#ruioolee

Hedwyn had been practicing his letters. He could read things like his name, and little sentences like “The Cur runs. The Cur jumps.” Unfortunately, he hadn’t quite gotten to the level of deciphering phrases like “3/4 cups of Brown Sugar” and “Blend ingredients until light and with a cloud-like consistency.”

The parchment was set down on the blackwagon’s prep table with an irritated sigh as he rubbed at his temples. To be fair, he’d asked the Reader for some recipes of the old Nomad foods that people used to eat, and they had gone to Volfred in search of something.

But Hedwyn had asked for simple recipes and that had gotten lost in translation somewhere. He’d wanted a simple recipe, as in it was written simply. Instead, he’d received a simple recipe written in so many layers of cooking jargon that he was considering giving up on being a cook and instead becoming a full-time hermit, living off the natural flora and scavenging cooked meals from other more linguistically versed individuals.

“Scribes aid me,” he softly mumbled, clasping his hands together in a momentary prayer, hoping in some way that the Eight Scribes would look down on him and grant him the blessings he required to make it through this torturous recipe. At the very least, maybe Khaylmer Rope-Caller would pity him and find it more amusing to let Hedwyn finish this recipe and be subsequently rewarded with even more elaborate instructions.

It was at about the third cup of flour that Hedwyn thought his recipe might be going wrong. So far he’d added only a teaspoon of milk, an entire jar of honey, almost an entire cup of brown sugar, and three cups of flour. There wasn’t a single meal that Hedwyn could think of that required these ingredients, or needed this much flour.

He picked up the recipe again and studied it. The letters were still a foreign jumble to him, although he could pick out the numbers and things like “cups” and “spoon” and “dessicated coconut”.

“Why is the written word so complex?” he softly grumbled, scratching his head on one of the hooks that had been attached to the wall, usually to hold Raiments or weapons to defend against the various wildlife that called the Downside home. It was a feeble attempt to keep his hands relatively clean, and to not waste their precious water in washing them. It wasn’t like the Downside was awfully hygienic, but after Rukey and the Moontouched Girl had tried to cook, along with Ti’zo, and everyone spent their evening picking hairs out of their soup, Hedwyn tried to keep his hands as clean as he could, no matter the means. “This language is so strange.”

“Having trouble, my boy?”

The voice made Hedwyn jump, turning to see Volfred standing in the doorway, holding his pipe. “I hope the recipe isn’t giving you much strife. It is a complex blend of ingredients.”

Hedwyn shook his head, setting down the recipe next to the bowl containing the clusterfuck of ingredients he’d sourced. “Not at all.” A tired smile settled over his lips as he turned towards their meager pantry, taking a moment to compose himself and wonder what the fuck he was going to put in that bowl to get somewhere close to whatever that recipe was meant to be.

“It was a delicacy from my hometown, among the Saps outside the Commonwealth, although we did refine it so Nomads like you could enjoy it too,” Volfred explained with a soft laugh. Hedwyn internally groaned. Sap meals had not been his strong suit. Instead he’d bothered to learn about Harp and Cur diets. From his knowledge, all Saps did was eat sunlight, water, and dirt. Jodariel had once claimed to see Volfred eating an entire handful of dirt. He’d locked eyes with her, and swallowed it.

“Is that so?” Hedwyn asked from within the pantry, gripping the handles tightly in some attempt to not panic and tell Volfred he’d botched the recipe and made something that was bound to taste awful. “Well then.”

A soft laugh came from the Sap as he turned and strode off, leaving Hedwyn to his work. “I am sure you will do fine.”

Hedwyn laughed too. “Sure.”

It just became awful from that point onwards. In a fit of panic from a mix of stress and overly complex instructions, the recipe became a mess. Spices were thrown into the mix, along with eggs, a spoon of salt, and a flamestalk. The mix, somehow, became a total liquid, and Hedwyn threw more flour into it, changing the substance into something as hard as a rock.

“Scribes!” He threw his hands up in irritation and stomped around the kitchen, but very lightly. To him it was an angry stomp. To an onlooker, it was a gentle pacing with a thoughtful expression. This recipe was getting further and further away from whatever it was meant to be.

He took a deep breath, feeling the serene peace of someone who had accepted their fate. It was like going downriver again, except he was landing in a pit of Friendship disappointment as opposed to the Downside. He didn’t even know which was worse, honestly.

“Well,” Hedwyn sighed, “in for a Sol, in for a Lum.”

The substance, for lack of a better word, changed rapidly over the next few minutes as Hedwyn threw caution to the wind, slamming ingredients together in a haphazard mess. He tried to consult the recipe multiple times, but the words it held were nonsense to him. If whatever he was trying to make came out as edible, Hedwyn would call it divine intervention.

When the blend of kitchen ingredients had stopped being a sickly shade of green and instead turned to the soft yellow colour of cake mix, Hedwyn slipped into the oven, cranked the temperature, and prayed. He knelt in the middle of the kitchen, hands clasped in prayer to the Eight Scribes. He even dared to pray to Khaylmer Rope-Caller, and, in a moment of desperation, he prayed to the Greater Titans. Every name he could think of, anyone who ever had an influence on the world as it was, Hedwyn called upon in desperation, in some feeble hope that he could get out of this mess.

At some point during his fourth prayer to Saint Triesta, the sweet scent of chocolate hit Hedwyn like a freight train, knocking him flat on his ass. He had expected fire and charcoal and nauseous scents to come from the oven, housing the abomination he’d concocted. Chocolate had not been the expectation.

Scrambling to his feet, Hedwyn tore open the oven door, slipping on some mitts to retrieve the thing he’d baked. Sitting in the pan was a soft, springy, golden cake. Slowly, in a state of shock, Hedwyn set the cake down and turned off the oven, before gently easing it out of the pan and onto a plate.

Sitting there was a golden cake, covered in a soft drizzle of honey. The chocolate smell persisted though, but Hedwyn couldn’t place it. He hadn’t put any of it in the recipe, so it was an absolute mystery where in the Downside this scent was coming from.

It was in the middle of this that the Reader entered, enticed by the sweet smell permeating the entire Blackwagon. They quickly rushed to Hedwyn’s side, giving him a congratulatory hug for managing to complete the recipe, despite how difficult it was.

“It was nothing?” Hedwyn answered, confused as the Reader retrieved a knife and cut themself a slice. As the blade pierced the thin cake, Hedwyn could see chocolate sauce seeping out from inside. The Reader gasped, cheerfully proclaiming their intense liking for such a clever cooking technique. Hedwyn merely smiled, trying not to make it obvious that he’d struggled so much with it.

With their slice of cake plated and ready, the Reader dove into a pocket of their cloak, withdrawing a piece of paper and handing it to Hedwyn. He looked at it and paled. “I-”

The Reader had faith, and they told him so, calling over their shoulder as they skipped out of the room to enjoy their meal. There was silence, only broken by Hedwyn’s gentle sigh as his entire body slumped, exhausted and stunned. This new recipe had only one word he could read, and that was spoon. Everything else was a foreign jumble, letters making nothing but nonsense.

Hedwyn clasped his hands together again, taking a breath.

“Scribes, if you’re out there-”