Happy Place
DISLCAIMER: Fire Emblem and its characters belong to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems.
Solace.
That was how Oscar would have described the kitchen. There was something very pleasing about making mixes, and the smells of food and herbs gave off a certain ambience that soothed him. It was definitely better than the chaos that he knew was just beyond the kitchen door. And although he only felt safest with a lance in his hand, Oscar had to admit that pots and pans did a decent job as well.
Of course, with Mist in the kitchen, one never knew what would happen.
The night before, Mist had cooked her first meal for the mercenary crew, and it was probably good that they didn't have a job today. Half the camp, resident healer Rhys included, had come down with mysterious illnesses. While Commander Greil bravely stomached the meal next to Oscar, he had quietly suggested to the green-haired knight that he help Mist the next night.
It was a kindness to his daughter, but Oscar didn't expect Commander Greil to be so very two-faced.
Oscar glanced over at Mist now, who was happily kneading dough. It was a very difficult job to give Mist something that didn't jeopardize the meal, and he was starting to run out of ideas. He was too used to doing things in the kitchen alone, but more and more the mercenaries needed him on jobs, so Mist had decided to take on at-home duties. Evidently cooking was not her forte.
He continued to stir the stew that Mist was going to make bread for, when he suddenly heard an "Oh no!"
Oscar braced himself.
"Oscar, the bread's too dry!" Mist exclaimed. "Have I ruined the bread or something?" Eve now she was still digging her hands in the dough, kneading it. Since he naturally squinted, Oscar couldn't express his frustration that way – though, he supposed, in this case it served him better.
"It's okay," he began. "We'll just start a new batch – "
"We can't have that! We'd be wasting materials!" Feverishly, Mist went to the pump and pumped out water into the kneading bowl. "I'll make it wet again!"
"No, that won't fix anything…" Oscar sighed, resigned. Mist proceeded to make a mess; she had poured too much water in, and as she mixed it, it overflowed and splashed all over the table.
Oscar decided that he needed to save the poor bowl while he could.
"Here, how about you find me some rosemary? I need it for the deer." It could not possibly be hard to find rosemary on the herb shelf. After all, the jars were all labelled.
"Okay!"
The green-haired knight felt very relieved. At least, until he heard the distinct sound of shattering glass.
Mist, hands still covered with the water-dough mix, had lost her grip on one of the jars. It had broken so monstrously that nothing of the label was left. In an attempt to calm himself, Oscar silently mused that all he had to do to replace it was find the herbs and get another glass bottle. Besides, he couldn't give up on Mist yet; the entire camp basically counted on him to train her well, or they faced more 'bedridden' days.
After a few more moments of (clean-handed) searching, Mist came up empty-handed. She looked more than distraught.
"Oscar, it's not here," the cleric said worriedly.
Now it was his turn to worry.
"I've looked through every singe one! Did I lose it or something?" Mist was horrified now, frantically searching through the bottles once more. Oscar pulled her back, scared that in her panic she would break something else, and that he did not need. He scanned the rack of spices once more, with his squinty-eyed view, but he feared that what he suspected had come to pass.
"I think we smashed it," Oscar said.
"… oh."
Mist hung her head dejectedly, as though she had been utterly defeated.
"I'm no good at cooking, am I?" she began. "Some help I am! Everyone will starve or something! Just say it, Oscar. I'm so bad at it…" Mist sniffed.
"Don't say that about yourself," he quickly reassured. "Just because you just started out and screwed up doesn't mean you can't learn!" He was apprehensive about his wording. One had to be very, very careful about what he said around girls…
The situation only got worse and worse. Oscar tried to teach Mist the proper way of sprinkling herbs onto meat, but she ended up getting it in their eyes and all over everything but the food. Then came the stove, where she effectively managed to burn both their hands and the thing they stuck in. She also mysteriously broke the water pump until Oscar managed to piece it together again.
Yes, his kitchen was definitely falling apart.
In the end, Oscar set Mist on stirring the stew while he managed the other parts of the meal. No more problems could possibly happen unless she knocked the entire pot over (which was quite heavy, mind you). His solace had returned, save for the open door from which he could hear Gatrie screaming for dinner. So much for being sick.
He promptly slammed the door shut. There was enough chaos in his world as it was. No need for it to ruin the last happy place he had…
"Oh no, Oscar!"
Oscar sighed.
The exasperated man ran his hands through his green hair – thankfully, he hadn't started making bread again… imagine if it went in his hair! – and looked over at Mist. He wondered what could have possibly happened. He kept all the things she could dump into the pot very far away from her, so it wasn't like she ruined it that way…
He turned to see the problem. And gawked.
The fire underneath the pot had gone out.
"I-I'll get Soren to cast a spell or something!" Mist dashed out before Oscar could stop her. A few moments later, she proudly returned with a burning stick.
"Uh, Mist?" Oscar asked worriedly. "Shouldn't you put that in the pile of sticks before it burns out…?"
It was too late, though, and the flames began to heat up the cleric's hand.
"Eep!" Mist dropped the branch. Onto his beautiful wooden table.
In a frenzy, she picked up the branch and tried to carry it away, but only managed to spread the flame to five separate locations. Finally, Oscar managed to get a hold of a bucket and ran to the pump, attempting to douse out the flames.
His solace… burnt to a crisp.
Oscar sighed. He barely even heard Mist profusely apologizing.
"Um… just keep trying!" the knight said, smiling sheepishly.
He should have known that with Mist in the kitchen, happy places didn't exist.
My Oscar crusade continues! Well, it will until my spurt of writing dies out. Which, hopefully, won't be soon. They're also getting quite short…
-EmbeRin