I'm Sorry! (unboundbydeath) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-01-10 23:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, lie ren, nora valkyrie, pyrrha nikos |
Who: NPR
What: Pancakes
When: A month or so ago
Where: Ren and Nora's place
Status: complete
Rating: PG
Ren and Nora didn’t often have people over. Mostly because their apartment pretty small. Even with another person or two, the place was a little crowded. Still, inviting Pyrrha over had seemed natural. Especially since he’d heard quite a bit about the Pyrrha from Nora’s dreams.
He was in the kitchen now, an apron to avoid getting any flour on his clothes, and was mixing together the batter when the doorbell rang.
Nora was in the living room, hanging up their latest wave of decorations. She’d made paper chains out of paper she picked up at the dollar store, all the links of the chain stapled together with a stapler that she’d picked up, again, at the dollar store. It looked absolutely lovely. She was bouncing from chair to chair, pinning the paper chain up and around the room leaving little loops and swirls.
“Ren!” She called out. “I don’t know where I put those… snowflakes!” She bounced off the sofa and gave a little twirl and landed gracefully. Then two large steps and she reached the front door to pull it open.
“Hi, Pyrrha! Come on in!” Nora gave her brightest, most welcoming smile.
Pyrrha felt nervous. She didn’t often make friends, especially back home on Crete. She’d stood too far apart. But here was like a new start, and something about these people drew her to them. Or maybe that was just a little hope.
She smiled when the door swung open, feeling instantly welcomed and only a little overwhelmed. But Nora seemed like an overwhelming person in general so that was okay. “Hello! Thank you! I love your home it’s… lovely.”
“Have you tried looking at the top of the closet?” Ren asked, raising his voice just a little. The apartment was small enough that he didn’t need to raise it by much.
When he heard the door open, he peaked out from around the kitchen wall and raised a hand in greeting, his other arm still cradling the mixing bowl. “Welcome,” he said, a slight smile on his face.
Of course she’d looked in the closet. ...wait, the top shelf? Nora hadn’t looked there. She smiled brightly at Pyrrha. “Thanks, come on in! Close the door behind yooouuuuu~!” Then Nora was bouncing off and around to the closet so she could dig around on the top shelf and try to find those snowflakes she’d made last year. (There had been glitter everywhere.)
“Got it!” Pyrrha had a sort of cheerful, upbeat way of speaking, intoning her voice upward. It had started consciously, but had become a subconscious manner of speaking. If one believed in being kind and cheerful enough, it honestly made life better. “Paper chains, I haven’t made those since I was little!”
“Nora likes to put them up every year,” Ren said, a small smile on his face as he continued to mix the batter. He did enjoy Nora’s Christmas Cheer. It really brightened up the apartment. He decided the batter was mixed enough, so he made his way back to the kitchen to put a couple of pans on the stove.
“I have plenty of paper strips. And sometimes I use tape, but sometimes I use staples! You can make some if you want to, I can hang them in the bathroom!” The apartment was tiny, basically one large room with a kitchen and bathroom attached. Those were the only two places that hadn’t been touched with decorations yet.
“Or you can take them home with you and hang them up there! Bring the Christmas spirit home!”
“I’d love to help,” Pyrrha said. It was interesting to see other peoples’ traditions. While her mother hadn’t been particularly religious her grandmother had, so she’d been raised on some Greek Orthodox traditions.
Somehow, the paper strips seemed a little more fun.
Ren was glad that Pyrrha seemed so receptive to Nora’s excitement. It seemed like she really would get along with her fine. That, and if Pyrrha kept Nora occupied with making paper chains while he was cooking, maybe he'd manage to actually finish making all of the pancakes before Nora came to help herself to some “sample" pancakes. Once the pans were heated he poured the batter on and began to cook.
Nora moved to the little coffee table in the living room and started to pull out the unmade decorations. “Here!” She offered up a spot next to her on the floor, then began to put the paper strips in loops and tape them in place. One after another. It was pretty easy for Nora to get lost in this kind of work. It was more fun than work, really.
“So, Pyrrha!” She grinned over at her new BFF (okay, BGFF, since Ren was her BFF, Pyrrha had to be her new Best Girl Friend Forever). “Tell me everything about you!”
Pyrrha took a seat next to Nora, sitting with characteristic grace. She made sure not to sit too close, but still close enough to be able to help. She started by handling the tape, letting Nora do the ‘fun’ part. “Uhm. I’m not sure where to start! I’m from Crete, which is an island in Greece. I’m a track & field athlete.”
“That’s the birthplace of Zeus, is it not?” Ren asked as he poured his pancake batter into the pan. “It must have been lovely growing up there.”
“Ooh, Track and Field!” Nora wasn’t exactly sure what that was. She glanced over at Ren making pancakes, then back to Pyrrha, her cheeks pink. “What are you doing here, then?”
“It was beautiful. I miss it sometimes. And I’m here training,” Pyrrha responded, reaching down to rub her own leg. “I got hurt at the last Olympics, and I want to get back into shape for the world championships and 2020.”
“I wish you the best of luck,” Ren said, already with a pile of pancakes growing beside him. He had stopped competing internationally once he began university, but he could still remember how gruelling practice could be. Especially after an injury. “Just be sure to take plenty of rest so you don’t injure yourself. If you would like, I believe I have some recipes for drinks that can help aid muscle repair that I would be happy to pass on.” Ren didn’t mind the taste too much, though he knew that others thought of the smoothies he prepared as awful.
Nora rolled her eyes at the mention of the drinks. But there was a bright grin still on her face as she did so. “Just make sure you replace anything green and slimy in the drink recipe with some banana and strawberry. Or it’ll taste like pond scum.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking back and Ren and smiling at him. She really liked these two, the more and more she talked to them. “I’d appreciate that, especially as my training ramps up.”
Pyrrha glanced at Nora, “It really tastes that bad?”
Ren shot Nora a slightly exasperated glare. “Algae is very nutritious,” he said. Which, maybe, didn’t entirely answer Pyrrah’s question, but it answered the far more important, unasked question.
“Yea, and it tastes like it’s been through a bat.” Nora made a barfy kind of face, and covered her mouth with both hands. “Gross.”
Pyrrha looked at Nora and made a matching face. “That sounds… really appetizing! I’d be happy to try some!”
She mouthed ‘what am I getting myself into?’
Ren glanced over at the two of them. From his angle in the kitchen, Pyrrah’s back was to him, but he rolled his eyes affectionately at Nora’s antics. He piled the last pancake on the stack, and then balancing it and three plates, made his way to where Pyrrah and Nora were sitting.
“It really isn’t as bad as Nora says,” Ren assured Pyrrah, placing the pancakes on the table. “Though these pancakes may be more more to your taste. Bon appetit.”
Nora laughed out loud at Pyrrha’s face, and mouthing the words. She decided in that moment that Pyrrha was her favorite. Second only to Ren, of course. “You’ll be okay. I don’t think he’s killed anyone. Yet.”
Then Ren arrived with the pancakes and Nora tied a cloth napkin around her neck. She suddenly had a fork in one hand and a knife in the other. And she might have actually been drooling. “I call the big one!” She cried out, and stabbed the stack with her fork.