It wasn't that they were a kind place to be, or comfortable--indeed, in the heat of summer any of the kitchens could be as swelteringly miserable as any other place she was assigned to work. Nor were they relaxed, or quiet. Perhaps this is what she liked about them best. The kitchens were a constant hum of activity, starting from early in the morning and stretching late into the evening. There were dishes to wash, floors to sweep, food to prepare and to serve. Passives of all ages could be found in them--indeed, there was something to be done by anyone who could do it. No simple manor kitchen was this; an army was needed to keep up with demands from students and faculty alike. Aurelie herself had spent untold hours peeling potatoes with the other, more senior scullery maids until her fingers had been stiff and she would have liked never to see another root of any kind ever again in all her life. Even then, she had found something pleasing in the work. It called to her mind an easier time at her nurse's knee. Her nurse, having been long a friend to the cook in the Steerpike's employ, would sometimes allow a young Aurelie to help with some small task, as long as her parents were not about and it posed no real difficulty to her small hands. Her patience and aptitude had proven to work in her favor; over time, the other cooks and kitchen-maids had taken notice and she had been moved from scullery to kitchens. Truly, here was "a place for everything, and everything in its place"; it brought her great pleasure that one of those places was hers.
Tonight she had been pulled in to assist with the preparations for the Formal Supper for the third-year students. She had been there for several hours already, and would be there another few yet before the students themselves took their seats to dine under watchful faculty eyes. The preparations for the Formal Suppers were always the most tense. The sheer logistics of preparing a meal for so many students and faculty at once meant that as well-oiled a machine as the kitchens were in general terms, in here everything had to run like clockwork. They were already behind, with the unpleasant discovery of some spoilage that had gone unnoticed by whatever wretch had been assigned to the larder for the day, forcing them to change the menu. As if this wasn't trouble enough, someone had cut open their hand, and were taken off to bandage it up before it got into the food by an exasperated overseer.
"Well isn't this just clocking wonderful," she muttered to herself, before biting her lip and casting a furtive glance around to see if anyone had heard her. In the din of the kitchen, however, it went unnoticed. The timing of everything had been ever-so-slightly off, and it was driving her to distraction. Even the asparagus pudding hadn't gone quite right, and she had been so pleased to be making it.
"Aurelie!" The voice of the cook in charge of the appetizers cut through the clamor like a knife.
"Yes!" Aurelie snapped to attention.
The cook, a frazzled-looking woman in her late fifties with a cloud of dark hair barely contained by a scarf and eyes that could spear an errant scullery maid from twenty yards, gestured Aurelie towards a room set aside for butchering and other such tasks, the open doorway of which was easily visible from where they both stood in the main kitchen. "Short-handed, need to finish cleaning them hens. Bruno shoulda done it, but Patron Russo got 'im." The cook's speech was clipped and efficient, pitched to carry over the sound of the kitchen. Aurelie grimaced inwardly. It wasn't that cleaning birds was difficult, she just didn't enjoy the whole process from start to finish. Still, it needed getting done, and her hands were as good as any.
"And don't let that one give you any trouble." The chef added this warning as an afterthought, gesturing to the passive who was, at present, already engaged in the process. Aurelie frowned, puzzled, until she realized with a start that she knew who it was: Fionn. All at once the other week came rushing back to her. How was this even possible? This was surely some cosmic joke, the Circle laughing at her for having the hubris to think she'd not see him again. They'd avoided each other more or less their entire lives here, and now she was to see him twice in one month? Rude is what that was. Aurelie gnawed on an already-chapped lip, trying to read the mood on the blonde passive's face. Eventually she gave the effort up as a lost cause, and, wishing not to waste much more time than she already had, went to join him and the pile of birds.
"Hello again." Was that suitably neutral? Oh, she did so hope it was.