Though the last meal had long since been cleared from the tables, Brunnhold's kitchen was far from silent. All about was the bustle and noise of passives at work, even at this late hour. After all, just because there were no meals to be prepared didn't mean there were no dishes to be cleaned, or preparations to be made for the next morning. A dishwasher boy burst into tears after being yelled at by a particularly irate sous-chef.

At that Aurelie pursed her lips and frowned. She was across the room, closer to the door, but they could all hear it. Nobody really like Anabelle much, where by contrast everyone thought Lloyd was a sweetheart, so she was fairly certain it would be taken care of promptly. Nonetheless, she didn't like to see it.

Poor mood as she was in, Aurelie opted for leaning againt the counter by the door instead of making it look like she was still busy. She would be kept there until everyone else was allowed to leave, she knew. Why bother looking useful? She was tired, and as of late had been caring less and less what others thought of her.

Laurent tried to avoid little excursions like this whenever possible, but, when given a choice between his pet trying to eat his boots again or going into a kitchen full of passives, he always seemed to rationalize the passives weren’t so unnerving, even in uncomfortably large groups.

Like any good galdori student, he strode into the kitchens as if he had every right to be there late at night and nowhere near a meal time. “Excuse me, you there,” his words were almost polite, but his tone was far from it, and he might as well have snapped his fingers as he tried for the attention of a the young woman near the doorway. “I need to get some food supplies. Whatever scraps that will keep for a day or so.”

The young man had a fair sized tin under one arm, the metal scratched and dented in places from the work of his little pet when he’d left the tin out.

Oh, tocks, a student.

Every so often they'd get one of them, little princes and princesses descending from on high wanting this or that thing from them. Clocks to them all, as far as Aurelie was concerned, but she wasn't stupid enough to say so to their toffin little faces. So while her lips longed to curl up in disgust, instead she found herself bowing meekly.

"May I ask what this is for, sir?" It was the tin that made her intrigued. Many a student came to demand scraps from the scraps, but usually 'scrap' meant some sort of baked good they expected to be made relatively immediately. This one had that much-abused tin, so perhaps that wasn't what he was after?

“I need something for my pet to eat,” Laurent replied, before it even occurred to him to refuse to answer her question. Frowning, he stared at the passive, trying out an intimidating ‘give me what I want’ look. He was much better at looking friendly, however, and his attempt merely made him look a little squinty, as if he had a headache.

Tapping the battered tin for emphasis, he decided that a little more explanation wasn’t precisely out of order, unless he wanted to fill the tin up himself; he might as well let her know what precisely he was looking for. “I need something to feed my yoffel that will not make a terrible mess.”

Was this student quite ill? The way he squinted at her made her think he might be. It would explain his unhesitating willingness to answer her inquiry, rather than just order her about. Now she knew what she was looking for, however, and this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The faster she found what he was looking for, the sooner she could shuffle him on his merry way and then maybe she could go to bed.

Yoffel snacks, yoffel snacks. What did yoffels eat, anyway? She had to confess she wasn't entirely certain. She'd never kept them as a child, and obviously didn't do so now. Their family had an osta, at the time. She'd loved the osta, but yoffels? They always looked like malnourished rats to her. So what did one feed a malnourished rat?

They sort of resembled dogs, she thought. Rat-dogs, to be sure, but dogs. So perhaps the same sorts of scraps she'd give a dog? There were traces of cooked meats left from earlier in the day. Hopefully those would be adequate. She didn't want to be responsible for the death of some uppity student's beloved pet if she gave it anything else.

"If I could have the tin sir," she held out her hand, "I could get some for you?"

Handing over the much-battered tin, Laurent crossed his arms, standing impatiently near the door. “I need this in a hurry,” he said, trying to emphasize this by adding seriously, “I have lessons to study.” His time, of course, was much more important than this passive he’d accosted could imagine.

Up close, the tin looked even worse, once shiny surface scratched by sharp teeth, and the lid was so dented from attempts to chew it open that it was a wonder it came on and off. No one could say that Lex the hoffel was a disgrace to his species as far as his voracious attempts to get as much food as possible went.

Looking around the kitchen while he waited, Laurent sniffed, clearly uncomfortable ‘behind the scenes’ so to speak.

The urge to smirk at the student's discomfort was sharply surpressed, though not without great difficulty. Toffin thing wasn't used to being down here with all the scraps, was he? Poor baby. There was almost a spring in her step as she rummaged about the kitchen looking for bits of meat for the rat-dog.

Fifteen-year-old Hilde grabbed her sleeve as she passed. "What's a student doing here?" she hissed. Terrified of even being within two feet of a student, Hilde was mostly kept in the kitchen for fear that closer contact with the rest of the school would set her off. Aura shook her head and shrugged.

"Wants scraps for his pet, I think. Says he has one of those horrible little rat things." Hilde looked disbelieving, but pointed Aurelie to where the food bits had gone. Some of the choicer pieces had already been picked out, of course, by the rest of the kitchen staff. The one advantage to working down here was how difficult it was to work and go entirely hungry at the same time.

As she picked through bits to put into the tin, she took note of the dents and nicks. A well-loved tin. A well-loved yoffel, too, probably. Aurelie grimaced-- something about the things just made her faintly sick. All that abuse to the metal made it particularly difficult to open. Trying to pry it open on the countertop, her hand slipped, skin catching and tearing open all along her knuckles.

"Clocking--" She bit her lip and cast a spiteful glance over her shoulder in Laurent's direction. It wasn't his fault, of course, but she blamed him anyway. Stupid student and his stupid yoffel, and now she'd have to find something to bandage that up or her fingers would get infected and fall off.

As she approached Laurent with the tin full of treats and a cup of some sort of hot tea pressed into her hand by a scolding Matron, there came a loud clatter from somewhere in the kitchen. It had been relatively quiet until then, so such a sharp noise startled her into jumping-- and spilling tea and meaty bits everywhere.

Resisting the urge to tap his foot while he waited, Laurent kept looking around. He started to lean against the counter, then changed his mind. It looked clean enough, but he didn’t want to chance getting any grease or the like on his clothing. His trivial concerns kept him from really noticing that he was being discussed, and fortunately kept him from hearing anything about ‘horrible little rat things’.

He did, however, catch the nasty look that Aurelie gave him, and his eyes narrowed when he saw what she’d done to her knuckles. Clocking clumsy, that’s what the passive was. No wonder he’d found her lazing about near the door. They probably kept her away from the dishes as a safety precaution. Sighing, he started to say something, when the clatter made them both jump.

A splash of tea hit his wrist as tea and bits of meat came flying at him, and he yelped, mostly in surprise, “Tocking cl-“ biting that off, he swallowed; not swearing had been one of those things drilled into him. Disgusted, he shook the drop off his hand, then turned to picking scraps off of his clothing. So much for not getting grease on them.

Irritably not looking up as he brushed the bits carelessly to the floor, he demanded, “Get me something to wipe myself off with, wipe off your hand, and let me see your knuckles.” Clocks; he hadn’t expected this to turn into such a fiasco.

The cringe was impossible to stop. Just because the Headmistress had said no one was allowed to beat passives anymore, didn't actually mean anyone had stopped. As much as she hated gollies, and as flippant as she was about it in private, they terrified her. Her life and well-being were meaningless things, and she'd just spilled hot tea and meat bits all over a student. He might not do anything, but he could always complain to someone who would.

Aurelie nodded sharply, grabbing a clean towel from a nearby counter. This she held out to Laurent, while casting her eyes about for something else for her to wipe her own hands off with. She assumed that he didn't want her blood all over the towel she was handing him, so something else must be found. In the end she settled for hastily wiping her hands on her apron. (This wasn't particularly effective-- her apron was filthy by this time of night.)

"My... knuckles, sir?" What did he want those for?

“Oh don’t you have any common sense?” Laurent asked disparagingly, glaring through his spectacles at Aurelie. “Now you’re going to need to rinse the scrapes off.” Making a shooing gesture towards the sinks, he started blotting at his clothing, wrinkling his nose as he tossed a few flecks of scraps back into the tin. He was muttering under his breath about wiping grease and grime into wounds and deserving to lose fingers for stupidity.

Fastidiously, he wiped his fingers clean on the towel before tossing it onto the counter and giving the sloshed tea a mournful look. Now that she’d ‘suggested’ it, he realized the tea would have been nice.

Bright spots of color flared up on Aura's cheeks. Arrogant, toffin little-- Of course she had sense! He'd surprised her, is all. She hadn't really had time to think about it, had she? What good would it have done her to run about looking for another clean towel? He would just have gotten impatient and been rude with her either way. Gollies! The lot of them could throw themselves in the Arova, and no one'd be the worse for it.

"Toffin little..." Muttered under her breath as she rinsed her hands-- she didn't want him to hear. The water stung her sensitive fingers and she winced, but it was better than leaving them dirty. It had been stupid of her to wipe her hands on her apron. Not that she'd admit it. After turning off the faucet, Aurelie turned to face Laurent again, just in time to catch his wistful glance at the teacup. Perhaps, if he stopped being so rude, she would make him another.

Of course he could always just tell her to.

Gesturing for her to come back impatiently, Laurent sighed. More than a little put out himself now (he just couldn’t understand why this was taking so long), he held out his hand, palm up. “Let me see your knuckles,” he said again, and he made a conscious effort not to sound as displeased by the prospect as he was; the effort was not terribly successful.

With all the courtesy he would have shown an injured animal or a human, he waited for Aurelie to let him see the scrapes, completely heedless of any reluctance she might have over further content with a student- or a student’s magic.

What did he want her tocking knuckles for? For a moment she thought maybe he wanted to do her further damage, then put that idea aside as silly and needlessly paranoid. It would be unwise for him to do such a thing in plain view of a matron after all. Wouldn't it?

Aurelie really didn't want to give him her knuckles. He was cleaned up, he had his scraps, couldn't he scamper off to go back to doing whatever it was students did at this hour? Spending their parents' money, or magicking at things, or something? Still, she hadn't been locked behind those red walls for the past decade for nothing. As much as she struggled and kicked internally, when a golly asked her to do something, she did it. Most of the time. With only traces of the reluctance and distaste she really felt, she held out her damaged hands.

In a way, Aurelie was going to get her wish that Laurent just go ‘magic at things’. Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to go away first. Pushing away his distaste and composing himself to a more professional air, Laurent raised Aurelie’s hand, studying her knuckles for a moment.

Not so bad, he decided to himself, but she was wounded and, perhaps as importantly, she handled food he was going to have to eat and dishes he was going to have to use. It really would be better if she didn’t have open wounds.

With absolutely no ‘by your leave’ or any indication that Aurelie deserved the consideration, Laurent cast Stitch Wound with the ease of practice and familiarity, intending to patch up Aurelie’s hand so that at least she wasn’t bleeding on things.

As far as requesting Stitch Wound, Laurent had been rather informal towards the mona, and so in response, the spell came on slower than usual. But there was no other difficulty, and it worked as well as it should. The words seemed to drip off of Laurent's tongue as he spoke the spell, and he was left with an odd, smoked honey flavor in his mouth.

Aurelie, meanwhile, got the bad end of the stick. Because the spell went so slowly, the accompanying pain was doubled, and could readily be compared to a douse of lemon juice on the wound. Further discomfort came from the fact that Aurelie could literally feel her skin reaching back over the scraped flesh and knitting itself together as if with an invisible needle and thread. The pain would pass, but in the moment, it was sharp and tear-inducing.

Aurelie couldn't contain the yelp, and she almost jerked her hands away in surprise. Oh, but it hurt! Golly magic crawling all over her, pulling her skin back together and burning worse than anything. Just bandages would have been fine! She bit her lip and winced, eyes involuntarily watering.

As the last of the wound disappeared from her hands, Aurelie was left with a smarting hand hanging there in the air. Immediately she clasped her hands closer to her chest. She could still feel golly field and mona in the air. It made her wince almost as much as spell itself.

Laurent frowned at the slowness of the spell, making a mental note that perhaps he needed to spend more time practicing his spells, and less trying to cram his political lessons, lest he wind up good at nothing by the time he graduated. Still, slow didn’t mean it didn’t work, so he could hardly call it a loss, and he reasoned the passive would still be grateful not to worry about open wounds.

Covering for his uncertainty, he pushed his spectacles up with one finger on the bridge of the nose, crossing his arms and looking at Aurelie, “Well?” he said smugly, nodding to her hand, “better?”

Smug brat. Aurelie tried not to react to such blatant self-satisfaction, but it was difficult. Arrogant little golly thing, always assuming magic was the best solution to every problem. She would have been much happier not to have the mona crawling all over her, making her feel so... ugh.

"I suppose... sir." She tried not to sound as sullen as she felt.

Feeling quite satisfied with himself, indeed, Laurent actually gave Aurelie a smile, albeit a smug one. It was a little disappointing that she didn't seem as impressed by him as he himself was, but what could one really expect from a passive? "Now you don't have to worry about keeping it clean," he said in a self-satisfied tone of voice.

Picking up his battered tin, he gave the cup one more look, debating. Then he broke down and said, "Is there by any chance another cup of tea hot?" He actually would take 'no' as an answer- if only because it was well past time he needed to get back to studying.

(( I'm sorry about the delay. Bad. Week. ))

Oh the unbelievable little--! She unconsciously flexed her hand. While it did feel better, this was true, it didn't mean she wanted to fix him another cup of tea before sending him off to bed. Oh, bed. She thought of her own bunk longingly. She want to crawl under her blanket, maybe talk to Triston if she was still awake. Aurelie was so very tired.

But a request from a golly was never really a request, and Aura ducked her head. "I could fix you one, sir, if you want?" There was a hopeful note in her voice. Maybe he'd say 'no' and she could go to bed now.

(( Ha! Then I do it! Sorryyyy. ))