ArchivedLogs:Cooking

Cooking
Dramatis Personae Anima, Mirror
In Absentia	2014-01-03 '
Location <NYC> 603 {Greyhaus} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a small living room. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom. The decor in this apartment is eclectic, an odd jumbled mishmash of found items that seem to bear little relation to each other. Here, a newspaper article is clipped and pinned to the wall with various lines highlighted in pink and orange highlighter, here an advertisement, here the label off a beer can. The furniture is eclectic, too. A milk crate for a table, a soft (orange!) suede ottoman (with no armchair to match), a very /bright/ magenta vinyl couch. Someone has helpfully affixed a sheet of paper to the wall over the couch, with the label 'COUCH' and an arrow pointing downward. A combination corkboard/whiteboard near the kitchen entryway more often bears odd scribbled drawings than helpful information. With winter dropped to frigid temperatures outside, few have reason or will to leave the apartment; at least two members of Greyhaus sit shuttered away in their rooms. But not Anima! Since so often a fixture in the living room area where ze sprawls across the magenta couch, ze undertook the mission of renovating the space into a fiery warm refuge from the ice and snow threatening to turn them all into popsicles. A tangle of wires plugged into power-strips fitted into the original wall sockets lead to a whirring and humming collection of space heaters arranged in a semicircle formation around the milk-crate table. Several others installed around the apartment add to this effusion of heat and churning of air, their supplier currently standing in the entryway of the kitchen, very intently reading the myriad computer print-outs ze has pinned up on the corkboard. Mirror has -- possibly be locked in hir room; with the intermittent ability to teleport back out of it it's hard to tell really. But the door has been closed all morning and only now is ze emerging. Looking like hir /actual/ self, dark skinned, dark eyed, dark haired, somewhat androgynous Middle Eastern-esque features, ze slips out of hir bedroom in soft grey yoga pants, thick black socks, and a pink fleecy sweatshirt unzipped over loose black tank and purple sports bra. Ze has an empty mug in hand, heading towards the kitchen to -- stare at it. With a frown. "... it got warm." Maybe ze's only just noticing this as ze approaches kitchenspace. Ze turns to look at the printouts, still with small puzzled frown. "What are you doing." Anima turns the face ze possesses towards the changing-visage that is Mirror when ze enters the kitchen. Simple features, plain and masculine, somewhat handsome direct blue eyes at the woman who enters their shared space. "I rescued broken space heaters. Their owners threw them out into the cold like sad, little puppies." Call it charity: a stray hirself, ze often brings in a random collection of discarded objects to repair with hir latest host's powerset. Hence the clutter of gadgetry around the apartment. Turning back to the corkboard, ze lifts a finger to the nearest print-out, thumbtacked at eye level. "...Trying to learn how to cook." The recipe hir fingers points to is simple, reading, "Scrambled Eggs" at the top. "You put eggs in a pan," Mirror directs, once ze's read over the scrambled eggs recipe. "And then you --" But here /ze's/ somewhat at a loss, too. "... Beat them." Ze continues on into the kitchen to frown at the coffeemaker and, with a rather longsuffering sigh, start a new pot brewing. "I know how to cook, though. Here. I'll show you." Ze pulls a cellphone out of hir sweatshirt pocket. Opens it up to very determinedly -- pull up Foodler. "Where would you like to order from?" "Yes, but...hm." The hand on the corkboard turns inward on hir face, tapping on the tip of hir chin. Brows knit, as ze relates, "Some call for salt and pepper or cheese or milk. There are too many options." The latest problem stumps hir even /more/, with a look of shock as ze scans Mirror's face for revelation. "/Beat/ them? With... I thought hammers were for... /construction/. Not cooking." With the advent of Foodler and the introduction of the cellphone, however, ze trails after Mirror to look over hir shoulder. "I like this cooking better. Do they still have... breakfast?" "Cooking," Mirror tells Anima quite solemnly, "is a very violent sport." Hir thumb taps against the screen, brows knitting deeper. Searchsearchsearch. "Home." Eventually ze pulls up the menu of the diner. "They have breakfast /always/." For a moment hir eyes widen, rather delighted. "Three pm. Three /am/. Breakfast." "I have not seen cooking on ESPN. But I would like to watch, this sport." Poor Anima, still learning how to Internet properly. Enraptured by the glowing screen held between Mirror's hands, ze waits with an intense patience, forehead smoothing and climbing upward in interest. "Oh my breakfast /all the time/? Now we do not have to stock up. Hm. Do they have. A menu?" "I've seen cooking where they light everything on fire." Mirror sounds oddly wistful at this thought. "But I don't think our breakfast will be on fire. /I'm/ getting --" But now hir eyes widen again in uncertainty. "Food." Ze scrolls at hir screen but then looks disgruntled at the tiny menubuttons, turning the phone over to Anima to go instead to fetch hir laptop from the bedroom. It's currently stuck on a freezeframe of video, Flicker's half-melted face paused on it before Mirror minimizes it to pull up Foodler, /bigger/. And the diner menu. Ze sweeps hir arm out towards the screen with a FLOURISH: Ta-da! "We could stock up anyway. I'd like enough waffles to last all day." "Maybe it is better we do not turn on the stove here, given all the heaters," Anima speculates, glancing up from the screen with a suspicious side-eye roving across all assorted electronics. Ze shakes hir head, returning to the phone screen and then the object itself when foisted into hir hands. Staring at the screenshot, hir face twists up into a look of repulsion, a slip of genuine emotion passed through the tight control ze exercises over hir host. "Is his face okay, now?" ze asks, handing the phone back to Mirror. "Oh oh oh. I want this omelette. With avocado. And turkey sausage on the side. Do we have orange juice?" "His face is melted. It's always melted. A dragon got it. Most of the rest of him is also --" Mirror waves a hand towards the twisted waxwork of scarring over half of the frozen image. Ze tucks the phone back into hir pocket, settling the laptop down on the kitchen counter and carefully selecting the omelette. And turkey sausage. And waffles, though ze switches the count to /three/ orders of waffles. "Hm." Ze regards the fridge with some suspicion. "I went shopping." A pause. "That may have been two weeks ago. I have --" Ze waves a hand towards Flicker on the screen. "Had distraction." "Always melted? By a dragon? Is this a real person? Or from a movie?" Anima drops each question with a tone of casual indifference, inquiring but not interrogating - table talk. Most of hir focus remains wrapped up in the much more /immediate/ and /intriguing/ prospect of virtual cooking. Or ordering, as the reality of it stands. "We need orange juice then. And chocolate milk. And - do you think we should order for everyone. There is so much. Cooking. It is so easy now." Hir eyes track back to the screen. "Not a movie then. Lofts-person?" Mirror gives Anima a rather blank look. "You don't pay much attention to things, do you. The dragon melted him when he got /us/ -- out. It was even uglier back then. /This/ is it after months of healing." Mirror adds drinks to the order, and then eyes the other bedroom doors uncertainly. Adds a number more items at apparently random. "Lives downstairs. There's a warrant out for his arrest," ze remarks this sort of offhand-casual as ze adds scrambled eggs to the order. "though they've gotten his name wrong. I suppose --" Ze frowns down at the computer screen for a moment. "That this is a video. So maybe he's also from a movie. /And/ a real person." "I was not paying attention to /anyone/ but Tanya. It was only my second time not being me," Anima explains, shoulders hunched in a shrug as ze trades looks between the screen and Mirror's blanker face. "Plus, I was not in a position to fix him back then. I can fix him now. Like the heaters. I did it for Jackson. Oh, that sounds good." Ze plants a fingertip on the screen, indicating one of the random selections. "I do not like to leave much. People are always hunting you, in my experience. I like junk, and food, and visiting places like the library, but not places where people like to /interact/. Besides, between all of us, I still get to meet a lot of people. Sort of." "They are hunting him for breaking us out." Mirror doesn't sound particularly distressed about this so much as just relating the facts. "And Jackson is likely to be executed if he's convicted -- oh. Home fries." Hir eyes gleam again as ze selects these, too. And Anima's choice. "But he'll be hard to find to fix, I think he may be in hiding. People have an aversion to being sentenced to death." PUZZLING. "I do not believe I am hunted. Maybe some of me." Ze ripples and /changes/, flesh distorting before taking on Flicker's acid-etched form. "Now," Flicker!Mirror declares, almost triumphantly, "I'm being hunted." "I broke myself, out, really," Anima contends with a small trace of humor, smirking as ze narrows in on technicalities. Ze remains unconcerned, switching topics as easily as Mirror switches faces, a brighter grin curling at the corners of hir mouth when hir face warps to assume the likeness of someone else. "Well that makes fixing Jackson kind of pointless. If they need an executioner, I can put him back on the verge of death." A pause, then, more thoughtfully, "But perhaps he is harder to get to than the person with the melted face. Maybe as hard to find as my body. How long does the food take to cook?" "They want to execute Jackson. I don't believe it will happen. I've been doing quite a bit to ensure not, really." Mirror scans over the list of breakfast items on their order -- rather exorbitantly long, now -- and finally clicks to submit the order. "Possibly," ze laments, "/Forever/." "Forever. That is very long. Longer than I am used to waiting," Anima comments, frowning. Morose, defeated, hir frame stoops, shoulders sagging, arms heavy. "Can I help? I am just waiting for food otherwise. And it is good to distract from hunger." "Half of forever," Mirror relents. Ze scoops up hir laptop, trudging back to the living room to drop down with it onto the couch, hand lifting absently to brush fingers against Flicker's waxy scarred face. "Yes. Help. Come. I have," Mirror grimaces at the laptop. "Videos. We are trying to make Prometheus look ugly. Thankfully, it is not hard. The videos are tiring, though. You can help." "Half of forever is still much too long." Anima shakes hir head, saddened by this as he shadows Mirror into the living room, plopping hirself down on the orange ottoman. No magenta vinyl today. "Oh. Fun. I can do that, just. Show me how." Within moments, Anima!face is beside Flicker!Mirror in front of the laptop, lending a helpful keystroke where needed. Like this, they while away the time until some poor delivery boy braves the evil cold to hand them their delicious foods. Cooking successful!