(no subject)

[an_evening_star]

It begins with breakfast.

That isn't entirely true. Really, it begins with an apology that begins with breakfast - but the end result is the same. (Though the apology mostly is the breakfast. Yvaine has never been quite good with the words - or particularly fond of saying them, for that matter.)

She ends up even more pale than usual, streaked with flour and smiling shyly. The food that she helped with is a bit questionable - but Tristran has breakfast and since no one seems particularly inclined to kick her out, Yvaine has somewhere to stay while he climbs the rigging and plays pirate.

The cook is a tall man and none too handsome - scarred, but sweet with words and good at making the star laugh. (Also good at making her eat, even just a little.)

She's never precisely certain of the difference between a pinch and a dash (they both look the same, as far as she is concerned) and the eggshells are never very cooperative and so, after a few attempts, Tobias just settles her onto the table and demotes her to mixing duty. She kicks up a fuss mostly on principle.

He tells her stories about his wife who harvests snow flowers and sings to the sky, calls her a glowworm and worries about her habit of ensconcing herself on the ship’s figurehead, perched alongside the wooden mermaid. He has no qualms about telling her that she is being a miserable brat - which is somehow oddly pleasing - and never seems to get irritated by her loud and often rather vulgar dissertations on why, exactly, it is a terrible idea for her to be considering pursuing friendship with a moron like Tristran Thorn.

It's something like family and Yvaine likes it in a soft, almost melancholic sort of way.

It just so happens that he also has no great qualms about teasing incessantly when she inquires about how one goes about making pies a suspiciously short time after Tristran offhandedly mentions lack of desserts. (This fact is decidedly less pleasing and sends her off into a huff of red-faced denial.)

There are times, Yvaine figures, that one just doesn't want family.

It's almost funny how these also happen to be the times when switching the salt and the sugar seem to be a completely marvelous sort of idea - family works both ways, after all.