[Closed, Mature] What Yesterdays Bring

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 22, 2720 - Early Evening | The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

Had that been—teasing? Aurelie was so surprised by it that it took her face a moment to catch up to her mind. She had asked, or insisted, as she always did when the dishes needed doing. For once he didn't agree right away, and there was just a moment where she thought she had been overstepping all this time. But then Aremu's face broke into a sudden grin that made him look much younger, somehow—closer, then, to the one in the photograph, for all his face was serious there as well. Color crept across her face; Aremu laughed for the second time that day, just a little, and she didn't quite know what to do with herself. It was rather good, she thought in an absurd sort of way, that he didn't do that more often, or there'd be no hope for her at all.

"I would like that very much." Aurelie felt warm all down to her toes, saying it; voice and smile and face. She didn't quite know why; they had done so before, on the ship. She thought it would be different, looking at them from the ground—and different still again from seeing them from Brunnhold, the few times she'd thought to look.

They had done it before. There was nothing to it, really, and the idea shouldn't make her as flustered as it did. She didn't think, after all, he would take her hand this time. That had been—she had been rather distraught, at the time. It hadn't been that long, really, but she felt like it had been longer. She didn't know what to make of that. Nothing, perhaps, but that she was a silly creature after all.

Aurelie dried her hands while Aremu asked her about baking. He looked so hopeful, and the look sort of shifted into an uncertain frown. He looked, she thought, so very serious and uncertain. Aurelie laughed, quietly and not unkindly. As if there was any chance that she would say no, now or at any other time.

"Of course I want to. Why wouldn't I?" She beamed up at him, still laughing. She thought she might understood why he asked, but it was such a funny thing to be concerned over. She didn't say that she could think of very little she would rather do in this moment; she could, in fact, think of nothing at all. Aurelie went to the pantry to get the dry things that she could carry—flour, baking soda, salt, both sugars, and the chocolate of course. That rather filled her hands, and she let Aremu get the rest.

It had been so long since she'd made a cookie of any kind; longer even than she'd been here. There hadn't been much room for it, in the weeks before... before. Not in her schedule, and not in her heart. Now there was plenty of both. Coated in flour and rolling out little balls of dough, Aurelie thought that this was likely the happiest she had been in a long time. The smile on her face was rather stubbornly attached.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Evening, Hamis 22, 2720
The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Aremu took the dried coconut, the eggs, the vanilla and all the rest, carrying them out behind Aurelie. She set to mixing; flour went everywhere, somehow, little white streaks of it on her nose and cheek, coating the freckles without quite covering them. Aremu left her to it, largely; they chatted about eggs and what he had found worked well on the stove, and she stirred happily and competently, smiling as widely as he had ever seen her, and he thought uneasily that he could happily have watched her for hours.

Aremu heated the skillet on the stove; he took out the metal cover he’d had made for it, and set it to the side, along with the spatula. When Aurelie was ready, they flattened each dough ball delicately with the spatula.

Aremu, working quickly and efficiently, transferred them one by one onto the pan. For this he used only his left hand and the spatula, with quick deft flicks of his wrist to slide the cookies on and off. He set it to the side and covered them, and grinned at Aurelie.

“You’ve got just a little flour,” Aremu said, a little regretfully, gesturing with his hand. He liked the look of it on her, but he thought she should want to know, since she could do something about it. She made it worse, somehow, in the trying and Aremu grinned at her.

“May I?” he asked. When she agreed, he reached out; his thumb brushed, gently, over her cheekbone. He couldn’t have said - he hadn’t meant to. She blushed in the wake of his thumb, as if he had trailed it across her face. She blushed easily, Aremu thought; he knew he shouldn’t think anything of it. Aremu knew what he wanted; he wondered that she couldn’t see it on him, because he understood, uneasily, that he was failing to hide it.

Fool, he told himself; you’ll only make her uncomfortable. He didn’t linger; he didn’t reach back, as he wanted to. He didn’t do anything which he wanted to, and the shame of those wants burned within him.

There was the smell of cookies from the stove, and Aremu found himself enormously grateful for it all of a sudden. “They’re a bit fragile at this stage,” he said; he took the cover off and took the spatula, and turned the first cookie over with a careful, smooth motion, showing her what he meant.

“Here,” Aremu handed Aurelie the spatula, and grinned at her. “All yours,” he said, encouragingly, easing back to give her space to work.

I know it isn’t the same, he wanted to say. Can it be enough, for now? She seemed to be enjoying herself, quite a lot in fact, and he found he could hope, and tell himself it was only her happiness he was hoping for.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 22, 2720 - Early Evening | The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

As she carried on about eggs and types of chocolate and whatever else came to mind as they worked, Aremu heated the skillet and a metal sort of cover for the purpose. The balls were flattened, and Aremu transferred each little disc to the heated pan when the time came for it. Her own experiments at Brunnhold hadn't been terribly involved; she had mostly been testing to see if it could be done at all, with things she had hoped were common enough to hand as to be available to them both.

Aurelie's nose itched at some point in the dough-making process. She'd thought nothing of taking her flour-coated hand and putting it up to her face. And she thought nothing of it the next time either, adding to the issue. Eventually she must have become more of a mess than she thought, because Aremu said something about it.

"Oh, bells and—here?" She wiped at her face, trying to get it off. "Did I get it?" She could tell by the way he smiled at her that she hadn't, not at all. Chimes, she was a mess. Aurelie truly didn't know how she always managed to look so sloppy—she tried her best, she really did. Washed her hands frequently, tried to be careful when mixing things... and yet, she might very well have just made it worse. That would be very like her.

"Ah, uhm, y-yes, please. I get the feeling I'm making it much worse." The pad of Aremu's thumb skimmed over her cheek—to get the flour off of it, you absolute ninny—and left a blush behind. The path of it, short it had been, stayed on her face like a ghost. Aurelie tried her best to think nothing more of it, but it was difficult. Because she was an idiot, she thought rather sourly, an idiot with no self-control. There was absolutely no reason for it to be anything more than what it was—evidence that she was such a disheveled mess that Aremu felt obligated to go so far in order to help her.

She still smiled a little to herself anyway, and tucked some of her hair behind her ear to give her hand something to do.

Luckily, there were cookies on the stove, and they demanded attention. More attention than her spiral of foolish thoughts. She watched him carefully flip the cookie over to the other side with the spatula, trying to focus on the actual motion of it and not of what she thought of him doing it.

"Hmm, I see what you mean." She hummed thoughtfully, pondering. She took the spatula when he offered it to her, careful not to touch his hand in the process. Her first attempt was not nearly so successful, and she thought she'd rather made a mess of it—but there were plenty of others with which to try again.

It was different from baking, really. And yet, not so much so. The oven wasn't the part she liked, after all. Or even, really, the specific results. It was the process that Aurelie liked. The measuring and the detail-checking, the experimenting and learning to adapt when things didn't go quite as one might have wished. They never did, after all. One simply had to make the best of it then, and find the path to the best outcome possible then. Sometimes it was disappointing, and sometimes it was more lovely than what you'd wanted in the first place.

After the third, she thought she had gotten the hang of it. Aurelie looked up at Aremu with a rather victorious smile.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Evening, Hamis 22, 2720
The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Aremu watched Aurelie turn over her first cookie; it folded halfway, drooping onto itself. He didn’t flinch or grimace or make a noise; they were only cookies, after all.

“I did that several times,” Aremu said, encouragingly, leaning against the counter still. “And worse,” he grinned at her, and he found it strangely easy. His ego mattered much less, suddenly, than seeing her succeed; he knew he had done it well, before. He knew too, though he felt it like embarrassment, that he had wanted to impress her in the doing.

She turned over another – better, he thought, watching still.

The third was well done, at least by Aremu’s standard. He thought by Aurelie’s as well, because she looked up at him with a brilliant smile. He grinned back; he felt it all through him, her slightly floury hair just a little mussed, her face having gone from tense concentration to joy like the lighting of a lamp.

“Well done,” Aremu said, warmly, swallowing the little lump in his throat.

Aurelie turned over the rest of the small batch they’d made; Aremu covered the cookies once more. The kitchen smelled well now, the smell of the dough heating and the chocolate melting filling the air. If it mingled oddly with the lingering smell of fish stew, Aremu found he didn’t mind it.

In time, Aremu judged them done; he took the skillet off of the heat, and they worked together to transfer the cookies to the wire rack he’d found for cooling, though he used it sometimes for baking as well, putting it in the bottom of larger pans for baked goods which needed more air circulation; he’d demonstrated that in the taking out of it, showing Aurelie what he meant.

They looked well, Aremu thought, examining the cookies, at least by his standards. He glanced up at Aurelie. “Do they seem very different?” He asked. “I’ve wondered if, um…” the grin faltered a little, and just barely held.

“It’s seemed like perhaps what I was making of your recipes might not be the same at all,” Aremu said, quietly, thinking of distance and strangeness and the written word, how what one said or did seemed to change in the air like smoke, making its own strange shapes. “But they’re good nonetheless, I think, even if the change in process makes them too different to be called the same.”

He glanced down at the cooling rack again, and then back at Aurelie. “I suppose their taste is the better test anyway,” Aremu said, intent, a little frown on his face. “Shall we have some tea with them?"

He heated water as the cookies cooled; they went with mint tea, this time, by mutual accord. He poured the water into the kettle, the dried mint swirling inside, and covered it. By the time it had finished steeping, Aremu judged the cookies cool enough based on the feel of the outside.

“We had quite a time keeping Efere from eating them before they’d cooled,” Aremu said, ruefully, remembering. He grinned at Aurelie.

Aremu poured the two cups of tea, one then the other; he stacked the cookies carefully on a plate, and they brought it all to the table. He sat, looking down at them, and then at Aurelie. He waited; he thought perhaps he should try them himself, because he didn’t know quite how this batch had come out, but he found he didn’t want to miss her first taste of them. It seemed to matter, somehow, though he knew he should know better.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 22, 2720 - Early Evening | The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

That little bit of a compliment brightened her smile considerably. She had no doubt she would have been able to do it. If Aurelie was confident about anything at all, it was about her abilities in a kitchen. The warmth in Aremu's voice when he said it, though, soaked right through to her heart. Aurelie bit her lip in sudden shyness and turned back to the rest.

The smell of them filled the kitchen, layered over their dinner and everything else. A pleasant kind of strangeness, that Aurelie found oddly comforting. The kitchens in Brunnhold were large, and there were always so many things going on at once. It wasn't like they could reasonably only make one sort of thing at a time, not with the numbers they cooked for or the schedules with which they did it.

It was the closest she had come yet to missing it, and she didn't let the feeling linger long. A wisp of it, and no more.

Besides, before too long they were moving them off of the skillet and on to a rack to cool. Aurelie looked at them a little curiously as they set them out. They didn't have the same shape, which she might have expected but hadn't fully considered. She listened as Aremu explained to her how he used the rack also for air circulation; it wasn't too dissimilar to how she made many things in the oven, really, although not usually what she thought of as "baking". An issue of semantics only; she smiled, pleased to hear of it.

Aurelie looked up from her own inspection when he asked her, and his grin faltered. Aremu went on, and she had the strangest urge to take his hand. She folded her own together instead, tangling all her fingers in front of her as if letting even one go free would result in disaster.

"Not too different at all," she said as she shook her head. She looked at the cookies arranged on the rack again fro a moment. Flatter, from the flipping. And a little less spread. Maybe a bit more like a pancake, she thought. But not so terribly different. She would have known what they were to look at them.

"Besides," she went on a little thoughtfully, looking to Aremu's serious face once more, "no two people ever make anything quite the same way, do they? I think they look good."

She grinned at his frown, making a reappearance at last. It was almost funny now, watching his long, handsome face frowning down so intently at the rack. Yet again she had the silliest urge to spread her hands over it and smooth out the frown with her fingers. Good thing she had clasped her hands together so tightly. Keeping her from doing anything stupid. "The taste matters most. Everything else is just—extra. Their shape is the least important part."

They made mint tea, which Aurelie thought would either be lovely or terrible with the chocolate and the coconut together. Coconut and mint were not flavors she thought she often put next to each other, but the idea appealed. The smell of it reminded her that she was tired, curling through the kitchen. Tired, but not worn-down. Just approaching the end of a day that had turned out to be more than she might have expected at the start.

"I wasn't very good about that either, at his age," she confessed, thinking of Efere and all his bright, boyish energy. Yes, she could very well picture how that would be difficult. He had not seemed in either letter or reality the type who could be easily kept from anything. Aurelie did, eventually, learn to wait; Nurse was always very stern about it. Aurelie had certainly had her knuckled rapped more than once before she'd gained some patience.

Aurelie carried the cups over, to save the need for two trips. They had the cheerful little flower mugs again; Aurelie traced the pattern of one with her fingertip while she let the tea inside cool off slightly. In the meantime, she took one of the cookies they had made. Together, she thought, and was pleased by this too. She might have waited to see if Aremu took one first, but there was a kind of expectant, waiting look on his face. She didn't think he would. Also, she was terribly curious how they had turned out.

First she broke one in half, just to see the inside; it was the same as she would have thought, and the melted chocolate oozed slightly out of it. She took a bite without much more hesitation; she couldn't have contained herself much longer anyway. They were as they looked, as she'd hoped them to be—very good, and just right. The coconut and chocolate went together very well, and it added a pleasant sort of variatio to the chewy texture. She thought she rather liked them made this way; two crispy flat sides was very nice after all.

"I think they turned out very well," she declared, her face grave for just a moment before she couldn't hold the expression any longer and she smiled. "You'll have to take one, before I have them all."

[Aremu Ediwo]

Early Evening, Hamis 22, 2720
Outside the Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Aremu watched Aurelie more than the cookie. She broke it apart, studying it intently; a little chocolate oozed over the edge of it, neatly melted. She took a bite then. It was, Aremu thought, fighting to contain his smile and losing handily, the same way she tried any new food, very serious and intent. He never knew if she liked it – then again, Aremu thought, wryly, there hadn’t yet been anything she hadn’t liked, at least that she’d told him of.

He felt a strange urge to feed her chili-pickled mango, or stew with fish heads, or other stranger island things which seemed to him far from Anaxas and its terribly bland food. She hadn’t flinched in the least at the sticky sour-sweet tamarind; she’d liked it on its own, and she’d liked it in Ahura’s spicy, savory fish stew. He wanted, absurdly, to know what she thought of it, to watch her taste and consider.

She declared them well, and Aremu grinned back at her. “Do you think one person makes things the same way two times in a row?” He asked. “If we made them again, tomorrow,” we could, he wanted to offer; I’d make them every night to see you like this, “would they be the same?” He took one of the cookies for himself, taking a cheerful bite. He liked it with the mint tea, at least; he hoped she would as well.

Whatever hunger he’d clung to at the edge of dinner fled in the face of a few of the cookies. Aremu was hovering indecisively over a third, and then took it, with a sheepish grin at Aurelie. He didn’t think – he supposed anyone would have noticed how much he generally ate by now.

Ahura liked it, for all she teased him over it; she’d fussed cheerfully and competently over Aurelie’s appetite as well, and declared herself proud at how many idlis Aurelie had managed. Aremu, his face twitching with a suppressed smile, had translated her compliments to Aurelie’s smile and bright red cheeks.

If you ever want to talk about it, Aremu wanted to say; if you ever want to talk about Brunnhold – about the kitchens – about the rest of it – I can’t promise I’ll know what to say, but I can promise to listen, at least, if you need that. He couldn’t; he couldn’t bring those words into the happy, warm kitchen, smelling of mint and chocolate and coconut layered over tamarind fish stew.

Aremu carried an armful of thick woven blanket out the back steps of the house a little while later; they wandered a few steps up the cliff through the waving grass, to a clear flat spot on the top of it. The sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs and the faint whistling of a breeze through the grass was nearly all they could hear, but for the occasional chirping of insects; the air smelled of salt, though not so strongly as down at the beach, more like a reminder than anything.

Aremu shook out the blanket one handed, his right wrist deftly stabilizing it, and lay it out for them. It was, still, a wonderfully clear night; he lay down on his back, leaving plenty of space for Aurelie, and propped his hand and wrist behind his head. For a little while, they lay there admiring the stars above, watching them twinkle.

Abruptly, Aremu jerked. “Oh,” he said, half sitting up, one hand reaching upwards. "Just there - did you see it?"

Aremu waited, intent – after a moment, a second shooting star streaked out the sky, leaving a glowing trail behind it. “Did you see?” Aremu asked; he glanced down at Aurelie, sitting up. “Come here,” he shifted behind her, his hand settled on her upper back, turning her carefully towards the region of the sky where he’d seen them. “Look up – there – ”

Another one raced across the sky, a brilliant streak of it. Aremu grinned, his thumb resting just barely on the bare skin at the back of her neck. “Shooting stars,” he said, softly, just into her ear. “They say you should make a wish on them.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 22, 2720 - Evening | The Ibutatu Estate, Isla Dzum

That was certainly starting to veer on the philosophical. Aurelie thought about it for a moment, then scrunched up her nose and shook her head, grinning. "I don't know," she said and she laughed. "I supposed we'd have to make them tomorrow to find out."

She was joking. Of course she was joking. Aurelie wouldn't expect Aremu to want to make cookies again tomorrow. Aurelie thought she could happily do this every day. Or something else; they might get tired of these after a while. Aurelie liked baking, or not-baking—cooking, she settled on, without feeling the need to be more specific than that. Having someone to share it with made it so much better than she would have thought. No, she admitted to herself, not just someone. She had watched Ahura a little, and even helped in small ways. She had enjoyed that, too, but not like this.

She was really, truly, entirely hopeless.

Aurelie let Aremu have most of them. Not just because she thought he wanted more of them than she did—it had become quite clear to her by now that he ate quite a lot, more than one might expect. Aurelie thought she could understand that; she wasn't so different, although perhaps not quite to the same degree. She remembered him translating for her Ahura's comments about her own appetite, which had embarrassed and delighted her both in the funniest way. She thought she just liked knowing that he had eaten plenty of them, the snacks they'd made together.

She remembered also his willingness to make sure she ate first, on the ship, and that they had split what she thought either one of them in normal circumstances would surely have finished alone. It seemed to her now a more significant sacrifice than she had realized. Aurelie had thought of it a few times, and didn't know how to feel. Her heart turned over when she did.

Aurelie nibbled at her cookie. The mint tea went much better with them than she'd expected; that was what made her smile so. That and nothing else. So she insisted, and so it was.

Aremu brought a blanket outside, up the cliff a little ways to a place where the grass wasn't so thick. Aurelie could hear the waves and smell the water, but in a distant way. Almost like hearing it through the window of the kitchen, mixing with everything else in the house. Out here, there was nothing to mix together—just the sound of insect life, the waving grass, and of course the stars spreading out above them.

Aurelie had made sure to keep a reasonable distance. Not so far as she should have, she thought with a little bit of guilt. It seemed just as wrong to be too far as it would have been to be too close. She only hoped he wouldn't notice her fussing as they settled. It was mostly inside of her own head anyway, and he had no way to see the inside of that. She settled back and was comfortable, looking up into the clear night above them both. She thought he loved them much better than she did, but they were beautiful to her too. Perhaps more so when she thought that way.

Aremu jerked, coming halfway up off the blanket. Aurelie turned her head to him, puzzled. "See what?" He said it again, and she came to sit up too. She was so busy looking at his face when he asked, she must have missed whatever it was he was trying to show her. Because Aurelie was looking up, then, she missed the movement of Aremu's hand until it came to settle on her upper back. To show her where to look, she thought; her breath hitched anyway.

Aurelie looked, dutifully. She didn't let herself think of Aremu's thumb just at the back of her neck, not far below the tips of her short hair. And she was grateful that it was dark, because she couldn't stop herself from turning bright red from the back of that neck to the tips of her ears. At least she didn't reach up to put her hand over her ear, as she dearly wanted to do. That time she saw it, at least.

"A w-wish? Oh, hmm." Aurelie looked up; she didn't look over, and she didn't let her attention stray. Another one streaked across the sky, and her eyes softened just a little. She had lots of wishes, she thought. But even stars couldn't give her those. Why bother asking for them? They were, after all, beautiful—but so very, very far away. She turned away from the stars then, to look at Aremu with a little smile.

"I don't think I want anything a shooting star can give me," she said again, out loud now. "But they are very pretty." She couldn't tell if her voice was truly too loud, or if it was just that quiet up here. Aremu's voice still curled in her ear, the shape of it curved into wishes for stars.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Night, Hamis 22, 2720
Outside the Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Aremu was aware that the pad of his thumb was on Aurelie’s bare skin; it was very nearly all he could think about. It was soft, with a downy sort of feeling to it; he could just barely feel the rounded top of her spine. It seemed small to him - she was small, of course. Absurdly, he wanted to touch his own neck and see the difference.

He didn’t linger; he wanted to. Her gaze was fixed on the stars above; he lowered his hand away from her, and eased back. A moment ago, the distance hadn’t seemed very great; it felt like an ocean between them, just then.

Hadn’t he thought the stars would help? Aremu looked at Aurelie when she gave her answer. He shivered, half-catching his breath.

“They are,” Aremu agreed, his voice a little rough. He lay back again, gazing up at the stars above, and the streaks of light which wove through them.

The shooting stats seemed to him as if they would arc down towards him at any moment, like fingers reaching down to brush across his skin.

Aurelie’s words still echoed in his head; Aremu turned them over. He closed his eyes, then, for just a moment, and opened them once more, looking back at the sky above.

If be focused - if he tried - he could find the edge of a shape, and then another, and trace all his remembered constellations across the night sky.

You have to stop, Aremu told himself, looking at the familiar patterns, as if the light could shine through him. He imagined himself a silhouette against the blanket, dark and empty, with nothing in him to catch the star’s glow and make it brighter.

You have to stop, Aremu told himself. He had heard the quiet rustle of the blanket when Aurelie lay back, too. You’re selfish, he told himself; you’re an ersehole. She wants to swim, and make cookies; she’s never had a chance to do what she wants before. And at every turn, you’re there for yourself - your own selfish ersehole reasons - and she deserves better.

The wind whisked over him, and he was grateful for the cold. He watched the stars streak across the sky, and tried to let go of all the rest. I’m empty, he told them; let me borrow your light just a little while.

He watched another shooting star gleam through the night; he closed his eyes, and he wished. Let me borrow your light, Aremu begged, just for a moment. Let me know the right thing to do, just once; give me just a moment of certainty.

He opened his eyes again, and the trail of light had gone. There was plenty he wanted, Aremu thought, his chest aching and an oddly bitter taste in his mouth. He didn’t think, in the end, that the stars could give it to him.