Saturday, February 20, 2016

Laqunah: Part II

Afternoons for Ova were usually spent cleaning the card shop and taking care of the cooking. It's not that Hultran made her do any of these things. In fact, he had a penchant for complaining when Ova didn't allow him into the kitchen. She took joy in the simplicity of preparing a meal. Each dish was a small work of art, only existing for a few moments before being eaten.

One of her favorite meals was Twiggle Cream Cake. It was the first recipe she ever prepared with Hultran as a young child. Every bit a generational delicacy, Hultran's mother had taught him the recipe before he'd grown his first scale. The cake required only six different ingredients: two gargoyle eggs, a heaping handful of parallax dust, fresh minotaur butter, a thoroughly crushed Artorian vector seed, a cup of lilac dew, and the corpse of a recently vacated Twiggle. The only real challenge in preparing Twiggle Cream Cake was finding the Twiggle! If Ova was lucky, she'd locate one or two at the local butcher shop. If the butcher was out, she'd raise a net into the sky with her electric kite and catch a Twiggle herself. They were the most devious little creatures, flapping about like intoxicated bits of leather dotted with spikes. Covered in endless rows of spines and poisonous barbs, the Twiggle was notoriously difficult to apprehend without getting at least a scratch for your troubles. No matter the cost, Ova had a way of seeing the recipe to fruition, much to the pleasure of Hultran. According to him, Ova prepared the cake better than his own mom!

As the evening rolled on, Ova stuck to her normal routine. Today was different, though. Being accepted as a new student to the Persimmon Institute was a high honor. Considering her human lineage, it was an extraordinary accomplishment. Only the best and brightest creatures of Laqunah were granted admission, but Ova was extremely out of place. Being the only human to ever breach the void and enter Laqunah made her quite the oddity. Ova simply couldn't get the swirling fascinations out of her head. To leave the card shop and become a star-launcher or silver warden? Such positions of esteemed honor would be a marvelous benchmark in her life. There was no way of knowing what the future held until her primary interview with the admissions overseer. That was a full two days away. The only thing Ova needed to worry herself with at the time was shoving the partly alive bragger worm in the oven and keeping it there. She shut the stove and stood at ready, knife in hand.

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