#aphyuriweek2019

Lithuania remembered the  first time she had gazed into  those blue blue eyes.  She had only been a young girl and  being pagan, wondered if it was one of the coming to visit her. She soon later learned this sullen, yet lovely and proud looking girl was a being like her and just as wild and as fierce as she  was  in her own way.

Yet despite that  she had the color of gentle flax flowers in her eyes  and she loved her forth hat. Being  so young she had little idea  what these feelings  were and chalked it up to feeling intimated by young Polotsk, only to grow to love her more as time and wars and conquest brought them together, albeit in less than ideal circumstances. For a time after becoming Catholic and realizing her feelings she wondered if it was permitted to love those beautiful flowers, only to come to the conclusion that if God did not wish it, he would have never graced  her with such a beautiful gift.

Each century it felt that she grew more lovely  and even after hardships, pain, despair, and death it gladdened Lithuania that ever  with all that the gentle flax flowers were still growing in Belarus’s eyes.

-

Blue, they were a dark steely blue like that of the Neman river with it’s coursing unyielding flow and dark depths. There was a  strength in them that  time  and hardship could never quell, and despite herself Belarus couldn’t help but admire  that.

At first sight so long ago she was intrigued by  those blue blue eyes. However after being taken over and after Poland intruded into their lives she wanted to hate them them,  and now she didn’t know what to feel about them at all.

Yet there was something inside her, something she couldn’t place and didn’t understand that drew her close to the nation with those eyes, though she tried her best to resist and suppress it.

  No measuring cups, no measuring spoons, no nothing. Sula closes the cupboard door and hops off the stepstool, turning to Leonor. “Where do you keep your measuring tools?”

  Leonor taps her spoon against the edge of the bowl. “Pardon?”

  “The measuring tools,” Sula repeats, “you know, the measuring cups and stuff?”

  She grabs the metal claw and lowers the dish into the steamer. “We don’t have those.”

  “What?” Sula stares at Leonor. “But how do you cook without them? I remember that one time when Linn misplaced her electric scale and couldn’t make anything! Doesn’t that happen to you guys?”

  Rolling her eyes, Leonor scoops up a cupful of rice and gestures to the rice cooker. “Observe.” She pours the rice in, turning to the sink to pour water in as well, then placing her hand palm-down on top of the rice. “I’m going to pour the water in until my hand is fully submerged, and that’s how much water we’ll need to cook the rice.” Leonor takes her hand out, shakes it dry and slams the rice cooker shut. “There. No measuring tools needed.”

  “But…” Sula watches as her girlfriend punches buttons on the rice cooker. “You’ll get the water dirty, and everyone’s hands are different.”

  “I - whatever.” Leonor opens the steamer cover and is momentarily hidden by a cloud of steam. “That trick’s worked ever since rice cookers were invented, probably, we’ve never gone wrong with it.”

  Sula gestures incoherently at Leonor, nonchalantly pouring light soy sauce over the dish of steamed eggs. “But what about sauces, or bread, or desserts? You have to get the measurements correct for those or things will turn out terrible!”

  Leonor shrugs. “I don’t know, Kiku eyeballs the slurry when she makes gyoza and Yao’s herbal jelly always turn out amazing.”

  “She eyeballs the slurry!?” She waves her arms around. “But without the most precise base, your dish could end up a lumpy mess!”

  “You Westerners rely on measurements too much.” Leonor reaches out one hand and hovers it over Sula’s chest, right where her heart should be. “Just use your gut feeling. Feel it in your heart.”

  “Don’t be so sappy, I’ll use my magic Spidey Sense to measure food from now on, okay?” She smiles, kisses Leonor’s fingertips and goes to check on the rice.

...

A fairy with emeralds for eyes cautiously flew deeper into the forest. She held her blonde hair back in a blue bow and kept an eye on the sides of her path. At her side, she had a small bag containing books of adventure and wonder. She held on tightly to the strap as she flew up and down and side to side.

Suddenly she stops at a waterfall. Carefully she inspects the sides of the rock and quickly finds a crack large enough for her to fit inside. She slips in and cautiously walks farther in. Soon she finds an exit and in front of her lies a lagoon with many rocks to lie on. A mermaid sits on one and watches her tail shimmer in the limited light the cave allows.

The mermaids platinum hair spilled behind her as she lightly played with it. Her scales were a dark blue that would blend with the water as she swam. She too had a small bag at her side filled with stories she found dear to her.

“Natalya! You’re here early!” The fairy sits down on a rock above her friend and grows to her full height.

“Yes, my brother happily allows me out now. He finds it exciting that I no longer spend my days in my room.”

“Ah! That makes sense! My brothers believe I just love reading outside! They think I found a nice, hidden spot and they’re not wrong!”

Natalya lets herself smile and relax more, “Well, what new stories did you bring Emma? I brought some of the stories we usually tell the young but thought you’d find them cute.”

“Really?! I brought some murder mystery books, and you’re definitely welcome to tell me your theories while we read them!”

“And if I guess the ending?”

“Then that would just be more proof about how smart you are!”

Natalya softly laughs and pulls out her books. Emma follows to do the same as she beams.

“You know it’s quite funny.”

Emma tilts her head, “What is?”

“Just us. We’re so different and yet so similar. But also, imagine what our siblings must think when they see what books we’re reading?”

Emma nods in thought and laughs.