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“Babies! Dinner!”
There was a moment of quiet, and then suddenly the cottage was filled with the sound of three carbuncles thundering up the stairs from the basement level. The door burst open and there stood Tyr, falling back to all four paws with a loud, cutlery-rattling thunk after pushing it open in the first place. Galette and Ivar swarmed up behind him - and then over him, in Ivar’s case with a graceful leap, and under him, in Galette’s case, wiggling under her large brother’s belly.
Ivar made it to Synnove first, using the momentum from his jump to slide along the floor into the kitchen area and into Synnove’s legs. He chirruped up at her smugly, but that quickly turned into an unhappy, muffled yowl as Tyr arrived and flopped on top of him in retaliation. Galette ignored the both of them and instead plopped her emerald behind on the ground, balanced on her rear end, and waved her front paws while making “feed me!” noises (different from her “pick me up!” noises in pitch and pattern).
“All right, all right,” Synnove laughed. “Tyr, stop squishing your brother.”
The sheepdog-sized topaz carbuncle huffed, but obediently stood up and sat mostly-patiently next to Galette. Ivar got to his feet and shook himself, from his nose to the tips of all three tails, and sat on Tyr’s other side, so that they made a rainbow of carbuncles, all staring up at Synnove with big, dark eyes. In unison, they all made pathetic trilling meows (with Tyr’s sounding more like a ringing, baritone maow).
Their summoner cooed down at them. “My precious darlings,” she whispered, and then said, louder, “And now for the food!”
In front of each carbuncle, she set a slightly elevated tray. Ivar put his paws on the tray and watched her impatiently, ruby tails lashing behind him; Tyr’s ears began twitching, though he made no other movements; and Galette suddenly went from whining to prim and ladylike in an eye blink, sitting up straight and settling her tails around her demurely like a countess's skirts.
One by one, Synnove took a plate off the counter and set it on a tray. Each plate contained fillets of loaghtan steak, cooked medium rare (save for Ivar’s, who preferred his meat to be as bloody as possible), roasted nopales drizzled with a blue cheese sauce, and piles of spinach saute. Ivar’s steak and nopales were left whole, since the little terror thoroughly enjoyed tearing his food apart while consuming it. As for Tyr and Galette, who both ate far more neatly, their portions were cut into bite-sized pieces; Tyr also especially adored his vegetables, and so he received larger portions of the spinach and nopales. Each carbuncle further received small bowls, placed next to their plates; Tyr and Ivar’s had water, while Galette’s contained mint lassi.
All three carbuncles were particularly vibrating with excitement, but they waited for their mama’s order of “Dig in!” before proceeding to do so with gusto.
Synnove grabbed her own plate, utensils, and glass of lassi and settled onto the floor next to them, setting her glass on Tyr’s tray since he was the neat eater who had no interest in sweet drinks. She kept an eye on the three as she ate her own dinner: Ivar happily tore chunks of meat from his steak and gobbled it down barely chewed; Tyr buried his nose in his spinach saute; and Galette daintily alternated bites of steak, nopales, and spinach with sips of lassi, since she knew there’d be no dessert if she left any of her veggies behind.
The carbuncles, as creatures composed of living aether, technically didn’t need properly prepared meals from which to derive energy - no true beastkin digestive system, after all. Synnove could probably just give them crystals or an aethersand mixture and be done with it. But she liked to cook, and over the years all three of her fuzzy aetherial babies had developed preferences and tastes, and so what if she wanted to indulge them? Better than just cooking for herself most nights when home in Limsa Lominsa.
The end of dinner was a familiar sight: Tyr contently licking up the last of the blue cheese sauce from his plate; Ivar on his back, front paws curled into his chest and thrumming happily; and Galette just staring at her, eyes bigger and rounder than before dinner. Synnove snickered and stood, putting her empty plate on the counter, and leaning down to gather her carbuncles’ dishes. As the Highlander stood back up and turned to set them down with the rest of the tableware, she could practically hear Galette vibrating behind her.
With a flourish, Synnove turned back around: three plates each with an enormous slice of apple pie, crust perfectly golden and apple filing tender and smelling strongly of cinnamon and cardamom, crowned with a heaping dollop of whipped cream, carefully balanced in her arms. Galette made a loud, happy trill and wriggled in delight, before she gave up all pretenses at manners and shoved her face into her slice as soon as it was set before her. Ivar and Tyr were only slightly less enthusiastic in their desire for pie.
As the carbuncles ate dessert, Synnove carefully placed the leftover pie in a container on which she put a lock, and then put the pie container in the coldbox - also locked. (She could never be too careful with Galette’s sweet tooth in the house. Her lack of thumbs was only a minor deterrent.) She set the dinner dishes in a wooden bin and dropped in a water crystal, fishing the crystal out and setting it in its bowl once the bin was full. That taken care of, she dampened a few soft cloths, and turned around - and snorted a laugh.
All three carbuncles were a mess, and utterly unrepentant about it, as usual, if the way they were looking up at her, eyes half-closed, and their chime-like purrs (well, brass bell with Tyr) filling the kitchenette was anything to go by.
“Oh, my silly little loves,” Synnove said with a laugh, and knelt down. She first picked up the plates and put them in the washing bin, then knelt again and moved the trays out of the way. Ivar was her first target, hauling him into her lap to start cleaning him. He fussed and wriggled as Synnove wiped his muzzle and paws clean of cream and crumbs and sticky sugar, and even some of the juice from his steak dinner.
“Oh, shush, firebug,” she murmured to him as she worked. “Get a wipe down now and I won’t have to give you a bath later.”
The ruby carbuncle squeaked unhappily at the idea of his least favorite thing, but grudgingly stopped squirming.
Once Ivar was clean, she let him loose, and Tyr immediately stepped over, crawling into her lap without hesitation. Synnove grunted as he settled on her thighs, but ignored how heavy he was and instead cleaned his muzzle and each paw carefully with a fresh cloth. Tyr purred the whole while, making her teeth vibrate, then carefully got up when he was clean to make way for Galette.
The emerald carbuncle came and sat primly before Synnove, rubbing her face against a third damp cloth in tandem with Synnove’s own scrubbing to help get rid of all the stickiness. Then, she held up one paw after another to be thoroughly washed, flopping onto her side to make it easier to get at her hind legs and soft tummy, because in her enthusiasm for sugar, Galette could get a mess everywhere. Which was always hysterical, Synnove thought, considering that Galette hated being dirty.
(Meanwhile, Tyr and Ivar - the latter grudgingly after being smacked on the head by his bigger brother - were carefully nosing the cloths used to clean themselves on their individuals trays, sopping up crumbs and sauce and melted cream.)
Galette stood and shook herself once she was cleaned to her satisfaction. Then, with a wiggle of her rear end, she hopped onto Synnove’s shoulder and promptly draped herself around her mama’s neck, gently headbutting her jaw once was she was settled. Ready!
Synnove laughed under her breath and got to her feet. “Thank you for the assistance, boys,” she said, gently waving Tyr and Ivar away so she could pick up the trays and the cloths on their tops. “You can shoo now, I’ve got this. I’ll be down in five minutes for cuddles and story time.”
The topaz and ruby carbuncles chirruped and rubbed against her legs, Ivar at knee height and Tyr reaching up only a little to smush his face into her hip. The pair turned and bounded across the room and then down the stairs to claim their favorite spots on the bed.
With Galette “supervising” (that is, wanting to be tall, and also being lazy so she wouldn't have to walk herself later), Synnove scrubbed another damp cloth across a bar of soap and wiped down the trays, drying them with another cloth and stacking them before they went back on their shelf. The cooking pots for the spinach and sauces and the cast-iron skillet she’d made the steaks and nopales in had already been cleaned and stored, and the cleaning cloths were tossed into the bucket with other used cloths that would get a proper scouring on laundry dry.
Synnove looked at the dishes bin and made a face. She really didn’t want to wash anymore tonight…
Hell with it, they could keep until the morrow.
She untied her apron and dried her hands on it, doing a last circuit of the upper floor to turn the lamps off and bank the fire. Reaching the kitchenette again, she dropped her now folded apron on the counter top, then turned to the door to downstairs.
“What story do you want to hear tonight, my lovely?” she said to Galette as she descended the stairs. “I don’t feel like crying into anyone’s fur, so I’m vetoing The Velveteen Rabbit right now.”
Galette burbled agreement.
“How about Master Abarfalk’s Apkallu?”
Galette squeaked excitedly, her tails thumping against Synnove’s chest as she did.
Synnove laughed. “All right, that’s one vote. Let’s see what the boys think.”