The Day of the Dead [Open]

[Shari]

Shari stood as proudly as she could before her Goddess. The divinely shaped Myri was such an inspiration to all of her people but to be standing before her, conversing with her, sent strong emotions through her veins as her blood pulsed in a way she could not recall ever feeling before. The Myrian woman let her full attention rest on every syllable Myri uttered as she continued to speak about her participation in the preparation of this day of celebration.

The justification for learning the importance of which plants are which and the uses for all of them made Shari nod. Her mother Geas had spoken similar words to her when she was younger and she always carried them with her. For Myri to confirm these vary words lifted the woman's spirits both emotionally and physically as her shoulders moved back to lift her chest and raise her chin. She was proud- proud of her family, proud of her people, proud of her city and she aimed to ensure she remained proud of herself. The words falling perfectly from Myri's lips served to assure her feelings.

Though the streets of Taloba bustled with joy, laughter, cheers, jovial greetings and loving hugs, these wonderful sights and sounds seemed to fade effortlessly into the background as Shari focused only on Myri. Those bodies crowding all around felt close to Shari in some way and the goddess' statements helped explain why. There was so much to be said of the trials and obstacles overcome by the inhabitants here. Their spirit and will to attain their goals linked them all in one way or another. It may not necessarily be bloodlines or family connected them, but they stayed here because they improved everyone and everything around them. It was true- those who did not contribute or those who counter-acted the growth of the city were not welcome. Shari had witnessed the judgement passed to those individuals and from an early age understood her place among the Myrian. Through her growth and development within the city, she had aligned her convictions with those of her people and would contribute to ridding themselves of those people when necessary.

These thoughts ran quickly through Shari's mind during the brief pause in Myri's words. When she continued and spoke her mother's name, her bronzed skin seemed to freeze and the woman looked intently at her goddess. She had not heard of her mother in so long and for a message to be delivered meant everything to Shari now. The message was simple, but the effects massive. It felt as if she was completely re-devoting herself to her goals once more and it felt like an incredible renewal of her body and mind. The bit about her great-aunt Nukula did temporarily put a pause in her joy, but Shari mirrored Myri's grin as she assured her, "I'll be certain not to slack on my training, then!" The thought of Nukula's harsh judgement was not one that fell lightly on the mind, but Shari quickly moved her thoughts back to her mother and her goal of making her proud.

"Thank you so much for your words, Myri," Shari replied. It was all she could think of to say. She could not find the words to express how Myri's message had inspired her and convinced her of what she always had in the back of her mind. Though the words could not form on her tongue and lips, they were clearly conveyed within her and she hoped that Myri understood them just as well.

[Cayenne]

Siiri:

As she worked, the warrior no doubt noticed that the smell of blood and fresh meat had attracted the attention of various dogs, cats, tigers, and other such predatory pets that the savages kept around. It was a killing day - the number of sacrifices could well reach a thousand or more - and every single one of them would be consumed. Not necessarily tonight, but over the next while. Cook scolded one of the dogs that got too close to to the Charodaen female, aiming a swing with her bare foot. The wily beast ducked the leathery limb deftly, and slunk away to hide at a safe distance. The large tigers had far more sense (and training!) than to get so close.

Siiri and Deja kept on chopping the spicy peppers. Deja was beginning to look at her with a slightly alarmed expression as the chopping progressed - Siiri's fingers and hands kept visibly swelling. Cutting was getting harder as her digits were refusing to cooperate. But they worked in tandem, reducing the large pile of peppers, and filling up the bowls. Cook checked on them often. "We'll be spreading these seeds, later," Deja made a stab at conversation as she worked. "The stems will go to the tskannas." Sometimes Siiri heard her humming to the drumbeats in the distance from another part of the city. Siiri was a warrior, after all, but today, she was one more hand joining in mutual suffering under her great-grandmother, and that made them a little closer to equals. Deja may have been younger, but her cooking skills far outweighed Siiri's.

Cook checked on their progress again once the peppers were done, using the blade of Deja's knife to sort through the basket of chopped peppers, clearly immune to the suffering the pepper's juices caused her assistants. After stirring the chopped vegetable, Cook finally put the knife down. Clearly, she was satisfied. She eyed Siiri's hands, then, and clicked her tongue. "Deja, go get the milk," she told her great-granddaughter. Never mind the fact that Deja's hands were also somewhat swollen -- you didn't chop the number of peppers she did and not get burned. But the girl didn't complain. She was clearly used to pepper burns, and she knew better than to not do what your elders told you to do.

Deja, sainted Deja, returned with a clay jug of milk with a shallow basin. "Put your hands in there," Cook instructed Siiri. "Lay them flat in the bottom." She nodded to Deja, who carefully poured the thick, creamy milk over Siiri's aching hands. The milk was cold, almost shockingly so. It wasn't so easy to keep things cold in the steaming jungle, but the Myrians were resourceful. The cold milk brought plenty of immediate relief - the swelling went down, the burning faded, and she found that she was regaining the dexterity that the swelling had so utterly decimated. When her hands looked normal again, and she had full control of her fingers, it was time to let Deja have her turn to soak her fingers. She didn't need half the time that Siiri did, but the girl had been cooking with such ingredients for a lot longer. She had learned the ins and outs of using them. "Get the garlic ready," Cook instructed the pair now that they. "Six heads will do the trick." The elder was off to check on the female, then, checking to see how well the bleeding was done, and leaving the pair of them to it.

Deja pulled out six fist-sized bulbs of garlic from the basket, and a wooden bowl to put their work in. "Now," the teenager puffed her cheeks before exhaling and deflating. "Garlic has a trick to it," she told the warrior. "It's usually very sticky, and so peeling can get difficult. Great-Grandmother wants us to crush it and mince it, so here's what we're going to do," she selected one of the broader, flat blades - one of the smaller cleavers - "is position the blade like this," she put the flat of the blade over the garlic, "and crush it once. It helps get loosen the skin." She demonstrated, thumping the butt of her hand against the flat of the blade, crushing the garlic bulb underneath her knife. The blade was set aside, and now she had loosened the skin enough to neatly peel it off and toss in the bowl with the pepper stems. "When you have the skin off, you can start crushing and mincing the cloves. Mincing is just finely chopping," Deja told her, and began to demonstrate how to do that before smiling up at Siiri. "Give it a shot."


Shari:

Myri nodded at Shari's thanks, and reached out to grasp her forearm, clapping her on the back in the traditional greeting and parting gesture of the Myrians. "Good... Work hard. The parade is going to start soon, Shari of the Poisoned Arrow, daughter of Geas. Enjoy yourself, and walk with pride. Do not forget that what you do is crucial to the survival of Taloba." Myri stood back, smiling down at Shari, before releasing her arm with a nod. She turned and made Her way up the rest of the stairs. Upon reaching the top, the Goddess-Queen disappeared beyond Shari's sight, into the temple.

The heavy drums began, sparking a current that traveled through the city. The rhythm was picked up, carried on, passed from person to person. A shout rose up, and then another - the parade had begun, starting at the massive gates at the front of the city. The menacing Shadow Guard, dressed in their raiment of bone and leather, rode their ethereal, massive, bright-furred Tigers, flanking the procession. Their exposed skin was painted and tattooed and pierced, though it was hard to tell just who belonged to what clan. Along the broad street, younger warriors were pounding their feet into the dirt, thumping weapons against shields, as choruses of cheers and music swelled to accompany them. The warriors, some on tigers, some on foot, all wearing armor, marched along.

At the head of the procession, dressed in her own armor of bone and leather, was Myri. She sat stride her enormous tiger, the great beast decorated in its own right, with bones and teeth and stones. A pair of tskanna-tusk blades rested on her hips, and their Queen had a smile on her face as she raised a fist triumphantly. Her skin was decorated with the Myrian war paint, mixing and accentuating her tattoos, and yet, it made her seem all the more real again - that she was one of them. On either side of her were two of the Shadow Guard, each astride their fearsome tigers. There were three females and a male in all, and Myrians could well guess who they were: Miha, Tika, Aira, and Zal... Myri's four children.

The parade continued through the streets - painted tskannas, decorated tigers, senior officers and warriors, the Shadow Guard - it was a spectacle. The Shadow Guard came to Taloba only once a year. They were the select few Myrians who did not return to as newborn babes, but the ones who chose to serve Myri and their people in another capacity. Fire dancers blew flames high into the sky as the ground literally shook under the weight of the tskannas and those in the parade. Like it was a living, breathing thing, the procession made its way through the city until it came to a halt in front of the temple, its tail end swallowed by the crowds as the area around the Temple and the Trading Square were utterly swarmed. Myri dismounted, then, and started up the broad stone steps. Those who had picked the stairs for a vantage point parted for her, as one, letting her pass by, though a few hands reached out to touch her as she passed. When she reached the top of the stairs, the Goddess-Queen turned, overlooking the great swell of bodies below and around her.

The legends said that when Myri spoke, the Myrians listened - in Taloba, or anywhere in their jungle home. Those away on patrols or sentry duty could hear Her speak. "Myrians and denizens of Taloba!" Myri's voice clapped like thunder, and the city, almost as one, fell silent for several moments, before the shouts, whoops, cheers, trumpets, and roars, decimating the silence that had loomed. Deja almost dropped her cleaver, looking on in the direction of the temple, the direction from which their Queen's voice came from, before joining in with a shrill war whoop of her own. "Today, we celebrate Dira, She Who Brings The End!" she addressed the burgeoning horde. "When she decides it is our time to go, we go! We go with honor, we go with pride. We do not fear death, nor what She brings!" There was the beginning of a drumbeat, the undercurrent of energy that was beginning to reverberate once more.

"We are not afraid," Myri continued, "because we know that in the next life, we return. We do not die. We begin again, side by side with those we left behind! We remember those who die, and we honor them. We remember them. We mourn their loss, and we avenge them, if there is vengeance to be had! If our enemies cross one of us, they cross us all! Together we stand. Nothing breaks us apart!" Myri's eyes blazed. She was a warrior, a leader, the Usurper, the Uniter, the Merciless. "We remember our fallen! But do not just cry mournfully over the individuals, the dreams, and influences that have helped make you who you are!" the Goddess-Queen roared. "Dance for them! Sing for them! Honor them! Leap into the air and kiss the sky for them!" Her voice rang out as she paused for emphasis. "Honor the dead! Remember them! Celebrate for them, and know that they walk with us again today!" the Goddess finished, then, as the revelry began again in earnest. Or maybe she just allowed herself to be drowned out by the pulsating drums, by the stomping of feet, by the trumpeting of the tskannas.

"Blessed is She!" a young warrior who had emerged from the crowds to stand beside Shari smiled upwards at their hero, "Blessed is She!" the young woman was probably Shari's age, maybe a year or two younger, and seemed to belong to the Blackened Claws, if the masterfully-tattooed claws on her ample chest, like something trying to force its way out, was any indication. She was dressed in white linen, a halter tie around her breasts and securing behind her neck, and a short loin cloth. They hardly needed more, in the jungle. Her ends of her long, reddish-brown braid was soaked in blood, swinging down her back with her movements. The parade below began to disperse, melding, swelling, as people swarmed. There would be fights in the Training Grounds, dances, songs, and reenactments in the Plaza... so much to do, so much to see. It was always fun to have someone to do it with, now, wasn't it?

[Siiri]

Siiri aped the movements of the younger Deja, taking a garlic head and placing it under the flat of her cleaver. She smacked the blade with a little more force than she intended and the spice gave way with a satisfying scrunch beneath the blow. The woman grinned at the girl and took two more bulbs, crushing each in quick succession.

“I think I like doing this better!” she exclaimed.

Gathering the broken pieces of the garlic bulbs, Siiri rolled them between her fingers, using the friction from her fingertips to peel away the dry skin to reveal the fleshy part of the aromatic spice. These she set aside on the chopping board while ditching the peelings in the bowl with the pepper stalks. She worked slower in mincing the small pieces, careful not to cut herself as she listened to Myri’s voice booming over the marketplace. When the crowd erupted into cheers, Siiri added her voice among them, raising the small blade she held in salute to the Goddess-Queen.

At Myri's words, Siiri recalled her aunt, wondering briefly, wistfully, if the woman she admired the most next to the Goddess-Queen was among the souls next in line for reincarnation. It was a short-lived thought however, as the festivities reached to new heights. She had already mourned the woman the day before; for now she would focus on the present. Shara remained alive in her heart, and she will always be remembered. The Festival for the Dead demanded her attention now. Siiri hoped to participate in one of the fights later on, once she was done assisting Cook with her preparation of the Charodae.

Perhaps, Siiri thought, she might even dance, and who knows what else the festival had in store for her?

[Cayenne]

Deja grinned. "Garlic is easier to work with," she agreed with the warrior, smiling. "You'll smell good for days. The bugs will stay away now. It repels the bloodsuckers, garlic does. We probably offend them," the garlic was manipulated quickly; smashed, peeled, chopped, and chopped some more until it was teeny tiny pieces. Deja made a few corrections to Siiri, showing her a better way to hold the large knife, positioning her fingers just so, and manipulating her wrist. "If it helps," Deja whispered, "just imagine mincing a Dhani into tiny pieces, and how each has to be perfect for Myri. That's how Great-Grandmother taught me." Surely not on a Dhani, but with Myrians... one never knew. The garlic was placed in its own clay bowl.

When Siiri had the chopping down, Deja showed Siiri how to peel the ginger. This was small, precise work, requiring one of the tiny, thin knives from Cook's arsenal. Careful angling, a steady hand, and an eye for detail were required here. When the girl was done working on the aromatic thick root, the skin was in one long, curling, ribbon-like piece. She handed the peeled root to Siiri. "That needs to be minced, too," she told the warrior. "It can go in that bowl," She indicated the one beside the garlic with her knife. They didn't use so much of it as they had the garlic. Deja peeled a few more roots. "Ginger hits hard," the girl explained, "that's why we're not using as much as the garlic."

"Now for the onions," Deja reached into the basket and pulled out onion after onion, until six of them were lined up between them on the table. "Cut an end off," she had traded her slim little knife for the larger cleaver, "and then the other... then take off the skin," dark, stained fingers moved quickly, discarding the skin as an overpowering smell began to hit Siiri's nostrils, "and cut it in half." Deja's blade came down quickly, deftly, and sliced the onion neatly into halves. "Now, just slice it thinly, like this..." the blade moved slowly, and Deja laid out some of the thinly sliced onion. Siiri was aware of Cook's formidable presence behind her, and she felt a dig in her ribs.

"Is she teaching you proper?" Cook asked the warrior before putting one of the onions on Siiri's board with a thunk. Clearly, the old woman wanted Siiri to show her - not tell her - just how much she had been learning from the teenager.

[Siiri]

“Oh sure,” Siiri grinned, not minding the scrutiny. She took the onion bulb and chopped the top end off and skin it just like Deja showed her, then, with a little too much enthusiasm, cleaved the bulb in two. Juices sprayed all over and one half of it almost flew to the side, but with a quick hand, the warrior was able to grab it before it could fall off the board, a lucky catch. Hardly embarrassed by her own antics, Siiri proceeded to slice one of the halves into thinner pieces, though her hand movements were a little more controlled and precise this time.

Each cut sprayed light onion juice in the air and Siiri was careful to avert her eyes whenever that happened. Despite her best efforts to avoid it however, some of the juice made their way near her face, causing her eyes to water. The smell didn't help matters any either, making her nose twitch and giving her the sniffles.

“What is it with onions that make people cry?” she asked philosophically, not really expecting an answer. “Someone should make a glove out of the thing for boxing and use it to make the other guy tear up!”

Siiri finished up the half bulb she started with and swept the slices to where Deja and left hers. Compared to the girl's, her slices were uneven and varied in thickness but overall almost the same size and cut. She looked at Cook and shrugged. “Easier than cutting up Dhani. When do I gut something?”

[Cayenne]

"The skin emits a smell when you cut it, and the smell makes your eyes tear up," Deja explained. "If you have a bit of mazabread in your mouth, it'll absorb the smell, so it keeps your eyes from tearing up," the teenager grinned. "But since we don't have mazabread on hand, and Great-Grandmother considers it cheating, well, we have to do without. Eventually you get used to it when you do it enough." the kid clearly wasn't there yet, because she had to tilt her own face upwards as tears threatened to stream downwards and she breathed before straightening. Oddly enough, she had kept cutting the entire time, and it hadn't interrupted the precision of her cutting.

Cook inspected Siiri's onion chopping as Deja went quiet again. "Respect the ingredient," the old woman whacked the knuckles of Siiri's knife hand with the flat of a cleaver. "They won't cook properly if they're not uniform. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy! No good!" she dished out some of the smaller pieces of raw onion that were almost the consistency of paper, as well as the chunkier ones, and actually shoved them in Siiri's mouth. "You eat it. They'll turn to nothing in the stew and ruin it. And you'll gut something when I tell you it's time to gut something, Siiri of the Snapping Jaws. Cooking requires patience and respect for the ingredients. Skipping steps can ruin your dish." The onions were done, and Cook harrumphed. "You can start breaking the sampalok," she put the long piece of the fruit on the cutting board. Sampalok, Siiri knew, looked like a giant peanut with about ten extra nuts in the shell, with ten extra bulbs. They had to be cracked and separated. The bigger the piece, the harder it was to crack. This would take the cleaver and the enormous mallet that looked like it was for breaking bones than having any place on a cooking table, maybe, to accomplish.

She left Siiri alone for a moment, only to turn on her great-granddaughter. "You," Cook began to lecture her, "should be watching every move she makes. If she had you in the Training Grounds, would she let you by with a sloppy swing? Absolutely not," the girl had her hands tucked behind her back immediately - clearly familiar with her elder's method of punishment whilst holding that enormous, flat blade - and looked properly chastised. Deja didn't dare attempt to interrupt Cook, who scolded her about quality and letting her student - it didn't matter if Siiri was older than her: she was still a student and much less of a cook then Deja, which put the girl in a slight position of authority - fail and not at least bring it to their attention. By the time Cook turned away, Siiri was pretty certain Deja's ears had been thoroughly blistered.

"How's the sampalok coming?" the teenager asked Siiri, looking a little furtively in the direction the elderly woman had stomped off in to supervise the roasting.

[Siiri]

Siiri accepted the chastisement without a word, dutifully chewing the fresh onions despite the pinpricks of pain from the spice’s acidic juices that assaulted her tongue. The smell was overpowering. The warrior had to blink several times in quick succession to ward off the tears that threatened to flow from her eyes. By the time Cook turned away to chew on her great granddaughter, Siiri was sure her nose hair had all curled up and died from the pungent odour.

Her next task seemed easier than precision chopping. Like with the garlic, it involved a lot of smashing, and she even got to use a nice little hammer to do it. The sampaloc, or tamarind, were finger-like legumes, its pods containing an average of ten seeds each. While its brown outer shell was hard, thought brittle, what she was after were the soft, fleshy insides. Siiri had to scrape off the pulpy contents in a bowl while picking out any shell that were still stuck to them, all the while sneaking a seed in her mouth with each pod she broke open in an attempt remove any lingering aftertaste of the onions. It didn’t help much, but the soury-sweet taste did soothe her tongue somewhat. The seeds she spat covertly to the side, making sure that Cook did not see them. At one point, while Cook was still berating the girl, Siiri flashed Deja a goofy grin, two tamarind seeds stuck between her teeth, giving the illusion of gaps in her pearly-whites, just to see if the serious mien she had put up in front of her great grandmother would crack.

“As good as it gets,” Siiri said when Deja finally came over to her, showing a bowl almost filled with the fleshy part of the tamarind. “If we weren’t using them for the stew, I’d coat them with rock sugar,” she added, referring to how tamarind candy was prepared. “A little too sour for my taste but I could suck on these all day.”

She looked for any remaining ingredients they had yet to work on, all the while cracking her knuckles. “Are we doing anything else? My hands aren’t used to small precision cuts; I’m actually itching to use a weapon.”

[Cayenne]

Deja totally saw the grin, Siiri knew, and could tell by the slight change in the stance the girl had to work hard to suppress a giggle. Still, though, the mask she wore on her face didn't change as she accepted the tongue-lashing, her hands tucked neatly behind her. She knew, and Siiri knew she knew, that if she cracked up while Cook was letting her have it, she would just get it far worse, and there was nothing to say that the Elder wouldn't turn on Siiri, either. More than one of the senior Myrians had caught a youngster being disrespectful without actually looking at them. The excuse they had been given was something about having "eyes on the back of their head"... which the kids never disputed, because somehow, somehow, their grandparents always seemed to know what shenanigans they were up to.

"Looking good," Deja had a look through the bowl, sifting through the contents to deftly remove a tiny scrap of skin that had made it into the bowl and tossing it into one of the junk buckets. "And that's it now... the next step is going to be butchering it," the girl pointed at the female Charoda, where she hung, no longer dripping, having been fully bled out while Siiri worked on the rest of the ingredients with Deja. "So I think you're going to get your chance when she's ready." She snuck a furtive glance at her great grandmother, and started tidying up the working table with a rag as Cook was checking the roast, poking and touching the flesh for doneness before coming back to them, and grabbing a sharp, menacing looking knife. Siiri had seen blunter swords, and now Deja came around the table, jerking her head at Siiri slightly. Looked like Siiri was going to get her wish, though, if that knife was any judge, perhaps not the way she wanted to.

"Charoda is lean meat," Cook told Siiri and Deja when they joined her in front of the hanging female. "You can see where I've cut her open, here, here, and here," the old woman pointed at the incisions with the knife she was wielding now. "Hang onto it," Cook instructed Siiri and Deja, and once they had a grip on her, the old woman cut the corpse down, and directed them to yet another large table... and this one had been covered in a sheet that had been covered with a thin layer of rubber. Doubtless, after all, to make sure they got every bit of their fishwoman. Charoda was a delicacy, and not something to be wasted. "Go on, get out of that!" Cook scolded a tiger cub who had come too close, though she certainly didn't do anything past that to the beast, which proceeded to wind itself around another assistant's legs. "Cupboard love," Cook grumbled to herself, checking the sharpness of the knife with a toughened, scarred thumb.

"First thing," she told her two students, "is to know that Charoda bones are funny things. The spine, the ribs,"[/color] she touched the rubbery skin with the flat of her knife as she pointed out the area of the ribcage, "are like a shark's... they're not bone at all, just cartilage. Everywhere else, they have bone. But now, we butcher." She motioned Siiri to join her, and handed her the knife. "Careful slit in here, at this angle," she guided the warrior's hand in the air before letting go, letting her give it her own shot. Siiri knew, though, that the verbal smackdown that Deja had gotten earlier would be nothing compared to what she would receive if she butchered the butchering of the Charoda. "We cut the muscles enough to expose the bone so that we can just pull them out of the socket and waste nothing. One limb at a time. When the muscle is cut on the joint, one twist and a pull, and it should come right out." When it came time to pop the limb out of the bone, one of the larger women would help hold the Charoda in place while Siiri popped the bone while the girl watched.

[Siiri]

Siiri took the knife, glad to be able to use a blade on something other than vegetables. Carefully, to test its edge, she made a small incision on the inside of the elbow of one of the Charoda's arms, slicing just deep enough to expose bone. The flesh parted more smoothly than if she used Slayer to lop a serpent's head off. Siiri grinned and plunged the blade deeper, slipping it between the bones that composed the forearm and the biceps. With a small twist of the knife, she heard a squishy pop as the tendon was severed. Another cut followed, this time perpendicular to the first, as Siiri sliced halfway down the forearm to expose the bone more easily. She did just that by pushing severed bone from underneath. It stuck out from the slit flesh and, with a tug, Siiri pulled it free. The Myrian marveled at how easily it came out - so unlike a human's flesh which you had to cook a good deal before the bone would just slide off the meat.

Handing the skeletal hand to Deja, Siiri took the Charoda's other arm and began the process over again. "Hold on to that, I might need a hand later," she said, snickering at her own joke. One look at Cook however, and she continued the task in earnest.

Siiri worked quickly, finding that she prefered the feel of cutting flesh with the knife that chopping herbs and spices. She may not have much knowledge about Charoda anatomy but she could pretty much guess which tendons to sever and which to leave alone as everything bent almost the same way her own limbs did. The only trouble she encountered was with the legs, as she found out that she had to cut and pull out the shin bones separately before cutting open the soles of the Charoda's webbed feet to pull out the many bones there. The thigh bones and the bones of the upper arms soon followed, as they were quite easy to pull out, not being attached to anything but muscle and cartilage. Once the Charoda's limbs were but masses of shapeless flesh, Siiri turned to Cook.

"What about the skull and the guts?"

[Cayenne]

"We'll save the skull. They have interestingly-shaped ones, and once we get it all cleaned off, it'll make a nice trinket," Cook nodded her wrinkled head. The bones were in one pile, the cartilage in another. "The guts, we will put in. They cook down nicely, lots of flavour. The heart and lungs, liver, though, we save. Special taste to them, and always best raw," they went into another bowl. They could well imagine what they would do with those. Paper-thin slices would be passed around to as many as they could, just enough to enjoy it and share. Most of the blood and meat went into the big pot with the rest of the ingredients, and it was time for it to simmer and cook. They would feast well, the people of Taloba, for tonight and nights to come.

Well, Siiri loves to get her hands dirty - but I doubt if she'll be willing to tackle those peppers again any time too soon. It's always nice to see characters try new things, and cooking is as good a skill as any! I hereby award the following: Intimidation: 3 XP Interrogation: 2 XP Unarmed Combat: 2 XP Weaponry - Cudgel: 1 XP Cooking: 5 XP Butchery: 5 XP Lore: Myrian Ancestral Worship Lore: Cooking Charodae - Methods of Preparation Lore: Acquitors - Charodaen Ambassadors Lore: Spice Potency Relative to Time Lore: What Makes Peppers Spicy Lore: How Milk Tames Spices Lore: The Trick to Peeling Garlic Lore: Different Cooking Knives and Cooking Knife Techniques (chopping, mincing, etc.) Lore: The Shadow Guard Lore: Insect-Repelling Powers of Garlic Lore: Why Onions Make You Cry Lore: Charodaen Anatomy Lore: How to Debone a Charoda Other: One Charoda Skull