Rah and Darcy in the Kitchen
3/29/11
Includes
Rahier
Darcy
RW Abbey: Kitchen
This is a long, narrow room with five large fireplaces set into one wall, and two equally large wood burning iron stoves set against the opposite wall. Several small, rectangular tables rest in here, but there are no chairs available. The rest of the wallspace is taken up by an entire array of shelves, cupboards, and counters which hold the day-to-day cooking supplies and utensils. The kitchen is clean and well maintained, and more recent efforts have been made toward organization of the cooking ware.
On the wall just right of the door leading into Great Hall is a neatly penned chart, which lists the names of beasts assigned to cooking duty as well as the dates and times they are scheduled. A small note above the chart urges residents to volunteer for at least a slot or two a week.
Outside, the last rays of sunlight are fading. The ovens are being allowed to cool.
Exits/Entrances:
[G]reat [H]all [Wine] Cellar [Sc]ullery
[C]avern [H]ole [Pan]try [La]rder
[Ki]tchen [P]ath
It's getting late into the evening; the kitchen has been cleaned and everything put away after the last meal of the day. The stoves are burning low, never really extinguished all the way, so the kitchen is fairly warm, though not unpleasantly so, which might be the case when meals are being prepared. Darcy has just come in from outside, through the side way, and her jacket is folded on a stool by the counter, with her satchel on top of that. Her scarf isn't wrapped around her neck, but is left unfurled, the ends draped down the front of her body. She has a kettle over the flame to heat up whatever the contents might be, and while she waits, she's on her knees on another stool, which lends her height so she can go through a medium-high cabinet, searching it without any apparent rush.
She is not the only evening-snacker, apparently. Well maybe she's set on more than snacking, judging by the kettle, but the other hare is not. He hobbles his way on into the kitchen, pausing upon entering. Make jokes about how a kitchen should be quite familiar to a hare and all, but he hasn't been in here more than a handful of times. Darcy, of course, makes herself readily visible as she stands rooting through a cabinet. "Which cookie jar y'lookin' for?"
"Why does everyone always assume I'm looking for /sweet/ things," Darcy mutters; and about as soon as she says it, she stops the rooting-through of the cabinet. Her hands grip the edge of one of the wooden shelves, and she twists around, using that hold to keep her balance on what appears to be a slightly wobbly stool. The doe's expression dissolves quickly into a grin. "What. /What/. .. /really/? Whendidyougethere!"
"Because y'are," he replies, with a smile of his own. Rah walks up to the center and puts his hands on it, leaning forwards as he looks across the kitchen at her. "I donno, slow as I move, I jus' lose track o' time." He rests his forearms on the cool counter, eyes falling from her to her stool. "An' you're gonna fall, if y'aren't careful."
The stool teeters back and forth as Darcy nearly squirms with excitement. "Yes. I am. And /yesss/, I know." The grip on the sturdy cabinet shelf keeps her from falling, for the moment, though it's an awkward hold now that she's facing him instead of it. "Believe me, Rah, I'd be all the way over there already.. if it weren't for the risk of breaking my skull on the counter. Breaking like an /egg/. Brain bits everywhere - it'd end up on tomorrow's breakfast, probably." She releases one hand and slides one knee off the stool, lowering and extending her leg, trying to locate the floor with her foot so she can step off the stool without toppling it or herself to the floor.
Rahier sighs. She is plainly going to end up dead, splattered all over the floor. Rah pushes off from his perch and steps his way over towards her as she is wobbling back and forth, and reaches up to steady her with his hands, putting his foot on the lower rung of the stool to keep it in place. "Fortunately I don't think many Redwallers particularly like eatin' brain," he says.
By some combination of Rahier's grip, and his foot on the stool, Darcy manages to get both feet on the floor with her skull intact. Her hand finds a hold on the buck's forearm, midway between his wrist and elbow, and she uses this to tug at him. He's taller than her, again, now that she doesn't have the stool's height addition. "Fortunately for them, or me? I mean, how do they know it's not delicious?" she mutters, grinning up at him.
Rahier guides her down to the floor, and then grins. "Uhm, well, both, I s'pose. We've deprived them o' their chance for brains, woe." Rah looks from her up to the cabinet. He steps on the stool himself, just a little, to raise up his sight to look into the cabinet. "What were y'after, then?"
"Um! Not sure. Dried strawberries, that's usually what I go after in here," Darcy says, leaning her hands against the edge of the counter as she stands now to the side of the stool, and cants her head to watch Rahier as he rises a little on the stool. "But I don't know if they'd have any of those left, after various little mousey things craving fruit all winter long." Pause. "Oh. And a mug. Two mugs, now."
"Ah ha. So it /was/ sweets." Dried fruit, really. At least it wasn't the candied stuff, though if the dried fruit is threatened the candied material must already be gone. "I'll just check above sea level." Rah steps up on the stool, to reach the shelf above Darcy-height, reaching up to collect two mugs. Grinning, he steps down, and sets them on the counter. "What's mugs for, then?"
"Hadn't quite decided. Something steamy, and at least a /little/ bit alcoholic." Darcy gives this somewhat predictable answer with that same continuous grin, and takes up the mugs when Rahier fetches them down from a shelf. Having a tall friend is just so handy. "Feel like anything in particular? I was leaning toward a cider-and-brandy concoction, maybe."
"That covers a few of the drinks I enjoy," Rah says with a grin, leaning back against the counter now, pushing the stool back into place with his foot. "No, no preference. I s'pect y'can make me somethin' I'll enjoy, surprise an' all." He crosses his arms. "Stayin' out here lately?"
Darcy turns away from the counter, a mug in each hand, and moves back over to the stove. The kettle is making a faint hissing sound, not whistling, but nearly there; hot enough for steamy beverages. "You know how I am, back and forth a lot. I figured I'd come head out this way again, once it started edging toward spring - once the worst of the snow blockage was gone, anyway." With a hand towel over her hand, she lifts the kettle from the heat and pours each mug two-thirds full of the hot water, then opens a jar of some herbal mix - cider spice, judging from the smell of it. "Might as well sit, we're not going anywhere for a bit," she suggests, adding brandy to fill each cup the rest of the way. "What're you doing this far from the mountain, anyway? I thought you were able to evade traveling on account of the bad leg."
Of course, she likes her mugs of cider. Rah takes the offer to sit, pulling up the stool to the counter so he can settle down on it, rubbing at the knee of his bad leg to ease the tension from it. "Is gettin' kinda nice out there," he agrees. "If I don't walk, s'as bad as overdoin' it," he says, with a small smile. Rah shrugs slowly, watching her mix the drink. "S'good t'get away for awhile."
"Meh," Darcy replies, with a glance to Rahier's face as he takes a seat. It puts him down closer to her level, though a stool is of course higher than a typical seat, and he's still got her height beat by a few inches. "/Slowly/.. slowly getting nice. Spring's really taking its damn time, this year. Here." With the drinks finished, she sets one on the counter in front of him, rather than passing the hot mug into his hands. "It's hot, but not seething. The brandy wasn't warmed up, so that should've brought the temperature down somewhere below scalding." She lets her own drink sit there for a moment, while she puts the jar of cider spice away. Instead of returning the flask of brandy to its place, wherever that might be, she lifts it to her mouth to take a quick little swig, then offers that to Rahier too. "I remember the mountain can be kind of restless by the end of winter. Things doing okay over there, though?"
Rahier accepts the drink, putting one hand around it.. he's inclined to let it cool a little bit, anyway. He puts his nose into the wisp of steam it lets off and sniffs, before looking at her. "Winter doesn't bother me s'much," he says- of course, he is still white. Winter is in his bones! "Well.. y'know.. I don't s'much have t'deal with all that stuff anymore.. I have underlings, now. S'all goin' 'bout how y'would remember..." He puts his chin in his hand, looking down at the drink. "After we finish an' we get a bite.. think y'migh' wanna go make a fire outside in th' woods?"
"'course not," Darcy quips with a grin, leaning sideways into the counter as she stands, facing him - a few feet between them, to easily share that flask of brandy back and forth. "You're a mountain hare, look at you - fluffy thing. Like Harper. Just wait til it really warms up, and molting starts." She recalls this particular event mostly with fondness, her tone a bit wry. It's such a mess, all that shedding. The doe dips a finger into her mug of brandy-cider to test the temperature, and now picks up the mug, though the sip she takes is small; experimental. "I guess being Colonel leaves you a little more time for leisure - somehow. I mean, there's other duties, high-up-ranking duties, but Zoe's always handled that fine on her own, I think. Woods, huh?" Her grin creeps out wider, her ears lifting and turning toward him with interest. "Yeah, you've got my attention now. No need to eat here, we can bring something with us. What're you hungry for?"
"Yeah, yeah, I always shed everywhere.. 'm not th' only one." You can picture the snow drifts of fur, maybe. Rah sips at his cider, lowering a little to swish it around some, releasing a bit more of the wispy steam. "Leisure? I don't have any leisure. Thas' for young people." He hides his smile with his mug, but his brows raise a little when he looks across at her. "Oh, 'm not particular." Whether he's not particular about the food or not particularly hungry is ambiguous. "I jus' wanna go sit f'awhile." It'll be a spring fire.
"You're never particular," Darcy comments, "but /peculiar/.. is much more accurate. Anyway, I'm not hungry, unless those damn dried strawberries show themselves. I can pack a little something for us, though? Or just some more to drink." She grins, her eyes a little squinty from the expression, hands cupped together around her mug. The slow-rising steam brushes across her muzzle, barely visible. "That's just what we'd need with a middle-of-the-night, middle-of-the-woods fire. More to drink."
"'M as normal as normal can be," the colonel says, but with a grin. He raises his mug and finishes the cider with a few drinks, turning and setting the mug in the basin. "Bring whatever y'want. I think I remember findin' a pile o' wood under a tarp bit south o' here."
Groups:
