pyr min solemnly swears he is up to no good (twinclaws) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-11-13 00:30:00 |
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The good thing about kitchen duty was that if you walked into the larder with a broom in your hand, people just assumed you were going in there to clean. Pyr had often taken advantage of this common misconception, and today was one such day: he grabbed two pears from the stores (his due, for suffering his never-ending punishment in silence, as he did) and carried the broom back out with his free hand. He left it against the wall and made his way to the wooden table in the middle of the kitchen, no longer empty. Juliette was sitting there, a lunchbox open in front of her. “Hey,” Pyr greeted. From his bag, he fished out his own bento box, containing Peony’s cooking, and took the seat next to hers. “What did you bring for lunch?” She looked up in surprise as her fellow squire exited the pantry. She almost asked him what he had been doing in there, but the fruit in his hands answered that question well enough. She scooted over on the bench to make room when he approached -- they were not quite friendly again, but she wasn’t set on antagonizing him, either -- and said, “Hello.” She looked down at her own lunch -- handed to her earlier by Lord Finch, as was his occasional habit -- and said, “I am uncertain. My mentor made it.” There was a great deal of lemon and butter in the sauce by the smell; whatever it was, it looked extremely appetizing. “And you?” she asked, curious despite herself at the tidy little box he had set on the table. Pyr hesitated a moment before answering—he found his own words a little disconcerting as he spoke them: “My sister made it.” He untied the ribbon around the box and took off the lid. On the first tier, there was rolled-up tamagoyaki, a few pieces of karaage, and plums; the second tier revealed two onigiri and a tiny helping of fried noodles. “It’s always Ordalian food, but I never know what until I open it.” The only constant was how delicious the food always was. He eyed the contents of Juliette’s lunchbox, chopsticks in hand. “Trade you some of mine for some of that whatever it is,” he said. “Our housekeeper occasionally makes things like that,” Juliette said, looking over the contents of Pyr’s lunchbox. A pause, then, “I did not realize you had a sister, too.” Just how many secret siblings did Pyr Min have, exactly? “Yeah, I do. It’s just… it’s a little weird.” He looked at Juliette, hoping she wasn’t about to take offense because he’d never mentioned his sister before; he had promised he wouldn’t be sneaky with her anymore, and he was sure their definitions of what counted as being sneaky were wildly different. “She’s a mage, but she came here when Sky and I were very young and we didn’t really have that much contact.” An understatement; his memories of her back home were vague, and in them, he could never recall her face. “We started talking again when Sky and I came here in the summer.” He shrugged; he was rambling, he knew, but there just didn’t seem to be a good way to explain. “I think Peony’s trying, and I’m trying too, but it’s so awkward all the time.” He sighed and popped a plum into his mouth; while he was eating, at least, he could manage not to think too much about where the food had come from. A moment of surprised silence passed before Juliette asked, “Peony Min?” She would never have made the connection otherwise; the serene councilor whom she had met once at the cathedral and about whom Ridley spoke in such glowing terms had absolutely nothing in common with Pyr except, perhaps, a surname and a particular way of pronouncing certain words. “How are you related to --” She stopped herself and shook her head. “Please excuse me; that question was… inappropriate.” Pyr shrugged again. He realised that he and Sky were very different from Peony; it was one of the reasons he was never sure how to act around her. They hadn’t seen each other in years, Pyr had said. Juliette supposed, if she thought about it, she knew something about this sort of situation. Awkward all the time basically described her relationship with Alys, didn’t it? “If she is making you lunch… she is definitely trying.” After all, didn’t she do the same because she couldn’t find words to say to Alys? This gesture of affection was a familiar one to her, too, for all that she was not nearly as skilled as Pyr’s sister appeared to be, nor as tranquil (her single encounter with the mage had left a profound impact; Juliette could only dream of such serenity). “Yes,” she said after a moment. “We can share.” She scooped a bit of her food into the lid of her container for him as she asked, “You haven’t any other siblings, have you?” Pyr grinned when she passed the lid over, and pushed his bento box closer to her. He had no idea what she'd like, so he thought it a better idea to let her take her pick. She wasn't Conan; he didn't have to worry about her taking all his food. "Nope, just Sky and Peony," he said. A beat passed; Audrey's threat was still very much fresh in his mind, but since they were on the subject of siblings, he thought he might as well ask. "How is it going with your sister?" A moment of thought, and she selected one of the rice balls; she smiled upon biting into it and finding tuna on the inside. “I did not think I had mentioned my sister to you,” she said at length. Everyone had heard about it in noble circles, true enough, but Pyr didn’t run in those. It was very odd, almost as though he had read her mind. “I was not aware that you were acquainted?” This was dangerous ground he was walking, he knew; say too much, and Audrey would kill him, but say too little and Juliette might think he was hiding stuff from her again, and maybe kill him too. Why had he ever thought it a good idea to start down this path? “Only a little,” Pyr said. “She knows my brother. So I’ve talked to her a few times.” And climbed down the walls of the brothel on her command a couple of times, and done errands for her. He thought it better not to mention those. “We’re not close or anything,” he added after a beat. “I see,” Juliette said. She polished off the rest of her riceball before daring a confidence of sorts, “I… understand your problem. To an extent.” She looked down into her lunch for a few moments before offering, like a metaphorical olive branch, “I… do not know my sister very well, either. I have met many people who are… better acquainted with her than I.” She had almost wondered if he might be one such, but of course that was ridiculous, if she thought about it; he had not been in Emillion very long, after all, and he was not Bards’ Guild, either. Pyr chewed on the bite of fish he’d scooped up out of the lid—not so easy a feat, as the sauce made it slippery, but he managed somehow. “But you’ve both lived in Emillion your whole lives, right?” A puzzled crease appeared between his brows. “Did you meet her recently?” “It is… complicated.” She almost wished now that she hadn’t broached the topic, but she had had to discuss it so often at the various social events she had attended since Alys’ return that at least she was not entirely at a loss for words. “I thought her dead,” she answered. “And she was similarly unaware of me. We were thus raised apart.” In two different worlds, she did not say. “I have only known her for a handful of months.” “Huh.” It sounded like something out of a book, and he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that they had lived in the same city and never met—and they had thought each other was dead? “And I thought this thing with Peony was unusual.” He picked up the other onigiri and took a bite. He almost asked his next question through a mouthful of rice, but his mother’s voice echoed in his head, and so he swallowed before speaking. “You were raised with nobles, right? That’s why you always take so long to eat.” She gave him a bewildered look. “This is your measure of who is and is not of noble birth?” she asked, a bit incredulous. Though she supposed the common-born girls in the guild did not take nearly such pains to eat with delicacy, so it was not altogether a poor measure, if an unexpected one. Pyr shrugged. “I’ve never seen anyone else take half an hour to eat one muffin,” he said, referring to the brunch Councilor Cassul had held to introduce her friend a few months ago. “And you’re always so concerned with propriety. I really think you don’t need to worry so much.” He was making short work of his own lunch; he’d finished the onigiri and was now about to attack the noodles. “At least with the other squires. We’re all the same age and we don’t really care if you chew two times or twenty.” Perhaps she wouldn’t appreciate his advice, but he couldn’t stand to see people who ate like they didn’t enjoy it, whether they’d been taught to eat like that or not. “That is a little personal, don’t you think?” she asked with a small moue of displeasure. Really, for all that she had forgiven him most of his transgressions, he was terribly uncouth sometimes. “I do not comment on your eating habits, nor in fact on your stealing fruit from the larder.” She looked pointedly at the pears. Clearly, the moment of open-hearted sharing was at an end. Pyr grinned at her. “I’ll give you one of the pears if you want it.” He held it out to her, trying not to laugh at the look on her face. “Come on, don’t be that way. A peace offering.” After a moment of consideration, she took the pear, since it was there anyway. She brought enough food to be left at this hall that she wouldn’t be begrudged a single piece of fruit, surely. “I suppose I accept,” she said. Then, “Eat your lunch, we both have training soon.” And one thing in his favor -- unlike certain people, he would show up and put in his best effort, not least because Sister Felicity would have something to say to him if he didn’t. She supposed in the end, uncouth and all, he wasn’t that bad. |