The sun was just coming up over the grounds when Aurelie Steerpike came to sit near the back door of the Brunnhold kitchens. With most of the students home for the holidays, she was finding she didn't have to do quite as much work in the early mornings as she normally did. She had already swept through the whole kitchen, setting up what needed to be set up to prepare breakfast; the rest could be left to others. For the first in a very long time, Aurelie found herself without any pressing tasks to accomplish. This made her feel... restless. At this point in her life, she was unaccustomed to having free time on her hands. There was at least an hour or two before she would have to start on lunch. It was, she supposed, an opportune time to go back and write down a recipe she had perfected the other day. If she took the long way, it should properly eat up the time.

She slipped her apron over her head, taking a last surreptitious look around the kitchen. Everything seemed to be running smoothly, she didn't seem to be needed anywhere, but what if...? No. Aurelie straightened and squared her shoulders. This was a rare moment of free time, and she was going to use it! Decision made, she left the kitchens and headed out into the halls.

((If I did something stupid, someone tell me! I be new to this, yarr.))

((Sorry this took so long, was hoping for Trist, but you can have Aster!))

Aurelie heard footsteps tapping up from behind. Had she turned, she would have seen Aster, dark curls bouncing as she ran. Aster was one of the senior workers in the kitchen, despite being relatively young. She was a beautiful girl and she had an excellent work ethic but she also had a slightly unfortunate lisp. Since the kitchens were noisy, this often wasn't an issue. Signing was common during rush periods.

"Want some company?" Aster signed, smiling. "I have some free time now too."

((It's chill it's chill.))

Aurelie whirled around at the sound of Aster's fast approaching footsteps. Some part of her in the back of her mind was screaming about how they were leaving the kitchen undefended, and she must turn around this very instant and make sure nothing had gone horribly awry. She chose to tactfully ignore it, reminding herself that she had decided. Her previously blank expression melted into a beaming smile. "Oh, no, not at all! I was just going to write something down while we were slow..." Aurelie paused, thinking a moment, and then smiled again. "Two is always better than one, isn't it? With all of the students gone, it seems like we have nothing but free time these days!" Falling back a little, she started up a stream of cheerful chatter on the way to the bunks. Had anyone been paying attention, they would have noticed that most of it was about kitchens, and everything contained therein. Not even on her break would she leave the subject alone.

Aster nodded, brushing her hands down her apron and following Aurelie.

"You should be careful about saying things like that." She continued, hands weaving about gracefully. "If they catch you writing outside of itinerary, you could get It."

"It" was a poorly defined concept, a fairly violent sign that the passives had come up with themselves. "It" covered everything from cut meals to beatings. Aster avoided "It" like the plague.

"I was hoping to spend some time in the rec room..." Aster continued, pausing to sigh happily. "I just want to sit by the fire for a while."

That made Aurelie hesitate. While It was not something she feared, directly, the fact that Aster mentioned It was a different issue. Was it a warning? Or a threat? She was a pretty girl, and a sweet one, but Aurelie's stomach clenched just a little bit. Supposing they went back and Aster saw where she kept her recipes? If she was inclined, she could turn her in for them, or worse, take them herself. Surely another passive wouldn't do something like that to her, let alone Aster. Somehow, though, Aurelie couldn't shake the sort of sick uneasiness she felt at the idea of letting another person, even another passive, see her most precious possessions.

"We can do that, if you want," she offered. It was a little selfish after all, expecting Aster to come with her. "I think that would be nice."

Aster did not notice Aurelie's hesitation, it was a common enough response in passives. They tended to get worried easily, which made sense given that they lived lives with a lot worth worrying about. Aster tended to hide hers behind a steely level of self-control that broke very rarely but always spectacularly. Aurelia had probably even seen her go off, once or twice.

"Where are you getting paper?" Aster asked. "I know some other people are looking too."

She did not name names, that would have been rude.

"I can get nibs sometimes, when I do cleaning in the stationary stores. No one notices one or two missing." She continued, keeping pace with Aurelie and looking much brighter than usual.

She liked it when the students went away. They were vulgar and she didn't like them, barely at all.

"Oh, the paper? It's actually, well, it's butcher's paper." There was no short supply of meat in the Brunnhold kitchens, and most of it came wrapped in large quantities of paper. While much of it was unusable for any purpose other than wrapping meat, being stained and contaminated with blood and who-knows-what-else, Aurelie had found that their meat often came moderately over-wrapped. This made for good-sized scraps of perfectly useful paper, from a source no one would think to check twice. "Nibs you say?" Aurelie brightened up. A lot of her writing materials were make-shift charcoals from bits and pieces left to roast in the oven. They worked, but unless she handled everything very carefully it turned into an unreadable blur. Nibs, now, nibs she could use. There were so many things that when boiled down produced a lovely dye which, while not ideal, was certainly better than nothing. Aurelie liked to be as resourceful and subtle as possible. Anything that was bought or used by the university was possibly an unnecessary risk. Still, good nibs... That was something she couldn't recreate, no matter how clever she was about it. Working in the kitchens certainly had advantages.

Aurelie found herself warming up to the chatter and to the company. Brunnhold really was better without the students in it to remind her of what she wasn't, and what she should have been.

Aster nodded, understanding that her resources weren't the sort of thing most passives could get easily, unless they stooped to stealing from students. No one wanted to be caught doing that, it made life worse for everyone.

"I can only take a few at a time." She signed, now looking about casually to check no one was watching her. "You need to hide them well, too but you know that as well as we all do."

She signed the last bit a little dismissively, implying that she knew Aurelie was aware but was naturally a bit of a worrier and so said it anyway.

"Don't know what you'll do for ink. That's difficult to take, it's obvious when a pot is gone, they're bigger." Aster said, not knowing Aurelie had other resources. "Not worth worrying about until you get the nibs, I guess?"

Aster kept walking towards the passive dorms.

"Those students sure made a mess after St. Grumbles." Aster complained. "They're such pigs. One of them even grabbed at me, while he was drunk. Didn't realise I was a passive immediately, in a room full of fields."

Aster smiled, with a bit of cruelty. She was subtle about it but she liked to mess with students. She thought it was character building for them

Aurelie's eyes widened and she grinned from ear to ear. "Made a pass at you? Really?" She mostly kept to herself, but she did love a good piece of gossip every now and then. Students grabbing at passives was just the sort of thing she liked to hear. Really, Aster was very fetching. Aurelie half-suspected the drink was an excuse to hit on her without having to feel too ashamed of himself.

"I've always thought schools were nicer without students in them," she said only half-jokingly. Luckily for her, she'd been far, far away from the actual event. Down in the kitchens, she had been far too busy with cooking for it to even think about anything else.

They were nearly to the dorms when Aurelie said, quite suddenly, "The longer I'm here, the less I regret not being one of them." Her tone was bright, but there was an underlying bitterness. "Spoiled, selfish things. And we almost were, ourselves..." She got quiet, immediately regretting what she had said. She did not, on principle, like to talk about herself.

Aster went silent for a moment. Her face went stony. Yes, she had felt that way from time to time but she'd still rather not be a servant. Seeing the life she should have had, in the hands of ungrateful children... It galled. Even if she'd suspected from the start that she'd never be able to cast a spell. The sting was old but the wound still festered.

"It's obvious that passives are the superior race." She signed, after just slightly too long a pause. "Galdori are hopeless, it's a suprise they haven't managed to set themselves all on fire."

That, she'd like to see.

"So, what are you writing?" Aster asked, curious like a cat.

Aurelie mentally sighed in relief. She had overstepped her boundaries, there, both personally and in etiquette. What had possessed her to say such a thing, she would never know. Passive feelings on the subject were complex, to say the least. Her own were far from clear.

"...It is..." And here she hesitated again, moderately embarrassed. This was a secret project of hers, and she rarely talked about it. It seemed presumptuous, almost, to be writing about anything at all from her station in life. She couldn't just leave the conversation the way it was, however, and at any rate Aster was trustworthy enough. "It is... a book of recipes. Mostly my own, though I will admit to borrowing a few here and there." The tips of her ears burned, though her face betrayed nothing.

"Recipes?" Aster asked. "That's pretty useful."

Aster valued usefulness, although she imagined that was just an extension of the life she'd been forced into.

"Perhaps we could try a few, just among ourselves, while holidays are on?" Aster asked, hoping they could organise a few sit down dinners, a bit of normalcy for the younger passives. "We could do with a nice, family dinner."

The passives of Brunnhold were family. They'd all been thrown away into the same pot together and now they were all they had. Aster wanted to encourage the closeness they shared, both for altruistic reasons and because she was lonely. She was tired.

"We still have plenty left over from Grumbles, what do you say?" Aster asked, her signing becoming more tentative.

Aurelie was positively taken aback by the suggestion. Her recipe book had always been a very private thing, something she did to help her deal with the lot she had been given. Sharing it with others, making the recipes for others, had never occurred to her except in dreams of a hypothetical future she couldn't have.

The more she considered it, the more the idea appealed to her. Yes! This they could do. After all, cooking was best when made for the happiness of others. Wasn't that part of her dream, after all? To make food for people she loved and thought of as family?

"I... Aster that sounds lovely!" Her whole body felt light, then. What a marvellous thing this could be!

"Great!" Aster signed enthusiastically. "I'll get some things together, try to pick a night where most of the faculty are away."

Aster's smile was bright as morning, at least a morning outside of the rains. She could look quite cold on a regular day but she looked quite approachable when she was happy. Aster might have noticed that a happy Aster had become more and more rare lately. She seemed inordinately pleased that Aurelie had liked her idea.

"Do you have any days when you have less duties on?" Aster asked, now looking quite excited. "I can pick up a shift for you, on the day, if you need it."

It was becoming increasingly apparent that this meant quite a lot to Aster.

Aster's happiness was infectious. Aurelie smiled back, feeling sort of floaty. Her life, too, was rather devoid of anything but small (very small) pleasures. This was possibly as important to her as it was to Aster. And it was equally as lovely to find an ally as it was to think of cooking for the pleasure of others.

"Oh I can squeeze it in any time," Aurelie said cheerfully. "I always make sure to give myself a little extra time to get things done, just in case something goes horribly awry."

Aster seemed to be thinking everything over, eyes darting about as she quietly planned.

"L 7." She signed, "That's enough time? I'll tell everyone, try to get the guys that go to market to buy a little extra over the next few days."

She was practically glowing now. Her curls had an extra bounce to them as she walked. It was like watching a thoroughbred horse prance about. Her arms even had a little more flounce to them as they swung.

"How about L9?" Aurelie suggested. Not that she couldn't do something earlier than that, of course, but it never hurt to be too prepared. "I could invite my new bunkmate, as well..." She smiled at Aster. They may not live under the best of circumstances, but this was certainly making do with what they had. Perhaps life here would be a bit more bearable for all of them, if this was a regular thing.

"Wonderful!" Aster signed, looking pleased to have a date down. "I'll get it all set up for you, just tell me what you need."

Aster was good at getting things organised.