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 Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 1:05 pm
As Xiu moved into the kitchen area, a grin pulled at her lips as she spotted the spookies and cakes. "Those look great, Taryn! We really are lucky to have you in the baking club!" Perhaps they could ask the chimera to help any inexperienced bakers? There were a couple of students who signed up who she might have been a little concerned about...
Setting the bag down on the counter, she began to pull everything out, one thing at a time. The pouches were arranged neatly in rows, tags turned around so that the contents could be determined at a single glance. "Mint, raspberry leaves..." She murmured the names to herself as she laid them out. Finally, when they were all out of the bag, Xiu turned to look at Taryn. She looked a little sheepish too--she had brought a lot of things.
"It's not too hard, but I guess there are certain rules to blending. First off, what kind of tea do you like?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 5:08 pm
Taryn's cheeks colored slightly.
"Thank you..." she said somewhat shyly, a finger brushing hair back behind her ear. Well, that was certainly a compliment from one of the ghouls that had started the club, wasn't it? She could only imagine what kind of expert Xiu would be. After a moment of awkwardness the chimera approached, peering from the side at her new friend's collection of herbs. She really had brought everything, hadn't she? When addressed, Taryn's head snapped up and she managed a smile.
"I'm... not certain," she admitted with a little shrug, "I haven't had much. Chamomile is the peak of fanciness, for me. Some Earl Grey... but this is clearly not bagged tea." The ghoul nodded toward Xiu's piles and decided to try and be involved. "What do we have? I might come up with poison, but I'd love to help..."
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 6:41 pm
"Hmm, I do have chamomile! I also have..." Er, she had a lot. Where to start? "Chrysanthemum, jasmine, peony, dandelions, mint--w-well." Xiu was starting to look a little sheepish again, but maybe they could just go for something a little simple.
"Do you think that you would like...sweet teas, maybe? Maybe something flowery with a slight fruity taste to it?" She looked thoughtful, mentally trying to come up with a few blends that the chimera might like. Maybe something with the dried chrysanthemum as a mild base? Xiu had to admit that she was probably biased though--she just really loved chrysanthemum tea.
She picked up the pouch and pulled it open, holding it out to the ghoul. "Do you want to smell them? It might help you decide whether you like them or not!" At least, the flowers in this particular pouch has a pleasant and not very overpowering scent. Some of the other pouches would contain herbs that smelled much more strongly.
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 7:33 pm
Weren't those all flowers? Did flowers really belong in tea? They must, or else why would Xiu have so many of them? Her preformed opinion of the ghoul might have been just a little bit of over-estimation.
"I'd much rather watch you blend, I think. Oh, that sounds good, I-- oh. Oh, okay," Taryn nodded, following the baku's train of thought with some effort. She'd forgotten how awkward they both could be, and with their powers combined... Taryn took up the little pouches and sniffed each in turn, setting a few aside. She seemed to be tending toward a spicier tea such as with cloves, and perhaps slightly fruity. "The cake is orange-y? These smell like... like they may go well with it..."
Or maybe she had just made a fool of herself, who knew?
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2011 5:47 pm
Xiu blushed, scratching her cheek as she looked down at all the pouches. "I-I'm sorry, Taryn. I...I tend to talk a lot when I make tea, but...I think I know what kind of blend to make to go with your cakes now." She had noticed the other ghoul's preference for the ingredients that would make for a slightly spicier tea. If she used one of these, another ingredient as a filler, and one to add some fruitiness to it...
Furrowing her brows, she picked out some of the pouches and pushed the others to the side. After giving them a little stare, she turned to smile at the chimera. "Mmkay, I think this will taste good! Could you...could you boil some water, please?" Despite the fact she had been given permission to use the kitchen, the idea of going around and using it like her own was a little awkward for her.
She readied everything else though--the teapot, the strainer, and so on--humming thoughtfully as she did so. After a moment of silence, she spoke up again, her expression concerned. "Taryn, were you...were you hurt on the trip? I mean..." Considering how she had had to tend to two injured friends--who had neglected to get their wounds checked out in the tents--in the past few days, it wasn't a surprise that the baku was a little more fretful than usual.
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Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 9:23 am
"Oh, no. It's fine," Taryn smiled, rocking on her hooves a bit. She wasn't so used to being chatty herself, but it was a step in the right direction, wasn't it? Xiu was, after all, not a very intimidating person and a good place to start.
There was a sudden worry for looking ridiculous when the baku made a request. Boil water... in a pan? Wasn't there some kind of special device used for that? A pot, maybe, or... anything. The ghoul didn't want to appear useless, though, and so she began filling a sauce pan with water and set it on the stove, cranking up the heat. She was somewhat flushed and embarrassed to even look in Xiu's direction for a time, and pushed her hair behind her ear. That is, until things suddenly got serious.
"No, no. I'm fine," she said, turning to face the baku. Xiu had clearly not fared so well, herself. "I... fainted, I think. I was in a room with... 'Boos', they called themselves. We weren't anywhere near the... the..." Oh, what should she call it? They were battles, really, but would that spark bad memories? Even then, 'events' didn't seem to sum up the gravity of that morning. "The... danger. We could see it, but there was nothing we could do. Students would appear when they, um. When they... dissipated." Taryn's brow was furrowed in concern. She had never experienced something so serious in her young life, and it seemed odd to be talking about it so calmly.
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Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:29 pm
When glanced over, she was a little surprised to find the water in a saucepan. However, all she did was smile--well, it would be a little tough to pour the boiling water into a teapot from a saucepan, but...it wouldn't impossible, right? "If you a kettle, that might work a little bit better next time! And if you don't have one, I could go and get one for you." She probably still had a new one sitting in a box in her room somewhere.
Her smile had faded when Taryn explained what had happened to her. She was definitely glad to hear that the ghoul was unharmed, though she furrowed her brows in confusion as the chimera mentioned "Boos". "Boos?" She echoed, pausing from her blending to look at the ghoul from over her shoulder, "What are those? I can't recall running into anyone or anything other than those..."
She trailed off, pressing her lips together in a thin line. For a moment, she was silent, and then finally murmured "hunters" to complete the sentence. She still didn't know what in Halloween those hunters were up to--why had they captured some of the students, and why had they attacked them?--but Xiu knew that she didn't trust them one bit.
"I'm glad to hear that you're unhurt, Taryn." The smile returned to the baku's face as she set the tea blend aside to wait for the water to boil. "That trip was...nothing like how I imagined it to be."
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:17 pm
Taryn turned a distinctly darker shade of red. Right, a kettle... no, she didn't have a kettle. She barely had pans. She wasn't about to tell Xiu to give her either, and so the ghoul just shook her head.
...hunters? Hunters, was that what those folks in the white jackets were? They had been attacking so hard, so relentlessly, attacking teenagers who had meant them no harm. Hunters. That seemed like an appropriate name.
"Boos. They were like little... little ghost-wannabes." Roch had brought that comparison to her attention, and it was fairly accurate. Of course, there were other words to use. Stupid. Annoying. She didn't use any of them. "Little white things floating... Xiu, we became them, and a little Human came in shouting... it was so strange. I never would have imagined battle, or changing species, life-threatening puzzles... my teammates, they had all been on trips before. I understand the strange looks they gave now."
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 12:18 am
Hmm, no? She would bring one over for Taryn next time, then. Xiu filed this task safely into the her memory, and then turned back to finish off the blend. Now all she needed was to wait for the boiling water and they could make a brew in the teapot she had brought.
"Ghost-wannabes?" The baku echoed, scrunching up her face as she tried to imagine these floaty white things. She actually kind of wished that she had gotten a chance to see these things but...alas, too late for that now, she supposed.
Not that she wanted to go back there anytime soon. Within a day, the place had turned from their field trip destination to a tragic place.
"Some friends tried to warn me before the trip," Xiu admitted, frowning as she recalled those chats, "They knew how dangerous it could be, but...apparently this was the first trip where anyone...died. Died without reforming, I mean."
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 6:28 pm
"Mine didn't want to warn me," Taryn said softly, fiddling with her hands all of a sudden. She was peering down at herself, her brows furrowed deeply, and something had changed in her. After a moment the first real bubbles began to rile the surface of the water in the pan and she turned. Right, right. Tea time. Xiu was here, and they could share with each other, they could help each other heal.
"My team and I, we had to solve a puzzle before... before we could choose," the chimera offered, perking and testing the heat of the pan handle with her finger. She nodded, gesturing to it and stepping back, "Did yours?" She had no idea how to go about this, especially since she had all the wrong appliances, and what Xiu was doing seemed so... mysterious and special. She was content to watch.
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Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:11 pm
Xiu was silent for a moment, and then she smiled weakly. "...Well, I...I can't say I entirely regret going on that trip. It was hard but...I think I came out a little stronger." She liked to think so, at least. At the very least, she could claim that she came out more determined, because that was definitely true.
When she noted that the water was boiling, the baku frowned thoughtfully. Now uh...how was she going to get the water into the teapot without spilling any or scalding herself? After a pause, she took her teapot, put it in the sink, and went to take the saucepan of water. "May I?" Carrying it over to the sink, she proceeded to slowly pour the liquid into the teapot.
"And...yes. There were some puzzles that we had to get through. We...we didn't make it too far, though." The first room had been rather complicated, and the suddenly ambush by the hunters hadn't helped matters. "I wonder what those humans are thinking?" She mused softly, mostly to herself, before shaking her head.
"This conversation is a little too dreary for tea, don't you think? I'm sorry that I keep talking about it."
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:15 am
Taryn had nearly suggested just what Xiu was doing, and she was a little proud that they'd had the same thought. She stood back as the baku worked, watching curiously.
"Oh, no, it's fine," she said, giving a little hand-wave, "It happened so recently... sometimes it helps to talk about things, right? I mean, it was a big deal, it affected everyone. My team didn't make it very far in the puzzles either, if there was more than one. We had a bit of a hard time and were short one person for most of it, but we made it through. It went right from there to... well, to the worse danger..." Alright, that really was enough. The chimera perked and smiled, clasping her hands at her waist.
"I hope you won't be offended, but can I ask your heritage?" One of the best sides of Amityville was the wild mix of species and clans within the student body. Sure, there was variation from town to town, but to actually get to meet and speak with so many different types of people with such wide-spread life experiences... it was pretty enlightening.
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 5:05 pm
Good, she had managed to get most, if not all, of the water into the teapot. The blend--in a tea strainer--went into the pot, and she slid the lid onto the teapot before lifting it out of the sink. "This will be ready in a few minutes. Should we sit down?"
The question surprised her, but she certainly wasn't offended by it. Smiling, she shook her head. "I don't mind at all. I'm a baku." There was a pause, and then she belatedly realized that not everyone knew what a baku was. There didn't seem to be too many of them around these parts.
"I'm a dream eater from one of the Asian clans," She explained, her expression sheepish, "Though I've been learning how to manipulate dreams and nightmares lately as well, so I guess eating them isn't all that I do now."
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 5:18 pm
"Absolutely," Taryn smiled and nodded, gesturing to the back of her room where her couch sat. Now would be one of those prime moments for a skelevision, she thought, but Xiu had so far proved herself very good for conversation. Why worry?
"Really," Taryn commented, happily listening to the other ghoul's explanation. Of course, this didn't answer the most basic for of her question, which was which dorm Xiu may live in. It would be rude to ask again, though, and it could easily be misconstrued. Mummy and Deadie had always taught Taryn that monsters had to try harder to get to the same places as demons and reapers. They may very well be right, but her peers seemed to disagree. She had yet to meet one of either that had obviously looked down upon her. So did it matter, in the end? No. "Interesting. Dreams are so... enigmatic. I mean... to me, anyway? They must be familiar to you."
Wait a second. "Have you eaten any dreams at Amityville? Or taken control of any?"
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:08 pm
She followed Taryn towards the couch, humming thoughtfully to herself at the ghoul's words. "Not exactly," Xiu answered, smiling sheepishly, "I don't think anyone can ever fully understand dreams. I've entered a lot of them, but I'm always surprised by what I find or what happens." Dreams were certainly a mysterious thing. Though some of them followed a similar pattern, she realized that all dreams were different, just like their individual dreamers.
She blinked at the question and then nodded. "I can't take control of a dream, but I think I'm starting to develop the ability to manipulate little things. As for eating any dreams..." Xiu nodded again, "Yes, but only once, and that was a nightmare." She wasn't about to go around and devour the good dreams of her friends, that was for certain.
As for humans...well, they were a different story, of course.
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