No Need for a Core?

Fuyuko's mind spun as she set down the scroll that Mordecai had given her and leaned back against the pillows of her bed. He was right, it was simple. But it was also hard. Easy to try, but also easy to mess it up. Too rigid an identity and you could turn into a living statue; too little sense of self and you could lose your mind to madness. And if you were running away from death instead of moving toward something in life? That sounded the worst.

It also shouldn't be something she was worried about right now. But that was in a world where her parents were alive. In this world, she now lived with immortals and the idea of growing old in front of them was painful. On the other hand, the idea of deciding to not ever be with her parents again also hurt.

There was no reason she had to make a decision now, but Fuyuko felt like she needed to even if she didn't know why. Maybe talking to Mordecai later would help, but it was getting a bit late and she needed to change for dinner. No armor at the dinner table.

Hmm. She flipped through her wardrobe a bit nervously, looking at the garments that had been provided in her second bedroom up here in the tree. Nothing had been said about dressing up, but it was her first holiday with them. And she vaguely remembered the sort of things she wore for holidays with her parents.

In the end, she chose a long dress. It wasn't terribly fancy, there was only a tiny bit of trim and lacing at the neck, wrists, and hem, but it was a pretty dark blue that she liked. She started to grab her boots out of habit then remembered where she was. Kazue had declared their rooms in the crystal tree to be a proper house, and shoes were not to be worn inside.

If Fuyuko had come in the way everyone else did, her boots would be by the landing. But Mordecai had added a special entrance for her near the base of the tree. It specifically required using shadow magic to jump from the dark patch of crystal to its matching spot in her room, and only a few people were keyed to be able to use it at all. It was still difficult for her, and sometimes required a few minutes to get just right, but she loved the thrill of having her own 'secret' entrance and the still slightly scary sensation of sliding through shadows and condensed space. Also, Mordecai said that if she got good enough he'd work on manually crafting a shadow-based path between her bedrooms, which would be unrelated to the dungeon shortcuts.

When she went upstairs to the common area, she found Kazue, Moriko, Bridgette, and Carmilla gathered around the dining table, which held a strangely brown cake on a serving platter and a stack of plates. The sound of the dragon hatchlings squabbling carried in from the recently added balcony, and from even here Fuyuko could catch whiffs of smoke and the acrid scent of lightning. Udup sounded like he was trying to maintain order, but he was being a bit bossy about being the oldest which just made the others rebellious.

Kazue beamed at her and said, "I was getting ready to call you up, we have a new cake to try. It's chocolate, but it also uses a little bit of a bean, well, fruit seed really, it just looks like a bean. Anyway, we got a sample recently called coffee. It's supposed to make it a bit more bitter but a lot tastier. And if it's too bitter for someone your age, we've got some sweet cream, honey, and fruit here."

Fuyuko frowned slightly at Kazue, she was pretty certain that the older woman was teasing her with the 'your age' bit, but Fuyuko couldn't resist rising to the bait. "I'm not a little kid," she groused as she joined them at the table, "and aren't we supposed to be saving room for dinner?"

A moment later she registered that she was now sitting next to Princess Bridgette, who was now her adoptive cousin or something like that. But, well, Bridgette was an actual princess. Sure, Fuyuko was a "Faerie Princess" now and was technically the same rank and stuff, but Bridgette had been born royalty and grown up in a palace and everything. Fuyuko felt self-conscious around Bridgette and not sure how to act, even if Kazue was setting a really casual example.

Then there was Moriko. Fuyuko wasn't quite as self-conscious around Moriko, but she'd still only actually met her yesterday. She'd known what Moriko had looked like and all, but that still wasn't quite the same thing. With Kazue, Fuyuko had at least been able to talk to her illusionary self.

Her moment of paralysis was covered by Kazue's eagerness as she cut into the cake. "Don't worry about that, we have a bit of time still. We decided to make this a cooking experience and bought some ingredients that had been brought in. That way we have to make do with what was available, and that will make it a challenge and thus more fun!"

Fuyuko told herself to get it together. It wasn't like this was even the first princess she'd met. Not that Carmilla really felt like a proper princess, and Fuyuko hadn't interacted directly a lot with Orchid. "Um, I guess. I haven't really done any fancy cooking." Throwing stuff into a pot for a stew or putting meat on a stick and roasting it was pretty basic, and the couple of stews she'd made had not been great. Edible, just not really tasty.

"I have to admit I don't really know how to cook either," Bridgette said, "We all got trained in how to cook enough to survive and how to make trail rations, but I never sought out learning anything more. I guess we can learn together?"

Carmilla shrugged and said, "I've never touched kitchen work, but surely it can't be all that hard?" That sounded a lot like her to Fuyuko. She didn't dislike Carmilla, but she had to admit that she did not feel very close to her adoptive sister. She wasn't sure anyone here was, but Carmilla was technically family now. Plus the parents of this assembled family probably saw the holiday as a bonding opportunity.

"Um," Moriko added with a sheepish expression, "I think Kazue and Mordecai are the only ones with real cooking experience, and Kazue admitted she'd previously only really done sweets and baked things."

Kazue grinned and replied, "Yeah, but I had been practicing on my own before we started our trip, so I have a little more experience now."

While the others talked, Fuyuko started in on the cake she'd been served. It was incredible, but she had to admit that Kazue was right, the bitter notes were kind of strong. So she poured a little of the sweet cream over it and tried again. Better. Mm, maybe she should try the honey too? Yes, that was good. The fruit was a nice contrast to the rich cake too. Huh, she was out of cake and had cream, honey, and fruit on the plate now. Maybe she should get a second piece of cake to clean up her plate with.

A giggle from Kazue pulled Fuyuko's attention away from her plate, and she blushed to find all four women watching her with amusement.

"Well, I see that it meets with your approval," Kazue said with a smile before taking another bite of her own slice of cake.

Which she immediately began choking on as a ripple of shocked surprise ran through the dungeon. Bridgette didn't have any connection to the dungeon so she was the first to react and help Kazue while Moriko, Carmilla, and Fuyuko recovered.

"What, what was that?!" Fuyuko asked. It was the first time she'd really felt the cores' emotions like that, communication was normally much more deliberate with contractors.

Moriko replied in a slightly dazed voice, "We, ah, just got an offer that, well, um, we can talk about later. Er, sorry Bridgette, it's strictly dungeon business right now. Maybe we can talk about it after we've had a chance to think about it."

An offer? What sort of offer could surprise the dungeon that much? Fuyuko's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden chaos of four worried young dragons pouring into the room. It took several minutes to calm the four down and they insisted on staying inside instead of going back out to the balcony, which left the area a little crowded.

When they went to sit back down at the table, the five women found the cake and most of the toppings missing. For a moment Fuyuko thought that Li might have come back, but then she realized several of the dishes were gone too, and that seemed less like Li.

The hatchlings were looking studiously innocent.

"Did they eat the plates too?" Fuyuko asked.

"Mm," Kazue replied while trying to stare down Carnelian, "dragons can eat anything. Though I've sometimes been expecting your plates to disappear too." She flashed Fuyuko a grin and a wink before going back to trying to discipline her cat-dragon.

Fuyuko suspected that this was going to go about as well as it would with an actual cat. "Er, can't you just conjure up a new cake?"

Kazue pouted and said, "It's not the same. That one was made for me from all gathered ingredients, nothing conjured. That makes it special. It might taste the same, but it wouldn't feel the same to me."

"Yeah," Carmilla added, "I have to agree with her. Conjured treats are nice and all, but the real thing is always better somehow, even if it tastes the same."

That sort of made sense to Fuyuko, who turned thoughtfully to the remaining dishes on the table and began helping with clean up, as it seemed their snack time was over. Eating this close to dinner had been bad of them, but Fuyuko was having trouble feeling guilty over it.

Again, this was a task the cores could have taken care of with barely a flicker of attention, but Kazue had specified that she wanted them to make this area a home where they lived normally. So instead they gathered, washed, and dried dishes like normal people in a normal house. Fuyuko found that she didn't mind at all, it was nice just to be doing homey things with her new family. And it was amusing to find out that Bridgette, while game to help out, was less certain about what to do. Her experiences were at the extremes; either served everything with others cleaning up, or field training and camping with sturdy dishes. Carmilla, on the other hand, grumbled about manual labor when she had plenty of spells she could use to help.

Mordecai arrived a little after they were done and looked a little distracted when he did, but it only took a few moments for him to set it all aside and focus on making dinner with them. He mostly directed the process as everyone else had something to learn and practice and there were a lot of hands to go around. Also, he kept Shenlong manifested to help Udup manage the hatchlings and prevent them from stealing food, so he was a bit too distracted to focus entirely on one task for long.

For Fuyuko, her task was mostly prep work on ingredients. She was good with a dagger but proper cooking knife technique turned out to be more different than she had expected. Especially the grip; having her fingers on the top of the blade itself felt weird until she adapted to it. Chopping vegetables and meat up into even pieces was satisfying and had very clear results. She knew how well she'd done and how much better she could do without being given more direction, once she'd been shown how to cut different shapes up.

She paid attention to what else was going on but for the most part, each step was being done as a one-person show. However, everyone got to participate in the seasoning steps. Kazue was more familiar with this bit and led the way with only a bit of input from Mordecai, though Kazue found a few surprises herself. Learning to taste each herb and spice and compare them was interesting and Fuyuko's sense of smell helped her find the subtle differences and similarities.

Pulling all that information together with the flavor of your ingredients and the way you were cooking to decide on which to use was more difficult, but so much tastier and Fuyuko was happy to have the opportunity to try more in the future.

It meant eating more food after all.

Having dinner as a family was wonderful, but it came with one downside from Fuyuko's point of view; she had to eat in a more measured manner. Her adoptive parents weren't going to insist on anything more than basic table manners all or even most of the time, but for a sit-down dinner at their home, all of them were in agreement that this was a time and place for her to practice moderation and manners. Nothing formal, just things like chewing her food thoroughly and drinking slowly rather than gulping.

And it was hard not to gulp the sweet drink she'd been served. It was the pre-fermentation form of a mead called bochet, though watered down to thin it out enough to drink. The honey was caramelized before water and spices were added, and it was delicious. This batch had just recently been made by some of the inhabitants and most of it was in fermentation vats right now. There were several sub-batches as well, divided by the type of wood used to age it in. The dungeon did have a large variety of unique species to choose from.

After dinner, dessert, and dishes were all done, they moved out from the kitchen area to where Kazue had set up a bunch of cozy furniture. Mordecai, Kazue, and Moriko chose to share a large couch with Kazue in the middle while Bridgette picked out a chair big and soft enough for her to tuck her feet underneath herself instead of sitting on it normally. Carmilla chose a loveseat to curl up in with a book and Udup, though Fuyuko did notice she was angled to be able to easily watch and listen even if she pretended not to.

The hatchlings had been fed a large meal too and were once more piled up into a heap of sleeping dragons.

Fuyuko considered her options, but comfortable furniture would leave her sitting taller than everyone else. So instead she grabbed a cushion and plopped on the floor next to Mordecai's end of the couch. She put her back and head against the front of the armrest and closed her eyes as she collected her thoughts.

Feeling Mordecai pet the top of her head comfortingly made her want to keep her eyes closed and drift off to sleep, but she fought past that urge and opened her eyes to glance up at him. "So, I read the scroll. I think I get it, but it kinda leaves me with even more questions, and I'm not sure where ta begin."