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Axel had been on kitchen duty only once so far. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. There were a lot of finicky little things that needed doing, and Axel wasn't exactly the master of finicky little things. Or cookery in general. The presence of the bizarrely hyperaggressive head cook didn't help matters, and after mangling the green onions he was supposed to be chopping and nearly cutting off a finger in the process, Axel had been exiled to mopping duty.

Today, Axel was in high spirits and ready to take on kitchen duty for the second time. He thought he was mentally prepared to handle the shouting without getting flustered. He would just keep his head down and plod along. Maybe he would even learn something in the process. Cooking was a valuable skill to have, right? At least dealing with Gordoy Ramsan was better than dealing with the horses. Gordoy Ramsan was a nutcase, but Axel was at least reasonably certain that he would not bite nor kick, and absolutely positive that he would not take a dump on the kitchen floor.

Kitchen duty would also be a welcome break from running laps, which Axel had been doing for well over an hour as punishment for being one of the slowest runners in the group during their morning workout. Still wheezy from the running, but with hands and face freshly scrubbed, Axel stepped into the kitchen.

There was already someone working there. Their back was turned, but that great quantity of navy blue hair was immediately recognizable.

Welp. Time to sidle back out of the kitchen and go run more laps.

Unfortunately, before Axel could just ooze back out of the door, he was spotted and shouted at from across the kitchen. "Oy! Get in here and get to peelin' eggs, donkey!"

Greeeatttt.

It had been an effort to work up some good positive thoughts about kitchen duty after running around in the hot sun for ages, and Axel was determined not to let that effort go to waste. His feud with Preacher was stupid and childish. They had to work together at some point, right? Ignoring Preacher seemed to piss her off, and while pissing Preacher off was kind of fun he didn't want to piss her off with so many kitchen knives within easy reach. Maybe if he just acted like none of their fights had ever happened, they could start fresh.

Stifling his natural urge to avoid Preacher or, alternately, give her a dirty look, Axel walked up to the counter where Preacher was working. "Hello, Preacher," he said politely. He grabbed an egg and whacked it on the counter to crack the shell before he started picking at it.

Say something else, he had to say something else. "Nice weather we're having, isn't it?" More like hot, sucky weather. Not being the kind of dude who carried a pocket mirror, Axel hadn't had a chance to check, but he was pretty sure he had a sunburn after all the laps.

Axel was not an accomplished peeler of eggs. He had in fact been banned from peeling eggs as a young boy after reducing a pot full to shreds with substandard peeling technique. He looked down at his hands and then slyly slid his gaze over to see what Preacher was doing to produce those perfect peels. Something to do with the ice water. Maybe you put the egg in it after you peeled it to chill it or something. Axel didn't want to mess up and get shouted out of the kitchen to do laps again.

He could feel Preacher staring at him. It was tempting to focus on his egg and try to ignore her, but he had started a Nice Pleasant Conversation. In the spirit of starting anew and making friends, Axel would have to reply to her. Maybe Preacher was ready to start over too. She had only insulted him once, and not cursed at all.

"Ha, ha," said Axel, telling himself that Preacher didn't mean anything by her teasing. She was well within her rights to tease him. He wouldn't rise to it. "Well. I'm getting better at running." True in a sense. He wasn't any faster, but after running laps for several days in a row he was at least getting better at running slowly for a long period of time. Axel rolled his egg around on the counter and picked at the shell. It didn't seem to want to peel loose. He got a fingernail into it and managed to pluck loose a piece approximately the size of a grain of a sand. Annoyed, Axel smacked the egg on the counter again and resumed picking, darting sneaky looks at Preacher to see if he was doing it right.

"You run very well."

Wow, he even got a compliment in. This was the nicest, most civilized conversation ever.

For all that he was trying to be nice, Axel was deeply mistrustful of Preacher. He kept a wary eye on her, ready to react if she attacked him for no reason. When she gave up on the eggs it took a lot of willpower to keep picking away at his own egg instead of backing away and preparing to defend himself. Preacher was evil and he never understood what set her off. Okay, sometimes, perhaps, just sometimes he could be maybe a bit abrasive when talking to Preacher. But now? He hadn't said a thing wrong.

He shot Preacher a suspicious look when she made that comment about him being strong. He couldn't tell if it was a jibe or not. This being Preacher, it was probably safest to assume she was trying to insult him somehow. "Yeah," Axel said vaguely, returning his attention to his egg.

Then she scratched his arm. His sunburned arm. Axel jerked his arm away from her, biting hard on his lip to keep from shouting at her. What the hell was she doing? Drawing a frigging smiley face?

The egg. He had to concentrate on the egg, which was half-smashed in his hand. Axel carelessly ripped off the remaining chunks of shell and egg white and tossed the egg onto the plate next to Preacher's three perfect eggs, where it sat forlornly, a raggedy little white blob next to its gleaming round brothers.

Axel picked up another egg and whacked it so hard against the counter the cracks ran all the way through to the yolk. Whatever. "You are a very good egg peeler, too," Axel said. His voice sounded kind of strangled, but he was determined to be nice to Preacher and not lose his temper. It didn't seem to be working so far, but maybe it would sink in soon.

Axel looked at Preacher curiously, wondering why she kept starting and stopping her sentences. Usually she always knew what to say, even if it was something mean. Maybe being nice was working.

Then she started sassing him again. Axel sighed, turning back to his egg, which was mostly destroyed at this point. He wasn't exactly angry at Preacher. No, he was frustrated and disappointed that his nicey nice plan wasn't working. He didn't want to get dragged into yet another fight with Preacher, but that jab about him being slow stung. It was depressing when people thought he was stupid, especially when that person was Preacher, who already thought he was a big dumb ox of a person with "gross man hands". Axel bit his tongue, reminding himself that he wasn't going to get angry at Preacher. He looked at the egg in his hands, realizing he had squeezed it hard enough to smash it to bits. Maybe he was angrier than he thought. Axel stealthily tossed it in the trash and grabbed another egg.

In a last valiant stab at the Make Friends plan, and perhaps to remind Preacher that he wasn't a complete idiot, Axel tried a new tactic. "Alec told me you couldn't write," Axel said. "I can help you. If you want." He gave Preacher a friendly, encouraging smile, even though it took some effort. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, not knowing how to read and write. Some people have trouble learning. I'm terrible with numbers."

Something else occurred to him: if he helped Preacher write back to Hayrick, he might be able to see what was in the original letter. "So yeah, I can help you write back to Ha-Henrik, if you want," Axel added in a very casual tone, ripping his new egg to shreds without looking at it.

Yet again, Axel had said the wrong thing. Preacher's hissing voice was vicious. He braced himself, expecting her to attack him right then and there, regardless of Gordoy Ramsan's presence. His effort to be friendly and helpful had failed decisively. Preacher seemed to take his offer of help as a dire insult. She probably just didn't want him to see what she was writing to Hayrick. Disappointed and more than a little angry that Preacher was determined to fight with him, Axel set the wreck of an egg down on the counter.

"I'm pretentious?" He laughed. It was an angry laugh, but he couldn't help himself: the sheer weirdness of someone calling him pretentious was too much. "I'm not pretentious you -- you --" But he couldn't think of what Preacher was, or at least, he couldn't think of a word for what Preacher was that wasn't horribly offensive.

Axel shoved his ruined egg at Preacher. He was fed up, fed up with the stupid eggs and fed up with trying to make small talk with Preacher. Both tasks were impossible. "Fine. You do it, O Queen Egg. Since I'm too stupid and pretentious to peel a ******** egg." He kept his voice low, not wanting the fearsome Gordoy Ramsan to overhear their argument. He stomped over to grab a mop and returned to the station, scrubbing at the mess of eggshells and scraps scattered on the floor. "Hope I'm not too much of a dumbass to mop."

Axel felt just as sulky and childish as Preacher thought he was, but he was still irritated by Preacher's smartass remarks. He hadn't been trying to insult Preacher at all. Going to school was difficult in Shiganshina. That was just the way things were.

It was actually something of a relief when Preacher grabbed him and dragged him back to the eggs. He was starting to feel ridiculous just angrily mopping. Not nearly as ridiculous as he'd felt when he started arguing with Preacher using Neighbelline and Trotto as go-betweens, but still pretty damn ridiculous. He favored Preacher with a disgruntled look at some of Preacher's nastier comments but didn't reply. It wasn't worth it. Going back to a frosty silence seemed like the best way to deal with Preacher after all.

He watched the egg teeter and fall to the floor, where it landed with a small, sad, very final splat.

"I'll get another one," Axel said stiffly.

Doing chores with Preacher sucked. Next time, he wouldn't talk to Preacher at all.