2017-05-04: Cheer Up, Princess!
- Log: 2017-05-04 Cheer Up, Princess!
- Cast: Alisha Diphda, Rose
- Where: Adlehyde - Starfall Saloon
- Date: 2017-05-04
- Summary: Alisha and Rose bond over mabo curry buns. Seraphim are still spoopy though.
=========================<* Adlehyde - Starfall Saloon *>========================= Located in the southwest quadrant of Adlehyde, the Starfall Saloon is situated next to the local Adventurer's Guild outpost and kitty-corner from an ARMs Meister; the mostly-happy not-at-all-coincidence has turned the Saloon into a popular gathering place for Drifters. The Saloon has been carefully constructed to recreate the feel of a frontier alehouse - it has stables and a livery out back, and the main floor is taken up almost entirely by the sort of dark, slightly dank wooden tables and chairs that appeals to its clientele. An old harpsichord even sits in the corner, although it does not seem to be heavily used. Or in tune, for that matter. The Saloon's proprietor and bartender is known as Honest Tom; this is a bit of an in-joke among the regulars, as the man rarely speaks more than a dozen words over the course of an evening. The Starfall Saloon is widely known among Drifters for offering warm beds, cold beer and decent grub for a fair price, and so it sees a great deal of out-of-town traffic. It is also known for the three rules hung over the bar: NO GUNS, NO FIGHTS, NO CREDIT. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MQRL7xws7w
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha made her way back to Adlehyde after the attack on Port Timney, but she spent days there. Althena's Blessing has given her white magic -- and with it, the ability to heal. She has been exhausted ever since, which is how Ragnell found her on Monday. She stayed exhausted after that; even though she slept, she spent more time treating people than she did eating, sleeping, or even relaxing. After a few days of that...
The princess looks like she has been run ragged. She stands outside of the Starfall Saloon at the moment, and looks distracted -- just a little outside the door, and having forgotten to go inside. She has foregone her armor and tunic -- those are left in her room, leaving her in her black shirt, shirts, and hip-high traveling boots instead. She has bags under her eyes and her hair is down.
She forewent styling it, which suggests how tired she is.
That, and the fact that Alisha is staring at the menu on a sign outside. She has been for about five minutes.
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
If Alisha had it rough being the Shepherd's Squire, Rose had it a lot better. She'd avoided grievous injuries and even took time since to go explore that cave Sorey was so interested in after noticing the animals running off. That went... alright, really. She could have lived without fighting that hydra. It was kind of big and scary. If she could see the effects of Malevolence it would have been even worse, though.
She was back in Adlehyde now, after a few days of rest and business at Timney. She'd secured her wares, just had to deliver some things to Jacqueline and she could call it a day. Having dumped that responsability off on Eguille, and with the stand at the Fairgrounds manned by the twins and Rosh, Rose was free as a bird for the rest of the evening!
What better sight is there for her than spotting Alisha from the corner of her eyes, staring at a menu on a wall outside a saloon. The princess might as well be wearing a sign on her back reading "WINE AND DINE ME".
Rose creeps in from behind, suddenly dropping in, arm over shoulder and all, to stand by Alisha and greet her. "Hey princess! Looking a bit dreadful today. Everything alright? How about you let good old Rose here treat you to a meal? I've got some books you can deliver to the Shepherd for me in exchange. You deal with his... friends better than I do." Stupid Seraphim following her around constantly. How unlucky can one person possibly get?
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
The worst -- or perhaps lucky -- part was that Alisha wasn't even Sorey's Squire. She was helping him, but she hadn't made that commitment yet.
And, like anyone with a sign on her back, she is oblivious that it is there. (But she wouldn't mind that sign. It is much nicer than one that says "KICK ME.")
She makes a small, surprised squeak when Rose has an arm around her shoulders. The blonde-haired girl looks up, surprised for half a second, before she ends up smiling in that terribly tired way at Rose. "Oh, Rose," she says. "I... well, I suppose I do look a sight, don't I?"
She looks ahead, then she nods. "I certainly would like something to eat. And--" She heistates. This could be invitation for Edna to say something. "--I believe I am alone."
She waits a moment. No snark comes.
"Yes. Definitely alone."
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"You look like you've been through a meat grinder," Rose confirms, not letting her smile falter. Luckily for the merchant's comfort levels, Alisha states that she is alone and there are no spoopy ghosts here. This is good, if only it was always like that. Maybe she should travel with the princess more often, that's a good insurance to have.
"Right, then! One meal it is. Lucky for you Sorey and I arranged a surprise for you with the owners! He had the idea, I had the recipe and ingredients delivered. Come, come! If you stay outside any longer someone's going to think you're a beggar!"
Push comes to shove as Rose literally pushes and shoves Alisha into the Starfall Saloon, and once inside, towards one of the empty tables to seat her. Rose is hungry too, so this works out anyway.
After seating, Rose raises a hand high to attract staff's attention before shouting: "Hey, hey! Pull up that recipe that's with the Sparrowfeathers' delivery, let's have mabo curry buns go around!" Good food heals the soul! Or something like that.
Rose quits down, asiding to Alisha: "He thought eating something familiar from home might cheer you up. Filgaian cuisine isn't that different but sometimes you just want to taste something you're familiar with, you know?"
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"A-A surprise?" Alisha stammers out, before her expression lights up. She didn't expect a surprise -- not that she didn't think Sorey or Rose would, but she thought they must have been too busy. She hasn't looked energized in days, but when Rose says that, it's suddenly there in her expression. But she stares in wonder, and she does -- in fact -- need a good shove.
Her feet stumble, before she quickly slows to a stop. She takes a seat at the table, and looks sideways at Rose. And then she beams. "Oh... mabo curry buns! I always liked those! Ah... you both thought of me?"
The smile on her face is a little less wide, then, but warm as she looks down.
She nods, before she looks up at Rose. "It was a wonderful idea. I, ah... I really appreciate it. I have been homesick, truth be told."
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Eheh, well, truth told it was mostly Sorey's idea. He wanted to place an order for all the food needed to throw some big party, but with everything happening he probably hasn't had time to do it. My contribution is not charging him for the order!" It's A contribution for sure. "Oh, and recipe choice." That one is entirely her.
It'll be a while before the buns are ready, so in the meantime Rose puts her elbows on the table and slumps her head down onto her hands, crossing them under her chin. "Oh, I don't blame you. Leaving your hometown for a month is hard, try leaving your PLANET for several months without knowing when you can go back. I'd bet Sorey feels that way too, he just doesn't want to say so. He's more worried about your wellbeing than his own!" She's not totally sure about Sorey even being able to feel homesick, he seems infinitely carefree.
"Still! The world keeps going, right? Worrying won't get you anywhere, nor will feeling down! Chin up, spear high, kick some butt and eventually it'll aaaaall work out. Probably." She pauses, and ponders. "You know what helps me through some of it? Think about all the cool things on Filgaia we don't have in Glenwood. Think about all the stories you'll have to tell when you're home! Maybe you're the first princess from Lunar to even set foot on Filgaia!" Maybe! Rose has not exactly been able to keep track of such things, but it's a good guess.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Oh, you picked the recipe? I was wondering! That is so nice of you both. Do you cook them, back home...?" Alisha asks, giving Rose a long look -- and blinking when she leans forward, head in her hands. It's something else, the princess reflects, to watch her commiserate and then bounce back so quickly that she can inspire.
She smiles at the entire display. It's endearing to the princess. "Ah... yes," she says. "I think you are right. Though... I think Sorey is having fun with it. And he may have already been homesick. He... isn't from the sort of place you or I come from."
She lets that statement sit there, as she moves onto Rose's next point, and sits up straight. "W-Well, that is true. I am almost certainly the only princess from Lunar here. And I do quite like a few things about Filgaia. The taste of heal berries, instead of gels... oh, and the railroads are fascinating. And the ARMs."
A beat.
"And the fashion, though I haven't worked up the nerve to try any of it, yet," she says.
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
Rose's superpower is bouncing. Never underestimate it.
"It's like they say, you gotta make the best of a bad situation. Leave the worrying to other people. I know it's not just some switch you can flick, but you should take example on Sorey." Rose catches what she just said. "For... some things. Maybe not everything he does." That's better.
Talk of fashion gets Rose beaming as she sees in Alisha's facts an opportunity. "Is that so? We do deal with some fabric and clothing shops, you know. We could work something out sometime. If you want to do something, you should go for it! The question is, what kind of Filgaian fashion? It seems to vary a lot between kingdoms here. Way more than back hom--" Rose stops. She's reminded of something, so much so in fact that her head perks back up and she slams a closed fist in her other hand.
"Ah-ha! That's right! I meant to ask you. Why're you dressed in red and pink, anyway? I thought Hyland's color was mostly blue, doesn't that make you stand out amongst the knights and royalty?"
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha giggles. "Yes," she agrees, "not everything. But Sorey does have a unique outlook on life."
She tilts her head to the side -- and she follows, nodding along. She noticed the difference in fashion between the two kingdoms. Who could not? Aveh wore clothing suitable for the desert, while Adlehyde had that look that was a little like Rolance but more refined -- and yet relaxed. And, of course, there were the dusters, the hats, and the rest.
She opens her mouth, to say them, but then Alisha has a question posed to her. She stares, mouth open. "Oh--oh, well... my mother loved pink and red. She was... she thought they were beautiful. They were some of her favorite flowers. So I designed my uniform's colors in her memory."
There is an unspoken 'however,' though. Alisha actually looks away.
"...and..." She coughs, and her cheeks flush. "...I think it looks very cute, too."
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
Rose laughs. "So there's a princess under all the layers of knight after all, is there? You should be careful who you entrust with that information, some of us have less than noble intentions," she says, with her usual devious plan-on-her-mind grin. Rose may be a cat. It isn't clear. "But who am I to talk!" She indicates the red of her tunic and the pink bolero under the black and white jacket.
Maybe her plan was just getting Alisha's mind off the homesickness. On that front she seems to be rather successful. As the mabo curry buns finally start rolling out, a small basket full of them is deposited between Rose and Alisha on their table, the buns still smoking hot, owning to the fact they're fresh. What a smell too!
"Ah, to answer your other, I do cook them sometimes. Honestly, there's a lot of better cooks than me in the Sparrowfeathers so I don't insist on cooking that often. It's a nice way to relax sometimes. And experiment! Did you know alcohol can be mixed into almost anything if you do it right?" It doesn't always taste good, but she leaves that unsaid.
"If I could've asked you without it being suspicious I'd have asked if you have a favorite meal and done something with that."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"W-Well... I am a princess, too. I consider the knight more important, but... I suppose you have me there," the princess answers, smiling sideways at Rose -- and wondering if she is, in fact, a cat.
She looks up when the mabo curry buns come over. Those green eyes light up; she sits up straighter, hair spilling down around her shoulders, and she nods eagerly at the smell. She waits on biting in, though. She knows they could burn her mouth.
"You must be a good cook," Alisha says. "I have never had the chance to cook much. Or learn to cook." As a princess, she never had a chance to.
"You can mix alcohol into anything?" she asks. "Even... cake? I suppose--hmm. Curry is one of my favorites. But I also love a roast boar. My favorite, though, is spice cake! What is yours? If I had to guess--" She taps a finger against her chin. "Maybe something spicy?"
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"ANYTHING!" Rose insists. "If you can't put alcohol into it I hear it isn't real food. Or was it that if you can't fry it it isn't food..." A question for the ages. It's probably the latter though. "Roasted meat goes well with most wines and some beers for sure. The trick is to not put so much that the flavor of the alcohol overwhelms the meat or worse, gets you drunk. You can't savor a good meal when you're struggling to even think right! It's really popular with warriors, you can make a killing setting up shop in front of a city's militia's barracks and selling some meat and wine."
If Alisha ever wants to be a merchant she'll have great advice to start with. Maybe not so much great advice to learn to cook with though.
"Chocolate and coffee mix better if you want to make a cake, but rum complements it pretty well too. There's a lot more trial and error baking than roasting, let me tell you!"
Then she considers. Favorite. Hm. "Weeeell... spice cake goes with a lot of things, but my favorite thing to cook is baumkuchen. It's the baking equivalent to roasting meat, funny enough! I don't mean to brag," she says, lying through her teeth, "But I'm REALLY good at making it." That's... true. Most of the time. "So I guess next time we want to cheer you up we're going to be baking. Wonder if I could make spice baumkuchen..." One disaster, coming up.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"R-Really?" Alisha asks. "I never... well, you can cook alcohol, can't you?" She stares, half-agape for a moment, and then she nods slowly. "That... that sounds very impressive. I admit, I think many of the soldiers in Hyland's army would be very interested in that arrangement."
She isn't sure of the taste.
She calsps her hands together, though, when Rose tells her about making baumkuchen. Her eyes light up, before she nods. "Oh, could we try that sometime? I--well, I haven't baked much. I love to eat at bakeries, but... it wasn't easy to find time to spend in the kitchens."
They tended to shoo her away from them. The kitchens were no place for a princess. "I would love to try your baumkuchen!"
Alisha has no idea, really. She looks down at her mabo curry bun. She pokes it with a finger, to check the heat -- and then she lifts her bun up, and bites into it. Her face scrunches up, before she swallows. "Mm! It's just like back home!"
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Sure! I'll have to look around for fresh lemons and some honey, but we can make it work sometime." If only Rose knew that the reason she can consistently get that recipe right is because of a certain Seraph fanning the flames to prevent overcooking and distribute heat evenly. That there is also the reason she can't pull it off consistently! He isn't always around.
Rose takes a bite into her own bun, seeing Alisha finally do so. Her expression isn't far from the princess', Rose does love a good mabo curry bun. It'd been a while since she had any and nobody can say the saloon's staff doesn't know what it's doing.
"I know, right? Now you can taunt Sorey for having had some before him! How's he doing, anyway? That battle at the port city really did a number on him. Oh yeah!"
Books. Rose reaches for her backpack and pulls a bunch of books, maps and papers out, setting them on the table. "Here, these are for him. I only took a few of them, we kind of had to split this four or five way. It looks like someone or something has his sight set on that ruined village nearby, and they were keeping track of Adlehyde's military movements in the area too. Hard to say how old these are but I thought he might be interested in something to do that ISN'T about his Shepherdly duties."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Oh, wonderful!" she says, with a bright smile -- and a cheerful nod. If Rose's plan was to make her think about something else, it worked wonders.
Even when she asks about Sorey, she looks thoughtful instead of depressed. "Sorey's... I think he is doing well. He is very resilient. But... he has to take a lot on his shoulders, and Malevolence isn't easy for him to handle. I wish that I could do more to help him."
But that isn't easy.
And then, she looks up when Rose pulls out the books, maps, and more. She gasps a little, before she nods -- and starts to collect the books, looking them over. "I-I see! Where did you find these?"
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"I wouldn't know anything about Malevolence or anything like that, so I'll take your word for it," Rose says, without dwelling on the matter. Better that than giving a paranoid glance around the room trying to spot ghosts she knows she can't see.
"Oh, it was at the bottom of some cave near Timney. Same direction all those animals ran in after the fight. There were some ruins there, signs someone had been around. And a big... monster. Some kind of multi-headed lizard. Pretty mean, almost chomped me right off my feet! We found these past it. Someone must have been using the cave as a hideout before either getting eaten by that thing or deciding to leave in a hurry."
Now that she thinks about it... "There were a lot of tunnels we couldn't reach. There might be more to find in there! Hopefully with that big lizard dead there's nothing left in there to eat anyone."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"It's... I can't see it, but it is terrible," Alisha says, with a stare forward.
She looks sideways at Rose -- and pieces together what she means. Ragnell told her about the expedition into the cave, while Alisha was tending to those in Port Timney. "That is--yes, I heard about this!" she declares. "I... I am relieved that you were not hurt. Or the others."
She frowns, then, and nods. "I may need to explore it, myself," she says. "I am worried about... where those Hellions came from. Filgaia--Filgaia never had Malevolence, before."
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Hey, like I told Sorey, maybe it's a lot less complicated than you think. Whatever pulled us here could have pulled Malevolence here too, or at least someone with the power to spread it, right? It could also just be that if there's no records of it existing it's because people can't see it, like on Lunar. Really, it could be any number of things! It doesn't have to be some portent of doom, sheesh."
Rose makes light of it. It's a defense mechanism.
Boy those curry buns are good, too.
Talking with her mouth full, she decides to impose herself. "Hey, if you decide to go, I'll go with! ... who'd you hear this about, anyway? Was it one of those Seraphim?! One of them just picked a pile of books up when we left, it was REALLY creepy, they were just floating around and-- just-- all these surprise jolts and earth spikes and slabs and... w-what a bunch of jerks, hmph!" Hmph indeed, she even turns her head to the side to accentuate her disgust. Or disdain. It's really fear, though. "I mean I'm glad they were helping us out but.."
+bbread 2/36
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha is starting to catch onto the defense mechanism. She nods, though, while she considers it. "It could be... I hope."
She isn't so sure.
She doesn't mind, somehow, the imposition. Alisha had been dangerously close to brooding. She looks up at Rose and tilts her head, before she smiles. "Yes, it was a Seraphim. They aren't so bad, Rose. They are... I used to worship them. I still revere them, but I have seen they are not so different than us." A beat. "Besides being invisible. But..."
She nods. "I would like it if you came! I could use the help," she says. "And you really could handle yourself in a fight. I was wondering, actually, ah--could we spar some time? It helps to keep myself sharp."
And, besides, there was something familiar about how Rose fought... but it couldn't be the same style as that assassin.
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"That's the thing! They're invisible! How does that NOT creep you out? They could be watching everything you do! Pranking you anytime they want! That bath and shower of yours in the castle, NOT EVEN THAT IS SACRED! It's just really creepy! They could be doing anything and you'd only know what they want you to!" Also ghosts are scary, OK?
Mabo curry buns will, luckily, ail all ills, including a phobia of ghosts. Rose chews and eventually stops talking with her mouth full by virtue of being out of food. A brow raises at the request, and she sees no harm in it. "Sure, but I don't know that I can hold my own against someone with your training. Eguille taught me a lot a neat tricks to defend myself in case of bandit attacks and such and it's paying dividends right now, but I'm no warrior-princess." Whether she's being humble or lying, you decide.
"You should rest first either way! You look like you haven't slept in days. The food's helped your tint a bit."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"They--they would not do such a thing!" Alisha says, her expression screwing up, and she shakes her head quickly. "I-I believe--it is sort of nice, like they... watch over me, when times are difficult, and... they certainly wouldn't watch me when I bathe!"
She blushes and looks down. But, there are curry buns.
She looks back at Rose, though, and nods. "Then, we can do that soon. But, you are correct." She stifles a yawn. "I should sleep soon. After I finish eating and take a walk, though."
She smiles, again. "Thank you, Rose. This did a lot to improve my mood."