unhealthy looking, with patchy hair, but they're decent eating if you can kill one before it takes out your legs when you're not looking."

[orange_lily]

"Dude, I'm not sure if that's awesome or terrifying," Yugo says. "It might be both, man. Why do you have mutant bears?"

[ambriel]

Ellen's attracted the attention of someone else who will read anything once.

"Is it an interesting book?" Ambriel asks, waiting until she looks up from the book to interrupt.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"It's not like anything I've seen before," Ellen says when she looks up. "We don't really have a lot of cookbooks at home, and this one's several hundred years old. I'm finding all kinds of things I don't recognize."

[ambriel]

"Do you like to cook?"

Ambriel finds both food and people who prepare it interesting, with the idle curiosity of someone who doesn't have to consume matter to survive.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen shrugs. "I do it when I have to," she says. "I'm not really very good at it- I can roast meat over a fire, or make noodles without having them stick together too much. This was just the only legible book Crazy Wolfgang had to sell."

[ambriel]

Ambriel lets 'Crazy Wolfgang' pass, for now. It's recognizable as a very odd nickname, but that line of conversation is less pressing than one about books.

"There is a library here as well, though not all of the librarians are entirely trustworthy."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh, yes. I've been up- wait, there are librarians?" Ellen says. "I've only been in there once, and I never met any of the people who run the place."

[ambriel]

"At least two, I believe. It is best to be cautious even if they are present," Ambriel says. "I once was lost there."

Not 'got lost', mind you. There was an avalanche of books and some clashing L-space involved.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Huh," says Ellen. "Well, I do remember it being awfully complicated to navigate the one time I was there. Finding my way to the reference section about explosives took ages, and that was with someone who'd borrowed books before to help me."

[ambriel]

"Yes, that was my experience as well. I did find the Nancy Drew books eventually. Milliways has many people from different worlds, and does not stay stable in all four dimensions. It stands to reason its library would be the same."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen makes a rueful face. "Scribe Yearling would get the most awful twitch under her eye at the thought, I just know it," she says. "She had a hard enough time searching the Arlington library ruins for readable books, and none of those were going anywhere...."

[ambriel]

"Ruins do tend to complicate searches. I hope you do not mind me interrupting you. I am Ambriel."

Also perpetually curious.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Not at all," says Ellen. "My name's Ellen Park. It's good to meet you, Ambriel." She indicates the other chair at her table. "Sit down if you want."