Kíli could have anything down his trousers. (_kili_) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-03-10 04:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, kili, mischa lecter |
Who: Mischa Lecter, Kili
What: cake and conversation!
When: Last week, after this post on the valar net.
Where: Mischa’s bakery
Rating: low
By the third day, Mischa had learned to cope with the general chaos and the white noise of ongoing construction within her bakery with her typical grace and good humor. For his part, Kili was as good as his word. Although, the man forever haplessly underfoot and boisterously loud, he had least curbed his tongue when customers were present, he hadn’t stepped into her kitchen, which had saved him from evoking Mischa’s considerable wrath; moreover, and much to his credit, the blond chef couldn’t remember laughing so much while working.
Turning over the laminated shop sign to “Closed” then locking the front door before Mischa raised her long limber arms high above her head and stretched her back, shaking out the satisfying weariness hard work often brought. “Come on, Kili. Get off my floor. The day is done,” she proudly announced with a hint of a smile as looking back over her shoulder before rounded the counter to pull the remaining tray a tarts from the display case. And what a good day it had been. She had nearly sold out of everything she had made that morning save, but the promised cake she had baked for Kili as per their arrangement.
Even though Fili was too busy to help out, it was a very good arrangement. Kili knew from the start that he shouldn't overstep boundaries with someone's kitchen, or scare off the customers. He only once managed to rubber mallet smack his entire hand on day two, but some ice was readily available. One of the fringe benefits of building things in a bakery, he supposed. As long as he didn't curse up a storm in front of anyone, including Mischa, then all was well! It was also going smoothly. Or as smoothly as it could be, all things considering.
Kili was decent at putting things together, especially if they were made of metal and even glass. The additional display cases were almost entirely finished, which was why he was laying on the floor, giving it a looking over so it was up to speck. He sat up abruptly when she spoke, and scrambled up onto his feet, brushing his hands off on his jeans, followed by clapping them together.
"Let them eat cake! Or more specifically, let me eat cake?" he asked, because desserts didn't contain the thing he was going to talk about next, "You didn't hide veggies in it, did you?"
If that was carrot cake, someone was going to have a severe case of stink eye set in.
At this Mischa flashed an oh so innocent expression and out stretched her hands in wordless gesture of defense against such an accusation. “Would I do that,” again, she silently added having been particularly pleased with herself for have tricked Kili to having a slice of carrot cake before he recognized what flavor it was. That moment of realization was truly priceless. Mischa was utterly convinced she would get Kili to eat his vegetables before the job all was finished.
“I promise it’s not carrot cake this time, but my personal favorite, a delicious chocolate mousse cake with the cherries on top.” Mischa insisted as she gently smoothed down her red sweater dress before moving to the freezer to withdrawal the prized cake. The blond gently padded across the room to transfer it to the small waiting table and chairs she arranged for consultations with potential clients, and then set the handsome table with a lovely ceramic plate flanked by a cloth napkin and knife and fork for good measure. She cut a generous slice with her serving knife and placed it to Kili’s plate before taking a good step back to avoid being caught in wake of his enthusiasm for sweets. “Bon appétit.”
She went about her business packaging up the remaining tarts in a small white paper box for Kili to take home to his brother. It was easier than tossing them. “Would you like a glass of milk or something to drink?”
He had to run and go patooey into the nearest garbage can, when he realized. It was on the third mouthful before he figured out the cake had been poisoned with veg of the orange rooty variety, and the stink eye had been mighty, indeed. It could've bored holes through many a stone walls, even those that had metal reinforcement!
The memories of carrot cake were all set aside when chocolate was mentioned, for Kili's eyes went big and round and lit up. He promptly sat down and waited, watching like a ruffle-feathered hawk as she cut that slab of cake for him. It wasn't often that he had sweets, but he had a newfound appreciation for them, and was thinking he needed to incorporate that into his daily diet of meat, potatoes, bread, and wet bread in a glass, which was his precious beers.
"I'll take the milk, if you wouldn't mind," he said, taking up a fork because eating that with his hands probably would cause the nice boss lady to stare at him funny. "Unless you've gotten something alcoholic, and then I'll take that."
And drive home with those tarts. Vroom!
Mischa for her part had merely laughed at Kili’s stink eye. She had received the same look so often when she instructed new chefs that it had lost its sting. She was just glad he had hit the trash can when rejected it out of childish spite rather than taste. Honestly, it wasn’t a bad cake!
“I believe I can manage that.” Yes, eating with like a savage at her set table would not have been appreciated. She merely nodded her blond-crowned head, vanishing into the kitchen and returning to set a cool glass of milk in front of Kili with the white box of tarts. “Unfortunately, I don’t keep alcohol on the premises other than cooking sherry and wine used for catering.”
Carrots at some point had green on them. He had made the most sour face afterward that it looked like a two year old that had been given cough syrup, after being told it was grape flavored and then discovering it was medical crap flavored. DISAPPROVE!
It wasn't a bad cake but he had to protest on principle of carrots now being in the vegetable aisle, where they've always existed. It is obvious that he never went grocery shopping on his own. If he did, he would be buying eleventy billion boxes of Lucky Charms, endless cans of spam, a mountain of beer, and enough ribs to BBQ that he could open up his own BBQ joint. But there is no danger of that happening, since he is a.) stocked up on spam and beer for the apocalypse & b.) his mom gets the groceries that her sons chip in money for. It's a communal effort.
They usually chowed down as well, but he was using the fork to shovel in the chocolate cake, looking mournful that he couldn't swill cooking sherry or guzzle wine with it. But that is ok, because milk goes with chocolate. And he was already gulping some down so he wasn't left like mister om nom choco chipmunk face. Say goodbye to that cake, because it will be gone soon.
"Is that because of licenses? There really should be bakery pubs," Kili said, with his choco mouth. He is not the height of etiquette and never will be, but at least he appeared to be minding his manners and not food fighting or pounding on the table to show his appreciation. "Aren't you going to sit down and have some too? You've been running your bum off all day!"
“No, it’s not a matter of licenses but a matter of principles,” she explained slowly the same thing she had found herself repeating time and again. “I believe with my advanced education as a trained chef in both gourmet cuisine and pastries, I don’t feel like my skills should be diminished to little more than a barmaid and a barista. My passion is in cooking and baking to provide the perfect culinary experience, not in slinging suds to half-wits.”
At this Mischa’s perfect porcelain visage cracked, pink with embarrassment as she sputtered, “Please, my posterior is not a topic of conversation. Ever.” She swiftly recovered from the social faux pas with typical grace becoming of a young lady, but recognized his point-- she certainly didn’t appreciate the method of delivery but she understood-- her feet were killing her-- and after retrieving her own setting joined him at the table, easing into a seat across from Kili. “Thank you.”
Cutting into the rich cake and depositing a small slice onto her place with a generous overspill of cherries before sitting back, automatically unfolding the napkin across her lap, and poised her knife and force to slice a small sample of the cake and lifting it onto her fork. Time for the hostess to demurely emerge with a pretty pink smile. “Please tell me, Kili, where are you from? You’ve been in my shop for three days and I still know so little about you…”
Kili went to 'half wits?!' stink eye staring while in mid-chew, to his eyes boggling at her turning all pink like that. He always talked about bums and butts and all manner of cheeky things that went flying out of his big mouth without a second thought. It was simply the way he rolled! And it got her to sit down and think about herself for once, so that was a good thing. Enough that he mumbled out a 'yoo welbomb!' past a mouthful of chocolate cake, without shooting crumbs out everywhere between them. That was a miracle.
Score one for him! DWARVEN ETIQUETTE!
Once he swallowed it all down with a mighty gulping noise and drank some milk to wash it down further, Kili felt more able to talk without the danger of say it don't spray it happening all over the place.
"I suppose I was so busy with the display cases, that I forgot to talk," he said, like that had just dawned on him. "We're from a place called Carlisle, it's in England. My mother worked as a brewmaster there but it had some bad memories, my father died there when I was still quite young, see? So she wanted a change, and when the brewery decided to branch out to the states, there we went with it. So it's always been her and my brother, Fili, and me. I'm the baby so she worries a bit since I'll need extra health insurance coverage." He sat and stared for a moment, blinking profusely before saying, "I tend to run up the bills."
He shrugged sharply and then asked, "What about you? I suppose I don't know much about you either and that should be remedied!" He pounded the butt end of the fork onto the table like that was that and then dug in again, shoveling cake into his mouth, while watching her expectantly.
Mischa rolled those blue green eyes at the bisque mannerisms of Kili but forgave him. Although if a fleck of food hit her all bets were off on proper etiquette. She genteelly took a small bite of cake with a delicious cherry from her fork, savoring the burst of flavor while she eagerly listened to his story. Lifting the cloth napkin from her lap to dab her mouth, although not a morsel of food was there before answering the question posed to her.
“Please don’t injure my table,” she reminded him matter of factly that her shop was most certainly not a tavern and should not be treated in such a rough and enthusiastic manner. The blond sat back and fell quiet for a moment, what should she tell him? About this present life or her dream’s strange, sad tale of her childhood ended too soon? She decided to err on the side of discretion since Kili was still new to Orange County, and it was not Mischa’s place to overwhelm him with all this dream nonsense.
“I’m the youngest of two children born to a Lithuanian Count,” she began easily enough. “When I was still very young, my parents and brother and Il fled from the Communists, leaving behind our country and home, for the safety and culture of Paris, France where I was educated and grew up. My brother Hannibal is a renowned surgeon, who left the medical field to devote himself into forming his own successful psychiatric practice here in the States, and I am a professional chef and caterer. I teach in Los Angeles during the weekday mornings and I run this shop in the afternoons and Saturdays.”
"Oh, right! Don't want to ding them up," Kili said mindfully before he bounced a fist off the table top instead, which wouldn't leave a mark! It was a good thing that it wasn't hard enough to spill the milk or bounce the food off their plates, but it was a slight improvement. One has to count the little improvements as moving mountains with the likes of him!
Even so, he meant well, and he intently listened to what she was saying. He wasn't precisely new since he had lived there since he was a teenager. And while he was new to the entire dreaming scenario, he was also all geared up for when zombies attacked or a yeti army stormed in, so he tended to believe those who had talked of dreaming or finding photos of him, like Tauriel had.
"That all sounds rather fancy and important," Kili replied, with raised eyebrows. Definitely out of his league, manners and class-wise. His family had always and forever been blue collar, never white collar. That wasn't any reason he couldn't be friends with Mischa! She was very nice to give him cake, a paycheck, and send tarts back home with him when the day's work was done. "You both seem very smart, and you seem very busy!"
“I always had the prettiest clothes, but I didn’t want to merely become another pretty Parisian doll,” she began again with a small but proud smile, “So I started an education in my tradework very early, crafted some degree of prestige in my trade which allowed traveled far and to many different countries to cater events, satisfy my clienteel and my wanderlust without unduly upsetting my family, but I would always return to home Paris so everyone was happy.”
Mischa was sincerely happy she had taken a chance on Kili. He would be a very good friend. Though they were completely polar opposites, he was kind but reliable and honest, and he certainly made her laugh and joke more which shook her out of the well-polished manners and routine to enjoy the life, which lately Mischa felt like had been sleepwalking through.
“Smart? No, my brother has the brains and the height in my family, but I am told I have kindness and very good sense of people and things,” she laughed softly, her eyes and face brightened quite pleasantly in mirth. “Which aren’t bad qualities to possess. Unfortunately, being busy and remaining such is the very nature of beast in this business.” She paused again. “I admit it does tend to make it difficult go out and meet my fellow Orange County-ians,” her blond brows momentarily furrowed comically contemplating if that was the right title for them all before in a blur she had decided to let it pass, “But I am glad in my work.”
Mischa allowed herself a moment to allow her gaze to admire the surround shop which she had worked so hard to begin in a new world, had built up its success, and was now expanding, filled her with a deep-seated satisfaction. “I moved to the States little more than four months ago to be closer to my brother and take on a teaching position from my mentor in Los Angeles. As you would say, ‘So far so good.’” And with that she grinned and took a second bite of her cake.
Kili knew that she came from an entirely different and much more cultured background than he did. He liked that she worked hard but he had always been one to play hard in equal measure. It often got him into trouble or injured, although he never regretted it. Being adventurous and reckless was part of his nature.
As for Mischa, he considered her fine fodder for a friend, as long as she didn't mind the more rough and tumble edges of his personality, and she seemed to put up with that just fine so far. Sometimes, his family used that to their advantage, to weed out those who wouldn't be good to hang out with, by immediately letting it all hang out and being themselves. The ones that survived the experience without running away with a disgusted look on their face or chasing them out, were the keepers.
And so Kili was listening to her talk, eating all the cake and cherries on his plate until it was all but licked clean. He stopped just short of that and gulped down the milk instead, keeping one eye on her while she spoke, and using his sleeve as a napkin afterward. Swipe went one lower arm across his lips, oh yes it did, and then he leaned with his elbows on the table. There was a grin on his face, but his eyes were wide and thoughtful.
"Those're very good qualities, not bad at all. If you've got a good sense of people and things, though, when do you get to use it if you're only ever in here?" he asked her. It wasn't done in such a way that it was mean or accusing, even if it was bluntly put. It was more curious and questioning. "Some of us Orange County-ians, even if we're transplants, aren't so bad. Oh, I'm sure some of them are shit? If you're a good judge of character, though, you've nothing to worry about!"
As for the rest, he could understand wanting to be close to one's family. His family was so tightly knit together, that if there was the slightest sign of adversity, they closed ranks for support. Even his grim-faced uncle.
"It's good to be close to your family. I couldn't imagine not having my mother or brother around. I'd be like a boat without the things that make a boat go......boating." His eyes widened, since he'd never really even gone boating, so he had suddenly realized that he knew nothing about ship parts. "I'd imagine you spent a lot of time with your brother, when you've some to spare. Not that you’ve much, by the sounds of it!"
Mischa seemed very nice. And so Kili continued being chatty while he devoured the remains of that chocolate cake, and would finish the work on the shelves and cases, shortly after.