#dsse2025

Is this me compensating because I feel my art isn't good enough so I made two gifts to try to justify my lack of skill? Yes, probably. But two renders, yippee!

As he set them down on the table both women turned to observe their contents. Two plates had different types of raw meat sliced thinly in little rolls. One contained thinly sliced cabbage. Another had mushrooms.

"Dinner appears to be… disassembled… intentionally," Eris said quietly.

"You got it," Drifter said as he returned to the kitchen. "When you both told me you ain't had hotpot before, I knew what I had to do."

Eris and Rowena shared a look across the table. The Awoken woman shrugged. Eris tilted her head and resumed her examination of the simmering pot.

Drifter returned with yet more plates of thinly sliced raw ingredients and paused to inspect the contents of the pot. He stirred it with a mesh spoon and took a deep breath from the steam rising from the liquid.

"Oooh! That smells great. It's almost ready."

"You still have not explained what 'it' is in this context," Eris said as Drifter started back to the kitchen.

All they had been told was that dinner was "hot pot," that it was a surprise, and that they would love it.

He spun around on his heel, half way to the kitchen, pointed at the pot in the middle of the table, and said "The pot! It's almost hot enough. Hot pot! Hence the name."

Eris frowned at him. Rowena giggled. Drifter grabbed three bowls and three sets of chopsticks off the counter and brought them back to the table, placing one set in front of each them before sitting down between them and rubbing his hands together.

"All right, all right, all right. So, here's how this is gonna go." He pointed at the different plates of raw ingredients as he talked. "Pick out what you want from the raw stuff. Use the back end of your chopsticks to push it into the pot, like this." He demonstrated by picking up a plate of thin rolls of raw meat and nudging several rolls into the broth. They tumbled like logs and plopped into the pot.

"It cooks quick," he continued, reaching for the plate of mushrooms. "When it's done, pull it out into your bowl, add whatever sauces you want from over there, eat it, and then do it again."

"Hmmm…" Eris carefully attempted to mimic the Drifter's actions with the meat.

The entire pile of rolled meat began to slide down into the pot. Her three eyes widened and she sucked in a breath. Drifter deftly reached over and pressed the back ends of his chopsticks into some of the meat to keep it all from tumbling into the broth with a splash. "I got ya, don't worry. Sometimes it just does that and that's ok. If you end up dumping the whole thing in it's not the end of the world, it just might splash a little and make a mess.

Rowena leaned forward and began to coax something green, leafy and shredded into the pot from one of the plates. "So it's a do it yourself dinner?" she asked.

"Sorta, yeah," Drifter said, his face split with a wide grin as he watched them both add ingredients. "Do be careful we don't overload it too much at first or it'll boil over."

"Will the different ingredients not change the flavour of the broth?" Eris asked as they all leaned forward while Drifter stirred the pot with his chopsticks.

"Oh yeah, they do," he answered her.

"Ok but… if I put in stuff and you put in stuff and she puts in stuff," Rowena pointed at each of them with her chopsticks. "How do we know which one is ours?"

"That's the neat part. Ya don't." Drifter's eye sparkled as he watched confusion shift the markings on Rowena's face.

"But… what if one of us should inadvertently abscond with the ingredients placed there by one of the others?" Eris asked as Drifter began to pull out cooked meat and vegetables into his bowl.

"Well if you realize ya accidentally stole it, you add some more of whatever that was back in."

Rowena and Eris looked at each other for a moment, both picking up on the same word he'd used, and then both synchronously turned their heads to look at Drifter.

He sat there with his mouth full, chewing and smiling at them for a few moments. "What?"

"And if the theft is… intentional?" Eris asked the question both she and Rowena were thinking.

Drifter laughed. "Love how you both immediately go there."

"It's… you." Rowena said.

Drifter laughed again. Eris began pulling some of the contents of the pot into her bowl.

"Well," Drifter explained as Rowena also served herself, "…if you're deliberately stealin' someone else's stuff from the pot, unless you wanna be doin' all the dishes yourself after, ya probably shouldn't get caught."

He winked at Rowena and leaned forward to pull some more food out of the pot.

Eris sighed. "Of course a surprise dinner with you would involve expropriation. I do not know what I was expecting."

Rowena smirked. "I don't know what you were expecting either, Eris. But this is fun."

"Yeah! It is! That's the point." Drifter said excitedly as he toppled some round balls of dough into the pot.

"What are those?" Rowena asked.

"Fish balls!" he answered, his voice gleeful.

"Does the use of the… hot pot… require negotiation to ensure the flavours are not… altered inappropriately?" Eris asked.

"Well, ya see, Moondust, I cheated."

"Of course you did," Rowena muttered.

Eris smirked at her across the table and handed her a plate full of bean sprouts.

"Hey!" Drifter said in mock protest. "What I mean is everything should taste good. Nothing we got out here will ruin it. Flavour changes as you go but it won't be bad and the broth has a nice spice to it that goes with everything I got laid out."

"It is very nice, actually." Eris conceded. "My concern stems mostly from the inherent chaos of the preparation."

"Ha! It is pretty chaotic, but in a good way. It'll all go together. Trust. Just pick what you like, toss it in, and we'll see what happens."

They added various ingredients to the pot until the liquid level began to inch a bit too close to the top and continued eating the contents of their bowls while they waited for the next round of food to cook.

"I really like the peanut sauce," Rowena said between mouthfuls.

"I do as well," Eris added, holding her bowl out for Rowena to add a spoonful of the light brown sludge to it. "What is in it?"

Drifter gave her a happy grin. "Peanut butter, the same stuff you put on toast, tahini, which is the same thing as peanut butter just with sesame seeds, soy sauce and a little bit of those crispy chilis I put on the dumplings sometimes."

"The ones that are fried and stored in the oil? Those are really good," Rowena said with her mouth full as she pulled out cooked meat and greens from the pot of broth.

"I know! That's why I put 'em in the sauce." Drifter chuckled.

Eris smiled at both of them and held her bowl out for Drifter to add in more food. "This style of meal consumption appears to be highly interactive and… social."

"Yeah," Drifter looked from one woman to the other, his eyes soft, unable to stop smiling. "It's a... family and friends thing. Ya don't invite someone to hot pot you think is gonna dump Hive guts in the soup."

Eris and Rowena both paused eating and looked across the table at each other. Then they both looked at Drifter.

"You know, it's kinda freaky when you two both do that at the same time all coordinated like that." he looked from one to the other. Both had stopped eating and were looking at him with suspicion.

"Oh come on! I wouldn't put Hive guts in a hotpot. Especially not with the two people I like most in the whole damn universe."

Eris's lip quirked up into a small smile. "I suppose you would not," she said, quietly, returning her attention to the pot of broth. She used the mesh scoop to pull out some of the round fish balls and offered them to Rowena with a tilt of her head.

Rowena nodded and held out her bowl.

"Cabal oil's a good soup thickener, though." Drifter muttered under his breath.

Both women stopped and turned to glare at him.

Drifter laughed.

Rowena sighed.

Eris added the remaining fish balls to her own bowl and then returned to the plate of mushrooms, tipping it and adding the rest of the fungus to the broth.

Drifter was still chortling. "Pissin' off just one of ya is fun times. Bein' able to get both at once is not just efficient, it's also kinda terrifying. Good thing I like livin' on the edge. Ha!"

Eris made a disapproving "Hmmm…" sound softly as Drifter turned his face down to continue laughing into his food as he ate.

She looked over at Rowena. Rowena met her gaze with a smirk. Then, as the Warlock reached around toward a plate of ingredients, with her hand behind the hot pot simmering in the middle of the table so the Drifter could not see, she rubbed her fingers together, summoning a glowing green string of Strand.

Eris glanced down at Rowena's hand and then back at Rowena. The Warlock looped the string around two of her fingers and then looked from Eris to Drifter and then back to Eris with a raised eyebrow.

Eris' small smile grew. She gave Rowena an almost imperceptible nod.

"Is there more… cabbage?" Eris asked, working hard to keep the amusement out of her voice.

"Yeah!" Drifter answered immediately. He stood up. "I'll go get it. Be right back."

Both Eris and Rowena moved very quickly in tandem. Rowena kicked the Drifter's chair into the backs of his knees. Eris went high. Rowena went low. They were careful to topple him to the ground far enough away from the table to avoid knocking anything other than Drifter over in the scuffle.

Drifter managed to let out a startled "What?" before both women were on top of him, their hands green with Strand. He was immobilized before he hit the ground.

"The hell you two doing?" Drifter said as he writhed around, unable to free himself.

"Now, what was that about enjoying pissing us off?" Rowena asked, leaning over him with a grin.

Eris smiled down at him from his other side.

"Look... Is bein' tied up by the two most beautiful and badass women in the system supposed to be a punishment here? Because if so I ain't seein' it. Besides, you both like me too much to do anything too terrible.

Rowena smirked.

"An astute observation," Eris said, her voice heavy with menace.

She held out her hand and waved it gently through the air above him. Long thin tendrils of Strand glowed for a few inches off of each of her fingertips, almost like feathers.

Drifter frowned, confused.

Rowena giggled and did the same thing Eris was doing, willing a few inches of strand to dangle from the fingertips of her hand. Then they both gently caressed him.

"Hey!" His voice creaked into an almost squeak. "That… That tickles!"

"Does it?" Eris asked again, wriggling her fingertips and watching Drifter writhe around.

"Crap!" Drifter looked from the three-eyed woman to the two-eyed woman in mild panic.

"What's the matter, Drifter?" Rowena asked. "No longer enjoying pissing us off?"

"Ah! Aahahaah!" He gasped as he twitched around, trying and failing to avoid the itchy tendrils teasing him. "I uh… I suppose you could say that, yeah. Dammit!"

Rowena's giggle was a soft counterpoint to Eris' menacing chuckle.

"Look. There is… Ahhaha! There's no Cabal oil or anything else gross or bad in the soup. Trust. I was… Ahahaha! I was just messing with you." He jerked his body, desperately trying to avoid the Strand tendrils, tears beginning to stream down his face as he laughed.

"Indeed," Eris said, smiling down at him. "It seems only fair that you be messed with as well."

Rowena wriggled a tiny piece of Strand around the edge of Drifter's ear.

"Aahh! I'm messed with! I'm messed with! You win! You both win! I surrender, dammit!"

The Strand tendrils immediately dissipated and both women helped Drifter to stand and return to the table.

He looked from one to the other shyly. Still breathing heavily from his ordeal on the floor.

"Two on one," he said between breaths. "That is not fair."

Eris and Rowena met eyes across the table again as they sat down, both of their faces filled with amusement.

"Correct," Eris said. "It is not fair. A concept you may wish to remind yourself of, the next time you choose to… mess with us."

"Ok! Ok! I get it! No more messing! You got it."

"Dinner is very good though," Rowena said, pulling some mushrooms out of the broth.

"Yeah, yeah it is." Drifter grinned at them both. "Can't think of anyone else I'd rather be with, even if you two did just pounce on me and tie me to the floor. Not gonna lie, it's nice to be with people I can trust enough for that to actually be enjoyable."

"Oh? Would you like us to do it again?" Eris asked, her head tilted.

"Maybe not the tickling… But, before we get into that. What about dessert?"

"You made us dessert?" Rowena asked, her face filled with excitement.

"Yeah!" he nodded.

"Hmmm… I suppose you can be spared if there is dessert." Eris said. "For now."

Drifter winked at Eris and then turned to Rowena. "How does a hot chocolate brownie with home made ice cream sound?"

"You have my attention," Rowena said, licking her lips.

"And mine as well," Eris added.