Work Text:
"I think you have killed it."
Azu had walked into the inn's kitchen to find Zolf beating a section of dough into such submission that it would likely not come out as anything but flatbread at this point.
At hearing Azu's words Zolf stopped his merciless bludgeoning of the dough and turned around to face her, arms crossed, breathing heavily, and covered head to toe in a light dusting of flour. He did not say anything, but tilted his head to signal he was waiting for her to continue speaking.
"I am… Hmm…" Azu paused to consider her words, "You are a hypocrite."
"Oh. Right. Excellent." Zolf threw his arms in the air in frustration releasing a cloud of flour with them. "That's exactly what I needed to hear in this exact moment. Thought you Aphrodite lot were all about compassion and empathy, yeah? You are bad at your job."
Zolf huffed, and made a move to exit the kitchen. Azu for her part anticipated this and used her large frame to block the entirety of the doorway. She looked down at Zolf who had stopped directly in front of her and he raised his head to meet her gaze.
"I will not take that personally, Zolf. I just wanted to return the favor for the conversation we had on the way back from Shoin's. You told me not to hide my emotions, that it would destroy me, and here you are hiding from all of us. I want to talk about this. Maybe you have not destroyed yourself yet, but I do not think that the bread you are making deserves this."
"Now is not a good time, Azu." Zolf replied not breaking eye contact and demeanor dripping with malice, "Please move."
Azu widened her stance like she was readying for a fight, and squinted down at Zolf, "It will never be a good time. Did you put yeast in that dough?"
Zolf just blinked at her, dumbfounded by the oddness of the question. "...No?"
"Good. You may not be ready to talk, but I will not let you sacrifice our dinner for the sake of your anger." Azu relaxed her stance and walked past Zolf over to the counter and the abandoned, sad lump of dough. "I am going to teach you how to make chapati. It is a bread we made in my village and very good with stews."
Azu began to busy herself with gathering ingredients as Zolf stared. She did not say anything or so much as glance over at him, just busied herself with the task of cooking.
Despite himself, Zolf was hungry, and maybe if he went through the motions of whatever this was he could get it over with as quickly as possible. So they began to work together in silence, Azu fussing over the bread and Zolf largely forgoing that task in favor of getting a stew going. While it was incredibly awkward at first, they did eventually settle into a rhythm.
Some time into their tasks, Zolf found that there was nothing else to do with the stew except let it sit and cook, and he became frustratingly idle. He looked at Azu who was still kneading and folding a much more cohesive looking lump of dough than what he had originally made.
"So…" Zolf spoke, but Azu still did not look up at him, seemingly engrossed in her task. "What is chapati?"
"It is a many layered bread with no yeast that is usually used for dipping. Sometimes you can put honey on it to have it with breakfast instead. You fry it instead of baking it. It was very common in my village and I miss it. The bread...and my village."
Zolf watched Azu attempt this very intricate spiraling coil with the dough. It looked very messy, but seemed to be working regardless. He took a few steps forward to get a better view.
Azu began to flatten out the spiral into a thin layer, and began speaking again. "My brother, Emeka, used to say the spirals looked like snails. I never liked that because you have to flatten out the spirals so much, and I did not like thinking about doing that to an actual snail."
Azu finished her current spiral, and began rolling it out flat. Zolf took a few more steps forward, finding himself standing next to Azu at the counter. He gingerly reached for a lump of dough and tried to copy what he had watched Azu do. It was clumsy and even messier looking than hers. Azu made no comment as she picked up a new lump of dough to begin the process again.
"I will be honest, I was never very good at making these." Azu wiped a hand across her forehead leaving behind a large streak of flour. "It will not be as good as what I had at home. I also do not think we are using the right flour."
"I'm sure it'll be fine." Zolf responded quietly.
There was another long stretch of silence as they worked together. Azu demonstrated her technique wordlessly as Zolf followed along. There was, blessedly, no awkwardness to this silence, just two people working in tandem.
"This seems like a lot of effort for some bread." Zolf muttered this to himself as he worked, not really aware he had said it out loud.
Azu looked at him this time as she responded, "Sometimes the things that are worth doing are harder to do. Sometimes they are worth doing simply because they are harder to do. Also the texture would be all wrong unless you fold it like this."
"Right." Another few moments of silence passed as they returned to their work. "Hey, Azu?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think there's a chance? That we win? The last time I tried to save the world it ended with blood in the streets of Paris. Among other not so great things."
"Well you are the one that has dedicated yourself to believing in a better world. You tell me."
"If I had an answer I wouldn't be asking."
"That is fair." Azu stopped her current work and turned to fully face Zolf, and seemed to be looking for something in his expression.
"I just, I've already lost so much and things are so bad and I don't even know what winning would look like anymore." Zolf also stopped his work, and leaned against the counter. "Times like this I really miss Sasha."
"I miss her too. She had a certain way of being very practical. Her insight would be very useful right now, I think."
"Yeah, you get it." Zolf suddenly became aware of himself to an uncomfortable degree, and quickly got back to busying himself. "No messy god stuff, no magic, just a girl and no problem a good knife can't solve."
Azu chuckled at this. "I think she would be very pleased with what we've done."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. We have made things better. The storms have stopped. We are alive and safe for now. We are moving forward. That counts for something."
"Moving forward. Right. Think Sasha would probably kill me if she saw me moping around again. This is a pattern, if you don't know."
"Oh shush." Azu flicked her hand over Zolf's head making flour fall into his hair. "We are moving forward. Change is hard. People are difficult. You do not just decide to completely change who you are overnight and have it stick. You have to work at it."
"Yeah I'm living proof of that."
More work. More comfortable silence.
"Hey Azu, have you finished reading that one Campbell novel I was talking about the other day?"