milliways_bar | Herb garden, late morning

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hannibal lecter

Herb garden, late morning

Jin Guangyao is inspecting the garden.

Or rather, he is wandering from one patch of herbs to the next flower bed and looking at the labels on little sticks, still marvelling at how the original spider-web writing that most people here seem to use unfolds itself into characters that make sense when he bends to read them.

Lemon thyme. Do not fight your enemy in this bush, or I Will Find You!

Jin Guangyao idly wonders what may have prompted that particular overspecific prohibition...

Murder muffin, meet cannibal...

tinytag: jin guangyao

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"You can take a few leaves from each plant and crush them," a voice says behind him. "That is not forbidden."

Startled, Jin Guangyao straightens and looks at the stranger. There's something about him that looks a tiny bit less strange than some of the people he's met here. Also, the man's eyes are almost reddish. He wonders if that has anything to do with the use of resentful energy, and if so, if the man knows anything worth learning about.

"Is this your garden, sir?" he asks, politely.

"It's everybody's garden," the man says, tilting his head with a little smile. "I grow some herbs here for cooking, but so do many others. Rae Seddon grew the most amazing tomatoes this year, and over there are the asparagus beds that my friend Urquhart started, and my friend Autor later took over. They are both gone now, of course, but the asparagus persists and is as delicious every spring as it ever was."

"Asparagus is a delightful vegetable," Jin Guangyao says to the talkative man. "At Golden Koi Tower, we make sure to include it in every banquet while it is in season. Even the guests from the Lan sect will eat it, which isn't true for many of our delicacies."

Polite conversation that hits the ground with the feet running, he can do.

"Oh, I have been there," the man says. "Fussy vegetarian guests that inform you of their proclivities only when everything is already plated! One particular, rather toxic lady of my -- acquaintance comes to mind. Luckily, I had enough asparagus to give her a pleasant meal despite them. And luckily, she wasn't vegan, and she didn't enquire too closely about the sauce."

Pause.

"But where are my manners! It's just so pleasant to jump into a conversation mid-thought, as it were, so please excuse my rudeness. I'm Dr. Hannibal Lecter, physician, amateur chef and music lover."

A gentleman of education, means, leisure and pleasurable pursuits that will sit in a pavilion with his friends over choice morsels and good wine, play the guqin and admire the moon -- is what those words imply to Jin Guangyao.

Jin Guangyao bows, his arms held properly before his chest, his eyes downcast for a moment, his best, dimpled smile on his face, before he looks up again to meet those blood-red eyes.

"Entertaining guests is a very worthwhile pursuit!" he says. "I am Jin Guangyao, second -- son of the sect leader of Lanling Jin sect, and it falls to me to smoothly and unobtrusively run many things at Golden Koi Tower. When the good dishes are taken away, everybody is happy and very slightly drunk, then I know that I have done a good job, and can allow myself to relax."

"I love to see the pleasure in their eyes when they are enjoying themselves with what I prepared for them -- the food, the setting, the music in the background, the conversation over the dinner table," Dr. Lecter says. "But if I remember correctly, a formal banquet where you are from would not be everybody at one large table but rather everyone at a little table by themselves? It does make things harder, because everybody needs to be pleased by themselves, with only the people at the tables left and right maybe making connversation."

"There is this buzz that settles over the company, regardless of big or small tables," Jin Guangyao, "when people are feeling well and entertaining each other, and all you need to do is keep the drink coming, and perhaps a few little nibbles, and a word here and there."

"I do see I have met another passionate host," Dr. Lecter says. "But do go on, Jin-er-gongzi, take a leaf of the lemon thyme and smell it."

Jin Guangyao bends to dutifully pick some leaves of the bush in question and rubs them in his fingers before smelling them.

"A very fine smell, lighter and sharper than regular thyme," he comments. "They would go very well in some soups."

"Oh yes, and in some light summery salads," Dr. Lecter says. "Or maybe -- let me give you some examples!"

"Oh, right now?" Jin Guangyao says. "That might provide me with some inspiration for our next big banquet."

Which most likely will be the Hundred-Day-Ceremony for the baby his brother and Jiang Yanli have been so busy creating, if the maids can be trusted.

Edited 2020-09-30 19:21 (UTC)

"Yes, of course right now," Dr. Lecter says. "What better time is there than right now? If you like what I make, you can give me mooncakes. It's the mid-autumn festival tomorrow, by bar time."

(no subject)

hat_and_dimples - 2020-09-30 20:35 (UTC) - Expand

At some point, a red-haired woman in an electric blue t-shirt and deeply purple jeans covered by a blue, sunflower-dotted apron, appears from out of the kitchen doorway. Her sneakers are bright red against the steps leading down from the door.

"Oh! Good morning, Meng Yao," she greets with an easy smile, seeing him in the gardens. Someone's looking fancy today.

Jin Guangyao startles, almost jumps -- there is a completely unknown woman with very bright colours all over, and she greets him by his former name.

"Excuse me?" he says, bewildered. "That used to be my name, but not lately."

The woman blinks, pausing in her way towards the garden with a look on her face a little like déjà vu.

"Oh, I'm-" sharply familiar with that feeling "sorry. That's how you... That's how someone I met here introduced himself."

"I used to be Meng Yao," he says, "but now I'm Jin Guangyao, second son of Lanling Jin sect's leader, Jin Guangshan."

He doesn't know if she can hear what is wrong with those names, but he ploughs on valiantly.

"It's nice to meet you -- again, I take it?"

He bows, arms held before his chest, dimpled smile firm on his lips and cheeks.

"Yes," she smiles, returning the bow. It is not an unknown motion to her, but her posture says it is definitely a recent addition. "It is good to meet you, Jin Guangyao, for the first time and again. I am Rae Seddon, called Sunshine. I am the Head Baker at my stepfather's coffeehouse in the city of New Arcadia."

He had spoken some of himself, after all, and she felt a little bad for startling him.

"Milliways sometimes is a bit tricksome," she explains with wry good humor, coming down the steps to the herb and flower garden. "It will sometimes bring in other versions of its patrons, or its patrons from different times in their lives. It was only a few days ago that I first met Meng Yao, who came into the bar from attending lectures in a place called the Cloud Recesses. And at that time he greeted me by a name I no longer use, for he had likewise previously met some other me."

Edited 2020-09-30 15:45 (UTC)

"Cloud Recesses," Jin Guangyao sighs. "I never got to study there; I sometimes wonder what would have turned out differently for me and all of us if I'd accepted Er-ge's -- Lan Xichen's -- invitation to stay and study with the others."

There is something very wistful about him now. So many choices, so many possibilities, and this is what he ended up with? Sometimes, it feels all wrong, even to himself.

"So we have confused each other now with names we no longer use?" he then says, rallying. "May I offer you some tea in honour of that coincidence?"

He doesn't know yet that there are no coincidences in Milliways, just Bar being mischievous.

Rae doesn't say Meng Yao seemed excited for the opportunity to study. Nor does she say I also wonder about the me, the not-me, who flies on a broomstick and practices alchemy and bears the name her father gave her.

She says instead, stepping along the herb garden path towards a large, almost hedge-like herb bush near the lemon thyme. "I will happily have tea with you, though I require a few moments in the garden first. I've come out with a purpose today."

"Good rosemary rolls call for fresh rosemary," she explains, unfolding her little red pocketknife and cutting a number of the fragrant sprigs with the ease of long familiarity, "and I want to use it before the seasons here change too far."

"What are you making?" Jin Guangyao asks.

"Rosemary potato rolls this morning - they make the kitchen smell amazing and are just the thing when the weather turns chilly," she muses, selecting some of the longer sprigs. "And the rosemary will probably be added to dough for pizza, as well, later in the day."

There is a pause as she remembers Wen Ning's unfamiliarity with tomatoes, the knife folding back into its little red oblong and disappearing into one of her apron's deep pockets. "Pizza is a kind of round flatbread dish with various combinations of toppings of meat, vegetables and cheese to suit one's taste. A common comfort-food, where I am from."

"That sounds both very interesting and possibly tasty," Jin Guangyao says, "even though flatbread with things on sounds as if it might be hazardous to people's good robes at a banquet."

However would one eat that?

"Can be, if they're not paying attention," she grins with the easy cheer of one who makes decadent food for a living and whose clothes are all machine-washable. A good handful of rosemary sprigs having been harvested, she straightens up and steps back towards the kitchen door, gesturing for him to accompany her. "But that is true of many foods. A simple dropped strawberry can ruin someone's day."

She's seen it happen. Ripe strawberry, white shirt. It was dramatic; it was tragic. Mostly for the waste of a good strawberry, but still.

"There are some foods that seem to be a recipe for drama," Jin Guangyao says, smiling. "Best avoided at banquets. But perhaps I should try that flatbread-with-things-on for myself, while I'm here."