#baronyofthesilverwolf

She looks over and wipes her brow. "Hello, my wee chickens." Fondly, though she looks a touch stressed.

"Hello, Chef," Madern says with fond respect.

"Hey. We did the grocery run."

That catches Marigold's attention. "You actually found that fruit? I was half convinced it was made up. Oh, I know you would have found SOMETHING out there," she flaps her hand, "I'm not enough of a Grump to doubt myths, but I figured it was probably boosted in the telling."

"I remember it was glorious," The Piskey assures her, and offers up an urn, "Hopefully it tastes as good on this side." NOT the urn with the lady in it. That would a kind of canibalism and he's not a redcap.

Marigold accepts the first urn than pauses, looking over Art and Thistle. Mostly Thistle. "Should I open it? It won't... er... explode?"

"Um. Short window, though. Maybe, like... you know those bougie restaurants with the pepper grinders?"

"Could you open it table-side?"

At the mention of the explosion chances, Madern resists the urge to say two turns to the left, one to the right , then left again or boom.

Marigold carefully unscrews the top, then gets a knife and wiggles the waxed cap free. A puff of cold fog comes out, it looks very theatrical and cool as hell.

Thistle leans forward, her gaze sharp and clinical. She's judging her own work now, and there's no harsher critic.

"Cool" Madern mutters.

Marigold carefully lifts the fruit from its bed of ice and silk, turning it slowly in her hands. The Amberheart gleams in the kitchen light, like purest winter snow.

For a few moments, she simply admires it. "Well," she says at last, "either you've brought me a fruit from a legend, or the prettiest poison I've ever seen." Her attention flicks toward Thistle, and a tiny smile, "A joke, wee lamb, your jar worked."

Taking up a knife, she cuts carefully through the rind. The blade slides through with almost no resistance, and thick golden nectar wells up from the opening, rich as honey.

The scent follows immediately. It washe through the kitchen, overwhelming herbs, broth, and fresh bread alike. Warm orchards, summer sunlight, and the promise of good things to come seem to linger in the air.

It is somehow STRONGER, more powerful here, where it doesn't simply melt into the glamour that suffused the Grove.

Marigold closes her eyes and breathes it in, and when she opens them again, there is wonder in her expression.

"Oh, my dears, this is something special."

"It's the last. Probably." She blurts, the memory fuzzy but there.

She places a protective hand on the repaired urn.

Marigold studies the opened fruit for a moment longer before giving a decisive nod. "Well, no point in letting this one go to waste. That's the chef's privilege."

Before anyone can protest, she is already moving, a paring knife slips through the Amberheart with practiced ease, dividing it into neat slices that glisten with golden nectar.

As she tastes it, a soft hum of appreciation escapes her. For a moment, her eyes grow distant, and a faint sheen of tears gathers there. The expression that crosses her face is not one of sadness, but of remembered happiness, as though the fruit has carried her briefly back to some cherished moment she had not thought of in years.

The feeling passes, leaving behind a small smile.

Before Madern, Thistle, and Art, the slices of Amberheart wait upon the board, fragrant and inviting.

Art starts to reach, but then pauses. "Madern, you and Thistle really earned this. You first."

"We... we filled a few jars I... there was a tree..." He mutters, then snaps back to the here and now and takes a slice of Amberheart and tries it, savoring it slowly. Respectfully...

Thistle splits her piece, offering part to Citrine.

A warmth suffuses Madern much as the scent had filled the room, and he finds himself taken back to one of his happiest summer memories...

Did Marigold say a name? It sounded almost like... "Fernando..." Possibly on a beach somewhere in southern Spain...

Citrine does not hesitate, but gobbles her share with a happy chime, the sap running down her arms which she also licks at greedily, before settling onto Thistle's shoulder with a thoughtful bell sound, soft.

Thistle glows, spirals coral, as she remembers holding hands on a beach while the selkies played in the waves beyond.

The top of a train on a hot day, the train moves and he grins as it makes a breeze. Dangerous, sure, but damn his hair is going wild and he laughs at the girl he's with as they make their way onto a new location, a new adventure... the taste has him wistful and smiling. He had a lot of travel, but that was one of the best moments of his life. Sunshine, breeze, excitement, and good company.

Art falls quiet as he tastes the Amberheart and falls into warmth and memory.

The moment he first came into the Autumn world, bursting from dream into flesh and finding only cold unfamiliarity and a body that did not feel like it was meant to hold him. Disorientation and loneliness, fear and the feeling of not belonging...

But then he remembers what happened next, when a girl with rainbow-touched hair and cheeks bright with color reached out and took his hand. She had no reason to trust him or welcome him, yet she did so anyway, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"That was... wow," Madern sighs happily.

Art is rubbing at his eyes a bit.

Marigold watches them for a long moment before she reaches for another slice herself, tasting it again. Not our of greed, but as if to confirm something and set the flavors in her mind.

"Right," she says at last, already shifting into motion as she wipes her hands on her apron and turns fully toward her workspace, "this is not something you just put on a plate and hope for the best, this is something you build a course around."

She moves with purpose, gathering ingredients and tools swiftly without a wasted motion.

"We are not wasting this on a simple serving, no matter how lovely it tastes on its own. If I am going to serve it to a table, I am going to make sure it tells the right story at the right moment."

"And if there is a certain lady who thinks she cannot be impressed, then she is about to learn otherwise."

Uh oh, the door clicks locked behind them and now they find that the trio is press-ganged into kitchen work!

Citrine zips out a window to safety before her tiny hands can be put to work as well.

"Pretty sure it deserves that, though bein' unimpressed with it as it stands is just being enamoured of your own farts."

Marigold looks like she is too well mannered to say something, but Art says, "Flatulence admiration parties must be the latest Aesin fad." Deadpan.

"Like, y'see, their own head is so far up their... okay, right, nevermind."

Madern is happy to take up his position as a second in Cook-mand, "Okay, we're going to need a sauce pan correct?"

Thistle double-checks that the carrier basket is secure, and then quietly rolls up her sleeves.

She considers this, and nods to Thistle. "Mmm, you are right. I will go simple, perhaps, what is more summer than peaches and cream?" And to Madern, "You're my sous chef, you know the pan, and make sure we have plenty of sugar and heavy cream..." as she gets to work...

...

...

...

It feels like only moments, or perhaps hours, based on how arms and feet ache from stirring and standing, though Marigold has not a complaint and is still going strong, when Bluebell raps softly at the door.

"Lady Nadeen requests the finest of arsenic for our guest, and for herself should she have to entertain her for one more meal alone." The pooka says, sticking her nose in the kitchen for a curious sniff.

Art's hand are pruney, he was sent to the dishpan after almost adding salt to a sweet dish by mistake. "But you don't have them LABELED!" was not accepted as a valid excuse.

Sous Chef's rarely get glory, but from Marigold, it's an honor! Madern's deft hands work expertly and quickly (For a non boggan)

Oh, this is Madern & Marigold's show, but Thistle has steady, dextrous hands.

Marigold wipes her hands and says, "We'll start serving shortly. No, wait. Make her wait. Apologies to Lady Nadeen..." to the trio, "Bustle on and clean up, back in 10 in your best and a serving apron. You may not be invited to dine at her table, but I won't have you miss this."

She tips a salute at the boggan. Marigold knows how violently bright Thistle's "best" can be, so that sounds like tacit permission for All The Colors.

A grin, "Not for the world, thanks, Marigold."

"Come on, Art, time for the three of us to get spiffed."

Art hesitates for only a moment, as he IS invited tot he table, but only for a moment, then he grins to Madern, clearly has chosen his side, and heads off to clean up for serving.

The dining hall is large enough for a banquet, a long polished table stretching beneath soft lights but with only two places formally arranged.

Lady Seryn sits turning a glass between her fingers, across the table from Baroness Nadeen Dancingsnow, who has been quickly brief by Julius before dinner.

"It is rather sad," she says, letting her gaze drift over the unused places along the table, "to have so much space and so little company suited to it." The Aesin lady remarks.

She tilts her head slightly, considering a delicate truth.

"I am sure it is not intentional. One cannot expect refinement from those not taught to understand it."

Her eyes return to Nadeen, calm and faintly amused.

"It must be lonely," she adds, "to rule so well and still have so few worth speaking to."

Nadeen tries not to let her passion rise to the bait, a flash of blinding beauty from her eyes is a truly a threat right now, instead she says "The sunflower is glorious, but it does not begrudge nor deny the beauty of posies or even clover about her. I can see you are not a ruler, so you do not know the import of support, and that is to be expected, Lady. Take a deeper look at the patterns around you and you'll see... " She pauses "Ah, but you are not Varich and one should not expect understanding from those who lack.. certain refinements." A smile so blistering cold, yet glamourus, that even a nodric house might feel it, but it's within the boundaries.

Lady Seryn’s smile returns, pleased by the banter.

"I do not agree with you," she says simply, unhurried and unbothered, "but I do enjoy the shape of your conviction."

Her gaze rests on Nadeen, with curiosity rather than animosity.

"It is refreshing, seeing such pride in your garden. Whether I understand its design is beside the point."

"And I do recognize what it represents," she adds with a small, respectful incline of her head. "Even if I would not arrange it as you do, I can respect the care it takes to maintain what has been given to you."

"Beauty is life say the Seelie, there is more to life than they know, but we are sidhe and we know Beauty is power. The Design can be crucial. It was hard to earn this place, but the work I put in to win it, well, one should not boast in an unseemly fashion so the word may not have gotten out of this place's proper full history. Da'an has its way, but will is the fuel that broguht me here, will fueling deed. I shall instruct you later if you insist on knowing the full story..."

She does hope Marigold gets the food here SOON.

Lady Seryn is about to reply when a soft chime of a bell rings through the room, not a Never this time, but the quiet signal that a meal is ready. The bell pulls are seldom used here, relics of an older etiquette when it was considered improper for the help to be seen without summons.

Art has smartened up considerably, wearing his best voile beneath a clean, pressed servant’s smock. He carries the wine with careful composure and offers it first to his Lady, then to the guest, as is proper.

Lady Seryn remarks, "It is a shame your fine squire must toil among the help."

Art looks to the Baroness as if asking if he should respond.

Nadeen gives Art a nod. He needs practice at Bitch management, and Gwen isn't here to coach him.