(no subject)

[sunbaked_baker]

It has been a few days since Rae was discharged from the infirmary, after her rather disastrous entry into the bar. Getting around is proving to be much more frustratingly difficult than she anticipated. Every part of her is sore, despite her continued use of lesser painkillers. Some movements or pressures her body just won't tolerate, and she has found it maddeningly easy to overtire herself.

Her broken clavicle has already proven (very sharply) that it won't tolerate the pressure of kneading or using a rolling pin - even if she's trying to work around the sling she wears - which has left two batches of dough to go to waste, today. Rae supposes she could read some more, but she has read more in the last couple of days than she has read in the last month, and reading isn't the kind of distraction she needs or wants.

She does try - with the help of one of the infirmary rats - to remember not to exert herself, to sit often and elevate her sprained ankle, but those quiet times give her far too much opportunity to dwell on the events of the other night. It's not something she wants to think about, even if it's starting to creep back into her dreams. Rae needs to be making something - something not related to blood or violence in any way. Being unable to do so leaves her feeling off-center, fidgety, trying to find something to do with her hands so she won't dwell on what other things her hands have done. This lack of activity is a layer of unhappiness separate from that of simply being injured and waiting to heal.

So there is a baker sitting outside at one of the picnic tables, this afternoon, her scraped-knuckle hands kept still by holding onto the mug of tea before her. She wears a yellow camisole and lime-green shorts in addition to the bandages that help to support her bruised and broken ribs and the sling that supports her right arm and shoulder, and those bandages that cover her other various injuries. Her feet are bare, the one wrapped in bandages lying on the picnic table seat next to her. Sighing, Sunshine breathes in the fragrant steam from her tea, and tries not to think.

Comments

[herr_bookman]

"Effugium," Autor says, dropping down a few feet away from the table. He waves, crinkling his fingers, as he strolls up to the baker. He'd just finished collecting the remaining burnt-out sun jars from the infirmary--leaving the huge holes he'd popped in the ceiling behind--and started looking for her.

"Hello, Rae," he murmurs. You're a mess.

[sunbaked_baker]

She would have taken more than just a couple of the small ones with her when she had been released from the infirmary, but she couldn't carry them all. She'd had to leave the others behind.

When Rae hears the familiar spell, she turns very slightly - ow - to glance over her shoulder at him and offer Autor a slight smile. "Hello, Autor."

[herr_bookman]

"Hey," the boy greets again, for lack of anything better to say, because what does one say to an injured person? He'd had a full conversation with her in his head on the flight over, but now he's run around in so many silent verbal circles, his tongue is tied in knots.

So he dithers for a moment, and doggedly thinks over whether to take a seat, which he does. "How are you?" he asks eventually, and immediately kicks himself because she has multiple fractures and of course she's feeling absolutely horrible and don't rub it in her face, you idiot!

So he tries again: "What have you been up to?"

Given his yelling at her earlier and the way that this is progressing, Autor quickly concludes that his bedside manner is crap.

[sunbaked_baker]

That hesitation makes her slight smile fade. That distance of someone not sure how to talk to a friend when they're hurting, as though they're suddenly not the same person. Somehow their injuries make them a stranger.

"I'm feeling... better than I was," she can tell him. "Mostly, I've been trying to find something to occupy myself with."

[herr_bookman]

And the smile fading confirms his suspicion.

Autor would suggest reading, but the lines of her broken body appear far too tense for that. Like a clothesline pulled to the ground, ready to spring--or snap. He tries to think on what he could pull out of his sylladex. His camping stuff is useless, and his grenades are right out.

"I could teach you knitting," he says, trying not to look at her hands. "Or painting? We could watch a movie? I liked Pretty Woman, though they do some awful things to a piano."

He brutally stuffs the suggestion to review their anatomy studies.

[sunbaked_baker]

"I honestly don't know what I want to do," she says, trying not to sound despondent. It's too pretty a day to feel despondent on. "I really... want to bake some bread. Something savory. But I can't - my attempts ended pretty badly."

And painfully.

"The dough was a lumpy mess."

[herr_bookman]

"It wouldn't help you to actually have someone help you, would it?" he says, pursing his lips. He scents her tea on a breath--connecting it to the drink she clung to while she had nightmares. "How long does it take until you just can't bake anymore? Is there a recipe you can make in spurts?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"I dunno, exactly," she says, in a tone that would usually be accompanied by a shrug. "Broken clavicles, from what I heard, take up to twelve weeks or longer to be completely healed. I might be able to bake before then, though."

[fluffiest_archadian]

Sherral has been cooped up in his room all day carving magicite, as evidenced by the sparkling white dust on his hands and on the dark grey of his t-shirt and fatigue trousers, and dear Faram he needs a break.

When he catches sight of Rae, his immediate thought is Surely she should be in the infirmary, but to say that would be unforgivably rude.

Instead, he ducks his head, and with a slightly awkward, boyish smile: "What manner of tea is that?"

[sunbaked_baker]

The woman sits somewhat stiffly, careful not to move her torso too much, but she is able to gingerly turn to glance at Sherral and offer a slight smile.

"It's an herbal blend I've grown fond of," she says, offering the tea cup if he'd like to smell or taste. "Citrus Lavender Sage."

[fluffiest_archadian]

Sherral sits to get closer to the tea cup - it's a precarious movement, full of folding limbs - and inhales tentatively before leaning back slightly.

"I fear you've the advantage here. My people are terrible tea fascists," he says wryly, "and wouldn't dream of putting anything other than tea bags and milk in."

Beat.

"Maybe sugar. For those of degenerate leanings," with mock-loftiness.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae's eyebrows rise at the phrase tea fascists. One lowers, leaving the other arched, however, at the idea that sweetening tea is a sign of degeneracy.

"There's no accounting for taste," she says, diplomatically, though her expression doesn't match her words.

"My preference is for loose-leaf teas and tea blends, myself. They're far less processed than tea sold in bags, and I feel they produce a better, fuller flavor. What makes your people fascists when it comes to tea?"

Does the government mandate that only bagged teas be used? Is milk-usage strictly regulated? Are the people hostile towards coffee-drinkers?"

[fluffiest_archadian]

Sherral ducks his head awkwardly, shoulders tensing slightly.

"It was, er, in jest. My apologies. It'd be truer to say that any tea other than plain black with milk is considered unusual. Possibly even fancy."

Beat.

Then, curiously: "What's coffee?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Maybe they just need to do some experimenting," Rae replies. "I drank only bagged black or green tea until I was introduced to loose-leaf tea, teas with flowers and fruits and spices blended in with them. I've not looked back, since."

"Coffee's another hot drink - it's more common in my country than tea, really - but it's made not from steeping leaves but by roasting and then finely grinding coffee beans, and then running water through the grounds. Some people drink it plain, but others add milk or sugar. It has a very strong flavor."

[fluffiest_archadian]

"Probably. I suspect it has much to do with general snobbishness," Sherral remarks ruefully. "Coffee sounds a little like a drink in a country that - well, we were at war with it until recently. I can't pronounce the name of the drink, though, nor the beans used within it. They take great pains to enrich the flavour of the beans, though. I gather making it is something of an art form there."

[sunbaked_baker]

It's the first time Rae has ever heard anyone associate only drinking bagged tea with snobbishness. It would be the opposite, in her world.

"Coffee's worth trying once or twice, just to see whether or not you like it," she says. "The bar serves a pretty good cup, I've heard, though I don't drink the stuff myself."

[street_sparrow]

Gavroche appears, carrying an embroidery frame, needles and thread, and deposits them on her table.

"Asclepius says you need distracting."

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine looks up from gazing into her teacup, and blinks at the embroidery materials.

"He's been a big help, lately," she nods, offering a slight smile. "...You embroider?"

[street_sparrow]

He looks shifty.

"I do patterns. Not flowers and girly things. It's relaxing."

[sunbaked_baker]

"That's really cool," Rae says. "I've never tried embroidery, myself. Baking was my thing."

"Though flowers aren't necessarily girly - and even if they were, that doesn't make them bad. One of the heroes of the Voodoo Wars was Colonel Oldroy. We have a park named after in my city. After the Wars, he retired and spent the rest of his life breeding different kinds of roses, which he named after demons," she smiles. "My mom has one of his, Belphegor, in her and Charlie's backyard."

[street_sparrow]

Gavroche laughs.

"Well, no, those flowers wouldn't be girly, but I still think embroidering them would be." He's a teenage boy, what can we say. "Anyway. Asclepius said you aren't allowed to do baking 'til your shoulder heals, so I thought maybe you'd want something else."

[sunbaked_baker]

"I'm pretty desperate, it's true," she admits, wryly. "I'm not good at... just sitting. I need something to do, and I'm getting kind of sick of reading."

Don't tell Autor!

"I think I've read more in the past few days than I have in the past month put together."

[street_sparrow]

"Reading's all right", he agrees, "but you can't do it all the time." He nudges the embroidery supplies towards her. "It's not difficult, and it shouldn't strain anything past your wrist if you're careful."

[longtonguedog]

'Miss Sunshine, I think you dropped this.'

The man with the grey hair and shaggy eyebrows gives her a broad grin, and a wink as cheeky as the day is long, then slides a book onto the table.

When she looks up from reading the title, he's gone, just as quick as he came.


(ooc: can't tag in, but had to. :P )

[sunbaked_baker]

"What-" Rae says in surprise, looking around at the man - he looks vaguely familiar, but she can't quite place it - and then down at the book he slides across to her. The Big Book of Cupcakes. "I'm sorry, I think you've made a mistake. This isn't my b-"

But when she looks up... there's no one there. Just the book, left behind.

Odd. Really odd. But... also really nice. She can feel warmth behind her injured ribcage and a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth due to the unexpected kindness.

With a slight shrug of her good shoulder, Rae smiles slightly to herself, and opens the book.