• Completed • A Spoonful of Sugar

[Ashira Ward]

Vhalar 96

"The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never today."

Ashira needed to process her dolls eyes. The berries would only stay usable for so long after all. After thinking about it, she'd decided to turn it into jam. Everett knew better than to take anything from her work room without knowing for absolute certain what it was, so there was no danger there. This of course brought up another hole in her education. Ashira had no idea how to make jam. Not really. You put the berries in a pot and then.. Something. Somehow they magically turned into jam. She needed to uncover and enact these mysterious middle steps. Luckily she knew somewhere that held almost any and all knowledge, for those who knew how to find it. The Library. Why not? She was a resident now, she was entitled to two books per week, and there was absolutely nothing suspicious about a woman, newly in charge of her own household fetching a book that taught her recipes.

So she found herself within the Library, and in truth she was a little awed by the size and scope of it. Back home there'd been a bookshelf full of medical texts, often dog eared and stained from use. Blood on this page, tonic of one sort or another on that. The margins filled with notes and observations from other healers past and present.Useful yes, absolutely, but it was like a candle compared to a bonfire. For all that she'd intended to go straight for what she'd needed, Ashira found herself browsing the shelves, fingers running over the spines, reading the titles she could make out. Some were so embellished that even though they were in common she couldn't read them, others were in languages utterly alien to her. In spite of herself, she found herself in the fiction section, glancing around furtively before taking a closer look at some of the titles.

She pulled one of them off the shelf, reading the title 'Halycon and the Cylus Winds'. It was apparently part of a series, all centred on the titular heroine, Halycon. Flipping through the pages, she was stopped by a rather racy illustration of an attractive woman and man in an intimate embrace. It was clear they had just started to disrobe, but were not yet in a state that would be entirely inappropriate to illustrate. If the story carried on where the picture left of though... Blushing she snapped the book shut. She went to put it back on the shelf and. Hesitated. She transferred it to be carried under her arm and then moved to the other sections of the Library. She got two books. She only need one with instructions on how to make jam. The other could be whatever she wanted, and if she happened to want to know what Halycon did with the Cylus Winds, well that was no ones business but her own.

There was in fact quite a large section on cookery, and it took her some time to find a book with what she wanted. There were so many it was almost overwhelming. She'd risked a look inside one that promised fine gourmet dining, and found that although it was in Common, she had no idea what half the things it said actually meant. Braise this and sautee that. The drawings of the food looked quite nice, it had that going for it at least. Far beyond her current capabilities though and not what she needed. She slid it back into it's waiting slot and carried on. Eventually she found one called 'The Humble Farmers Kitchen Guide'. The words it used were for the most part quite small, if occasionally misspelled, and there were often picture instructions to go with the written. Now if it only had... Aha! She'd been flipping through the book and stopped, having reached a picture of several berries and a jar. The title of the page was simply 'Jam'. She skimmed it and came to the conclusion that yes, this was a recipe she could follow. It was simple and there were not many ingredients. All she had to do was to approach it as though she was mixing a medicine or potion and she should be fine.

[Ashira Ward]

She brought the books to the front, where she was given a stern warning that the cookbook would be checked when she brought it back and there had best not be any stains on it, had her particulars recorded and was out the door and headed home. At least the librarian had been too busy warning her about the cookbook to comment in the other, which was a blessing considering Ashira had been about ready to melt through the floor in embarrassment if it was commented upon. Even a conspiratorial eyebrow wiggle might have been enough to at the very least keep her from willingly returning. It seemed she was in the clear however.

Entering her home, after removing her footwear and cloak, she curled into the reading chair. First she opened the Humble Farmer, finding the jam section once more. Brows drawn together, she read. It looked like there actually wasn't a lot between berries in pot and jam. The secret step seemed to be before the berries. You needed something called pectin. Pectin was, as far as she could understand, a catalyst. It was what made the jam become, well, jam. Without it you got runny goop. Well this wasn't beyond her understanding. She used such things when making medicines and poisons. The book had several options, and noted that some berries contained pectin themselves. The best and most cost efficient, it suggested, was the common crab apple. Well that was easy enough, there were still a few stragglers holding on to the branches, surely enough to make one jar of jam in any case. She wouldn't even need to go all the way to one of the woods, she could think of a few trees just outside the city walls off the top of her head, as long as even one of them had a few apples left she'd be set.

Looking slightly guilty, rather than head straight out the door, she tucked her feet more firmly underneath herself and started the first chapter of Halycon and the Cylus Winds.

Now Halycon as you might recall, was a most wilful girl who grew into a wilful child, and this book relates the strange happenings of one Cylus as accurately as can be recalled...

A chapter, and a little over half a break later, Ashira closed the book, picked up her gather basket, and headed out once more. The first tree she approached had already lost all its fruit, and although there was a little on the ground, most of it was rotten, and Ashira wanted no part of it, and left it were it was. The second tree she got lucky, and there was still fruit upon it, though she struggled to mostly fill her basket with only the ones she could reach as she'd no wish to try and climb the twisted little tree. Judging she had enough, she reentered the city by way of the market. Within it she bought blueberry, strawberry and blackberries, at one gold for the lot. It was the sugar that was the dearest, as there was apparently a shortage, and a pound of that alone cost one gold, when normally it would cost half of that. The recipe had suggested she would need around two pounds. She considered skimping, but decided against it. This might have started its life as a cooking recipe, but what it truly was was poison, and poison as with medicine was improved by exactness. So as much as she felt she was being terribly ripped of, she parted with the two gold. Her total rose to four and four silver when she added two lemons to her basket. This done, she once more turned her feet homeward.

Before she began she carefully checked the book again, casting a longing glance towards the other book. To start she set all the ingredients upon the counter and stoked the fire. Then she washed the apples, and sliced them, though she left both peel and core. The Humble Farmer had been quite clear on that. Once washed and sliced, she dumped them in a pot. Apparently shew as now meant to add four cups of water. She was fairly certain cups was one of those cooking terms that didn't necessarily mean what it sounded like, because how could the Humble Farmer know what size cups she owned? In any case, she had no special measuring tools, so she took a glass from the cupboard, considered it for a moment, and dumped three and a half actual cups of water into the pot. She could always add more. Taking some out might be harder. Then you were meant to add two tablespoons of lemon juice. Again, she was fairly certain that the actual practical spoon of the same name was not the precise size. She shrugged, cut one of the lemons in half and squeezed it into the pot. Half a lemon wasn't all that much juice. It should be fine. Probably.

Then she simply left it to boil, and with almost impish glee, retreated to her chair and book.

[Ashira Ward]

Halycon, after doing some investigating, learned that the unusually strong and cold winds had started on the precise night when the new Lord moved into the abandoned estate, at the exact stroke of midnight...

Again, after a little more than half a break of reading, she rose to check the pot. The mixture had been reduced by about a half, and looked wholly unappetising and mushy to her. This was apparently what was supposed to happen however. She used a large bandage which she intended to simply wash out later, and strained the mixture into a second smaller pot. The solids she threw out onto her small excuse for a garden, where they could act as fertiliser. The liquid was put back onto the stove to boil. The Humble Farmer felt this could take another twenty bits or so, hopefully enough to learn more about this mysterious new Lord.

Quite curiously, Halycon found it exceedingly difficult to find any more details on Lord Leopold Mountbatten, and those she did find were dreadfully contradictory, for it was the custom of the lowborn to make up tales about their betters. Some said that he'd been sent from the Capital, banished from Andaris in disgrace. Others said he'd withdrawn himself to be in mourning. Some even went so far as to suggest that perhaps he was even a Mortalborn, one of those rare children of the Immortals, come to live in peace and obscurity. Apparently her digging, for all that she had tried to be discreet, had not gone unnoticed. Just before lunch on one particularly blustery day, a very old man in a good quality, but well worn suit knocked upon the door.

"Yes?" Inquired Halycon bravely, hand clutched to her chest, wondering whoever this could be.

"Young Lord Leopold suggests that if you are going to be asking questions about him, you could have the courtesy of asking him yourself rather than getting the entire village stirred up. He invites you to tea. The carriage is waiting."

"Oh my!" Gasped Halycon. "Why I've not even done my hair, I must look a frightful mess, I couldn't go up in this state, you will simply have to-"

"Young Lord Leopold," the butler interjected strongly "is not a man accustomed to beign kept waiting or told no. You may either come to tea and satisfy your curiosity, or I would strongly suggest you keep your nose out of other peoples business!"

"I say!" Halycon gasped again, not certain how to reply to this, unused to being treated so coarsely. What sort of man was this Lord Mountbatten to employ such a crude fellow? She just had to know! And so she primly stepped out to the waiting carriage...

[Ashira Ward]

Reluctantly, Ashira marked her page and rose once more. The liquid had certainly reduced, though it had not boiled dry, for which she was glad as she felt she may have left it a touch over twenty bits. She moved it off the heat as she processed the berries, really she could have done this earlier but well, she was quite enjoying Halycons adventures, and she'd not even got to the bit with the interesting picture yet.

She rinsed of the berries, taking care to remove any stems, leaves or the like. With a fork, she gave them a bit of a crushing, particularly the strawberries so they wouldn't be quite so large. She couldn't quite remember whether you were supposed to add the berries or the sugar first and she didn't want to touch the book again without washing her hands, which had some of the berry juice on them currently, so with a shrug, she dumped the berries and about half the sugar in and started stirring. Once she had the first sugar largely mixed in, she dumped in the other half. Then because she vaguely remembered the recipe saying it might be necessary, she squeezed the other half of the cut lemon in. It had been like a quarter cup of lemon juice of the like. How did a quarter cup compare to two teaspoons? Couldn't they just pick one unit of measurement and use that? Cooking was a bother.

Last she added the dolls eyes, and these she crushed well. With the mixture of berries it was unlikely anyone would be able to pick one out even if she'd not crushed them into being unrecognisable, but the more steps she took to protect herself the better. Pot back on the stove, she stood, stirring it. It was starting to look fairly jam-like and it smelled sweet. A small, idiotic part of her wanted to taste it, to see if it was good, if it was sweet enough. This was immediately squashed before it even became a proper thought. She might poison herself a little bit by accident occasionally, but she did not intend to die that way thank you, it was undignified. When it reached a proper boil, and even stirring did not change this, she took it from the stove again, she gave it another few stirs to reassure herself that the consistency was on, and set it aside to cool, content in a job well done. Or at least adequately done.

Now she could likely get another chapter in before it was cooled enough to jar...

[Andráska Venora]

Such a Beautiful Thread . . .

• Sorry this wasn't to you last night. D: Personally, I love reading solos showing small, slice of life moments of a PC so this was a great deal of fun for me. I not only got interested in Ashira's story, but that of Halycon. Great stuff. Your structure is perfect, and this flowed very easy for me. You made something so simple, so interesting, and I think that's an awesome feat. My favorite part was how practical your character approaches certain things (like making a jam), yet still finds time to tuck a racy novel under her arm. I couldn't help but smile at that.

Ashira Ward

Rating

5/0/5

Story: 5
Collaboration: x
Structure: 5

Knowledges

Cooking: Jams Need Pectin
Cooking: Crabapples are a natural source of pectin
Cooking: How to peel and slice apples for a recipe
Cooking: Sometimes Improvisation is Necessary
Gardening: Kitchen scraps can be good fertilizer
Mortalborns are the rare children of the Immortals
Poisons: Improved by exactness
Appraisal: Judging a book by its cover
Philosophy: There's just nothing like a good book.

Loot

Your berries are now a shady jam. I see that you already have this in your CS, so you're all good. As per Kingdom's new rule, however, I didn't see the two pots and bandage in your inventory used in this thread so will have to purchase those. Otherwise, you already calculated her shopping trip, so I think you're good to go.

Fame

N/A

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. . . I brought it a treat.

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