Welcome to Gaia! ::

There was a lot about Earth that Linnea did not understand. Culture shock was certainly setting in. Humans' disregard for their environment was concerning. Some of their concepts on what made family and relationships seemed limiting and difficult to wrap her head around. The tendency to be awake during the day rather than at night was a constant reminder that she was somewhere different.

The worst, most inescapable difference, though, was still the cold.

It was always so cold.

As soon as Linnea had figured out the Internet, she'd started scouring it for ways to stay warm. She had a coat, now, and a pile of blankets on the mattress that had been set up for her. She found that she was always drinking tea, or cappuccinos and chocolate drinks when she could get them.

Now that she'd gotten a better idea of what ingredients were available, she was trying something else.

A small pile of vegetables and cans of stock were piled up next to her, and Daphne flipped through the recipe she'd printed out one last time before she started chopping up a carrot and adding it to the pot she had bubbling.

It was nice, she thought, to finally be making something with her own hands. Maybe she could share it with Malcolm, even, to give back some for everything he'd done for her.

Linnea was humming to herself when Malcolm came into the kitchen, but she cut herself off and turned around to wave at him with the spoon she was holding still in her hand. Some of the awkwardness from the first night had faded over time. She still wouldn't say that she was used to living on a new world with a new person, but it was getting to the point where it didn't feel weird to smile at Malcolm, or to wiggle a spoon at him.

"It does, doesn't it? It's hot soup, ham and chickpea. You can taste it," she said, and then flipped around the spoon and offered it to him handle first.

"I found it on a list called recipes that warm your soul, and I know that your internet tends to exaggerate things, but I was still intrigued."

It probably wasn't a surprise to Malcolm that she was trying to stay warm. He'd seen the way she hoarded blankets and shied away from the weather outside. "On Daphne, soup is more like mixed vegetable juice served over ice. Nobody wants to warm up. I like this Earth kind so far, though."

Was her soul okay? It was a question that Linnea hadn't been expecting, and her hand fluttered to her chest while she thought about it.

"No," she answered after another second of stirring. "My body's okay now that I'm by the stove. The heat is up enough." She was wearing a sweater, anyway, and a few layers of long skirts that she'd found cheap at a thrift shop. She was much better dressed for Earth now, even if she wasn't happy about the environment here.

She couldn't say she was used to Earth, though.

"My soul is homesick," she said, "And worried about what happened to my people, and not wanting to go look."

It was easier to not think about all that if she focused on making something and on feeding someone. Maybe it would even make her feel like less of an outsider in this home if he liked her finished product..

"These recipes blogs all have lots of stories before you get to the part where it tells you how to make the food. The one was talking about how soup can make you feel better after heartbreak."

She took another spoonful from the pot and tried to decide if she was reeling healed.

"I don't think of comfort food and sick food being the same thing," said Linnea, her lips twitching slightly to the side. She wasn't any good at hiding her emotions either, and she still looked melancholy while she kept stirring the soup, more for something to do with her hands than out of any necessity.

She didn't mind talking about it, though.

"Sick food on Daphne is mashed up fruits and soft breads. There's herbal teas to clear your head and fizzy drinks to settle your stomach but overall it's not good. At least, I wouldn't want to eat it if I wasn't already on the verge of vomiting."

Noodle soup sounded much better, honestly.

"There are these, I call them buns, they're deep fried dough with different fillings? The crab ones were my favorite, but those were only for special occasions. All of them are good. One of my fathers tried to make enough that I could always have one when I came home."

She smiled, a little wistfully. "Even once I awakened and I was supposed to be living and breathing all these politics and all this diplomacy, he'd hand me one every time I ran away to home."

She smiled at his stories about his mother, who seemed wonderful, although there was still a twinge of sadness to it all because his mother was somewhere in driving distance while her own father was far away at best, and at worst-

Either way, she didn't think that she was going to be able to go home to warm snacks any time. Her fingers tightened some around the handle of the spoon.

"I do want to meet your mother sometime. She sounds sweet," said Linnea. "Don't worry. I'll use the earrings to look like a good little Earthling so she doesn't ask about my tail." She gave a dramatic sigh as she glanced back to where the tail was currently waving gently behind her, but she supposed it would be worth it to use the disguise sometimes if it meant she was able to meet more people.

"And I'm glad soup is one of your comfort foods, even if it's a sick food, here. I can always make it for you, too, if you're sick, or if you're sick."

She'd had her share of share of curling up in bed and yelling about fevers if anyone approached when really she just didn't want to deal with lessons or certain people. If someone had given her a warm bowl of soup on those days, she might have felt better.

"I can go to the noodle ones if you don't like this. I found recipes for those, too, but I think this one should be ready in a few minutes, once the carrots get softer."

She thought it smelled good enough to eat.

"Soleiyu is talking about getting me a house? To live by myself?" Linnea's eyes went wide at the thought, but not in excitement. She looked nervous, and she didn't turn away or get any drinks to try and hide it.

"I don't understand why the highest honor on Earth is independence. Everyone is expected to go find a box to live in by themself, or with their tiny family." She shook her head at the soup pot.

"I had four mothers growing up, five fathers, grandparents, and I think it was up to ten siblings by the time they took me to the government house to try to teach me to be a senshi. This," with the spoon, she waved between them, and then towards the house around them, "Already feels quiet."

She turned quickly to look at Malcolm and to smile at him, because that might have sounded harsh. "Not quiet in a bad way. I like talking to you, and I think I've needed some time to think, after everything, but I really don't think I could handle being completely by myself."

It was only when Malcolm quickly started backpedaling that Linnea realized that her outburst, even if it had come from a deep-set fear of being more alone, might have been uncalled for.

"Maybe it will turn out that I can go home, and then this will not matter so much," she said, and while she didn't come right out and say that she was sorry, there was something softer and almost apologetic about her tone.

She knew that, culturally, it was probably intruding to stay in his room the way that she was.

She decided it was about time for the soup to be called done. She turned away for a moment and jostled through the cabinets until she'd found and pulled out bowls for them, and she spooned out his serving first and put it on the counter next to the stove before she got her own.

"The moment of truth for Earth's soups," she said before she went to rummage through one more drawer for am eating spoon.

"And yes," she added, eyes distant, tail swishing slow and melancholy behind her. "It was busy, but it was normal. It felt quiet when they had me move in with the other senators when I was ten, just because there were no other children there. I hated it. It took me years to get used to it."

With a quirked smile over her shoulder, she added, "I might have adjusted faster if I wasn't constantly running away back home to my family for months on end, but," she shrugged.

"Oh, it's not like that," said Linnea quickly, dishing up her own bowl of soup and moving to find a seat where she could try it. "Children aren't expected to work. Even adults don't have as many duties as they do on other worlds, as far as I can tell. In my case, they wanted me involved in the government because of my connection with the world, the day-to-day was mostly lessons when I was young."

Malcolm was smelling his soup rather than eating it, so Linnea decided to do the same. The bowl felt warm when she rested her fingers against it. Somehow, it smelled warm, too.

It might not have been enough to heal her heart, just like that, but it was something.

"I didn't like the lessons, either. I ran away a few times, to go live at home again, and in retrospect, I don't think they tried to stop me. They let me be a kid."

They'd always given her a few months before someone had come knocking at her door, asking about her, and when she'd gotten older and learned to ask for leave instead of just sneaking out her window in the middle of the night, they'd always given it to her.

"I was just starting to take being a senshi seriously when everything fell apart. I was just starting to take being a diplomat seriously. Of course, now that things have fallen apart I think Daphne needs to reach out to other worlds more than ever, so," she smiled, and there was something about it that was softer than usual, "Of course I'll come see you, Malcolm."