Extra Food
In many ways, my job as the organizer of the Chimecho Assembly is easy. Team leaders will come up to me, tell me what they want, who they want me to summon for today's mission. It's all very straightforward, and even then it's only a morning job, which lets me cook dinner for everyone in the Guild in the afternoon.
So I've never had to face something like this. How do I tell Team Calliope's recruits what happened to their leaders? They've already guessed something is up. None of them have been called out for a mission in days. And I've already been asked more than once what's going on. Every time they ask, I don't know what to tell them.
How would they deal with it? Some of them would be heartbroken, I'm sure. Without Miranda and Chlora, Team Calliope would fall apart. Even if there were a suitable candidate among their recruits... there's always the fact that none of them are apprentices or graduates of the Wigglytuff Guild, which would restrict their ability to access the other members in the Assembly. It doesn't even feel right, anyway, to give up on Miranda and Chlora. So in the end, when they ask, I dodge the question, or say nothing. I know it makes them feel worse, but I don't know what to say.
Part of it is that I'm still having a hard time dealing with it myself. We don't know what will happen. We don't know if they're gone for good or if they'll ever be able to come back. The thing that makes us all afraid, me especially... is the idea that they're trapped in the future, forever.
Every night when I make dinner, I still make dinner for them too, in the vain hopes that I might someday need it if they were to suddenly return. Chatot's told me off for it, more than once. He's been more snappish and angry at everyone of late. But whenever he does... I point out quietly that our larders are stocked enough to accommodate two extra mouths who just aren't here right now. So the food would just be extra, or going to waste if I didn't make it.
So if this food is going to be going to go to waste anyway... I might as well try to make myself feel a little better before it does.
This one was one of the more challenging ones to write. Chimecho isn't given quite as distinct a personality as some.
Next chapter should be up very shortly