[EP] A Bored Smartass - OTA

[st_x5_494]

Alec was bored and so he decided to test the waters with the various creepy Inn workers. He started by walking up to the man at the desk. He plopped the towels down on the counter. Some were ripped, others had blood on them. "This is really unacceptable. How's a guy supposed to enjoy his time here at the Madonna Inn when these towels are dirty and destroyed? I thought this was a fine establishment, but I guess I was mistaken." The man behind the counter apologized, though there didn't seem to be any actual regret in his voice.

"Take this down. I want blue towels. They should smell like Lavender. And folded like various animals on my bed." There was a nod from the man, but how much would actually be followed through it would be hard to tell. Alec ended their interaction by tossing one of the towel's on the man's head.


His next destination was the kitchen. The chef was there preparing something chicken, as always. Alec stood next to the oven, watching. When the chef turned to get an ingredient, Alec flung a few shrimp into the dish. He watched with vague amusement as the chef came back, discovered the shrimp, and threw out the contents of the dish before starting over again. Alec repeated this a few times, the last two times being blatant about it and not getting much of a response from the chef at all.


Hours later Alec ran into the housekeeper. He spent a good hour walking behind her littering with small pieces of paper. Each time she'd stop and pick up or vacuum the mess. At one point he walked up looking earnest. "Oh here, let me help you." He grabbed the vacuum cleaner and 'accidentally' emptied its contents on the ground. The woman didn't even blink, but started to sweep the mess up.


After a while, Alec got bored of even this and ended up flopping down onto one of the couches in the lounge and exhaled.

(ooc: Feel free to find him at any point in his journey)

Comments

[st_ealthless]

“What good is money here? Fresh baked bread is very more valuable.” She thumped the half kneaded lump of dough in front of her. “Interested in lending me those talented fingers for awhile instead of taunting the staff?”

[st_x5_494]

"Hey, a guy's going to have to back to his world sometime." And money was king there and not a lot of people had it. Though her compliment took hold of him and he grinned, closing the gap. "I do have talented fingers." More than Pike actually knew, but he was okay with that.

He looked at the dough. "So... what do I do?"

[st_ealthless]

"You get one compliment for free, the rest you have to earn," She smiled up at him. Despite how close he was, the action didn't take as much work as it normally would thanks to the step stools Percy had made her.

"First things first," She trailed a finger down his arm until she could take his hand in hers, "Go wash your hands. I don't even want to know where these have been today."

[st_x5_494]

He sent her an 'I am offended you would suggest my hands are dirty' expression that was over the top and not rooted in any seriousness at all. He did as he was told, washing his hands thoroughly - he had some knowledge of triage and how to wash your hands to keep things sanitary, after all.

Alec re-approached her with his hands out, fingers spread. "Alright. See? Clean as a whistle."

[st_ealthless]

Pike just laughed and shooed him towards the sink.

While he was gone, she took the dough cutter off of the counter and divided the blob into two.

By the time he returned, she had already dusted the spot next to her with flour and managed to cover herself in even more of the powder as well. But that was part of the fun, right? "Wonderful. Are they nice and dry? Putting wet hands into the dough is just gonna make it stick to you."

Before waiting for a response, she plopped his half in front of him. It was still loose and a bit crumbly meaning they had a long way to go. "The first part is easy. You're going to gather it all up until it forms a ball," She demonstrated quickly, trained hands making quick work of it, "Just keep bringing all of the bits in, then pressing them down until it all sticks together."

[st_x5_494]

Alec took his place next to Pike and followed her instructions. Being someone used to getting trained for various things, he picked up on what she was doing quickly. "Are we making bread?" It smelled good, whatever it was. He thought about home right now and how he'd never hear the end of it from Max if she saw this.

[st_ealthless]

Pike watched for a moment and when she was satisfied, continued working on her own, "We are! I'm trying to make a beer bread."

She took a little bit of raw dough and popped it into her mouth. "I used a dark beer, which is why it's this color."

[st_x5_494]

"wait. You can make bread with beer?" He looked a little closer at the dough. He wondered if you could eat enough to get drunk. "Already my favourite beer"

[st_ealthless]

“We’re gonna see! I’ve never actually made it before,” plucking a piece of raw dough from the counter she held it up to him, “Give it a taste!”

[st_x5_494]

Alec made a face. It was a face that a kid made when their mother offered them some strange adult concoction like caviar or tofu. "It's not even cooked."

[st_ealthless]

Pike sure as hell wasn't his mother, so she just shrugged and popped it into her own mouth instead. "Yeah, and it's delicious."

It wasn't as great as cookie dough, or cake batter, or pie crust, but it wasn't bad.

Taking a peak at his work, she decided it was time to move on to kneading. "Okay, now that it's come together you're going to press the heels of your hands into the dough, pushing forward slightly. Like this," she demonstrated, keeping her arms straight and using her core and hips to push into the dough. "But don't push too far, stop before it looks like it's going to tear. Then fold the dough in half and do it again. After that, turn it slightly, fold it in half, and rock into it again." She looked up at him and smiled, "Then you just keep doing it until it's done."

[st_x5_494]

He watched and started in on his own dough. Much like before, Alec's technique was flawless as he did exactly what Pike showed him. His movements were precise. A baker would probably note there wasn't exactly any feeling or artistry to his kneading, but the technique was flawless.

"I thought you were a magic healer person. Do they normally bake too?"

[st_ealthless]

Pike couldn't help but notice how quickly he'd picked up the new task. For all his bluster, Alec was incredibly efficient.

"I like to think I'm more than just a cleric," she arched an eyebrow at him but then devolved into a little laugh, "But no. Though we all do other things, sometimes it's with the temple and sometimes it's not." She looked over to her holy symbol that was hanging on the wall in its place of honor, "None of us can heal all day long. Once our magic is used we have to rest before being able to cast anything more."

[st_x5_494]

"I get that." Now that he was out of Manticore, he liked to think of himself as more than a soldier. It took him a long time to start thinking like that, though, and it required a lot of fights with Max before he saw the light.

"So you're like a battery." Yep, he made that comparison. "What else do you do, then?"

[st_ealthless]

“Maybe, but I don’t know what a battery is?” Her brows drew together. She had heard the word before but she couldn’t place it. “I can fight, I can sail, I help build temples sometimes, I garden, I talk to people, I travel with my family and do adventuring things like save the continent from dragons.”

She looked at him, “What about you, Mr. I-don’t-have-a-name? What else do you do...other than accept invitations that aren’t meant for you?”

[st_x5_494]

He had been about to explain battery when she continued and he had to admit she seemed to have a lot of skills and hobbies.

"Me?" Alec looked back at the dough for a minute. "A bunch of things. Worked as a messenger back home for a place called Jam Pony. Occasionally saved people's lives from bad guys. You know, the usual."

[st_ealthless]

“What kind of bad guys?” She couldn’t help but notice that none of the things he’d said were hobbies.

[st_x5_494]

Alec gave a bit of a shrug. "Depends on the day. Most of the time it's the military." Or once he remembered he was talking to someone from a different world. "Uh... guys who work for the government and - soldiers." Yep, easier definition. "Other times it's these psycho cult people who drink snake blood and think they are the answer to mankind." Seriously, even Manticore knew they were creating fucked up things. "You know, the usual." He glanced at her with a slight, wry expression.

[st_ealthless]

"I know what a military is," Pike laughed, eyebrow arching gracefully. "I like that that was what you chose to expand on and not the 'psycho cult drinking snake blood' part."

[st_x5_494]

"Well, what's not to get about psycho cult who drink snake blood?" He grinned. "I mean, it's right there in the description."

[st_ealthless]

Pike gathered up flour from the counter top and flicked a handful of it at him. “Come on, spill! Did the snake blood do anything for them?”

[st_x5_494]

He put his hands up as if he were being attack and laughed. "Hey! I'm not hiding anything." He offered a shrug. "I guess, yeah. They had special breeding rules too. Made them super strong and fast. Like what the Nazis hoped to be, but with weird religious shit attached to it too."

[st_ealthless]

“Drinking blood does sounds like freaky religious shit. My friend’s patron deity has her followers submerge themselves in a pool of blood to talk to her,” Pike shivered a little, “And, I mean, some of the things that evil gods and demons ask their followers to do in my world are intense. One time these assholes we were fighting had killed people and covered the walls of the temple for a ritual.”

Stopping her kneading, she waited a few seconds and tested how springy it was. Unsatisfied, she kept going. “I didn’t think your world had magic?”

[st_x5_494]

Gods, demons, and pool submerging all sounded out there and he was thankful he just had the breeding cult to deal with. "I don't. It's genetics. Specialty breeding. The snake blood is poisonous and they make the kids drink it. If they live, they're one of them and if they die then they die." Even Alec thought that was insane, and he was all about survival of the fittest. Kids were kids, man.

[st_ealthless]

"That's...that's just fucked up," Pike growled. She'd heard about genetics, but it didn't make any sense to her, "I'm glad you were fighting them."