[[open post and announcement: no mourners, no funerals]]

[ravkanwitch]

[cw: discussion of death!]

Nina knows that word of Shen Yuan's death has been slowly spreading. She tried to put out a general warning of danger right after it happened... but she's not sure how many people were warned by it. She wasn't in the right mind at the time, after all. This time, she's more careful and collected. With SecUnit's help, she's alerted and gathered everyone who's interested for an important announcement in the lobby of the mansion. Despite all appearances of bossiness and stubbornness - all quite true - Nina has never been in charge of anything so serious. Kaz, Zoya, and the King himself; she followed their lead. As people slowly begin to gather and she attempts to compose herself, she wonders why she decided to put herself up to this.

Deep breath, Zenik. Pretend that - well, that this is pretend. She's back in the orphanage as the official greeter, making an important announcement to all the other children. She's the governor of a small town, making sure that all the citizens are aware and prepared. It does have to be her, after all. She's playing a crucial role in everything. She also doesn't want anyone else to carry the emotional load.

"Hi," she tells everyone gathered, trying to paste on a somber but not-too-morose expression. "Thanks for coming. I'm sure some of you have heard part of this announcement already and I'm sorry that it took so long to pass this information onto everyone else... but there was an incident not too long ago. We're not sure what caused it, whether it was the house or whether it was an individual, but... Shen Yuan is dead." There's most likely a reaction at this point and Nina forges onwards as confidently as she can, pitching her voice above the hubbub.

"But there is a way that he can return. We're sure of it. We're just trying to figure out the details, which might take a while. If you want to know more about that, you can ask Magnus, but I'm not sure how much he can tell you. Also, if you encounter any signs of Shen Yuan's spirit, you can talk to--" Here she meets Aleksander's eyes almost instinctively; this line of conversation is something she's purposefully kept from him. "You can talk to myself. Or... to Lan Wangji. ...That's all. Thank you."

A confident start but slightly deflated by her last few sentences, Nina steps back and allows for conversation to happen. If anyone would like to speak to her, she's looking much less strained and grim than she has in a while.

[[Feel free to post a single comment reaction and/or start a thread with Nina in the comments!]]

Comments

[ninth_cavalier]

"Okay," says Gideon. "Uh—we need flour, salt, one of those baking things you mentioned earlier, milk, and eggs." She looks faintly disgusted by the idea of these last two.

[ravkanwitch]

"No butter?" Nina asks, starting to gather everything together, but her tone is vaguely sad. Everything tastes better with butter.

[ninth_cavalier]

"In the picture it looks like they put butter on after," says Gideon, "but also, do we have to follow the recipe exactly? Is it more like a base, and then we can add stuff to it?" Like a sandwich. She cannot stress enough that her only cooking experience here is a sandwich.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina has sat and kept Luo Binghe company while he cooked a few times. He never seemed to follow a recipe exactly, adding handfuls and pinches as he went. "I don't think we can taste as we go with waffle batter," she says, and this at least is correct. "But I'm pretty sure we don't have to follow the recipe exactly?" This is less correct. It's only correct when you know what you're doing to begin with.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon nods. "Okay. So—why don't you describe what you like about waffles and we'll add more stuff to make it, uh, more that?"

[ravkanwitch]

"Hmm." Nina thinks about her favorite waffles in Ketterdam, the fluffy ones in the Zelver District at the Golden Apple. Their apple waffles during the fall were particularly delightful. "Well, they're fluffy and sweet on the inside. Buttery, definitely -- but the outside has just the hint of crispness to it."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Fluffy and sweet." This is not promising for whether Gideon will like these, given what she's learning about her own taste preferences, but that's okay. She starts opening cabinets. "Okay, what makes stuff fluffy and swee—oh, hey." She finds a half-empty jar of something, and holds it up for Nina. "Literally says fluff on it."

[ravkanwitch]

Marshmallow fluff, Nina reads. She likes marshmallow and she likes fluff. Sounds promising! "Let's put some in," she says confidently. "I'll start adding some of the other ingredients if you want to see what else you can find."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon nods, and goes back to sifting through cabinets.

She does actually want to enjoy these, mostly so she won't have to lie to Nina, and she remembers a while back some great success with mixing sweet and salty, so she also grabs:

- maple syrup
- a bag of chicharron (there's a lot of pork in the breakfast section of the cookbook!)
- a can of black olives
- freeze-dried strawberries
- roasted and salted peanuts

and lines them up for Nina's perusal.

[ravkanwitch]

By this time, Nina has grabbed everything that's actually called for in the recipe (including baking something or another), so she takes a look at what Gideon has found. "Oh, maple syrup! We'll need that for the end -- and maybe either the peanuts or chicharron for a crunchy texture. ...What happened to these strawberries?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"You haven't seen freeze-dried shit before?" asks Gideon, surprised. It's actually one of the more familiar things she's seen, here. "They, like, dehydrate them. Makes 'em last longer, shelf-stable for transport through space." And probably terrestrial transport, too.

[ravkanwitch]

She shakes her head. "No, I've never seen anything like it! Most of our food was fresh... except for some salted and preserved foods. We never had refrigerators. No Grisha can control ice, either, so that wasn't something we could use the Small Sciences to regulate."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Huh. I'm not advocating for the freeze-dried stuff over the real thing, obviously, but I wonder if we could like, crush it up and put it in the thing, with the flour?"

[ravkanwitch]

"Sure," Nina agrees, already trying to figure out the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon. Why do the abbreviations look so similar? It's confusing. "Do you think it'll stay that crunchy texture after we cook it in the batter? I like texture. I'm not sure if you like texture."

[ninth_cavalier]

"I like texture," Gideon says, which is really an on-the-spot decision, but she's wild like that. "Basically, if it's the opposite of featureless slop, I like it." She leans back against the countertop to watch Nina mix things together.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina is trying to look like she knows what she's doing -- there's something about Gideon that makes her want to be both slightly bossy and cool at the same time -- but she can probably count on one hand the number of times she's cooked in her life.

"I'm not sure this looks like waffle batter," she says, dubiously, after a moment.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon examines it. It's pink, and grainy, with streaks of clearish egg and white marshmallow fluff. It looks, frankly, disgusting, like liquified flesh. "What do you think would, uh, fix it?"

[ravkanwitch]

"Maybe... we'll just test it out and we can see how it cooks? Who knows, maybe it'll taste delicious." Nina is an optimist but perhaps her optimism is carrying her a little too far in this situation.

[ninth_cavalier]

"I mean, it's worth a shot," says Gideon. "Science, or whatever, right?" She flips up the lid of the waffle iron and hovers her hand over it. "It is getting hot."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina stares for a moment at the pink-flesh-colored-goop-batter, as if entranced by its color. "I wonder what the best way to get it onto the waffle iron is. Maybe we just... pour it?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon shrugs. "Alright." She picks up the bowl and starts pouring the goop into the iron. It hisses when it hits the metal (promising??) and then almost immediately overflows onto the counter beneath it. Gideon stops pouring. "Shit."

[ravkanwitch]

Nina lets out a yelp of dismay and immediately grabs some kitchen towels to soak up (?) the goop. Meanwhile, the batter that's on the waffle iron is already puffing up quite dramatically. Perhaps they used the wrong kind of baking-whatever or the wrong amount. Who knows at this point?

She can't help but laugh now. "It looks delicious," she says, helplessly.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon cracks up when Nina does, clapping her on the shoulder. "Five stars," she manages, between wheezes.

[ravkanwitch]

"I think we've created a new life form," Nina says, still laughing. There's a charred scent in the air and she quickly unplugs the waffle iron, which makes her laugh even harder, looking at the flesh colored puff they've made that's probably raw and gooey in the middle and burnt at the bottom.

"I dare you to try it," she adds, once the giggles subside a little.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon almost asks whether they can cook it a little more in the oven or something, but she's been dared. She reaches forward and takes a full handful of the stuff. It mushes and tears off into her palm, and when she takes a big bite it is both crunchy and slimy. The taste actually isn't that bad—it's kind of interestingly sour with pockets of extreme sweetness, which is exciting, and then a burnt aftertaste—but her throat really does its best to mutiny at the texture before she can swallow. "Delicious," she manages, eventually. One of her eyes is tearing up.