OOM: AU Child! Ibani

[last_kallig]

The last few months have been even harder than usual, after the death of her mother figure. Perhaps grief made her weaker, more vulnerable to sickness, because she knows she's dangerously ill. She hadn't meant to wind up here, wherever here is, but it has shown up in the nick of time.

Ibani shivers against one of the walls of Milliways, her body wracked with fever and hunger both. She's somewhere between seven and ten, clothed in fabric with far too many holes in it, and wearing a slave shock collar around her neck. Her bones stand out too sharply against her skin, and her eyes are fever bright and darting around the room.

She's not sure if this is some dying hallucination, if she's gone mad, or if she truly HAS wound up somewhere utterly strange. Whatever this is, instinct and her body DEMAND food, fuel to fight the sickness that is killing her. Untrained in the Force, she's grasping on instinct for any energy it can give her.

Maybe, maybe if she gets close enough to one of the tables she can steal some food without anyone noticing. Yes, yes that's a good plan

Comments

[last_kallig]

Ibani giggles at his comment about the spring roll. "I would have come closer even if you hadn't dropped it. You felt safer than the other people downstairs, and I was so very hungry."

Ibani's stomach decides to growl. "Shush, you were just fed!" she grumbles at her stomach. "Stop being silly."

[27_53]

"I have decided what I am making for breakfast," Skellig offers helpfully. "It is easy, it will not take me very long to cook it."

He pauses. "Do you know if you have any...allergies? Sensitivity?"

[last_kallig]

Given the uncomprehending stare when he asks the question about allergies and sensitives, the answer is probably no. "I....can't eat things that are poisonous to humans?" she offers at last.

"I've never seen cooking before, but Ma'Vena used to talk about it sometimes."

[27_53]

Nothing poisonous is a decent place to start, at least. He can work with that.

"I do not do it often here, it is easier to just order things from Bar," he admits. "But I feel as if your first meal should be made by a familiar hand."

He sits up slightly. "You can stay here in bed, or wander my space - our space - there is nothing here that would harm you." Nothing that is within her reach or ability to get to, anyways.

[last_kallig]

"I would like to watch you cook, to learn," she tells him. "Maybe one day I will make you breakfast, when I know how."

[27_53]

"I would like that," he says brightly.

Once they have gotten up from the bed (he neatens the sheets and blankets while she is in the bathroom; she fixes the pillows while he has his turn) eventually they find themselves in the kitchen. He has pulled over the stepstool also, so she can be tall enough to be beside him at the stove. He has eggs, milk (white, not blue), bread, and a bowl in front of him, along with a whisk.

"I have heard a few names for this," he explains as he starts to crack the eggs into the bowl. "Most commonly it is 'French Toast', here, but I am used to it as 'Eggy Bread'," he shrugs. "It is good for using up bread that has gone a bit stale."

He realizes the concept of 'stale' may be strange, for someone who has had to scour for lichen and moss for nutrition. "Older, bread. This is bread," he points at the slices he has sat out. "These are eggs. This is milk, you add the milk into the eggs and stir it up, make a sort of batter to cover the bread..."

He adds a hint of cinnamon, a little bit of vanilla, then puts butter onto a pan on the stove - it starts to sizzle as it warms. "...then we will dunk the bread into the mix and let it get a bit soft, before we put it on the pan."

[last_kallig]

Ibani has never seen ANY of these ingredients before, so she's fascinated! "Oooh, the batter smells good," she comments. "It makes the bread safe to eat?" She's thinking of 'stale' as a state of the bread going 'off'.

[27_53]

"It is still safe to eat, even if it is stale. Stale is...when it is older, it will start to dry out a bit, and some people don't like that. So they will use it like this to make it taste better."

Rather than simply throwing away perfectly good food.

With a few slices into the pan (he only drops one awkwardly on the transfer, causing a bit of a splatter) he will allow them to cook for a moment, getting brown.

"If you leave it for too long, it will start to grow mold, and that can make you sick," he adds. "But stale is still fine. Sometimes that is all I am able to find at home, when looking behind the bakery shops."

[last_kallig]

"Tasting better is good," Ibani allows, though she till looks a bit mystified by people not wanting food because it's drier.

"I'm good at finding things, I can help you," Ibani offers. "I can get into small places, make people not see me." Ibani has zero qualms about things like theft. She's presuming Skellig is stealing less desirable and therefore less guarded product from the Bakery shops.

[27_53]

Flipping the bread - the smell of the food is filling the kitchen, and it smells good - Skellig scrapes one slightly burnt edge of a piece with the spatula, ignoring it for now.

"To make people not see you...do you use your powers to do that, or is it just because you are small?" He asks, curious. "I can use mine to basically 'nudge' people to look another direction, find something more interesting to catch their attention..."

[last_kallig]

"Small helps, but it takes power to push people's minds, make them not see."

"Some people are harder to push than others, I don't know why," she continues, peering at the food.

[27_53]

The first batch of bread done, he plates it and tucks it into the oven to keep it warm before setting the second on - this will cook faster, as the pan is still hot and he's got more of a system figured out now.

"Maybe they have a defense against your abilities that you do not know about," he offers.

While that first side of the bread is cooking, he ducks into the fridge to grab a plastic container that has some mixed fruit in it - thankfully it is not too depressed looking, yet - and a canister that she will not recognize, but contains whipped cream. He flips the bread upon his return, then goes to the table and sets the other things down before coming back to the stove.

"Go, sit," he says. "I will bring it over in just a second once these finish. Do you want more of the juice to go with this? Water? Milk?" Heck, he even has coffee and tea, but would have to make those, and too many options might be too much for her this early.

[last_kallig]

"Could be," Ibani replies, frowning in thought.

"Juice please," she answers. She carefully moves the step-stool out of the way, then sits at the table. She's a bit fidgety, restless, not used to being ALLOWED to sit still.

[27_53]

The nervous energy is familiar to him, if only because there are days when he cannot seem to find the ability to sit still himself - those are days that he goes flying, or here in Milliways he will walk the paths through the woods, or go down to the Caribbean inlet and watch the waves roll in against the shoreline, do something to explore the grounds.

Juice is fetched, as is the rest of the bread once it finishes up - he plates her up a healthy amount, brings silverware (she can choose to use it or not, he will not care or judge, same as with the soup last night) and napkins.

"Now this will be a bit hot," he says. "And there are berries in here," he pops open the container. "Some of the strawberries - these are the red ones here, you do not want to eat the green part - are a bit mushed, but they are still fine to eat. And this," he grabs the whipped cream canister, shakes it, then squirts a healthy-sized amount onto his plate. "It is a sweet cream mixed with air to make it puffy. I like it on mine."

[last_kallig]

"It smells wonderful," she tells him. "You must be a really good cook!"

Ibani does not have the faintest idea how to use silverware, won't unless Skellig demonstrates or uses them himself.

She starts with picking some of the berries up with her fingers. They are tasty and a delight! She swings her feet a little.

[27_53]

Skellig does use the silverware to cut up his bread into bite-sized chunks. He will dip it into his whipped cream and grab some berries once he gets to that point.

"Do you want me to cut yours for you, so it is easier to grab? Some people will use a fork," he demonstrates, stabbing a chunk and popping it into his mouth. "But my hands are sometimes not steady, so I tend to use my fingers."

[last_kallig]

"Yes, please," Ibani says.

Her expression turns concerned when he says his hands are sometimes not steady. "Were you in a collar before, like me? If a collar gets activated too much, sometimes the unsteadiness doesn't go away with time." Nerve damage, in other words.

[27_53]

Drawing her plate closer to him, he works to cut up her bread into bite-sized chunks, shaking his head.

"No, I have never been in a collar," he says. "I just...they call it arthritis, in humans."

His grip is slightly modified on the utensils (not that she would notice, since this is all new to her) as he holds them, primitive in a sense. Once he's finished, he pushes the plate back to her - after adding some of the whipped cream on one edge.

"My bones rub together, in my fingers and my hands, and it makes them sore. It is worse when it is cold, or raining."

[last_kallig]

"You can't heal your body like you did mine?" She frowns. "I don't want you to be in pain."

[27_53]

"I have practiced and attempted," he admits. "But I have not been able to figure it out, yet."

Skellig shrugs slightly, a rustle of feathers as he reaches for a chunk of the bread on his plate. "I hope to figure it out one day. Until then...I have learned how to manage it, with my mind, so it is less noticeable."

[last_kallig]

"Maybe I can help, when I'm bigger," Ibani suggests. "But I am glad you can manage it now."

Ibani stabs the french toast with the fork, lifts it to her mouth. There is glee from her as she tastes the food. "Thank you, it tastes so good!"

[27_53]

Skellig laughs a bit at her reaction - he has not had anyone react like that when he has cooked for them, so he appreciates it! "You are welcome," he says cheerfully. "I am glad you like it. One of the people I met here some time ago, taught me how to make it."

After several bites, he nods back towards the fridge. "If you are still hungry after you finish, I can make more, but it might be better to keep spacing things out. We can have lunch in a few hours, and then maybe dinner after it gets dark."

[last_kallig]

His cheer makes her happier, a positive feedback loop!

"If I eat too much, I will be sick," Ibani agrees. "I had better space it out."

"Three meals? That's...isn't that a lot of food?" She is surprised. "Most of us were children like me, but even the adults only got two ration bars once a day."

[27_53]

"I do not wish to overwhelm your system," he says gently. "But you have been underfed for a very long time, by what your body tells me when I listen to it. Smaller, more frequent meals may be better for you as you recover."

most of us were children like me

Skellig's mood shifts slightly, grows a bit more serious.

"Others in the mines?" He asks softly, not pressing - if she doesn't want to talk about what is on the other side of her Door (he hasn't even asked her if she noticed if her Door was still there, that he will wait to explain) then he won't force her to.

[last_kallig]

"Children are cheaper, can fit in smaller spaces, so we were bought for mining," Ibani explains. "There are a few grownups, to work the machines, but we gather the crystals. Everyone is in a collar, except the guards."

She fidgets, stabs another piece of breakfast. "I've never heard of any of us living long enough to be grownups."