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"Natalia, I said keep stirring! Luke, you had better fold those fingers before you chop them off!"
"I'm not going to chop my finger off, Anise," Luke griped. Though he did, in fact, tuck his fingers so that he was moving the vegetables forward with his knuckles facing that direction rather than his fingertips.
"Yeah, if you do it right."
Anise herself was a dervish in the kitchen they had borrowed from the staff in Peony's palace. Whether this whole venture of teaching the two Kimlascan royals to cook would prove fruitful or end in disaster... well, Jade knew what he'd bet his gald on if he was a gambler. But he wasn't, and watching the situation unfold was enough entertainment for him. Mostly.
"Oh my, what creativity," he said, watching as Natalia plucked from the bowl of sugar--rather than salt--and added some to the pot of boiling noodles.
Jade's comment got Anise's attention immediately, and she rushed over to do damage control.
"I can't tell if you're helping or causing more chaos," Guy remarked. Leaned against the wall near where Jade and Tear sat, he had his arms crossed, face warring between something concerned and amused.
"Helping, certainly," Jade responded. "Though I wouldn't dream of taking your place. Please."
When Jade motioned out to the floor where Anise was chastising Luke for placing the unevenly chopped vegetables into a pan without any butter or oil, Guy raised his hands and waved them back and forth.
"Uh, no thanks. I've seen what their skill levels are like enough times."
Tear sighed, taking a sip of her tea. Jade did the same. There was something special about the fruity, bitter blend Peony kept on hand. Of course, he was definitely keeping it just for Jade, which, while sweet, was also... well aside from the slight warmth of it, it also made Jade's stomach squirm slightly. That didn't stop him from enjoying it though.
"They are trying their best," Tear noted, only a few moments later.
"And what is that going to bring?" Guy asked with trepidation.
"...I'm not sure."
Guy groaned.
Looking slightly flushed, Tear added, "But, well, we've accomplished much so far. As long as we're together... perhaps we can overcome our individual weaknesses."
The sizzling sound of water boiling over into the fire was followed by Anise shouting again.
"I'm not sure that applies to cooking," Jade noted. Tear winced.
Eventually, thirty or so minutes later, the whole group sat down to try what the three aspiring chefs had created.
Jade waited until some of the others had been tempted into trying it first, then, once they didn't expire or show any signs of wanting to spit it out, Jade tried his own bowl. It was...
"Interesting," he said.
It was clearly some sort of soup--at least, in concept. There was a meaty broth, noodles, vegetables... but there was an odd char to the vegetables, and the broth had ended up slightly sweet in a way which was clearly not purposeful. Anise glared at him across the table, but didn't seem to have much of a comeback. Guy, ever the peacemaker, tried harder.
"Well it- it's an unusual flavor. Not bad just, uh..." He scratched at the back of his head, staring down into his bowl.
Luke slurped up some more, seeming unbothered by the taste, or at least acting that way. "So we did it? I mean, it's better than what we've done before."
"That's true," Natalia said, stirring her soup around in a way which was unbecoming of royalty. "I suppose it is a success."
"If this be victory," Jade said solemnly, "I pray I never win."
Anise reached out and kicked him under the table.
0-o-0
Van Grants was, quite possibly, the worst human being Jade had ever had the displeasure to deal with. Certainly others might have been more openly, gleefully murderous, but Former-Commandant Grants had them beat for sheer scope of effect.
For one, he'd quite callously killed many people in his effort to create the number of replicas he had. He'd then proceeded to ignore the vast majority of those same replicas, uncaring what happened to them, whether they survived or not. Then, of course, the rest of his plan, which included "saving" the world by letting it die to miasma, focusing instead on replacing the human population with those same replicas he couldn't be bothered to protect or care for in any way. All that was, of course, terrible. Much of it hit Jade rather particularly because of how his own research had enabled it, and how his more callous self might have ended up acting in a similar way, if to different ends. But no, the worst of it, to Jade's more selfish mind, was how it affected two particular young men.
Asch, it seemed, was determined to die. For the world, he'd said, but it was quite clear he was careless with his own life; Certainly being torn from it so young would not have helped that mindset. But then, for some reason, Luke was competing with that. He'd gone from being so certain of his own worth to being ashamed of his own existence, for taking part of the childhood Asch had had. It was infuriating, watching these two not only try to save each other by hurting themselves, but knowing it was all due to the efforts and manipulations of one man.
Jade was tired of watching those children run towards death.
(But he didn't know how to stop it. All he could do was try to protect the one he traveled with.)
All for the world; or so Van claimed.
The whole party, desperate to stop him, thought and thought of ways to help dispel the miasma, to stop Van's plans, to find even one small sliver of victory.
And even though it would mean many people would die, even though it might even, possibly, mean the end of life as they knew it, Jade didn't...
If it meant that sort of sacrifice, Jade quietly, to himself, prayed they did not win.