Chapter 3 Pansy #3
Not even waiting for Ren to agree, she reached for the knife, pulling it free despite Ren’s shouts of protest. Although Pansy would acknowledge, at least privately, that she’d risked cutting either one (or even both) of them with her impatience, in the end, it had worked out; so, what was the problem?
“Go get the other ingredients,” Pansy said, quickly shooing Ren away with one hand before she began chopping up the mushrooms. In a matter of seconds, she’d accomplished what would have doubtless taken Ren at least an hour, given their earlier pace.
Honestly, this should have pleased Ren. Pansy had done them a favor. But not even a mote of gratitude filtered through their venomous expression.
“You’ve ruined it!” they cried, jerking briefly against what Pansy assumed was the urge to wrestle their knife back before better sense prevailed.
“How am I ruining it?” She gestured to the chopped-up mushrooms. Although her knife-work was not as exacting as her mother’s, it was still perfectly respectable.
She might not have made the most even of cuts, especially compared to the couple Ren had managed to get through before she’d elected to put them (and her, quite frankly) out of their misery.
But a bit of varying thickness never hurt anyone – so long as the pieces remained comfortably bite-sized, which they did.
Maybe Pansy’s mother would disagree. Presentation is just as important as taste, she’d always say, chiding Pansy for every misshapen meatball, every cracked pie crust. But aesthetics alone wouldn’t save a dry, under-seasoned chicken breast cooked within an inch of its life.
Nor would it fill anyone’s stomach come dinnertime when half the prep still wasn’t done.
“You made it ugly,” Ren groused, looking down at the fruits of her labor with unvarnished disgust.
Pansy rolled her eyes. “My gods, you’re worse than my mother. Maybe you should be the one to go back to Haverow. You’ll fit right in with that need for everything to look perfect.”
They shot her a withering look. “I’d rather die, thanks.”
“Well, I’d rather not. So, hurry up and bring me those ingredients. I already feel myself wasting away from hunger.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
Still, for all their bluster and exaggerated sighs, Ren did as she’d asked, retrieving a number of items from a nearby cabinet and depositing them on the counter beside her. The only problem: aside from the mushrooms and chestnuts, Pansy recognized not a single one.
“What’s all this?” she asked, squinting at the assortment of strange plants Ren had brought her. Where was the cooking oil? The cider vinegar? The standard assortment of seasonings she’d come to rely on in her everyday cooking?
“Ingredients,” Ren said blandly. “For the salad.”
“These aren’t ingredients. They’re just a bunch of weird plants! See?” She seized a tightly wrapped bundle of reed-like stems and thrust it out towards them. “How am I supposed to make a vinaigrette with a bunch of leaves?”
Ren blinked. “Do you not know what oilflute is?”
“No?”
At this point, Pansy assumed Ren would offer some kind of explanation.
Evidently, she was just as knowledgeable about plants as she was about mushrooms, which was to say “not very”.
But Ren didn’t say a thing. Instead, they laughed.
And this wasn’t just a giggle or a small chuckle.
No, Ren full-on howled with laughter, to the point where they could no longer stand upright.
Their body shook as they doubled over, hands clutching at their stomach, as if it ached from the strain.
“Stop laughing!” Pansy snapped, heat sparking in her anew. Unfortunately, her injured pride found their subsequent grin no more soothing.
Wiping the last bits of mirth from their eyes, Ren said, “I knew you halflings were an ignorant bunch, but to think that ignorance even extends to the one thing you can never seem to have enough of! The irony, it’s – dare I say it? – delicious!”
“Excuse me?” Pansy demanded, an icy jolt now accompanying the fire licking its way up the sides of her face.
Ren’s smile, however, only stretched wider. “You know, we goblins joke that halflings must’ve uncovered the secret to time-travel magic, because you all seem to have more feast days than there are days on the calendar.”
“Now, that’s not true—”
“Isn’t it?” Ren cocked their head to the side.
“Could’ve fooled me with the state of your pantries, always stuffed to the brim.
Though I suppose yours is rather lacking at the moment.
How dreadful it must be to have nothing but ‘weird’, ‘nasty’ goblin ingredients at your disposal.
Gosh! What will the neighbors think? Better go back to Haverton, where you can have a ‘proper’ kitchen with ‘proper’ ingredients like you so justly deserve. ”
“First of all, it’s Have-row; not Haver-ton.
Secondly, never once did I call your ingredients ‘weird’ or ‘nasty’ or any variation thereof – nor was I thinking it,” Pansy quickly added when she saw Ren open their mouth in protest. “So, stop using your imagination to justify your cruelty towards me. And thirdly, I’m not leaving, so either show me how to use these ingredients properly or live with the consequences of whatever I make in the absence of proper instruction. ”
If she wasn’t so furious, Pansy might have laughed at the wide-eyed look of shock Ren gave her, their lips parting uselessly, like a gasping fish out of water.
Had they seriously expected her to turn and run because of a few mean words?
Unfortunately for them, her time in Haverow had trained her to weather almost anything, her skin thickened beneath the brunt of a thousand tiny cuts.
There, she’d already been “the other”, the odd halfling girl too impatient, too adventurous for her own good, and every one of her many facets had, over time, been scrutinized into a flaw.
At least, Ren knew they were being cruel; getting her to leave was the point.
But the halflings of Haverow would look upon Pansy’s departure with nothing but confusion, wondering what could have possibly pushed her to leave their “perfect” village behind – as if the decades’ worth of unvarnished criticism had been a kindness rather than a constant torment!
“Here,” Ren said at last, grabbing a bowl from one of the cabinets and extending it towards her; the closest thing, it seemed, she’d be getting to an apology.
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
“You wanted to make a vinaigrette, right? Squeeze the oilflute in your hand over the bowl.”
Pansy’s expression turned dubious. “I don’t see how a bunch of weeds are going to help with that, but okay.” She did as instructed, eyes widening when a steady trickle of cloudy, milk-white fluid escaped from in-between her clenched fingers, pooling in a shallow puddle at the bottom of the bowl.
It wasn’t anything like cooking oil in appearance, but in terms of consistency, the liquid the oilflute had produced was practically identical.
Slick with a definite thickness, though not to the point where Pansy would call it viscous.
Her curiosity piqued, she lifted her fingers, now glistening with an oily sheen, to her nose and gave them a sniff.
A mild, savory aroma greeted her; far less pungent than what she’d expected. But what about the taste?
“Oh!” Pansy jerked away, her features fluttering like a pair of shutters, newly cast open. “It tastes almost like… olive oil! That’s incredible! The flavor’s a bit milder, perhaps, but that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. What about vinegar? I assume you have something for that too?”
Ren nodded and retrieved a jug from a narrow pantry, which proved just as sparse as the rest of the cottage.
“What’s that?” Pansy asked as Ren set the jug down on the counter with a dull thump, enough to send the clear liquid inside sloshing.
“Vinegar,” they replied, the corner of their mouth quirking up into a lopsided smirk that shouldn’t have made them look nearly so handsome, especially after the cruelty they’d just lobbed from those same lips. “Made from sugarfern, which, I’m guessing, you’ve never heard of either.”
“Well, it’s a goblin ingredient, right? So it’s no surprise I wouldn’t be familiar with it.” Pansy shrugged, her attempt at nonchalance thwarted by the visible tightness pulling along her shoulders.
“Which is exactly my point,” Ren continued, their words heavy with emphasis. “You have no idea what you’re doing. If you want to play around, go make mud pies outside like the children do. Don’t waste valuable food on this nonsense of yours.”
Pansy’s lips peeled back around a grin that was all sharpness and teeth. “What? Afraid I’m going to do a better job than you? That my ‘ugly’ salad will taste better than whatever you were going to come up with?”
They snorted. “You’re delusional.”
Pansy cocked her head to the side. “Am I? Shall we make another bet then? If I’m really as ‘delusional’ as you say I am, this’ll be an easy win for you.”
A beat. “Fine. I’m listening.”
“Right. So, if I manage to make a warm mushroom salad that’s good – not just edible – with the ingredients you’ve laid out here, the kitchen becomes my exclusive domain. That means you leave it exactly as you found it every time you use it. No weird changes and definitely no dirt.”
“And what if you don’t?”
“Then I’ll leave the kitchen to you and promise not to bother you from now on when you cook. Call it your safe haven.”
“From annoying halflings?” Ren asked, arching a brow.
“From me,” Pansy clarified. “If any other halflings choose to annoy you in there, that’s on them.”
Ren’s eyes narrowed. “You better not be planning on siccing your friends on me.”
Pansy barked out a laugh. “I don’t think I could pay anyone in all of Halvenshire enough to come here for the sole purpose of pestering you.” Except maybe Blossom. Though she suspected her best friend would help her for free.