The arrangement for kitchen duty amongst the ranks of the Shepherds had gotten much more complicated when future children started appearing. Obviously they weren't going to disallow these kids from joining up with their parents, even if they weren't their parents and there was no indication that a current-timeline version of any of these children (minus the one already existing) would be made anytime soon. So that meant adding more hands into the kitchen area when mealtimes came around, to provide enough food for the growing army in the trying times they currently were in.
But because people were quick to jump into places where they weren't necessarily needed, some of the mealtime teams were unbalances and clearly built for gossip purposes rather than productivity. And this was something that bothered Lon'qu, any time he had to step into the kitchen and found the almost unbearable duo of Cordelia and Sumia in there, chattering away while they attempted to bake some kind of dessert to follow his potato-heavy main course. It didn't matter how long he was in there, or how many different dishes he was cooking to please the appetites of all members of the Shepherds, the two ladies would constantly get on him for the same things, the same way, each and every time.
"You know, you're going to make someone sick one of these nights," Cordelia called after him, while he was busy peeling enough potatoes to feed an army their size several times over. "You'll forget that you have dietary restrictions to adhere to, and you'll provide the wrong person the wrong meal, and you'll have everyone breathing down your neck for killing someone with your subpar cooking."
"Until I see you doing this job rather than your unnecessary one, I won't hear a word of your nonsense," he snapped back, not looking up from his potatoes while he spoke. "Why don't you spend your time focusing on what you do best, and staying far away from me while you're at it?"
She had a point that he always had to keep in mind, but it wasn't Cordelia of all people that he wanted to hear it from; the spouse of someone with a food intolerance, or the person themselves, if they'd come to tell him to be careful he'd follow their word without a second thought. Well, that, and if they were preferably not a gossipy female who had no business bothering him while he was working. He hadn't messed up a meal once and he wasn't going to as long as he could focus on what he was doing, and Cordelia approaching him to remind him in her condescending way that he needed to keep things in mind wasn't helping him focus even slightly.
"I don't get why he does this almost every evening, when there's so many other people who'd be better at it," she grumbled, while watching Sumia piece together one of many pies they were making. "Even those who've poisoned some of us with their cooking would be better than him, because they at least care about the group as a whole. He doesn't, he could see half of us dead and he'd think we're better for it!"
"He's just focused on his task and he really likes working with potatoes, leave him be." Just like she always did, Sumia tried to put a stop to the bickering and the hatred shared between the other two, but her words were falling on deaf ears, as Cordelia was not going to drop the issue until Lon'qu knew that he was in the wrong. That was, unfortunately, how it had been since they'd all started being on kitchen duty together, and she knew that there wasn't going to be anything that stopped it until something big changed for one of the two of them.
Unfortunately, and Sumia knew this, it wasn't going to be something happening to Cordelia to spark anything; she already was tentatively married and had already met her future child, anything short of grievous injury wasn't going to change much about her. That meant that if anything was going to budge here, it was going to be on Lon'qu's end, and she just didn't see that happening, not when he was a cold, uncaring person to every lady that ever approached him, and the guys he did interact with weren't exactly thrilled to talk to him either. How was something life-changing and dramatic going to happen to the one person in the world who wasn't receptive to that sort of thing?
It'd happen eventually, through the luck of the draw, but for it to happen it'd take a meal gone wrong, a Shepherd in the wrong place at the right time, and a few good wings disappearing into thin air.
There was zero indication beforehand that something bad was about to take place, although the clues should have been there when different hands had been called into the kitchen to help prepare for that day's after-training meal. "It's rather dumb that certain members of this army are the ones constantly in here," Lon'qu grumbled as he rifled through different kitchen tools, looking for the blade he trusted most when peeling potatoes. "Pulled early from the battlefield, and for what? To cook for ungrateful, disrespectful—"
"Soldiers and warriors who are getting to battle alongside their children from the future. You don't have to take out your frustration on those kids, they're just doing what they can to help us out, and Chrom's rewarding them with some family time." Sumia sighed as she spoke, also feeling the sting of being told that her time for training that day was over before everyone else's so that she could help cook. "But if it's any consolation to you, which I'm sure it's not, at least it's just me in here today with you?"
A pause, where Lon'qu glared at her as she too took her normal position in the kitchen, by the makeshift oven she always baked with. "I'd prefer that no women were in here with me, but if I have to take the loss I suppose it's best it's you and not your overbearing friend."
"That's a compliment if I've ever heard one." Watching as he continued looking for his blade, Sumia considered leaving her prep work for a second to help him in his search, but the sound of unfamiliar footsteps entering the area startled her. She was used to Cordelia coming in at the start of cooking, but she knew that she was out training with her daughter, and everyone else who would realistically have been coming in there at that moment was an infantry unit and light on their feet for it. Whoever this was, they weren't someone whose skill on the battlefield depended on their feet getting them places.
She and Lon'qu both looked to see who it was at the same time, and his disdain for another female presence in the kitchen. "I was asked if I would assist in the meal preparation today, and while watching everyone train was not something I intended on doing, I was planning on spending time with the mounts that are boarded alongside my sweet Minerva, but doing this ruins that, doesn't it?" Cherche's laugh was hollow, as was the smile she was showing at the two already in the kitchen, and when she caught Lon'qu and his glare aimed at her she quickly fought him for it. "Is there an issue here? By all means, you can bring it up with me. It's the meal of your allies you'll be harming if you do."
Although her laugh and expression had been meaningless, her words rang with a certain kind of seriousness that Lon'qu dared not to deal with. "No, no issues at all. Just stay on your side of the kitchen and I'll handle mine." He held up a blade (not his normal one for potatoes but as close as he was going to get) and turned to start working, only for her to sweep up beside him, her body inches away from his as she looked for tools of her own. Sumia, standing back where she belonged, was trying her hardest to keep from giving audible giggles at the awkward encounter happening in front of her, but when she saw Lon'qu turn and stare, jaw tightly locked in a barely-hanging position, she lost control and bent over the counter, laughing until she cried.
"I fail to see what's so humorous here," Cherche dryly said, picking out different spoons and knifes for her own cooking. Her attention was everywhere but on Lon'qu, and he knew that was the case; she wasn't going to feed into his dislike of women intentionally, but she wasn't going to avoid him like every other woman tried to do. She was going to live her life the way she wanted to, and he was going to have to deal with it. "Anyway, now that we've gotten prepared, is there anything in particular you're expecting me to cook, or is it my own decision today?" Just like that, she was already bringing it back to their job, and he was still stuck on the fact that this woman was so close to him!
"You decide, it's not every day there's someone in here who might know a thing or two about cooking real meals." He'd clenched his jaw before he spoke, his words coming out forced to make it clear that didn't want to speak with her at all, but he recognized that he had no choice but to offer clear communication with her. "Just tell me what you want to do with the potatoes today. And no stew, they've made far too much stew in my time with the Shepherds and I refuse to do it tonight."
"I'll see what I can manage." Her smile then was still as fake as it had been before, but perhaps that was just the way her face worked. She took up a spot a few paces away from where Lon'qu was, making him grumble that she hadn't listened about being on her side after all, but with how frequently she was calling for diced, sliced, halved potatoes, it was for the best that she wasn't any further away.
There was just one thing, aside from her overall presence, that struck him as odd, but he wasn't going to call her out on it until he knew what she was doing. Never once did it seem like she had a separate meal going for anyone in the army who wouldn't enjoy a potato-filled meal, which was the standard when on kitchen duty, but with the sheer amount of food she was preparing on her own he assumed he might have missed it. Not like it really mattered to him, he wasn't going to spend his time worrying about what she was doing, or what the other woman there was doing (which was baking desserts like always), because he needed to focus on his own task. After preparing potatoes he moved onto starting the small pre-meal snacks for everyone, bread slices and salads and things of the sort. They hadn't always had the time, funds, or manpower to make this worth it, but now that they did, he found that the creation of the appetizer round was enough to keep him busy until the main course was almost done.
He was too occupied with getting what he made set up for everyone to eat while they waited for the rest that he didn't bother checking to see if that separate meal had been made after all. Normally by that point someone else would have come in to remind the cooks of the dietary needs of the others, but when no one did he could easily have done it for them. But what was the point, the person it was protecting most was a woman, she wasn't the top priority he wanted to focus on. So the appetizers were made and he took them to the dining hall, the people who'd been out training filing in, tired and hungry, ready to eat what he was providing them with.
Once all of his contributions to the meal were served, he got his plate and took his seat in the furthest table from everyone, where he would sit alone unless someone felt like gracing him with their presence. All his so-called friends had families to spend time with, and they knew that he'd rather them not bring their female friends and children around him at any time, but especially not while eating. As he bit into one of the pieces of bread he'd reheated from the previous night's dinner, he caught the eye of one such "friend", who gave him a wave, almost beckoning for him to join where he sat; as soon as his hand dropped Lon'qu saw Cordelia sitting right next to him, stern-faced and looking angry with the world. He wasn't going to approach that, he was going to revel in the fact that he hadn't had to deal with her nonsense in the kitchen that evening and that was all he was going to do, he wasn't going to take up the offer to join her family.
"You're stupid if you think I'd ever spend my time in the presence of a woman willingly," he said under his breath, returning a wave to his friend before remembering that, actually, it might just be that he was stupid. "I'd rather dine alone every day for the rest of my life before I spent a minute in her presence on my own time."
"Ooh cool, who are you talking about?" A plate was set down beside Lon'qu's, and he broke from his intense fixation on the family across the room to look at the person who'd chosen to sit with him, of all places. Of course it was Henry, who else would be willing to do such a thing without worry about angering a spouse? "You weren't supposed to look at me. I was going to get up next to you and look where you were looking to answer for myself."
Raising an eyebrow at what he'd heard, Lon'qu shrugged it off and went back to eating, picking the bread apart before putting pieces in his mouth. "Boy you don't seem like you're going to be very talkative tonight, but don't worry! I can do the talking for the two of us!" Cackling, Henry sat down, scooting up right next to Lon'qu much like Cherche had back in the kitchen, although his disrespect of personal boundaries wasn't quite as bothersome. "So, how goes it there, new pal? You like death jokes?"
"I like making people's death threats into jokes," Lon'qu replied after swallowing down what was in his mouth. "But actual jokes about death, not so much."
Nodding like he had just heard the biggest news reveal of his life, Henry grinned, his eyes squinting closed like they belonged that way. "I can work with that. Animal jokes are still on the table, right?"
"I'd prefer no jokes, if you're offering."
"Okay, no to the joking. We'll see if that's a 'forever' thing, or if I can get you to change your mind on it eventually." He cracked one eye open to watch to see if Lon'qu would give any kind of reaction, but when he was met with the same kind of silence and inaction as always, the eye came back closed. "You're expecting me to make some crow blows, aren't you?"
Inhaling deeply, Lon'qu raised a hand to point towards a table that was anywhere but where they were currently sitting. "You've overstayed your welcome, I'd prefer if you'd leave now."
"A man makes one crow pun and he's suddenly getting kicked off the roost! What's up with that? Where's your sense of humor?" Lon'qu was about to explain to Henry in simple terms that his sense of humor wasn't going to be triggered by bad puns, but the mage seemed to understand it without a word being said. He stood back up, leaving his plate where he'd dropped it, and started towards where Lon'qu had been pointing. "Okay, okay, I get it, no need to be so rude! You're pecking at my eyes here, leave me alone!"
Judging by how he wouldn't stop laughing as he walked off, it was fairly obvious that Henry saw the whole exchange as a joke anyway, which angered Lon'qu somewhat. He didn't care to be someone that no one took seriously, like how they treated Henry, and he felt that being subjected to those kinds of jokes would lead to everyone seeing him as if he was that same way. Being averse to women was enough of an issue, having the Shepherds think he wasn't more than a laughingstock for other reasons wasn't something he needed.
He went right back to eating, finishing up what he'd grabbed for himself and resisting the temptation to eat off Henry's plate, when he heard Henry come back to the table, bringing with him two servings of whatever it was Cherche had made for them. "You went to bring the main course?" he asked, confused, as Henry set his meal down in front of him before sitting back down. "After I told you to leave?"
"I'm not that easy to push away, I just come back stronger. And this time, stronger means with food for a new friend! Now eat up, that was all that was left when I got over there. This food's being scooped up faster than anything!" As Henry laughed, Lon'qu looked at how what he was given seemed to be different than what he'd brought for himself, something interesting as he could have sworn that there weren't alternate meals made. "Oh, are you confused? I left out the broth part for myself, Cherche said it had bear meat in it and I wasn't going to submit to eating a cuddly friend today. At least she made more than that for people like me, am I right?"
"I suppose so, although…" Lon'qu eyed his own food suspiciously. "If she didn't make any broth without bear meat, she might have forgotten to make parts of the meal without potatoes as well." He pursed his lips together, before shaking his head. "I'm not worrying with that, if she failed that one simple task that is entirely on her and her planning."
Henry gave him a once-over, chuckling once he saw how serious Lon'qu was with what he said. "You're a strange one, mister 'I don't like ladies one bit'. What if one of them saved you on the battlefield, huh? What about then?"
"That assumes that I'd be on the battlefield near any of them, but in that instance I would find it within myself to be grateful for their actions." Lon'qu wasn't going to allow for the narrative of him despising women to continue being thrown around, when it was more of a dislike that had him wary of them than anything. "Besides, at this time, the focus is on families and children on the battlefield. I have neither here, therefore my fighting time is limited, so there is no reason to worry about what I'd do fighting alongside a woman."
Tapping a finger to his chin, Henry considered how to reply for a few moments before choosing to forget about things and get to eating, something that Lon'qu appreciated because it meant he could eat as well without seeming to be rude. The two fell silent as they ate what food they had, but the silence was exclusive to only them, as the rest of the people in the dining hall were rowdy and talking up a storm, an ambience that Lon'qu was thankful he wasn't having to be an active part of. Everyone else too fell silent eventually as they all started focusing more on food than conversation, and in due time the room became quiet aside from the sounds of chewing and cutlery scraping across plates.
But the silence wasn't meant to be, as the horrified shrieking coming from the furthest table on the other side of the room broke everyone else into a panic. It sounded initially like they were being ambushed during mealtime, but when few people jumped to action and even fewer actually left the room, that turned out to not be the case. Lon'qu was ready to push that disruption from his mind when someone new approached the table, and in ignoring them he caused Henry to tug on his arm violently. "Hey, you've got company!"
"I've got…what?" Now his attention was drawn to the person who'd come to visit, someone looking a bit shaken and confused but not upset or anything. "Oh, hello there, Stahl. It was odd not seeing you stop by before dinner to make sure everything was to your liking. Is something the matter?"
Judging by how Stahl seemed to be trying to find the necessary words to reply, he knew he was in for a ride of an explanation once those words were discovered. He didn't even speak before someone else was there to do it for him, a sweeping approach by one of the people Lon'qu never wanted at his table. "I heard what she said when she stormed out, I have no doubt but to believe that Lon'qu is the one responsible for this," Cordelia said, voice uncaring as she spoke. "He's always the one insistent on potato usage, he must have let it slip through his mind to make sure that we had a dish prepared without it."
"I only peeled the potatoes tonight," he replied, choosing to look at Stahl over Cordelia because of how much he could not stand her. "The one you're looking to blame here is Cherche, she was the one to do the majority of the cooking, whatever problems you have tonight you need to take up with her. My job was done correctly, she's the one who failed."
"Okay, but that doesn't take back that you know you're supposed to make sure this doesn't happen." Stahl shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, trying not to let his concern show through too much. "Now I'm never going to hear the end of this, because this only happens on nights when I'm not cooking, but how am I supposed to cook all the time? They get mad that I taste-test everything too much!"
Cordelia, side-eyeing Lon'qu, put a gentle hand on Stahl's back. "Now, now, don't put any of the blame for this on yourself. Panne will understand what happened, it's happened before and it will certainly happen again as long as we have people in the kitchen who don't care for people like her." She paused, seeing how Lon'qu stiffened and narrowed his glare at her while she was talking. "Come on, let's go track her down. Chances are she's hiding somewhere to suffer until it all passes, we don't want her to be alone for that, do we?"
That was enough to get the two of them to leave, but as they walked away, Lon'qu was mocking Cordelia's last words, his face contorted as he tried getting her exact mannerisms down. "You know, I don't get what your problem with her is," Henry admitted, not fazed slightly by anything that had happened (even though there was clear disappointment in his eyes that the shrieks hadn't been someone dying). "She seems like a nice woman! What a shame that she was already taken when I got here, I could use someone like her in my life!"
"There's always someone else like her, don't worry." Lon'qu wondered if maybe Stahl had approached Sumia as well over this or if he knew she wouldn't have touched anything remotely close to a potato in cooking, before asking himself why, exactly, he cared about what happened to her. "It doesn't matter, honestly. All women are the same. They blame the men for their shortcomings and guilt us into apologizing for it."
"Here's an idea, why don't you take this into your own hands? You clear your name, you make them learn that you can't be blamed for this, you feel good about it after!" Henry laughed, bringing a hand to cover his mouth before he started spitting food everywhere in his hysterics. "I'd be your wingman in that case, if you'd be interested!"
Considering the idea for not even a second, Lon'qu shook his head. "I would rather not. My place in fights is with a weapon, not with words. If they choose to blame me, as long as I know my innocence that's all that matters." With that, he went back to eating, paying no attention to anything going on around him like he usually did.
Henry wasn't going to let things go as easily, even though he didn't have a complete grasp on what was happening, and he made a mental note to press further at Lon'qu when the time came. At that moment, though, he knew that if he was going to help clear his new friend's name, he had to find the person responsible for what had gone wrong and get her to come clean about everything. But how was he going to do that, when it seemed Cherche had never come into the dining hall after cooking? He'd encountered her in the kitchen when he went to get food, so he couldn't say that she was ever not in there. Finding her was going to be top priority, and then he'd clear Lon'qu's name for him.
This wasn't going to be a one-night fix, but doing nothing right then wasn't going to help either, so he excused himself with a laugh, running outside without any weapons or reasons to think he'd need one. The moment he was a fair bit away from the door, unable to hear anyone inside or anyone who might have been outside, he tried to summon his raven friends to accompany him on his quest—and found that not a single feather appeared. Not a claw or a beak to be found.
That was odd, and he had the (rather hilarious, in his mind) feeling that it was only going to get odder from there.
A/N: This is part 1/5 of my birthday fic for a few characters that I feel I should celebrate this year. They're all in this already, but in the next part we'll get to piece them together a bit better c:
let me know what you think and I'll see you on the next birthday~