Chewing On More Than The Meal - OTA

[najaran]

Who: Najaran, open
Where: Garden Car
When: Every day starting from the first day of the mission until the day before platform.
What: Having discovered she can't go onto this mission, Najaran has a lot to think about, and is throwing herself into chores while she does.
Warnings: Angst, trauma mentions, probably violence mentions, emotionally heavy topics possible.



Najaran had been warned before other missions - and then kept off of them - when the world was hostile without her SCA. This time she had tried to avoid everyone who might have stopped her and...

it was bad.

She made it back to the train and laid down a while to recover, but then she had a lot to think about. And she wasn't used to sitting still and brooding. So while she thought she threw herself into chores, so the people on the mission would come back to clean clothes and fresh food.

The way she saw it there were two main issues.

One was that she refused to be pulled away when she could still help, when people still needed her. But like this, she wasn't able to help anyone at all.

But she realized that... that wasn't the only issue. Because even if she wore the SCA... on a world like this, she was still less than useless, she was a liability.


Because even if the SCA protected her... that didn't guarantee it would protect her friends. She wouldn't let them suffer just so she could go out and...

And what?

Could she value her friends over strangers? Could she value strangers over her friends?

It would kill her if Thunderbeak or Knight or one of the others died because the world itself was hostile to them and she insisted on being there to help. But if she went to help with the SCA and didn't summon her friends.... What then? What skills did she actually have that could help anyone other than being a Cepter?

None.

She would just be someone the others had to protect.

She couldn't even bring Goligan for his wisdom, he had been as bad off as she'd been, practically. Without her cards, without Goligan, she was just a teenaged girl. She could do chores, but what was she going to do? Scrub windows at the monsters?

A tear rolled down her face as she cut the vegetables for the stew she was making. She would blame the onions. And yes, she was still cooking in the Garden Car over an open fire.

After Kigi had died, Najaran hadn't quite minded becoming a virtual slave for a few days, because the chores helped keep her mind off of having lost her friend.

But that was the sort of thing time could heal, could ease. Time spent with Gargoyle and Wall Of Stone, listening to their stories about Kigi. Time spent telling her friends here about what Kigi did, what her people did, to save the world.

But there was nothing time or talking could do about the fact that without her cards she was a klutzy glutton. Sure she could fight with a sword, and she could use a shield, if she had to. But not for long. She just didn't have the upper body strength. Or the coordination. She wasn't Joaquin, she couldn't make potions and elixirs for any problem. She wasn't clever Atla with strategies and courage and fire arm skills. She wasn't Ganz who could swing an axe as large as he was and throw people around like rag dolls. She wasn't Kigi, able to shoot a bow and arrows. She didn't even know if you said shoot a bow or shoot arrows. Ad even if she did, she didn't have a bow. Or arrows.

She had spell cards, but she was forbidden to use those. Because she messed things up whenever she tried.

Because she was useless as anything other than either a Cepter or a servant.

After the first day, Goligan had stopped arguing with her, because what was the point? She wasn't listening. The man-headed cane rested against the huge suit of armor that was helping to peel and cut and otherwise prepare from his seated position in the corner. Naja's smaller creatures stayed close to her whenever they weren't running and fetching for her. Except Woodfolk who was hiding in the soil.

Najaran hardly noticed when people came and went, hardly realized when the days changed over, just got up and went back to chores and brooding. She was still careful with the fire, and to not cut herself or burn herself but otherwise, she was working mechanically, more focused inward than outward.

She didn't even notice when people had come back...

Comments

[najaran]

"I cook in the garden car mostly. The kitchen is too small and too full of weird magical artifacts. I've been shown how to use some of them, but nothing beats a carefully tended fire under your pot for stew," she said, warming to the topic a bit. "I'm still not sure about an oven with a door either, I keep expecting it to explode."

[sevenyearsasleep]

"Oh, I know! They're really strange. And the microwave thing? If you put anything metal in it, it does try to explode."

He was a little surprised that no one minded a campfire in the garden car. But, as it was reminiscent of home, he certainly wasn't going to complain.

[najaran]

"Microwave?" she asked, perplexed. "I don't think I've been shown that one. Gremlin likes the ice cream maker, though. Ice cream is super yummy, but I haven't been able to figure out how to keep it from melting, so it is hard to cook with."

[sevenyearsasleep]

"There was one in the Welcome House in Nautilus. I tried cooking something with a metal spoon in it, and nearly set the place on fire." As a preteen, it had been amazing.

"I don't think you're supposed to cook with ice-cream. But, uh, you can add it to stuff. Like cake and pie? I think...."

[najaran]

"Cake is super yummy! The only pie I've had here though is that pizza sort that Mami makes, I tried it once with ice cream, it was yummy, but very messy to eat."

[sevenyearsasleep]

"Pizza? The bread with all the cheese and things on it?"

[najaran]

"Yeah! and all sorts of yummy other toppings. Lea also makes it, he likes to make his spicy. There are so many different ways to make pizza apparently. I can't wait till I get home and can show my Master!"

[sevenyearsasleep]

"I like mushrooms and that pineapple stuff," Link said, unaware that many would consider this a culinary abomination.

"Master?"

[najaran]

"OOOO! I wanted to add coconut and mango, but apparently no one else liked that idea. Though I don't much like mushrooms any more," she shuddered a bit.

But cheered up again at the question, nodding her head. "Master Horowitz."

[sevenyearsasleep]

"Mango? Oh! Yeah, I think I've had that before. It's summer-like." He paused. "Did you get some toadstools by mistake?"

Link smiled. "Is he your teacher?"

[najaran]

"Actually, a bunch of mushrooms tried to kill us once. We ate our way free, but..." she shook her head. Mushrooms was now one of the very few foods she didn't care for.

She nodded. "Since I was little I went to stay with him. He teaches me all sorts of things and there is no one in the world scarier than he is when he's angry," she shuddered, "But we're helping to save our world together, and apparently e's super important and stuff. I just thought he was getting senile."

[sevenyearsasleep]

"That--yeah, that would make you lose your taste of them. I understand."

Link smiled. "So, kind of an adopted dad?"

[najaran]

"What... oh, no... He's not trying to take the place of my dad or anything," she said, shaking her head quickly.

They got to the Garden Car finally where Eidolon and Gremlin were tending the fire. Knight was sitting in the corner, scrunched up, peeling potatoes. There was a tripod over the fire. She set the pot on it. "That was heavy," she said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hands. She dried them on her apron then went to go check on the laundry hanging to dry on a line strung between Knight's pauldron and the far wall.

[sevenyearsasleep]

"Oh. My real parents are dead. They died in a civil war back home, when I was a baby. I've been adopted a few times. I don't think...I don't think adoption takes the place of your real parents."

Link busied himself trying to get vegetables together to cut.

[najaran]

"It doesn't?" she asked, helping him sort the veg. "I didn't know," she said with a shrug. "He just told me to call him Master Horowitz," she added. "I've been with him practically forever at this point."

[sevenyearsasleep]

"I don't think so. I mean...adoption is a I chose you, sort of thing?"

Link chewed his lip. "I sometimes call my adoptive father 'dad'. Sometimes by his name. It just...it just sort of depends on how I'm feeling. Can't really take much more rejection, so sometimes, it's just easier to use his name."

[najaran]

"What does he want you to call him?" she asked as she started trimming the fat on the meat to cook separately, since he had the vegetables in hand.

[sevenyearsasleep]

"I...I think dad. But, sometimes, it's hard."

He carefully cut the vegetables into nice evenly sized pieces.

[najaran]

"Why is it hard?" she asked, curious.

[sevenyearsasleep]

"I'm not sure," Link admitted. "But, it's...I dunno. Part of it, I don't want to be rejected for it. And I also know that someday, I'm going to end up dying, and I'm pretty sure that'll be a long time before he does.....it's complicated."

[najaran]

"If he wants you to call him dad, why would you be rejected for it?" she asked, totally confused. "and besides, if you think you're going to die soon," how she interpreted that, "Shouldn't you use the time you have being happy instead of scared all the time?" she asked. She put the fat into the water to flavor the broth then took a break from the meat to spear a carrot chunk with er knife to nibble on.

She's from a world where they don't know to wash up after handling raw meat, okay?

[sevenyearsasleep]

"It's...complicated. He doesn't really accept a few things about me. Like the shorter life-span thing. Or," Link added some salt and pepper to the water, along with a little cream. "a few things about my brother."

He smiled, not judging her cooking practices at all. "I think I have a few more decades in me."

[najaran]

"My Master doesn't accept things about me too," she said, still confused, but doing her best to be polite, as if just talking abut Master Horowitz meant he was watching her behavior. "But I mean... that's just how adults are, right? Always wanting you to do better, learn better, change and stuff? Goligan is like that too."

[sevenyearsasleep]

"I don't know. Some adults are. I've met some adults who like me as I am, though. Like Mr. Talon. I've never felt stupid learning from him. But, he's not tried teaching me book stuff, he's only taught me real stuff. How to fix fences, and how to trim hooves, how to help a heifer during calving..."

Link chewed his lip. "I guess...I guess I want to be loved as I am. Not for who I could be."

[najaran]

"He doesn't love or like you?" she asked, confused. "Then why did he want to be your father?"