[OTA] S'more S'mores, Please (joint EP: Emma and Jag)

[st_ackeddeck]

Usually when Emma couldn't sleep, she cooked. Last night had been the opposite. She'd started trying out new marshmallow variations, completely lost track of time, and spent most of the night in the kitchen instead of doing reasonable things, like sleep. She'd grabbed a nap in the wee hours, though and another after lunch, and now was wide awake.

She also had batches and batches of homemade marshmallows.

Around sunset, Jag helped her set up a table near the pool and outdoor bar, that she loaded up with the marshmallows, graham crackers and other cookies, chocolate and berries and spreads and bacon. Anything somebody might think of that would make a good s'more, from the traditional basic graham, milk chocolate bar, plain marshmallow, to bourbon marshmallow s'mores with smoky bacon. If the inn was anything like the castle, word of mouth would spread quick enough, and the food wouldn't go to waste.

Jag had started a fire right beside the table, but after having had his own fill of s'mores, he had left Emma to meeting the demand of other hotel residents. He was sticking around to make sure the fire was behaving just right, though. So he was lying on his back a little way from Emma's table, and the fire he was still controling, weaving and sculpting additional fire between his hands, keeping a distracted ear on what was going on nearby.

[tag Emma or tag Jag. food and fire, what could be better?]

Comments

For either or both!

[st_rongernow]

Clarice still didn't trust the Inn and continued to sleep on the grounds rather than her butt ugly room, but she was coming to the 'compound' as she thought of it more and more.

The fire by the pool caught her attention and she changed where she was going and headed in that direction.

"Nice set up." She wasn't really a s'mores person but she could appreciate the variety of stuff. Mostly, she appreciated the bar at the pool.

Re: For either or both!

[st_ackeddeck]

"Thanks. I kind of went overboard trying out marshmallow flavors, so..." she shrugged, a little shy, "s'mores. And it's more fun if people can put their own spin on them." Emma couldn't remember if she'd seen the woman around the inn before, but Emma could get kind of hermity between her room and the kitchen if she wasn't careful. Regardless, the eyes at least marked the woman as different. The marks surrounding one eye were familiar too, but there were more differences than similarities and Emma wasn't going to assume anything.

"I'm really bad about spending too much time in the kitchen and not meeting people. I'm Emma, occasional hermit and main preparer of foods other than chicken."

Clarice and Emma

[st_rongernow]

That was where Clarice had seen her, in the kitchen. "I thought you looked familiar. I saw you in the kitchen when I was walking by the door in the cafe. I'm Clarice, occasional eater in the cafe and main skeptic at the Inn."

There was a hint of humor in her introduction.

Re: Clarice and Emma

[st_ackeddeck]

The Clarice Emma was familiar with had her own sense of humor, that it took time to really recognize and appreciate. She'd also known about different realities and alternate versions of people you knew. "It's nice to meet you, Clarice. And to have another mutant around." She couldn't resist a brief glance over at Jag and the fire he was shaping, but mostly claiming the label for herself. And yes, there were mutants she wouldn't want to have anywhere near here, but she was going to go on the assumption this Clarice wasn't one of them, unless she learned otherwise.

For Jag

[st_oryboard]

Mack loved s'mores lucky for him, he had a bottomless pit when it came to food. The abundance of types of s'mores brought him over but seeing the adult with fire between his hands, stopped him in his tracks. Woah that was so cool! All he could do was shoot fire arrows in his human form.

He approached the man with a wide smile. "Hi, that is so cool!" Mack motioned to the fire that seemed to be alive.

Mack & Jag

[st_artandstoke]

Jag looked up at the enthusiastic greeting, and recognized its origin as that kid he'd often seen in front of a screen. Jag wasn't very computer-minded himself, so he'd never really checked it any closer. "D'you reckon?" he asked, and smoothed and shifted his hands over and across the fire, as if they were the ones packing it tight and thin, then expanding it into a perfect rectangle. The small wall of fire burned for a few seconds, and Jag snapped his fingers, and only its outline remained, suddenly much more like a screen.

Or a window. Depended how you looked at things, really.

Re: Mack & Jag

[st_oryboard]

His eyes went wide in awe. "Seriously, man that is so cool. How long did it take you to get really good at that?" Because Mack was pretty sure he'd be as old as this guy before he would get as good despite his three tails.

Tag Jag

[st_hotflashes]

"I almost thought you were on fire for a minute." Liz sheepishly smiled as she approached and sat down a polite distance away. Her eyes were on the fire between Jag's hands though. "That's really neat."

Re: Tag Jag

[st_artandstoke]

Jag smiled over at her, making no move to sit up. "Yeah?" He unfurled his hands towards his folded legs, and the fire rushed over to them, very much looking like his trousers were on fire. (They weren't in any danger whatsoever, obviously.) "There, now I look it, proper."

Re: Tag Jag

[st_hotflashes]

Her eyes widen as it happened and even though she knew it was probably fake, it still didn't stop the mixed look of surprise and concern that flooded her face.

"Wow.. " she had definitely never seen that's before.

"If I reach out... What would happen?"

Tag Emma

[st_hotflashes]

Liz felt a little bad about how things had ended with the reading, even if it wasn't like they ended with an argument or anything. And it wasn't like she hadn't seen Emma around in the kitchen, either. Still, she wanted to say something more formal. Plus she had a question about seeing things, though her question was more about the past than future.

She took a seat next to Emma and smiled. "This all looks really good."

Re: Tag Emma

[st_ackeddeck]

"Marshmallows and fire are a natural combination." Emma had spent a lot of time thinking about food plus fire, for reasons she wasn't going to get into with Liz.

"At home, kitchen experiments like this turned into impromptu gatherings fairly often. One of the good things about communal living. So, after making All the Marshmallows, I had to go for a s'mores bar."

Re: Tag Emma

[st_hotflashes]

"It is nice to get people together and feel like a community." She smiled, looking out around them quietly for a moment. "Sometimes I wish I could cook more since my parents run a diner back home." Though that was probably why she never wanted to learn.

Tag Jag; together if Mere wants

[st_rangepalette]

Since her lesson with Mack, Lillith had been engaged in constant sketching and thinking for 'graphic novels' of her life and her cousin's and Vox Machina, and of course of the Inn. She carried her sketchbook with her everywhere and if she did not have smudges of charcoal on her face, they could almost certainly be found on her horns.

This evening, drawn by the flare of fire against an already fiery sky, she came to the campsite and perched on a boulder where she could see the people coming and going, and where she was near to Jag. While he made things of the fire, she rapid-fire sketched him doing so, enthralled by the firedance. Soon, she found that too slow and put down her drawing tools in favor of illusions.

Clapping once in delight, she cast an illusion of fire, the color of it blue instead of red, and did the best she could to weave and dance in tandem.

Jag & Lilith

[st_artandstoke]

Jag looked over at the clapping, and his eyebrows rose, not at the horns or the tails or anything like that, but very much at the blue fire he could not feel. He sat up, crossing his legs, the fire between his hands shifting into a ball. "That's not proper fire, is it?"

Re: Jag & Lilith

[st_rangepalette]

Shaking her head, Lillith matched her illusion to his fire, pulling it into a ball. While he watched, she clapped her hands together and the blue fire exploded into a cloud of luminescent blue butterflies. "It is illusion magic. I am sorry not have asked before joining your play. I hope I have not...overstepped?"

For Emma (Jag is welcome too though)

[st_ripetail]

If there was one thing you learned hanging around Jemma and Sanctuary or the Moonstar crowd, it was 1) what marshmallows were and 2) what they smelled like toasted over fire. Rocket had additionally learned that if he had to name one good thing about Earth, gun to his head, it was marshmallows. They were great! And some of these, somehow, were even better. “I did not know these things could be booze.” He said out loud, turning one over in his hands before biting off part of it. Raw, because come on: you had to work up to the big shit.

Emma & Rocket

[st_ackeddeck]

"I had made different flavors before, but about a year ago – maybe, it's hard to tell with the world switching – I found a recipe for bourbon marshmallow bacon s'mores – they are really good, by the way – and that was inspired by a beer marshmallow recipe." There were some of those here too. "You'd probably get sick from all the sugar before you could get drunk off of them, but not all the alcohol burns off, and the flavor's good.

"Last night I kind of went through the bar and grabbed a bunch of liquors to try. Along with non-alcoholic ones." There were kids here, and she didn't want to only have marshmallows they shouldn't eat. Emma didn't try to talk Rocket out of the alcoholic ones, or ask if he was sure he should have any of the other s'mores possibilities. He was an adult and was going to eat whatever he felt like, and she could only hope his omnivore stomach could handle it.

Re: Emma & Rocket

[st_ripetail]

"Yeah, I don't get sick from food. If it don't kill me outright, I'm gonna be fine." But proooobably taking in something other than sugar would avoid pushing his luck. The problem with having killed and/or avoided everyone who knew what was up with his shit was that Rocket himself had only learned what was up with his shit through experimentation. "Good thinkin' though. Hard to make marshmallows better, but sister you managed it."

Curnen, for either

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen had never known there was such a thing as a homemade marshmallow, so of course she was in. And then she'd heard about bourbon marshmallows with bacon and definitely in became enthusiastically in.

Naturally she never quite made it to a table, instead sitting down on the ground. She didn't know when she might ever be comfortable with tables and chairs again. It was too soon to say never, but now that she'd experienced life without the things, inserting them back in was a hard sell.

When she bit down, the combined flavors of marshmallow, chocolate, booze, and bacon actually made her shiver. "This is better than sex."

Curnen & Emma

[st_ackeddeck]

"Not quite," slipped out before Emma could censor herself, and she could feel the heat on her cheeks and ears as the blush spread out. She didn't know Curnen well enough for that sort of admission, and yes, to Emma it felt like an admission. "But I'm glad you like them." That was part of why Emma cooked for other people.

Re: Curnen & Emma

[st_oneswidow]

Curnen on the other hand only laughed, loud and raucous, not at Emma's embarrassment but at herself. "Better'n some I've had," she said after her mouth was empty. She could just hear Bliss telling her to act like she'd been to town before.

But she didn't linger on the topic. Poor thing wouldn't take that very well. "I never thought about making marshmallows before. Was always something that just came from the grocery store."

Emma & Jag (after Liz)

[st_ackeddeck]

Emma watched with relief as Liz walked away. She hadn't been able to bring herself to suggest Liz just go, but she also couldn't see any way that her staying would have helped.

She shifted her weight, letting her shoulder press lightly against Jag's, her knuckles brush against the back of his hand. "People can get their own marshmallows for a while, if you want to take a break," she suggested, a nod of her chin in a direction away from the pool and people. She didn't mean to go far, and she knew he could control his fire from a distance.

Re: Emma & Jag (after Liz)

[st_artandstoke]

"I shouldn't let it get to me like that," he muttered, annoyed with himself, annoyed with how much it had, and annoyed with how much he wanted to just wrap his arms around Emma and forget about everything else. He thought of going to find Coby, but someone needed to mind the fire. It wasn't like he'd built it to stay up without him. Shortfuckingsighted. He took another angry drag on his cigarette.

Re: Emma & Jag (after Liz)

[st_ackeddeck]

"Why not?" Upset, Emma understood, but why Jag would beat himself up about it didn't make sense. "It got to me, and I wasn't the one Liz was talking to."