*clears throat* Ahem...
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPY BIIIIIIIIIRTHDAY SYYYYYYYYLPH~! :D
*cough cough* (Ow, I think I screamed a bit too much for my own good.)
Hehe, I wasn't really thinking to write a present for you - life and all can be such bastards when it comes to writing and fun - but this idea suddenly popped up while I was playing Radiant Mythology after a long time of being inactive on it. And mind you, my writing when it comes to FTaBV tends to become crack-ish 'what if's sometimes, so you now have a crack-ish 'what if' for a birthday fic!
Enjoy it (as much as you can anyway. I personally think I screwed it up around the ending of it)!
It was a rather uneventful day - filled with traveling, hacking away with monsters and the like. Though that struck Letha as slightly odd because something or the other happens everyday. And so, as night pulled its silent act over the world, the brunette couldn't help but feel a nagging sense of disaster bound to rear its not-wanted head into their path.
The woman idly flipped through her book's pages, not exactly concentrating as she tried to absorb the instructions and sketchy diagrams within. Something was just telling her to keep alert, and that wasn't exactly the best thing the brunette would like if asked (not that it would ever happen regardless) - some relaxation would be really nice for once.
Sighing, Letha snapped the book shut and tucked it into her bag, looking around the group's camp. Yuri, Estelle - who was just there in case an accident occurred. She was always a bit cautious as Yuri's roughness in battle became noticeable to the princess - and Judith had gone off for a spar, Repede seemed... half-asleep - perhaps he was just resting before dinner came around. It was a long day after all - with one ear perked up, Raven was annoying Rita - again - and Karol was setting up the remaining bits of camp.
With Flynn's help.
Letha frowned at that last bit. Sure, she knew Flynn would come into the group like in the PS3 version of the game, but she did have her doubts regardless. Who knew what his addition with her present would result in? Those sort of thoughts were bouncing through her head.
The sounds of feet crushing the ground and slight chatter murmured into her ears, breaking her thoughts - for once, she was happy for the distraction - as Yuri and Estelle, Judith right behind them, emerged from the wilderness. No one seemed to be distracted by their appearance, continuing with whatever they were doing. It was somehow a pleasant scene to the brunette, even though that annoying sixth sense thing was still giving her an uncomfortable feeling-
Until Estelle asked who would make dinner for tonight.
"Huh, wasn't the boss and the old man supposed to do that?" Yuri asked, an eyebrow lifted lightly. The boy only shook his head while Raven didn't seem to care if he got dinner duty or not. Rita frowned a bit as she looked at the others, scanning them intently. "...Wasn't Letha supposed to do it?"
"I helped out Judith last time," the twenty year old replied simply with a shrug. What bad thing could honestly happen now? It was just dinner! And no one could possibly screw up something like that in real life, even if this was a game-turned-reality.
...Wait-
"Yuri's supposed to do it tomorrow, I think," Estelle said, eyebrows scrunched up a bit as she rumaged through her memory. "While Rita and I helped out a few days ago..."
And that left Flynn, who promptly responded with, "Lady Estellise, perhaps I will prepare dinner for tonight." It wasn't a question.
Yuri's face lit up with extreme alarm, and everyone else paled rather remarkably at the knight's proposal - Repede made a few long, dragged-out whines as an exception - but the blond was already preparing dinner before they had a chance to jump in and offer to do it before he could start. As a result, everyone was now sitting a bit few ways away from Flynn, eyeing the pot either with grim or wary faces as an unusual color of steam - it was a faint, barely noticeable violet, and that enough was ringing alarm bells to them - blew out from what was a mixture of the blond's cooking.
"...What do we do?" Karol whispered, breaking the group's silence.
"We have to stop him, that's what," Rita stated with a flat face. It was an obvious question with an obvious answer, after all.
"And how do ya suppose we do that now?" Raven asked, expression naturally fearful. They all knew that Flynn's cooking was far more worse than even Estelle's and Rita's during their beginning time within the group, and if no one knew it, now it became crystal clear enough when the archer spotted a chicken's disembodied, mixture-drenched wing - it still had a few feathers intact, though was mostly (with evidently a novice's hand) skinned - curled weakly over the metallic rim of the pot. He immediately looked away.
"Ask if we can take over the cooking for him, or something like that?" Letha made a hopeful suggestion. She did not want to eat the knight's cooking ever since that time in the inn. And Flynn seemed to be putting his best efforts in it too. Dreadful signs.
"Y-Yuri, why don't you ask him first?" Estelle nervously asked the swordsman, her gloved fingers anxiously fiddling with the petal-cut cloth of her dress. The swordsman agreed, seeing that everyone else was hastily nodding to the idea, and got up from his spot near a tree.
Oh please, work. Letha pulled her fingers into a cross, biting her lip as she and the others carefully watched the swordsman try to sway his childhood friend into letting him help or to take over.
"So Flynn, how's it going?" The swordsman made eye-contact with the pot - and immediately snapped them away with a forced expression of calm. Looks like it might have been worse than what Raven might have thought it should look like.
"I'm just starting," the blond replied, cutting - or if you really don't want to be polite but bluntly honest, Flynn was just hacking away like it was a monster - a whitish-grey vegetable, dirt and rocks still clinging to its cloud-tinted roots. A radish of some sort, probably.
"Think I could lend you a hand with that?" Yuri smoothly asked, eyeing the radish cautiously.
"No, that won't be necessary - you've always taken up cooking before, so I thought I could repay the favor for once." The knight tilted the wooden board with his roughly-chopped radish slices along with the roots and dirt into the pot. At the sight and thought of eating dirt, Rita couldn't help a repulsed expression while the others continued grimacing or shuddered. The swordsman slumped in his posture, returning back with a clingy air of disappointment; Flynn's Cooking - one, The Group - zero.
"...That didn't work so well as I thought." the black-haired man replied dryly, though it still had an empty quality to it.
"J-Judith, you try next!" Karol stammered. The Krityan simply nodded and waltzed her way towards the knight, her face carrying her ever-pleasant smile as she asked him - rather directly, one could easily tell themselves - with an innocent tone of voice, "Do you think I could cook for tonight instead?"
"Oh, Miss Judith," the knight looked up, clearly unfazed by her sudden appearance. "I'm sorry, but I have already started making dinner."
The lancer faked a disappointed expression, pouting slightly as she continued, "But I did have some recipes on hand that I wanted to try during my free time - or, are you saying my own cooking is not delicious?"
"Not at all! Your cooking is lovely - but as you have mentioned, even I have recipes I would like to try our myself, but I never had the time to do." Flynn gave the blue-haired woman an apologetic smile at her crest-fallen expression - one of the few moments where her emotional guard had broken down momentarily - as she slowly walked back to the others in a manner akin to Yuri's only moments before; Flynn's Cooking - two, The Group - zero again.
"L-Letha!" Karol stumbled, panic clearly starting to build up on his shoulders along with pressure - not a very good combination. "Y-You try stopping him!"
The brunette hastily nodded, getting up from her perched spot by the thin foliage of a shrubbery and cautiously making her way to the knight. It took all of the twenty year old's will-power to not let her feet run back to the safety of the party, especially at the horrible stench the fumes from the blond's cooking were slowly starting to choke the camp into a heavy fog of miasma-purple. It smells worse than dirty gym socks and spoilt fish here. How does Flynn- no, how does anyone handle this when Flynn starts cooking?
Letha felt a frown tug at her lips. Maybe it's just so bad that they honestly can't do anything...
"Um, hey, Flynn, mind if I watch?" the brunette suddenly blurted out, finding herself right before the knight - if that lump of dull metal and blue was Flynn anyway. It was starting to get terribly hard to even see her own hands with this miasma-fog, nevermind the smell that wanted her to make a run for the hills literally. (Anywhere but here was starting to get wonderful appreciation currently.) It must have been him, because it shifted lightly, a voice that sounded like the blond - though muffled a bit - speaking to her, "I don't."
An uncomfortable silence slid its way through immediately. Letha tried to peer into what might have been the pot - most of the fog was being blown out from there - though she couldn't see much... No wait a minute, what was that charred-black thing in there?
"So Flynn," Letha coughed, fanning herself with a hand. Didn't help her abused nose regardless. "What are you making?"
"It's a stew. I got the recipe from a traveling cook in Halure, but I'm just making a few adjustments of my own to it." Not good!
"I see." The twenty year old rummaged through her mind for another excuse - she was almost getting nowhere with her pace, and if what Flynn said was right, it wasn't going to be long before dinner (or doom, more like it) was ready to be served to everybody. Come on, Letha, you can do this. This is much less - or worse - dangerous than dealing with fairies and their stupid heirlooms. "Uhh... you don't think I can hear what the recipe's like? I'm sure Judith might like to know about it."
"It's just a simple cream mushroom soup - I thought of adding some peas and vegetables as well." As Letha fanned some of the miasma away, she could see that the knight had momentarily paused. Stalling wasn't going to be too efficient, but it would help until she fumbled for better excuses.
"Such as?"
"Some of the monsters had dropped a few carrots and lettuce..."
The brunette was about to neutrally reply to that, before her mind remembered the monsters fought earlier in the day - and what they dropped was, while having a rather innocent looking appearance, was definitely not vegetables. Or at least they were, just a bit... sick-looking. I doubt withering lettuce leaves will taste nice. A forced smile was pulled over her face,"That sounds... wonderful. Anything else?"
"Some meat also."
Letha raised an eyebrow at that, rotten vegetables forgotten for a bit. "Did we even have meat with us?"
"No." Flynn happily dumped chunks of blue-patched vegetables, not noticing the woman's frozen smile and shudder. "But I kept some of the monsters' meat with us."
"...Is monster meat even edible?"
"Perhaps."
'Perhaps'? "That... sounds pretty fun to try out." The knight apparently fell for it as he beamed slightly, pleased to hear a positive reply to the idea. Not that Letha had the heart to actually break it to him that there was this one time Rita thought of frying some chicken meat dropped by some random monster and they all accidentally poisoned themselves from residual poison embedded into the flesh since the monster had an ability to poison others if possible. Thank the gods Estelle was an efficient healer, or they would have been stuck in the middle of nowhere with food poisoning.
"Would you like to try some?" Flynn suddenly asked, gazing at Letha cheerfully.
"No!" she nearly snapped back a bit too hastily, gaining a confused expression in return. "I mean, uh... i-it sounds pretty good, but I think I can wait till you're d-done finishing it!"
"You can still try some."
"No thank you!" Subconsciously, her feet shuffled in a backwards manner, slowly edging away from the blond. Unfortunately, the knight had caught her wrist lightly, but not so loosely that she could leave as easily as a brush of her hands. Letha wasn't so sure if he had caught onto her very predictable thoughts of not tasting his cooking. "Oh, no, I insist! You haven't been eating much either as of late."
A nervous grin broke out on the brunette's face. "That- That sounds slightly unfair though! I'll just eat with the others - thanks for the offer though! " A few twists and a rather harsh tug of her hand out of Flynn's grasp immediately after that, she found herself breaking into swift steps out of the violet fog.
"...Well, who's next?" Letha asked dejectedly, coughing slightly as she tasted fresh air; Flynn's Cooking - three, The Group - still zero.
Raven coughed and exclaimed loudly, looking over to Estelle who had, with a nervous expression, slowly stood up and gathered the others' attention. "Well, Princess, looks like it's up to you! You're our only trump card left."
"Mmm! I... I'll do my best!" The healer nodded, determination washing away her anxiousness and settling into her delicate features. Everyone watched as the princess disappeared into the violet fog, fiddling with whatever their fingers touched while they listened to the pair's conversation and waited for her to return with - much great hopes and prayers - a winning result.
"F-Flynn, could I help you with dinner?"
"Ah, Lady Estellise. I'm sorry, but I'm nearly done preparing dinner..."
"O-Oh, I see."
"Do you think you could wait a little longer? I will serve it to you and everyone else soon."
A heavy hush was brought upon Brave Vesperia, all creeping closer to the centre of the camp to listen for the princess' suddenly late reply. It was mostly silence at first, but soon enough, they heard heavy shuffles of feet against dirt and fallen foliage on the ground, along with a slow and pained, "A-Ah... of course..."
The guild members immediately let their anxious nervousness disappear to be replaced with despair and depressing, crushed hopes. Estelle returned to take her spot by Rita once she left their fume-choked camp, harshly silent and perhaps repeating a mantra mentally made of 'sorry' only to herself. Not that anyone actually blamed her. Karol was already murmuring a prayer under his breath - as did everyone else, if they weren't staring hard at something - while Letha and Raven took a few last glances at the knight, squinting a bit to see him pour his stew into bowls.
"Well, everyone..." the brunette began, sighing, "This is it."
"We can only hope that it's not gonna be any worse than it already is," Raven followed. Everyone mutely nodded, or made a quiet sound of agreement.
But yeah right. That was totally not going to happen at this rate.
Something like this actually happens in the PS3 version of the game in a skit. I tried to find it, honestly, but I think it got deleted because I can't find it anymore. Soooooo~ I had to rely on my memory for what had happened in the skit. Which wasn't much really. I remembered bits of Estelle, Judith's and Flynn's dialogue in the skit, but yeah, not enough. I pretty much just constructed up what I think might have happened during that skit.
And I wanted to see how Letha would be like in this situation, though my imagination kinda failed around her part. Hope she wasn't too OOC there, Sylph! That would be really bad.
Oh yeah, Patty should be in this too like in the skit, but I remember some distant remark that Patty wouldn't/might not be included into FTaBV, so I had to throw her out and place Karol or Raven into her spots of dialogue.
Hope you liked it~
~Shiroi