Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

76°: Strait is the Gate, and Narō is the Way

76.00°: WildKat's Muffin Set

"Gghhhwhhaaark!"

"Somethin' up, Specs? Don't s'pose you're hankering for a cuppa joe?"

"Utterly detestable. Unforgivable. Inconceivable. Deplorable. Indefensible! Shameful! Vexatious!"

"Hey, now, that's a line I haven't heard in a coupla years." Sir Hanekoma rubbed the back of his neck in that all-too-perfectly-human-and-thus-not-human-at-all mannerism that might have fooled a lesser being but could not evade the eagle-eyed LadyTomonami of EleStraniac forum fame, whose sharp gaze and sharper appetite had noticed the barely-visible silhouette that turned out to spoil the next character reveal in a trailer released a year earlier. Nothing could escape her eagle-eyed gaze. Not new teasers uploaded which she scoured intensely for hints amongst the alpha values, nor new songs that she picked apart in search of leitmotifs and harmonic patterns, nor anything save for—

—save for the spirit of the creative pursuit, it seemed.

Nagi made as if to slam WildKat's glass door behind her, only to slow the swing of her arm at the last moment. It softly shut. With it, the sluggish summer afternoon gave way to the café's blissfully air-conditioned interior. Spinning around, she flung her arms out before her, beckoning towards her would-be saviour and all but swooning onto his floor.

"Sir Hanekoma!" she wailed. "I ail! I request the nourishment of your finest foodstuffs, lest I cease to exist on this very spot!"

"You got it, boss." The self-proclaimed 'hip barista mista' and 'cool CAT' chuckled sympathetically. She had turned an intriguing loop-de-loop of opinion in the few weeks that she had known him: from first unsettled by his far-too-friendly so-called 'vibes', to comprehending the genuine interest beneath those 'vibes' that he papered over with a borrowed humanity which made most patrons feel more at ease, to trusting him over-again under his sincere sympathy—whatever alien shape it took, elusive and slippery from her senses, akin to a fourth-dimensional option weaving in and out of her three-dimensional space—and not the pseudo-sympathy he steeped himself in. Steeped himself in for far too long, she might have added, wrinkling her nose as he would have proverbially wrinkled his steep-pruny fingers.

Perhaps a useful—metaphor, yes? She could have recorded that one. For use in her magnum opus. Yes. Her masterwork.

That which would elevate her from mere curator to lofty creator. Cr-e-a-tór, accented precisely. From transcriptive to transformative. Transformation, transformation. She needed merely to open up her eyes—ah! Song lyrics! Another possible tool to employ. So many tools at her disposal! For the crafting of word, the sewing of sentence, the fashioning of f-f-fiction!

If she could organise her tools in the most effective fashion, lay them out and catalogue them, mayhaps label them in various colours and with a detailed symbology to capture various details of the tool—yes, yes, and subsequently archive such an organisation, for the sake of herself and any fellows of the EleStra flock who might have found some usefulness in that—

"Care for a seat? Or if you wanna keep sliding down the door, that's cool with me too, kid."

Trundling to the counter, Nagi thwammed the leatherbound notebook her dear mother had recently sent her as a gift. The thick, creamy pages, etched and adorned with intricate delicacies in the corners, only amplified the unworthiness of her messy, dull, uncreative scrawl.

She drooped onto the chair, face planted straight into the counter with her lenses pressed against her eyelids, and extended a hand for Sir Hanekoma's asylum, whatever he could possibly use to relieve her in this, her darkest hour, her brink of catastrophe.

"Nnnrhgle..."

"Should'a warned me, Specs. Looks like we're outta hot cocoa. How's about I get you some stuff off the usual menu, and you can tell me what ya think of it?"

Groaning aloud in the very audible representation of frustration—nay, not frustration, but some other, deeper word, perchance disgruntlement, or vexation, or even bemoaning-Nagi grasped at thin air. "Mercy...I beg of thee..."

Something warm, firm, and slightly crumbly pushed into her palm. And then into her mouth. The nerves firing on all cylinders in her brain hadn't even connected the motion of her arm before the taste exploded on her tongue. Partly-melted chocolate, filling bread-alike, crumbs all but melting in her mouth. In contrast to the confection with its taste just sweeter than centre, the chocolate sparkled in pleasant semi-bitterness, never cloyingly saccharine nor clingingly stiff, but falling apart as though to sublimate into a heavenly Platonic ideal of muffinery, muffinopathy, muffinmance.

It could have used some salt, of course, and the second muffin she blitzed into her waiting maw had no chocolate chips whatsoever, thus tragically lowering its enjoyment, but nonetheless, she would have labelled it ambrosial.

Mayhaps not ᴀᴍʙʀᴏsɪᴀʟ, in capitals worthy of the divine, but a nectar fit for kings if not gods.

For Angels, perchance, if not for their masters.

Lifting her head from the counter—her spectacles had fogged, and she could barely see through the tear-stained glass of her eyes regardless—Nagi lunged for the muffin platter he had set out. The chocolate ones, at least: the bittersweetness, the sweetbread mixing so mouthwateringly with the chocolate chips, the sheer perfect size of these muffins that she could just fit in her mouth at once without choking too badly, though she swallowed so rapidly that they burned on the way down, dazzled her, dizzied her, doozied her into—

Yes! Yes! Yes! With this, with this muse mewsing in her ear, she could surely put pen to paper, put wit to word, put righteousness to reality and become one with the cre-a-tórs who so commanded the fandom's imagination and her own.

So what if she had had remarkably little time to catch up on fanfiction of late? Surely—surely—surely she merely had to find the right one, the right fish in the fanta-sea just for her, to ooh and aah and roll around squealing in her bed.

She took her rollerball pen—and placed it!

The side of her hand scraped the end of the end. Leaning back and brushing crumbs from the creamy off-white pages now besmirched with her—ahhhhh, the very motion of flesh-over-folio had smudged the ink in grisly streaks.

"Welcome back to the land of the living." Sir Hanekoma eyed her in amusement. "Got the inspo you needed, Specs?"

"Hghwngh...!" Momentarily grasping the pen's tip in her mouth, Nagi scanned over the page she'd written, stream of consciousness run over in the thickness of black ink. "At long last, my...!"

Her supposed masterwork. A page of...her projected reincarnated-into-another-world—how had she missed, by 'cold', by self-summoning circle akin to the fanfictions of yore, by the famous truck that even overseas enthusiasts knew of—self attempting to woo Lord Tomonami, His Radiance, the Lightning Swordsaint Himself, with a plate of muffins.

Muffins. Muffins that her projected self could not have even explained to him and which her projected self had the latter half of the page describing in such luscious detail that Nagi felt as if she would have to increase the rating for the description alone. Her nape dampened in sweat. Her brow soon followed. Heat rose in her cheeks. As though she had recorded her most illicit desires onto the very page. "Hwehwehwaaaeeeehhhh..."

For as much as she could, and did, read the most hardcore erotica on the train with a perfectly straight face—save, occasionally, for drooling—this had her squirming in her seat.

And yet it had precious little to do with fanfiction. A mere travelogue informative narration of muffin-in-mouth.

Perhaps readers would drink down such narration if it involved other, less edible components of the world she had crafted in her mouth. Ah, but where had this even occurred? Did Lord Tomonami and her projected self float about in some white void somewhere? How had they positioned themselves relative to one another? What kinds of muffins had her projected self made? What time of day had they had the rendezvous? How could His Lordship have had time for muffins in the midst of his highly relevant tactical meetings? Come to think of it, why had she chosen muffins? Would readers even accept it as a 'unique food from Japan which astounds the local palate'? Not miso, nor spicing a soup, nor any such other classic. But muffins. Muffins! Ah! Wretch that she was—

And these metaphors! These mixed metaphors! A moth drawn to a flame—the wings of Icarus and such a sordid, overused metaphor—and an insect trapped in amber! How could she have sloshed so much imagery together and expected it to emerge with any coherency!

Cake and steak alone might have whetted her appetite, but never would she mix the meat and sweet in a single bowl!

"Herherhweeuegh!"

For some strange reason, despite the muffins' softness, her jaw ached. It took a moment longer for it to dawn upon her that she had bitten the pen's tip with such enthusiasm—the nub wedged between her canines—that the fine stalk had snapped.

Bitter ink bled down under her tongue and pooled at the base of her mouth. Viscous droplets trickled along her chin to dribble onto the pages. A plllp on the word prithee, a pllllp on the second instance of quivering.

And she hadn't even used their names! Not once! What manner of dastardly writer would neglect to even use their names!? Epithets and pronouns alone! Such mockery of the medium!

Creation? No! She had, at best, curated an advertisement for WildKat's baked goods!

Nagi spat the bitterness onto the notebook. Black splotches rotted through the page. It pruned her fingers where she cast her hand across the leaf, darkening the creamy-white and smearing out the oh-so-intricate designs along the corners. If not for the horrible fluffy residue that would remain in the notebook's spine, she would have torn out the sheaf entirely, wadded it up and stuffed it into her mouth, taking responsibility for her own filth by sealing it away within herself.

Oho...perhaps her projected self could have some manner of demon sealed away...? 'Twould make for an fascinating plot twist. Or would it ruin the self-insert fantasy, given that—presumably—the majority of her readers did not have eldritch horrors sealed away in themselves?

Furiously dragged her hands on the page, Nagi felt her nails furrow the folio. Ah, no, no, had she imprinted upon the subsequent page as well? To stain Mother's thoughtful gift even further with her mistakes—

A gentle touch between her shoulder blades made her flinch back. She wobbled on the seat, and the same pressure pushed her just a smidgen back onto the chair. Her fingers stung where she clung to the counter.

"Hey now. Enuffa that, Specs. Take it easy." Sir Hanekoma leaned on his elbows across from her, nonchalant as ever. "What'd that pen ever do to ya?"

She sniffled. The ink welling up at the corner of her mouth tasted so very bitterly. Where she wiped it on the back of her glove, she instinctively licked her lips and bleggghhhed at the taste. "S-sincerest apologies, milord..."

"Haven't done a thing to me you need to say sorry for. How 'bout you say sorry to yourself though?" He delicately pushed a napkin holder towards her. "For tossing out all that hard work. You ever heard of sleeping on something before ya try to edit it, kid?"

Nagi could dab away the ink from her skin, but she couldn't dab away the ink that had already passed her lips, that had mixed with her saliva and stained her insides. "Dare I deserve such kindness? Nay...I surely have committed no sins but that of arrogance."

"Arrogance?" Sir Hanekoma arched his eyebrows. "Say, why don'cha tell me what's on your mind?"

Her lip quivered.

He hummed. "I made ya some more while you were writing. Got you a full plate."

Immediately she perked up, a strand of spittle mixed with ink rolling down her chin, at the sudden provision of victuals before. The vitality of such victuals! A bright green bowl—with a handle, not unlike a coffee mug—of a green-and-yellow speckled orange stew, the ocean's salinity rising to her nostrils. A plate of pancakes, the top fashionably draped at an angle over the bottom, with an invitingly abstract splash of maple syrup and a slab of froth-melting butter. A nondescript off-white mug of an unpleasantly dark brown coffee lurking within that dredged up memories of Sir Rindo ordering Hachiko Café's nightmares for her over and over again, assuring her that she could decline if she had wanted to, but asking her kindly to raise her ᴀᴛᴋ along with everyone else on the Wicked Twisters.

How could she have declined them? She, surely, of all the Wicked Twisters most intimately comprehended the requisite sacrifices in the name of the Holy Grind.

But that did not obligate her to continue to drink such caffeinated horrors in the absence of the Game breathing down her neck.

Nonetheless, if Sir Hanekoma had presented it to her as an offering, she could well at least give it an attempt.

After all, he had saved her from her prior imminent doom with imperfectly delectable muffins. She could at least give his, mermermern, espresso...or expresso, given that his menu showed both as options, and Nagi hadn't the foggiest about the difference between them...a taste.

She supposed she would begin by braving that very espresso. For the sake of Sir Hanekoma's self-espression. Ooh, self-espression, yes, another one for the books, whenever she wrote a coffeeshop AU, such that she have her projected fantasy cosy up to that darling artist of hers—

Ah. No. Lord Tomonami, while the very embodiment of artistry in his beauty and grace, had never showed any inclination towards artistic pursuits other than gutting his foes into truly creative-processed ribbons.

Nagi had, for a moment—

Grasping the warm mug in both hands, her palm cradling the base while her fingers hooked into the handle, she steeled her heart to sniff its contents.

Sir Hanekoma was chuckling again. "Y'know, you should consider checkin' the heat before you grab a cup like that. I made sure it was nice and not too toasty for ya, kid, but there's some real hot coffee out there."

She dipped her head. "...from the basest whorls of my heart, thank you for anticipating that I would have grabbed without thinking."

"Nah, you're the one I should be thanking." He winked. "You're the one who made yourself known, boss. Not everyone does."

Nagi pushed her glasses up. "'Tis a skill of mine, to make my passions known."

"No doubt-a-bout that." Sir Hanekoma had a warm smile for her. Not the pseudo-warm façade he fenced his face into around most, but a nearly clinical peer that she could translate into his genuine warmth. "But it's a helluva lot harder to make the not-so-hot stuff known. The insecurities, the weaknesses, the flaws, the anxieties. So thanks for givin' me a sneak peek."

Nodding, she attempted to bring her nose near the cup, but her willpower waffled. Pancaked. Crêpt forward, but not enough.

"Heh, don't go forcin' yourself. You're the boss, boss. Something a little bitter could shock you outta that funk of yours."

"I thank you once more for your generosity. Th-then, I offer to my own altar—"

"The house blend," he noted. "Not your average, everyday coffee. S'advanced coffee. The real deal. Take it from the kind of guy who loves beans."

"Your adoration for beans delights me as deeply as the beans themselves deride me."

He laughed. "Well, hey, lay it on me if you hate it."

"P-please do not take it to heart. I have yet to meet hot coffee that I have thought of as anything but benefitting from censorship." Nagi paused. "For myself, that is. Not from others. Those who enjoy boiling off their tongues on such pursuits ought to have that privilege."

"Pfft! I'll keep that in mind next time I make some drip coffee. Nothing beats a good cuppa joe for me." Sir Hanekoma ran his hand over his scruff. "Different strokes for different folks."

"Indeed. Th-then, I muster my courage...!" She inhaled the coffee's stench. The aroma alone burned out her sinuses. Reeling back and choking on the acridity, Nagi held the mug away long enough to take a few breaths of fresh air. "Onward I dive!"

Onward she dove. Into the coffee. Proverbially. Her tongue flicked into its contents, gathering droplets into the bend.

A rookie mistake: the bitterness coursed up the muscle and jounced through her skull. "Onnngh." Without copious additions of milk, creamer, and sufficient ice to numb the coffee-ness away entirely, the intensely invigorating 'taste' merely brought her nearly to tears. No mercy. No mercy whatsoever.

Her nose ran. Not from excitement, but rather, she had the distinct sensation of someone having stuffed a hot pipe cleaner up her nostrils and spun it relentlessly around. She wobbled.

"I h-have heard of food terrorism—" Nagi shuddered. "—but I would not wish this torment 'pon even the most despicable of foes."

"Heh, 'ppreciate the review. When I reopen WildKat someday, I'll put that endorsement right on the door."

She peered around the interior. Though the magically-darkened glass kept passersby from seeing within, and some manner of UG trickery prevented civilians from noticing whenever Nagi—or others—entered the café, the insides appeared as lively and welcoming as ever. "'Tis a shame that such a potential creative nexus stands so silent and still. Would that someday it flourishes once more."

"You think so?" Sir Hanekoma scratched his chin. "I've been thinkin' 'bout maybe passing on the torch. Just temporarily, 'til I can get stuff up and running myself. Y'know, Phones might—"

Nagi blinked. "The Legendary One?"

"Hummm...but that's a reckoning for another time. So, hey, what's up? What's with the whole—" He motioned to the notebook. "—eating your own pen routine? You and the Bito sibs working on a new three-person stand-up?"

"Nothing nearly so entertaining." Nagi sighed. "'Tis quite simple. Sir Hanekoma, have you any familiarity with fandom?"

"Can't say I do. Even while working as CAT, I was legally obligated not to check out anything the people who called themselves my fans made. You know, would've been a serious problem if someone accused the CAT of copyright infringement and all of that." He hummed. "Anyway, you wanted to tell me all about what I'm missing, Specs?"

She adjusted her spectacles. "Put simply, two major camps of interaction within fandom exist. I generalise here for the sake of speaking, but I solemnly swear that I am aware of the many nuances within. Now, pardon the exegesis!"

Sir Hanekoma gestured. "Go ahead. Mind if I finish your cuppa for ya? 'Less you're in the mood for self-torture."

With a low chuckle, Nagi pushed the mug across the counter. "B-by all means...!"

He sipped at it and, somehow, beamed to himself as if he had quaffed anything other than pure revulsion in liquid form. Well, Sir Kariya had referred to those 'upstairs' as eccentrics. Perchance everyone who could enjoy...that...had a bit of wingéd-one energy about them.

"N-now then, fandom separates in twain. Curators and creators, one might say. The transcriptionists, and the transformationists. Everyone relies upon the curators to catalogue and collect, to fill the wiki with wisdom and to make its graphical assets freely available to all..."

Sir Hanekoma quirked an eyebrow.

"Allow me to explain! Backtracking ensues! Please, imagine the sound of a truck's incessant beeping as it drives hindforth!"

"Sure, sure, I'm imagining it. What's next?"

Nagi threw her arm up in front of her, wriggling her fingers as she posed. "We have the curators! The ones who engage within the canon! The ones who pride themselves on understanding as much of the canon material as possible. They who strive to piece together facts through logical deductions. They who collate and archive all materials from interviews to long-defunct mobile games to initial pitches featuring entirely different gameplay systems—EleStra, once upon a time, began life as a rhythm otome—and obscure spin-offs removed from the marketplace for, hwehwehweh, ratings concerns!"

His eyebrows arched higher.

Quickly she went on, banishing thoughts of the aforementioned obscure spin-off to the shadow realm...for now. "A-and thus, curators hold the canon in the highest of esteem. One impresses by memorising scripts! Having encyclopedic knowledge of the franchise! Having the most comprehensive walkthroughs and guides! Being the one to whom fellow EleStraniacs turn whenever they have a question or need an asset, even more swiftly than they turn to the honourable Professor Moogle—the search engine, that is."

Sir Hanekoma inclined his head. "So it's about knowing the ins and outs of your favourite thing. Sure, I dig it. You said there were two, right?"

"Indeed! On the other side...we have the creators. Those with imagination. Those who transform the canon into fanon. Those who use the canon as a mere jumping-off point, to various degrees of compliance. The fanartists, the fic writers, the MAD editors, the roleplayers, the plushie crafters, the cosplayers! Ah, but be not fooled. That which I create with my hands—"

Such as the crimson foam blade she had made, borne of the discussion of Production during her first meeting with Hanekoma, so many weeks ago now.

"—has nothing to do with such lofty goals of creation. 'Tis mere curation, to meticulously catalogue and then recreate the three-dimensional models from within the game."

"That so?" He hmmed. "Well, if you say so. You know more about what counts under each one than I do, s'for sure. So, I'm guessin' you see yourself as a curator, kid?"

"Yes, I do. I curate, and I curate extensively! I rip each and every .apk; I organise and maintain archives of all manners of material, to such dedication that I am fairly certain even the official artists have perused my carefully curated museums of key artworks and the like for their own purposes! I have even collected the removed and modified versions of every known musical track ever put out in any context, even those briefly uploaded to MooTube only to be swiftly removed! And oh, how meticulously I have tagged everything!"

So many mouse clicks. So many batch file renames.

"And speaking of tags, I even curate some aspects of the transformative side, and extensively! I assist in maintaining the Tomonami subsector of the EleStra booru, and I wrangle its tags with an iron fist! Fie the artists who cannot read tag descriptions and simply eyeball it. There are reasons for why we have specific dimensions calculated by pixel relative to a thoroughly vetted equation of limb and torso length for appropriately tagging 'small', 'medium', and 'long'—"

She cleared her throat. Sir Hanekoma graciously granted her silence as he drank his coffee.

"Hhhffhfk! N-now, in other words! That is to say..." Nagi fidgeted on the seat. "Mermerherherm. Where was I?"

"You were tellin' me about your impressive curation. You got a whole museum over there." He nodded to himself. "Y'know, think I've got an idea or two about that, but go on. Those thoughts a' yours? Shake 'em all out before I say anything."

"Y-yes." She glanced down at the stained notebook. The ink splotched over most of the contents. Only a few words here and there, most of them struck out, poked through the darkness. "My thoughts...shake them out...I shall try!"

He smiled encouragingly.

"Put simply, for much time, I had categorised the world in twos. The world of light, and the world of darkness. I, a creature of the dark, stalked through this twilight land I called my home, until encounters with certain wonderful beings of the light...taught me otherwise. That I could entwine myself with beings both of the light and of the dark. And, moreover, that many beings eschew such categorisations entirely." She touched her hand to her chin. "I had long thought that message from another time, where darkness and light were one, and as I tread the halls of sanity, I felt so glad to be unable to go beyond...but in reality, the darkness and the light can interleave and intermix...! Much as my friendship with my comrades-in-arms—with Sir Tosai, my...my closest friend...!"

She panted, her hand on her chest, her heart pounding with blistering speed.

O exquisite agony.

"That's pretty touching, Specs." Sir Hanekoma set the coffee down. "Think you and Fret do a lot of good for each other. A whole lot. Kinda a non sequitur to the fandom stuff, though, ain't it?"

"Behold! My transition! Ah-h-hem! Just as I had split the world into light and darkness, so too did I split fandom into curation and creation. Thus...'twas not problematic for me in the slightest to only curate. But of course! I was a curator! The fandom's curative! The doctor was in, you see."

"Uh-huh." He scratched at his scruff.

Nagi nodded vigorously. "Yet, I began to think. If light and darkness could intermix, then why not curation and creation? Indeed, many transformative types also transcribe, and many transcriptive types also transform. One needn't do merely one or the other. Perchance, then, I could—no, I ought to try my hand at transforming, as well?"

"Hmm...that so?"

His tone sounded less than convinced, but still open, acquiescing to her relative expertise on her own experience.

She continued:

"'Tis so. Moreover, recent events have prompted me to think even more carefully than before on the nature of art."

"Oh?" Sir Hanekoma leaned forward.

Her face warmed along with the back of her neck and even the tips of her ears. "Y-yes. Many things. Mother sent me this lavish tome as a present. Having seen it, she thought of me, if I would like something of its nature."

The thinner spots of ink had dried by now, but the deeper wells remained slick and wet where she traced her finger over them.

"A notebook to write in. To write down my own thoughts. I have no skill for art, nor the patience to hone it, but at the very least I can attempt to write."

He stroked his chin in the thoughtful quiet.

"I-indeed. And, of course, I have spent ever-more time with Sho. He has his order of operations about him, after all." Nagi hid her smirk behind her hand.

"His order of operations?" he asked, as though he'd figured out that she had hoped he would.

"Yes! Ah, PEMDAS!" Nagi flourished her wrist as if pulling a rabbit—or, in this case, a lion—from a metaphorical hat, perhaps a black one studded with silver pins. "Please Excuse My Dear Artist Sho!"

Sir Hanekoma rewarded her with a light laugh. "Not bad, Specs. You tell 'im that one yet?"

She could have reheated that coffee on her cheeks. "Ah, n-no. I had hoped to workshop it first, but if it works on you, then—"

"Probably should exchange up the word excuse. Dunno if he'd like that. Guess it's part of the original PEMDAS. Humm."

"Indeed!" Nagi added. "Given its origins in PEMDAS, he could excuse the excuse." She paused for dramatic effect, then jazz-handed her open palms, sneering gleefully.

He chuckled, his hand migrating from chin to back of neck. "You're really something special awright."

She echoed the chuckle, wriggling her fingers

"Still," he observed, "he might take offence from you implyin' he needs to excuse anything about himself. Even as a joke. S'one thing to 'Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally', and another to excuse him."

"Mermermemrenrehrermemremremr..."

For a moment neither of them spoke. Nagi took the opportunity to drag the green bowl closer to herself. She inhaled its aroma: a zesty citrus, a saccharine-ness that bordered on something like licorice or fennel, a tell-tale fragrance of miso that she could not have mistaken anywhere else, a deliciously slimy tickle of mushrooms, a floral pugnancy so herbal and earthen that it smelled the way she imagined spring earth tasted—not that she had ever eaten dirt, not even as a child, after someone had convinced her that dirt contained less germs than the school-offered meals that could have come in contact with human bodily fluids, no, absolutely not—beneath which she detected the star: the fish.

What kind? She could not say, but it looked like salmon. Ah, salmon. The white-veined orange meat that could either bring her to tears of delight or fears of despair depending entirely on the fat content.

The fattier, the tastier. The fishier, the nastier.

It certainly had an inviting aroma. A bit more on the veggie side than she would have preferred, all told. The relative ratio of meat-to-veg played a vital component in her enjoyment or lack thereof. Nor did stews or soups particularly intrigue her. She wished to sink her teeth into something, to rip and tear and rip and tear, to swallow chunks, to feel that weight and thickness down her throat. And she wanted the opportunity to separate pieces out, to enjoy each flavour and texture on its own, instead of it clumped together in one. Whenever she could, she preferred to eat a single side dish at a time, from top to bottom, before moving on to the next: a different taste, a different mouthful. In soups and stews, however, she had no such opportunity. She could only eat the unholy chimaera sloshed together...

...and sloshed together, everything drenched, soaked, soggy. Oh, she loved her juicy fruits and juicier meats, but a meat in its own juices was a far cry from a wet slap of water with many wet slaps of food-clumps within.

A pity, given just how many adorable romantic scenes in EleStra and elsewhere thrived on having characters preparing soup for one another, feeding soup to one another, holding hands over soup with one another.

Such scenes merely furrowed her brow and puckered her lips.

Much the same with those coffeeshop AUs. Yes, yes, other characters could enjoy their acrid bean-venom and their sloppy waterlogged victuals, and so could other people, but such things always broke part of the implied spell between reader and writer, the magical charm that drew the reader into the story. Regardless, coffeeshop AUs...bored her to tears. She longed for the action! The fighting! The rippling muscles across Lord Tomonami's broad back as he tore his and Lady Kemi's enemies asunder! What could he tear asunder in a coffeeshop but the receipt of a patron who had changed their mind about getting one?

Coffeeshop AUs aside, the soup-feeding scenes existed not merely in transformative fiction, but also in transcriptive fiction, for she had had to compile the assets for the stew Lady Kemi fed an ailing Lord Tomonami in the twelfth chapter. So many EleStraniacs had fallen head over heels and ass over teakettle for the cutesiness of the feverish Lord Tomonami at Lady Kemi's mercy.

Still, she could hardly have imagined feeding anyone anything whilst sick. To put herself in harm's way? To have them possibly cough on her, or worse, sneeze? Even if Sir Tosai were to fall ill—

No, if Sir Tosai were to fall ill, she would at least...try...perhaps?

If Sho fell sick, as much as she loved him to the moon and back, he was on his own.

But enough! Nagi had soup to eat! At least, that which she could fish out from its disgustingly mushy depths. Sir Hanekoma offered her fork and spoon. No chopsticks? Very well. And a stab into the salmon! Oh, gods above and demons below, she could see that fatty white strip along its side, so thick and oily that she could not wait to wolf it down. Waving the fork about to let as much soup-water flick away as possible, she shoved the whole piece of salmon into her mouth, folding it up on her tongue and letting the full richness of its fishy fatty flavour hit her all at once.

Ah...ah...ah! Yes! Salmo-licious! So delicious! She could feast upon this for days!

The savoriness of meat with the lightness of the sea—a little too light for her taste, but not as disagreeably heavy as expensive beef; she longed for a cross in the middle, somewhere near chicken, but better, and tastier, and really, she just wanted another grilled gator—came together so delightfully, so luxuriously, that tears welled up in her eyes. Every time she brought her jaws together in mastication, a new explosion of fresh salmon flavour pulsed through her mouth. She could even sense it, that lovingly slippery meat, when she gulped it down.

If only she could have said the same about the remainder of the stew.

The other vegetables that she stirred the fork through did not particularly excite her. Some bits of daikon, some shimeji mushrooms, pieces of garlic and onion, something yellow and herbal that she didn't recognise, something else that tasted far too sugary that she spit back out immediately: she fished around for any salmon she had missed instead and found some shrimp awaiting her in the bottom. Ah, now this she could enjoy, at least after she had dabbed them dry of soup.

Once she had exhausted the bowl of its fish and shrimp contents, no matter how many times she sifted through it, she sighed mournfully. Oh, the stew-manity...

While she would not refer to it as bouilla-baissed, neither would she consider it, hermhermherm, bouilla-cringe.

Ah, no, she could never use such a modernism as 'based' or 'cringe' in her fanwork! It would instantly remove the readers from their suspension of disbelief! It would unsuspend them, snip them free of the strings that held them up, and drop them unceremoniously into the melancholy anguish of a fan deprived of their fanfiction.

Yes, not unlike the sentiment that many a fan experience whilst playing their favourite video game, in the moment that the loading screen went black and—however briefly—they witnessed their own very human visage in the dark depths, glimpsing for but a second the taboo darkness within....

Regardless of how people actually spoke, one had to use such modern slang with a careful hand.

Phrases such as 'based' and 'cringe' could lend themselves to wondrous humour if used appropriately, but if the slightest hint of sincere usage slipped through, or if someone who associated that slang with supposed undesirable types read the work, the comments could flare and flame in hatred and seethe, at how dare the writer debase both the language and the canonical material through such use.

Indeed, the very mental image of Lord Tomonami knowing that the word cringe even existed, much less uttering it in his divine voice, made her flinch in her seat.

Utterly detestable. Unforgivable. Inconceivable. Deplorable. Indefensible! Shameful! Vexatious!

Ve-xa-ti-ous!

Gah!

Gwah!

Gwwawaaaararrrrghghhhhh!

"Feelin' less under the weather?" Sir Hanekoma asked kindly as Nagi pounded her fist on the table in her self-annoyance, attempting to eviscerate the disgraceful image her mind had conjured up of His Radiance. Therein, though, lay a difference: while Lord Tomonami could never open his mouth and say something like cringe, she could envision Sho repeating it after someone else, in that inquisitive tone of his, curious to define this new variable that she would define for him as garbage.

She would not cringe, at herself or at others. Cringe destroyed enjoyment. Cringe demolished the cringe. Cringe—

"Heya, Specs? Ya listenin'?" Nagi bobbed her head. "Mind if we got back to what you were sayin' earlier?"

"I-I suppose that we could, yes..."

"You piqued my interest, Specs, so I want to peek myself. So, you say you're not a creative, but you Produced that sword for Pi." He hummed. "How do ya put the two together?"

Nagi exhaled. "'Twas hardly an original design. I merely replicated Lord Tomonami's blade in a distinct colour that Sho chose for himself when he donned the red bandanna. I did give it a most wonderful name: not Raijinmaru, like His Lordship's sword, but Rajianmaru. Rajian...as in radian! For His Radians, as opposed to His Radiance."

"Pshh...I know he got a kick out of that one. But you're not calling it a creative thing?"

She hung her head. "'Tis no more creative than using the bucket-tool in one's image editor of choice without any other alterations. I suppose that I did record many numbers along the edge, but...still, I cannot count that creative. It had no artistry."

"Hmm." Back to scratching at his scruff. "And this is bothering ya, kid?"

"Indeed. Do I not need to do so for myself? If light and dark can interleave, then surely curation and creation can, as well." She fiddled with the fork still scented with salmon and shrimp

"Doesn't mean you gotta do it all on your own."

Nagi shook her head. "Nay, but with all due respect, Sir Hanekoma, you do act with tremendous creativity. Perchance the most successful artist in the entire city! People look up to creators. They lounge at the peak of the pyramid, so to speak. Fans expect for curation to happen and rue when none does, but...'tis akin to shadows in a video game. One never notices their presence when done well, only their absence—or when they look off. A-ah, and I have finished with bouill...the bouill...the, erm. The stew."

"Finished with the bull, huh? Yeah, think so." He collected the green bowl. She heard it clinking behind the counter. "And speakin' of which, that what this is about for ya, Specs? The limelight?"

"Hghhgk!? Nay! Not at all! 'Twas merely an example! I simply wish to act creatively as well! To have my feelings reach the audience, much as yours do! To pass on messages, much as you do!" Nagi sprang from the chair, pacing momentarily about, back and forth, as though she could carve a trail in place of a more traditional creative pursuit. "This I desire! Surely you, a creative type, understand that!"

"Hmm. Sorry, kiddo, didn't mean to accuse you of anythin'. Just wanted to make sure that you're trying to create because you want—"

He gazed right at her, his pause so meaningful that she froze dead in her tracks.

"—to create, and not because you're vying for attention or trying to live up to something you've made up in your head."

Nagi's wrists sagged. "Those reasons—the former, at least—do not apply to me. Yet would someone truly be committing some heinous crime for not 'creating' for your reasons?"

Sir Hanekoma's expression firmed into something...not quite stern, but more solemn and contemplative than usual. "Listen up, Specs. Creation's something special. Imagination lets you turn that disordered Soul into something new. Don't take it lightly, and don't force it if it's not something you got that fire for."

"Hwarhgel!?" Nagi crept back towards the seat. "B-but, do you not create through ulterior motives yourself? For the purpose of broadcasting your beliefs to humanity?"

"Sure. Creation's about more than just yourself, Specs. You can have all the fantasies you want up here—" He tapped his temple. "—but the second you're putting it out there, you're talking. You got a dialogue. You and the audience are in it together. It's not an ulterior motive to be understood, 'less you're calling it ulterior that you walked in here and started telling me about your inner struggles." A pause, and his warm smile returned. "Lemme be clear there, kid. You and your inner struggles are welcome here any time. I've got pancakes for inner demons, too. And outer demons. With sprinkles, even." He winked. "I know one who likes 'em a lot, eh?"

Nagi grimaced. "Y-yet..."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, Specs, I'm not trying to be hard on ya. Just want you to have fun with it. Creation's the most special thing a human can do, all right? So do it for yourself. And treat it like the special thing it is. Patience's a virtue, but so's passion. Don't you do something unless you got the passion for it."

"Wwehhehhhh..."

"And something for your audience, too. You can be passionate as you want in your head, like I said. But when you start creating, start making those fantasies realities, don't forget about that dialogue, either." Sir Hanekoma motioned to the remaining plate. "And don't forget about your pancakes. They're gonna get cold if you don't try 'em."

"V-very well..." Plopping herself back into the chair, still warm from earlier, Nagi regarded the pancakes. She gave Sir Hanekoma points for the presentation: one pancake carefully askew on the plate, giving it a similar endearing and eye-pleasing vibe as whenever Sho's hat went angled to the side. Likewise, the spread of maple syrup reminded her of an amoeba stretching out its pseudopodia, or possibly a yeast growing over a petri dish. Er...but a pretty amoeba or yeast. Hrmermrm, possibly not the best imagery for a review of food.

The butter bubbled as it melted. Between the buttery savoriness and the soufflé sweetness, the pancakes smelled so enticingly, so piquantly aromal that she could hardly wait to gobble them down.

"These pancakes, they have passed the sniff test with flying colours!"

"Hmm?" Sir Hanekoma sounded amused. "The 'sniff test'?"

"N-next! The swallow test!" Grasping the fork tightly, Nagi stabbed the angled pancake and brought it to her lips—or attempted to. The soft soufflé-cake had so much softness that it simply vwllped off of her fork and pomfed back onto the plate.

Thus it began.

'Elevating' the plate to her mouth much as her projected fantasy had 'elevated' the muffins, Nagi scraped the pancakes mouthwards with a fork as the stick and, erm, a trip down her gullet as the carrot? The fluffy sweetness spilled over her tongue, though the syrup added a touch too much sugariness; the inside of her mouth felt as if it had fuzzed over. But the salted butter, once it hit just right, balanced the saccharine syrup with a savoury, salty edge.

Too bad all that softness had nothing to bite into. No texture to hook her teeth into, only that fluffiness which rapidly gave way to spit-covered mushiness. She couldn't gulp something like this down in one bite, yet the slightest bit of mastication led to any residual firmness completely dissolving.

Yes, the muffins had also melted in her mouth, but they had at least held together while they had done that, giving her ample time to indulge in the bread-ness before sublimating.

This...failed to act like bread. Like, as she would write it in her own hand, Bread. Heresy. A crime beyond all other possible sweetbread crimes. Sweetbread, pastry, cake, whatever else made of batter or dough: if it could not act like bread, then she could not act like a good eater of the imposter not-bread when she could choose any true dish from amongst actual breads. Muffins, scones, even the sugariness of cupcakes she could well abide, but this...

Still, that initial passing-of-the-pancake had tasted so delectably, that Nagi found herself cramming the second pancake into her mouth, this time forcing herself to swallow without much chewing.

It cut short her enjoyment, her luxury, her love, but it also kept the pancake from liquefying to miserable mush on her tongue.

So long as she didn't luxuriate in the lusciousness of her food, she could force it down. So long as she didn't...ah. Indulge. Hedonistically. So long as she kept to the straight and narrow, she could find enjoyment in that which she otherwise would not.

Then, perhaps, the same in her writing. Instead of trying to indulge in it to its basest depths, mayhaps Nagi could have reeled herself in and focused on making the transformative work. A simple Mary Sue story. The reader's self-insert—and her own—attracting Lord Tomonami. She would not need much more than that.

She turned over to a new page—

—and set the pen down, staring at it, the salty butter still fresh on her tongue.

It...had a development? Hmmph. Better...? Better. Perhaps.

Sir Hanekoma shrugged. "You know, Specs, it seems to me that you write up a storm after you get something good to eat. You're not really much of a coffee gal—I respect that."

"Eh-heh-heh..."

"If you're set on making something, why don't you try some other places? See what foods inspire you in all sorts of ways. See what you like, and what you don't, and how that feeds into your creativity." He laughed. "Literally feeds into your creativity! How 'bout that?"

She chuckled faintly.

"Just remember, Specs...not everyone's cut out for creativity. Nothing wrong with that." Sir Hanekoma leaned back, voice a combination of cool and concerned. "If you can't make it, don't worry about it. Not everyone's got the Imagination for it, you know?"

Her chuckle faded. She stared at the few scant lines she had written.

"Don't burn yourself out trying to be something you're not. You got plenty of other stuff you've good at." He nodded at her. She didn't nod back. "Like that Production of yours. Nothing to sniff at, even if ya don't make the cut as a writer. So don't go tiring yourself out over this. It's a hard path to walk." He pinched his fingers together, the tiniest sliver of space between them. "Real narrow way. Not everyone can. Not a big deal, kiddo."

He was saying something else, more of the same, but...

...Nagi was gazing into the narrow gap between his thumb and forefinger, at the radiance of light spilling from the divide he'd created, and squeezed her pen as hard as she'd squeeze herself into that heavenly gate.