citylogs | [open] welcome to the city

Entry tags:

[open] welcome to the city

WHO: Altria Caster (

excaliburden) & perhaps you!
WHAT: Help out a gal who just got here and is still getting used to magical city things like powdered sugar
WHERE: Across the city! Namely: a convenience store, park, subway, etc.......
WHEN: Early November
WARNINGS: N/A! Will update if necessary

a. local victorian orphan discovers convenience stores

[You're probably popping into the local convenience store for sensible reasons, like to buy a soda or to grab a few things you're missing for your dinner. Maybe for one of those hot dogs. No judgment.

Either way, you're getting interrupted by a gremlin in young woman form, who comes right up to you as soon as she makes eye contact, holding up... one of those small little packs of powdered sugar donuts.]

Have you ever tried one of these?

[She sounds awed.

There is powdered sugar around her mouth and on her fingers. She seems to have already eaten three of the five in the pack. It's a little bit like a religious experience, honestly.]

b. park break

[There's only so much walking around the city she can do before she gets tired. Even a few days in, it's still a pretty overwhelming place, and despite making many plans with many helpful people upon first arriving, she... has not acted on any of them.

So it is that even though it's either very early in the morning or very late at night, Altria can be found seated on one of the benches in the park, shoulders hunched and hands in her lap. She doesn't seem to be asleep, just... thinking very, very intently.

Of course, if she notices that someone's near, she'll immediately straighten, lifting a hand to wave--but with how deep in thought she is, it isn't hard to sneak up on her, either.]

c. subway

[Using the subway today to get across the city? That's a perfectly normal thing to do.

There's a young woman there as well, nose pressed to the window as she stares out as the train moves, even though it's, you know, underground and there's nothing to see. It's fine--she still seems amazed.

Also, if you hop back on the train a few hours later to go elsewhere, she's... still there. She might be leaning back in the seat, staring at the ceiling, or moving from seat to seat idly, or, in particularly empty times of day, sprawled along two seats at once.

Don't worry about it. Everything's fine here!]

d. wildcard

(Wanna tag in but these prompts don't work? Totally fine, hit me with whatever--or poke me over here to plot something out!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alright. Suit yourself.

[ He walks forward, now intent on scouring the market for the ingredients he needs. It's going to be a guessing game, since nothing was labeled, but since it was all free for the taking, no one would care if he opened a bunch of packages looking for what he needed, would they?

The rice is easy enough to locate. So is the eel, thankfully. But the smaller ingredients—the spices are harder to figure out. ]

We have kombu and shiitake... nori should be easy to find... sesame seeds... still need sake, mirin, soy sauce, sugar, salt...

[ He's muttering to himself he examines the myriad of bottles on the shelves, trying to puzzle out what is what. ]

[Altria seems content to just follow along behind him, arms tucked behind her back as she peers at the items on the shelves. Huh... huh!! Huuuuh....

The stuff he's bringing up are, for the most part, completely foreign to her, but she that's fine. She's going to learn so much today!]

Are those common spices back where you're from?

[ He eventually manages to pick out the spices, though some bottles, he takes just in case he's guessed wrong and it's the other choice instead. What he picks out, he brings to the front of the market, and gathers all the ingredients in one place.

He should just catalogue the entire market with pictures on his phone. It would be way easier to deal with, then. ]

You could say that.

[ Looking over everything... yep, he's got everything for the dish he wants to make. But... he glances over at Altria for a moment, a look of consideration on his face, before he turns back to the shelves to search for more things. ]

You could help by putting all the stuff I've already gathered into bags for us to carry.

You got it!

[Now that's something she can do. The bags are left out as if someone should be there bagging the products (not that Altria's familiar with such a practice), so it's easy for her to bag everything up and then pick up the bags with a proud beam.]

I'm a lot stronger than I look, so I can carry everything!

[ He brings back a few more items—flour, eggs, butter, and some other things and bags it all up as well. Then, he gives her a look that clearly says he's not letting her carry everything. ]

You take half.

[ He takes the bag with eggs and two more bags, leaving the rest to Altria. ]

There's a restaurant next door. We can use that kitchen.

[............ wow!!

She picks up the bags he leaves to her, of course, but huffs.]

I really could carry all of it...!

[REALLY! TRUST HER!

She is following, huffy or not, because of course she is.]

I believe you.

[ He's not being sarcastic, for once. He does believe her. He just doesn't like the idea of leaving the work to someone else. Still... her huffing in mock anger is amusing to see, and he lets a smirk grace his face to obscure the honesty of his words. How she chooses to interpret his words and actions is up to her.

Luckily, the trip is short, and once they enter the kitchen, he indicates to her where she can place the bags. ]

It's going to take a while to cook. What are you gonna do in the meanwhile?

[Honestly, that mollifies her easily; he says that, and she smiles a little to herself, shifting back to looking as pleased as can be. So long as it's not because he thinks she's weak, then splitting the load is perfectly fine with her.]

Oh, I was going to watch you cook. Is that okay? I can tell you about the stuff I found when looking around the city at the same time.

[Like she promised! ... Not that he expected her to bring anything useful to the table, but she did it anyway!]

[ He thinks for a moment, and then shrugs. He'd thought about surprising her with a dessert, but it doesn't matter if she watches him make it. She'd be equally awed either way. ]

Suit yourself. It doesn't bother me.

[ He shuffles around the kitchen, pulling out things here and there—knives, a cutting board, a pan, apron, and more as he prepares to cook. It's a good thing he took the time to understand how these kitchens worked, though he hadn't exactly planned to cook often here. There were a lot of strange devices he wasn't familiar with, but it hadn't been to hard to figure out what they were meant for after a bit of testing. ]

So what have you found out?

[Well. He's shuffling about, and she'd like to be out of his way, at least, as fascinated as she is... ultimately, she moves to one of the out of the way counters, hopping up on it to sit there so she has enough of a vantage point to see what he's doing, without risking being in his path.

And only then does she answer, eager to, perhaps, show that she's at least a little reliable.]

There's this huuuge building that has a lot of locked boxes. The placard said it's the... "bank"? [Weird word but ok.] But each of us has a little locked box in there!

[ He stops for a moment, facing Altria with a puzzled look. ]

You mean to say you found a box in the bank with your name on it. And you saw boxes with other people's names on them.

That's right! Well, they were boxes that were built into the wall, anyway. Like little square holes. And there were keys that went to them too.

My box was empty...

[Oh well. It was worth a try.]

But I thought it was interesting. And maybe you would be interested in checking out your own little box.

[ So the kidnappers were making it very clear they knew who they were bringing into this city. Just another way to disturb them and make them scared, he thought with a scoff.

He resumed his actions, this time pulling the ingredients they gathered out of the bag and opening up the bag of rice to measure portions. ]

Sounds like they just want to scare us. If they're empty, then they're not worth checking out.

[ He'll regret dismissing it as a scare tactic weeks from now—but that's for another time. ]

[Yeah whoops, if only anyone other than Altria "owns nothing" Caster told him about it.

She kicks her legs idly as she watches him at work, humming a little.]

I suppose so. Still, it was really interesting to see all of our names written out like that.

[There are a lot of them here! Even though the city feels so empty.]

Maybe there are more individualized things for all of us hidden around the city.

[ Rice washed and put into the rice cooker, he moves into prepping the dashi in a pot, pulling out the kombu and katsuobushi. ]

I haven't seen any of that so far.

[ He's gone through all of the fourth district by this point and mentally charted out locations of interest, but he had yet to see anything with their names on it. ]

Besides an atrocious art installation, there's a museum in the fourth district. Seems to be locked up right now though.

[Altria leans back on her hands against the counter as he preps the dashi stock. A museum....!]

I'd like to see that, I think. I bet there's a lot of history in there, right? So we would be able to learn a lot about this city.

[ With the dashi stock boiling away in the pot now, he puts the eel onto the cutting board and starts cutting it into pieces. The precise cuts are done with a measured hand—he's done this so many times before. ]

Whatever we find in there is only going to be what the kidnappers want us to know. It can't be trusted.

[ In the sense that they'll probably only learn things that'll unsettle them, even if it's the true history of the city. He's not inclined to give any of this place or their kidnappers the benefit of the doubt. ]

[... She supposes that's true. It'll probably be curated, but...

In the end, she just huffs.]

I guess so... I'm just not used to sitting around like this.

[It's easier to just dive into things head first when there are things to dive in to!!

But also, look at the way he handles that knife... she's leaning to try to get a better view, interest piqued.]

[ He's much the same, but there's nothing they can do in this case. But the cooking gives him a good distraction—because it's not going to take him long to figure out everything he needs to about the place, and then what would he do after?

He could use the cooking to his advantage too. Maybe make a few connections with other people in the city.

He sees her leaning over, and adjusts his posture to give her a better view. ]

Ever learned how to prepare an eel?

[Since he's basically inviting her to snoop, she hops off of the counter to come closer, leaving him the space to cook since he's wielding a knife, but clearly intrigued.]

No, never. To be honest, I've never really learned how to cook much... at all...

[She is, in fact, a disaster chef.]

[ He frowns at that. How does she survive on her own, he wonders, not knowing something as basic as cooking? He wouldn't be surprised if she didn't have basic survival skills either, like creating campfires or setting up a tent.

With the eel all cut up, he starts heating the pan, pouring a bit of oil on it as it warms.

... ]

You should learn how to cook.

[Well.

She can't argue that. It's fair, it's just...]

Since I don't really need to eat, I never really got the chance to learn. A lot of faeries like delicious food [her included] but...

[You know. Having access to that is a whole other story.]

[ Right, she wasn't human. Honestly, it's a wonder that he'd learned how to cook, because he didn't need to eat either. Just, when he was discovered and taken in by the people of Tatarasuna, they'd taught him everything one needed to know to live as a mortal, despite him obviously not being one.

He's silent for a while, as he finishes with the eel and sets it aside on a plate, to be used later. ]

You have the chance to learn now.

[...?

She supposes she has the time now, but...]

I wouldn't even know where to start, honestly. [Who would teach her???? [oblivious]]

You could always ask someone who knows.

[ Please pick up the hints girl, because he's not going to directly offer. Nope. Never. ]

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