Chapter Three: In Which I Invent (And Tell You) How Armies Are Fed

Every other Cooking!Oscar fanfic limits him to cooking frickin' soup. Dammit, armies don't live on soup! They keep up their morale by eating meat and bread and eggs and vegetables and BEER! (Unless they're Naesala and then they live on ANGST)

I... I need more sleep.

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

#69, Smile

Some day, I thought, he's going to kill himself and not even notice. Just keep charging onwards, axe arm and mouth gleefully not noticing that his heart had stopped. I leaned over and flipped off the blanket briefly to take a look at his legs. Perfectly fine now, of course: not even a sign of scarring. Rhys never spared any expense or time when healing someone - even when a cavalier was galloping down on him, we'd been impressed to find out one day - and after having doped Kieran, had come back to the healing tent again, staff in hand, to repair the minor damages.

I was getting ready to pull the blanket back over his legs when I stopped briefly to admire their neat straightness and to draw a finger down the lanky shine where the shinbone stood out against the skin. Then I blushed, looking around for a moment, and let the wool blanket drop. I was letting this get the better of me, and I knew it. Everyone already suspected us, of course: if Ike had looked at us sideways, then it was all over the camp, since he was the last one to follow gossip. But no one knew anything but conjecture: the only person who'd seen us kiss was Rhys, and he'd just smiled and (if he'd been less subtle he might have started whistling) looked the other direction. Some people (unlike Kieran) knew when to keep their mouth shut, and would admit to when something was and wasn't their business.

Still, it was one thing to have our quiet healer see us kissing, and quite another to have my brother - or someone worse - pop in to pay a visit and catch me caressing his unconscious form. I leaned over one more time to kiss his forehead briefly, and to smooth down his hair. To my surprise, his mouth suddenly turned up in a smile, his head turning towards my hand. Like a kitten, I thought, somewhat touched by just how adorable he could be when unconscious. Well, everyone had to be sometimes.

I stood, fastening my cloak. He would be incoherent with rage when he awoke: the thought was hilarious, though I felt bad for whoever would have to deal with it. Then, of course, maybe it would be Soren. I looked in the direction of where the mage lay sleeping, and couldn't help but grin. That would be good for both of them: Kieran's blustering would be utterly laid waste by Soren's quick, sarcastic tongue, and Soren himself would get a chance to exercise his anger on someone who actually deserved it. Then my favorite red-haired cavalier would have yet a new archrival.

As I stepped outside, I saw the commander approaching. It was snowing harder now, and I could already feel the fat flakes accumulating in my hair. "Hello, Ike," I said, and he looked up, noticeably exhausted.

"Hi, Oscar," he answered, and stopped beside me, next to the tent, and gazed at its entry flap. "Things are calm inside?"

I had to resist snorting, knowing exactly what he meant. "Thank the goddess, yes. Just making sure that dolt is still asleep. Obviously he is, as you can tell." Both of us had been in the party that found Kieran earlier. It hadn't been hard: Boyd had come running, and before we'd even come near that part of the forest we'd been able to hear his cursing. I shook my head ruefully, chuckling. "Sometimes..."

"Well, rest up tonight," he said, eyes still fixed on the text. "From what I hear, tomorrow is going to be as rough as today. And with Mist banned from the mess, you might end up pulling some double duty."

The urge to ask him exactly how Mist had managed to poison half the troops with nothing but perfectly good food was overwhelming. But looking at his exhausted face, I resisted the impulse and answered, "Actually, I'll look forward to it. I haven't had nearly enough time behind the grill." I put a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up. "And you get some sleep too, Commander."

He nodded, and I had already started walking away, when he called after me, voice curious. "Oscar?" I turned back; it was difficult to see his face in the swirling snow, but he clearly hesitated before asking, "Why, uh... why do you care about him so much?"

The question took me aback, and I wished I was closer, to see his expression. But I shrugged, grinning, and gave the most truthful answer I could come up with. "If I don't save him from himself, who will?"

Ike laughed, sounding relieved, and I saluted briefly, an inkling of why he'd asked starting to grow in my mind. I didn't want to think about it too long, though, and started moving away. If I really was going to be in the mess tomorrow morning, it was high time I headed there to get things under control. "Like I said, get some sleep, General. You need it even more than I do!"

He made no response, and I just barely saw him slipping into the tent. I knew exactly who he was going to visit: it was just more of a question about what the nature of the visit was. Soren had been unusually apathetic lately: perhaps a result of being poisoned and attacked all in the same day - not to mention having been the first victim of Mist's little adventure - but that didn't seem to be it. I didn't know the mage very well, but I'd seen enough of his behavior to know that when he was sick, his sullenness only increased.

As I trudged toward the lights and fires of the main army I reflected on what I did know about Soren. He'd been with Greil's team much longer than I and my brothers had: from what Rolf had found out from Mist and had subsequently insisted upon telling to me, she couldn't remember a time when Soren hadn't travelled with the mercenaries, just like Titania, Shinon, and Gatrie.

And of course, everyone knew that Soren and Ike were the very best of friends. Even when Ike had to reprimand him for his sharpness to others, or (as in one particular case) save his life, there was a mutual respect between them, a trust that I didn't think even Titania could understand. I wondered where it had come from.

I shook my head, trying to get the two of them out of my thoughts as the mess tent came into sight. Either Soren's problem would work itself out, or Ike would help him with it: that much was obvious even to me.

There was a small group gathered outside the tent, men and women munching on loaves and the like left over from dinner. I sighed, knowing I would have to get things under control before they found the more precious commodities, the eggs and the very small supply of butter. We had a couple of other cooks, of course, but Mist had always been the one who directed things, commanding the other men in her high-pitched young voice. They had at first been amused, but after finding out that she was not only the commander's sister, but also an experienced chef and relatively skilled manager, their respect had grown to love. It seemed a shame that she had caused the food poisoning epidemic... though also somewhat unlikely, too.

I frowned, wondering if she was just shielding one of the other cooks. The thought seemed quite likely. While she did her duties at the kitchen quite willingly, every once in a while it seemed as if Mist was much more interested in just sitting around with Titania, or sometimes even training with her. I couldn't imagine that she'd engineered an epidemic just to get time off from the mess, but I could see her scolding one of her sous-chefs, as she liked to call them, for causing it, then agreeing to take the blame herself.

Well, if she had done it, she definitely would have made sure to instruct the faulty chef on how to avoid ever making that mistake again. I wasn't too worried about that.

I ducked into the tent, closing the flap behind me and shaking off my cloak. An "eep!" from behind me made me whirl, to find my brother, indignant and covered in the snow I'd just shaken off. "Hey, thanks!"

"Sorry!" I said, unable to keep from laughing. "Sorry, I didn't know you were there. Here, hang on..." I brushed at his face to get the snow off, since each of his hands had a loaf of bread in it. "What are you doing here, Boyd?"

He shrugged, shaking his head like a puppy, subsequently spraying me back with snow. "Same thing as the other guys. We're not short-stocked on any of the bread rations, are we?"

"Depends on how many of you there are, and how long you've been here." I couldn't quite manage to find a suitably grumpy tone of voice, so I just settled for cheerful. "No, we're not short-stocked on any of that. Don't go using any of the butter, though."

"I won't, I'm not that dumb. I like being alive," he said, already on his way out. "You know Mist didn't cause the food poisoning, right?"

"Well, I guess I do now," I answered. "Do you know what actually happened?"

He paused and sighed. "Well, she still won't say who it was, but one of her buddy cooks accidentally used some kind of oil or fat to cook the eggs with yesterday morning... but it was something like four months old." He grinned at my horrified expression. "It was a mix-up with inventory, she claims. Me, I think he's probably a moron. But she wants the time off."

"I figured." My suspicions confirmed, I smiled at him and tossed my cloak onto the table. "Well, I won't hold you up."

"Night." Boyd turned, but almost immediately stopped and turned back, mouth open as if about to say something. I just waited. "Oscar, I..." He hesitated, and tried again. "Okay. I kind of want to tell you something, but I'm afraid you'll get angry with me."

I sighed. Not again. "Is that because you deserve it, or because I nag?"

He couldn't help it: he grinned. "Maybe both? I don't know. I didn't do it on purpose, either, it was just... kind of an accident."

I'd seen him looking at Mist lately, and had overheard their ridiculously flirtatious conversations. Not to mention that they tended to spend almost as much time together as Kieran and I did, but no one thought anything of it. I looked at him closely: it didn't appear to be that, though, and I hoped it wasn't. If Boyd tried anything, a very angry Ike might show up at his tent in the middle of the night with a very large sword. "So what happened?"

My brother set the two loaves down side-by-side on the table, and leaned against it himself, face pained. "Well... you know how you and Mist and Stefan got sent off to fight people, but they couldn't find Kieran to go with you, and then later out they found it was because he hurt himself? The same thing kind of happened with me... I was supposed to go with Rhys and Volke and Shinon, but... I didn't."

It took me a moment to recognize that there was a correlation and that this wasn't, in fact, about Mist. "Are you trying to tell me that you and Kieran were not with us because... you were somewhere else, and it was the same place?" Oh no. "Did you..."

"I tried to talk to him about you!" Boyd pleaded, hands up defensively. "I just wanted to know what the hell was going on, but he got... how he gets, and then I think I must have made him mad, because he charged off and... wrecked into a giant tree that was lying on the ground, and his horse threw him off into the bush." His ears were so bright red that it was amazing his hair wasn't on fire. "And I guess it was kind of my fault, but when I tried to go help him he just yelled at me so... I came back to tell people where he was and didn't mention that I'd been there."

He started when I burst out laughing, doubled over and unable to contain myself any longer. It was almost a whole minute before I got ahold of myself enough to speak again. "So that's... that's w-why he wouldn't tell anyone... h-how it happened," I said, wiping tears from my eyes. "Oh, Boyd. No, I'm not mad at you, but what did you ask him?"

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. I wondered if it bothered him, me having a relationship with Kieran. Or, for that matter, if Boyd even knew. "Just stuff. You two are always hanging out together at night, and..." He looked at me, nose wrinkled. "Doesn't he just drive you nuts?"

I laughed again, nodding. "Yes. Yes, he does. But I love it. No one else is so totally irrational. Except maybe you, but at least sometimes I can talk you out of stuff."

Evidently it didn't bother him, because he clearly knew everything. He looked at me, and picked up the two loaves again. Oh, young men with their hearts of iron and stomachs of sponge. "Well, if you're not mad..."

"No, I don't know why I should be. Kieran just..." I shrugged helplessly. "I guess he doesn't want other people to know. About... us." It gave me a faint thrill of pleasure to say it, though I never stopped watching my brother. "I dunno, maybe I don't want people to know, either. And honestly, maybe he just has no idea that other people... suspect."

Hesitating slighty, he asked, "So... are you two...?"

I made a face, and then admitted, "Yes. And we're happy. I am, anyway."

"Yeah, who the hell would know, with him?" I couldn't tell if he was serious or not, but it wasn't sarcastic. Then I saw the grin, and he added, backing toward the exit, "Weird. You're both just weird."

"Oh, stuff it," I said, as he left. After he'd disappeared, I sat down. "Wow." It was almost enough to make me start laughing all over again. Kieran must have been ready to explode. To think, his archrival-lover's brother coming and asking suspicious questions. I could hear him in my head. 'Dishonorable dastard, how dare you pettily demand such probing information!'

I got up and walked back towards the storeroom (really just a medium-sized tent near the back, tied shut around boxes and bags of supplies), unable to keep from chuckling to myself. Oh, Kieran would never hear the end of it now: I'd make sure of that.

Mist had kept excellent track of our supplies: the only things we were short-stocked on were cheese, butter, and milk. Even the eggs were well-stocked. And of course, I reflected, it was cold. Daein's winters were good for one thing, at least: when we managed to keep the livestock alive, perishables wouldn't go as fast.

In fact, there really wasn't any reason for me to be here. I thumbed through her little box of recipes that she kept in with the perishables, filed under two stacks, one for 'Army' and another for 'Friends'. Her notes in the latter group made me smile. One meat recipe read, "For Ike: three tablespoons chili powder. For everyone else: two teaspoons." Then a recipe for beans: "Don't forget Titania hates crunchy onions!" The newest recipe in the box made me laugh out loud: "Oscar says use pearl onions. Better with leeks." I had vehemently argued over that with her, but during one dinner had come to the dismal realization that regardless of my tastes, everyone else liked her recipe better.

I sighed in contentment, picking up her inventory list one more time. I would have to get up early the next morning to serve everyone before we made our way onwards. But I loved cooking and serving people... and it was awfully convenient, since Kieran would wake up and, after yelling at poor Rhys, would undoubtedly stomp off in search of me. I had already told Rhys to blame everything on me: it would just make things easier, since if I were doling out breakfast Kieran would subside, red-faced, until we had a moment of privacy. That was the nice thing about us having what he considered to be an illicit relationship: unsubtle as he might be about it, Kieran never fought with me over anything personal until we were alone.

The tent flap opened again, and Mist pretty much danced in, perching on a stack of boxes. "Hi, Oscar!"

"Evening," I answered, and, raising my eyebrows, asked, "Aren't you banned from here?"

"Oh, no, just from cooking," she answered cheerfully. "I thought I'd find you in here making sure I'm not an idiot. I have news!"

"I know you're not an idiot, I'm just obsessive. Besides, I haven't been here for awhile, I wanted to get familiar with everything. Anyway... What's the news?" I leaned back against a stack of heavy crates. Hopefully nothing else about Kieran, that was for sure.

"Well, you know how Jill is from Daein?" I nodded, somewhat relieved, and she giggled. "We were outside goofing around in the snow earlier, and apparently she met someone from the countryside that knew her. And voila! The person, whoever it was, offered her a cow with a young calf, and half a flock of chickens." She shook her head, laughing. "They still haven't figured out that Jill's on our side now. But in any case, she said that as long as we don't mind that they're kind of... an unintentional gift from our enemy... then we should probably take them."

"I suppose we should," I answered quite happily, my mind already conjuring up visions of eggs and more butter. It was a bad time of year for it, but anything like this was a great surprise. Still... "Poor Jill." I suddenly felt badly for her; it wasn't her fault the country peasants mistook her for being on their side. And it certainly wasn't their fault, either: they'd been brainwashed by Ashnard for years.

"Yeah, she felt really awkward until I told her not to worry about it," agreed Mist. "I'll be glad when we're done here in Daein, partly for Jill... but also because I don't like the way we look when we're fighting against the Mad King. I mean, we're here to free Crimea, not take over Daein."

"You're right," I agreed. "But hey, the way your brother is taking us, we should be done soon. We'll be back in Crimea before summer, probably."

"Yeah," she said, brightening a little. "That's a nice thought... summer. I like snow, but not like this. And summer in Crimea is always beautiful."

I just smiled. Even when Mist was acting as much like an adult as she possibly could, her girlishness still shone through. It was no wonder she and Titania had so much fun together when they weren't working, fighting, or training: Titania was, after all, somewhat motherly at times.

"Well, okay," she sighed, then bounced to her feet. "I just wanted to let you know. I'm sorry you have to take over my job, but I'll bet more dairy stuff will make cooking more fun this week!"

"Yup," I said. She had almost left the tent again when I finally remembered to ask. "Oh, Mist!" She turned back, eyebrows inquisitive. "Who really gave everyone food poisoning? I know it wasn't you."

Suddenly she turned bright red, and to my surprise she snorted, clapping her hands over her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said finally, giggling. "I don't mean to laugh, but... I promised him I wouldn't tell anybody." She paused, and with relish added, "Especially you."

It took me a moment; and then I knew. "Oh, no," I said, horrified. "No, no, it can't be." I paused in disbelief as she completely lost her composure, howling in glee. "Really?"

"Yes!" she cried, wiping tears from her eyes. "Oh, Oscar, he just wants to be as good as you at everything." That he always wanted to be better than me was more apt, but I wasn't about to burst Mist's bubble. "I wouldn't even have said yes if he hadn't looked so forlorn the other day, when you did dinner and everyone was saying how good it was, and then he was so unusually polite and nice about asking me to help him, no 'dastards' or 'wretches' or anything."

Her laughter was infectious: even in disbelieving horror I couldn't help but join her mirth. "But... but why? Why the hell would you even let him try to cook, he's a complete disaster at anything with food! I remember one time back when we were in the Knights, they put him on kitchen duty and within three hours he was banned for life!"

"Well, I didn't know that! And I'm certainly not letting him talk me into it again!" she exclaimed. "At least we can thank the goddess he didn't do anything worse than forget what rancid oil looked like."

I leaned over, groaning, wondering if I should keep laughing or just go to the healing tent and kill him outright. "Yes. Oh, Ashera, yes." That was the thing with Kieran: if a little was good, more was better, especially as far as I was concerned.

Mist came over and hugged me, still giggling. "I'm sorry, please don't tell him you know. He's a pain in the ass sometimes, but I can't help but like him, and I know you can't either."

"Sometimes," I said, trying to sound aggravated, though I knew she was right, and she giggled yet again.

"Oh, yes you do. Come on, who else in this army is going to get up at the crack of dawn every single day and start galloping around camp announcing that today is the day we win back Crimea for the Princess? We need that kind of morale in a war like this!"

I finally grinned. About that, she was more right than ever before. "Yeah. We do. Well... thanks for giving him a chance, Mist." To be truthful, it was more than most people did: aside from other Royal Knights, very few people would put up with Kieran for very long. I think the only reason Ike let him stick around was because of his fervor for Elincia.

"No problem. I secretly kind of like having a few apprentices." Her eyes sparkled. "I suppose it must be exactly how you felt when you started teaching me things."

"Except you were never, never, never as bad as Kieran is." I shook my head mournfully, then looked up at her, pretending to smirk. "Even that one time you didn't manage to cook the meat all the way through and then used tomatoes in the sauce and burnt the whole thing so badly that we couldn't tell what was the blood and what was the tomato."

"You promised you'd never bring that up again!" she accused, pointing a finger at me, eyebrows thunderous. "That was the first time I ever cooked meat, and you were sick so I had to do it by myself!"

I bent over double laughing again. "Thank the goddess for your father, you might've cried if he hadn't stepped in. Do you remember his face? He was practically green, but once he'd choked down a bite everyone else had to."

She pouted, managing to look angry for almost five seconds. Then she laughed, and her eyes shone. "Yeah. Dad was so patient with my cooking... sometimes I couldn't even tell how awful I was."

Her tone had suddenly become a little sad; I put an arm around her and added, trying to sound as cheerful as possible, "Well, your dad was a great man. Greater than I'll ever be. And I hate to say it, but as much as I love Kieran, I'll never be able to choke down his cooking like your dad would've."

She giggled at the thought. I knew that she didn't need me to tell her anything about Greil; Titania had given more encouragement to her that any of us could have imagined, and she knew how great a man he'd been. But it had only been a few months since he'd died, and while I rarely worried about Ike (we all knew that he consoled himself by strengthening up for avenging his father) I hated to see Mist sad. "Me neither," she said. "I aspire to that potential someday, but not right now." Thank the goddess, though; she had, some time ago, reached the point where she could wax nostalgic about her father without breaking down into tears.

"Well," she added, standing up, "I'm sleepy from riding all over the place today with you and that crazy swordsman. People with green hair wear me out. So I'm going to bed."

The last sentence had been pronounced with a nod and fiercely contracted eyebrows, as if I were going to challenge it. I smiled. "You do that. I think I'm heading off, too... I need extra sleep tonight if I'm going to survive the morning's wrath."

She giggled one last time, and danced out of the tent with a "Good-night, then!" I sighed, feeling far more contented than I should after such a rough day. There had never been anything like Mist's smile to bring joy to her father's face; and even now that he was gone, when she summoned that smile, it kept us all happy.

I left the supply tent, giving a strict warning to those standing around on the way out that under no circumstances was anyone to take anything but bread. In truth I didn't really care, but strictness was only effective if constantly applied. It was time to go sleep off the day and prepare for the war I was sure was going to be waged against me in the morning. But at least now I had ammunition. I shook my head, grinning, and kicked some snow up in a fan of flakes. I could never really put my finger on the reason I so loved a person so vehemently self-proclaimed as my archrival (whatever that meant); maybe it was just because, like Mist, he made me grin.

Fin.