WHO: Eve Ritter WHEN: Evening of April 24 WHERE: The kitchens at Stella's SUMMARY: While preparing the dough for tomorrow's bread, Eve's necklace breaks and she panics. WARNINGS: None
It hadn't been hard for anyone to deduce that Eve was in a good mood all day. The smile on her face had been persistent, she'd had a bit of a hop to her step, and she'd happily sang along (rather off tune) to the radio in the food truck while she was cooking and serving to the masses. Her underlings, as she most affectionately referred to them in her mind and only in her mind out of fear of their rioting, had made note of the upswing of her mood, but she had just shrugged it off; it wasn't that she was a grump every other day as her moods tended to teeter on the fence of good most days anyway, but just that it was so damn incessant today. It had only gotten worse when she'd returned from her lunch.
While her underlings had been content to just tease, her sister had simply eyed her with a scrutinizing raised eyebrow when Eve had come back to the restaurant with the truck that evening. Though she had just shrugged to her as well, Stella wasn't having any of it and set her younger sister on making bread for tomorrow's meatball sub special.
It wasn't an actual punishment, though. Eve had been cooking and baking alongside Stella most of her life and her sister was well aware of just how much she loved making bread. Despite that they had several mixers, all equipped with a bread hook, she preferred to roll and knead the dough out by hand. It was a much lengthier process and required more muscle than tossing it in a mixing bowl, switching the mixer on, and then leaning against the counter as she checked Facebook and Instagram while the machine did all the work, but Eve preferred it that way. She hadn't gotten into the culinary field because she liked easy, no matter what her mother may have claimed during every phone conversation and holiday meal they might have shared. The extra effort showed, she thought, when the bread rose, baked, and tasted in a way that could only be described as heavenly.
With her hands and her workstation covered in flour, Eve concentrated on the task ahead of her. There was a radio playing quietly in the corner, the restaurant closed and much of the regular staff already gone for the night. She hadn't been expecting a late night at the restaurant, but she wasn't complaining either. Though she wouldn't have minded an early night of video games and potentially seeing Niall again, she loved what she did and wasn't going to complain.
As she folded the dough one more round before she would set it aside to proof overnight, Eve leaned over -- and her necklace fell to the floured countertop. She paused in her movement, looking down to where the silver chain had pooled into a small pile. It took her just a moment to recognize that the tear-shaped pendant wasn't on it.
Immediately, a panic surged through Eve and she straightened. The dazed, goofy smile that had been living on her lips since the night prior was gone, replaced with wide eyes and pure dread. She had purchased the necklace on a whim a handful of months prior at one of the boutiques on Main Street. It had been hanging on a mannequin in the front window, the light catching it just right to snatch up her attention. She didn't know why, but she'd known right then and there that she had to purchase the necklace. The shop owner that had sold it to her had referred to it as nothing more than costume jewelry, a bit of glass that was faceted just right to give it a sparkle in the sunlight, but it was far more than just that to Eve. Just looking at the pendant had sent her mind to Niall and filled her with a sense of longing that she'd never felt before. The thought that she may have lost it sent her to near hysterics.
"No," Eve breathed, feeling the tears begin to prick at the edges of her vision. "No, no, no." She started to tear apart the lump of dough in front of her, as though she may have missed the pendant had it fallen in during the process of kneading. It wasn't there, she quickly found, which made her worry only spike.
Ignoring the glances that she was on the receiving end of from the remaining few stragglers that were still in the kitchen, Eve began to circle the stations, looking on the counters and floors alike for the bit of sparkle. When she didn't find it, her mind went back through her day. When had the chain come unclasped? Had it been balanced just right for hours, the pendant having fallen long ago? She had been in the food truck most of the day, but she'd been in her car, all over the park where the truck had sat for most of the day, and at Noah and Niall's office.
Turning to find her cell phone to ask one of those two if they had seen the pendant in their office, Eve paused to wipe the flour that was in every line and crease of her hands onto her apron. The movement did the trick -- just as she reached for her phone, the small pendant fell from where it had been wedged in the folds of her clothing and dropped to the ground. A second later, Eve was there herself, picking the pendant up and breathing an immediate sigh of relief. Her eyes closed as she pressed her forehead to the stainless steel counter, her heart beginning to slow from the rapid staccato it had peaked at.
Somewhere in her mind, Eve knew that she was being ridiculous. It had been a $5 bit of glass jewelry. If she went back to the boutique, they probably had a drawer full of the exact same pendant that she could have picked up to replace the necklace. But, it hadn't been Eve that had panicked, but the part of her that she was starting to realize was somehow tied to Asuna. It was that part of her that knew just how important this necklace was to both herself and Kirito and that she had to keep it safe. It was Asuna's most prized possession, beating out even her rapier that Lisbeth had crafted for her. It was Yui.
The thought formed in Eve's mind so suddenly that it almost took her by surprised. She didn't know what a Yui was. She'd never heard of it in her dreams from the past, but she knew that it, whatever it happened to be, was very important to Asuna. The ache in her heart could mean nothing else.
"Eve? You okay?"
Stella's voice broke Eve from her thoughts, bringing her back to the present -- a present in which she was kneeling on the tile of Stella's kitchen and had been in the middle of making a batch of tomorrow's bread. She shook her head once, getting to her feet and nodding. "Yeah, I just -- " She held up the pendant, showing her sister and shrugging. "It fell off the chain."
As if on cue, Stella lifted up the thin chain in question and held it in front of her to inspect it. It was covered in flour, but it was clear that it had broken clear in half. "Yeah, no wonder. You need a better chain."
Eve's eyes dropped to her open palm. She felt no attachment to the chain, her heart firmly attached to the pendant itself. Rubbing her thumb over the textured glass once to give it a polish, she slipped it into her pocket for safe keeping. Now that her brief crisis had ended, she felt the happy bubble that she'd been existing within all day return. Just like that, the smile spread across her face once more.
Stella rolled her eyes. "Christ, you look crazed. Finish that batch and get out of my kitchen before you infect the food."
As her sister turned to go to her office, Eve laughed. "You got it, Stells."