A Prayer and a Dinner

[swordofzero]

Who: Suzaku and Edge (Then Saber if he wants to join them for dinner!)
What: Suzaku and Edge go to check up on their (hopefully) former gambler and then Suzaku makes dinner, a late Christmas gift to Edge.
Where: Tokyo and then Saber's temple.
When: January 21st
Warnings: Gambling maybe? Other things I will add as appropriate.



A Prayer for Sustaining Suzaku and Edge

It had been quite a while since Edge and Suzaku had intervened to stop a gambler from betting away all his money. A month and a half and an awful lot had happened in that time. Suzaku had been without a god then and since he had been named and lost a second god before being named by Saber. Christmas and the New Year had passed, the Far shore had been hit with an earth quake and a volcano. But he had wondered a couple of times how the gambler was doing. If their 'miracle' had left a lasting impression. Suzaku knew that such habits were not easy ones to break.

Living in the same temple meant that things were quite easy to plan and so Suzaku and Edge had decided to go and check up on the man. To check everything was alright, that he had not fallen back into gambling over the holiday period. There was a shrine of Micheal not far from where the man lived.

"Are you ready?" Technically they didn't have to be in the same place to teleport down to the shrine, they would end up together anyways, but they might as well time it so neither of them had to wait too long.

A meal for friends. Edge and Saber

Suzaku also hadn't forgotten that he had promised to make Edge dinner as a Christmas present. He had slept, lost a god, gained a new one and slept again. Now they both served the same god and it was less inviting Edge over for a meal and more announcing that he was going to cook.

He had been practising, it seemed that cooking was not something he had had any skill in in life. Because he really didn't have the first clue how to do anything. He had thrown himself into learning though with, it seemed you really could find instructions for anything on the internet.

He had opted for a mix of Japanese and Britannian food. Miso soup, steamed rice, roast beef and vegetables.
The roast beef wasn't too complicated, he just had to make sure not to overcook it. Rice shouldn't be too difficult, neither should vegetables. Miso soup was more complicated but he had a recipe and was following it.

What he hadn't banked on was trying to do it all together. At the same time. Suzaku outwardly seems calm but he's currently hurrying between adding the final ingredients to the soup, turning down the bubbling over vegetables and checking the rice. His eyes flick back to the recipe, reading the next line. Once you add miso NEVER BOIL Miso soup.

"Oh." He hurries to turn down the hob. Why had he thought he could do all of this? He should have chosen something simpler.

Comments

[fauxcalibur]

Absolutely not! I've never made a sauce in my life!

[Well, there you go.]

But all of these are liquids, so certainly some sort of combination sufficiently boiled should make a sauce, right?

[No, Saber.]

[swordofzero]

I see. [Neither has Suzaku. But learning a new skill is what this is about.

However that kind of experimentation...]

That is one idea, my lord. Perhaps we could use the internet to see if there are any sauce recipes that use the ingredients we have here.

[fauxcalibur]

Oh! The internet! It's never the first thing I think of, obviously.

[He's becoming more and more proficient at using it, but so much of it is still a mystery to him.]

There's nothing I can't learn from watching a few videos, after all, but the problem is finding them...

[Getting YouTube to give you what you're actually searching for can be difficult even for people who weren't born in the 12th century.]

[swordofzero]

Videos can be hard to find, but there are written recipes as well.

[Truthfully Suzaku found the internet strange to use as well. He had figured it out quickly but it hadn't come naturally to him like many things here had.] Perhaps if we search for sauces that can be served with beef.

[fauxcalibur]

Hmmm...

[Thinking is at least occurring. This is possibly a step in the right direction.]

If you know how to follow the directions... Without a video, I don't really understand well what they mean.

[Guess who still hasn't figured out what his power as a god is.]

[swordofzero]

I can follow instructions. [It is something Suzaku is good at. Instructions, clear orders. He can follow them well.

He types the search into his phone and looks at the results, frowning as he tries to find one that uses any of the things they have.] Do we have any red wine, sir? The sauces using that seem simple enough.

[fauxcalibur]

Of course I do!

[He boggles a bit, like he can't believe he was just asked that question. Of course he has red wine! He's not some sort of barbarian.

He disappears momentarily in a shimmer of golden light, then reappears in the doorway. He somehow manages to carry four different bottles of red wine over to the counter and sets them down proudly.]

There's more, but I didn't want to drop anything.

[swordofzero]

[Suzaku blinked, had the question been that strange? But his god had already disappeared, then reappeared once again. Four different bottles in his arms.] I think we only need one bottle, probably not even a whole one.

[He glanced at the recipe again.] I don't know different wines though. [He knows there are different wines, which is a good first step.]

[fauxcalibur]

I'm not an expert, either, but I did rule the regions all these wines come from!

[He beams with pride, which is a good indication that these are French wines.]

I'm sure they're all quite good, but I don't know what it takes to make a good cooking wine. Maybe one of the Cabernets...?

[He turns the bottles around to look at the labels.]

If it doesn't work, we can always drink the rest of it...

[swordofzero]

I see... [He really doesn't know much history but he is guessing these are all wines from the European Universe. Probably France.

He looks back at his phone, tying in another search.] It says here any dry red wine and mentions Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. [His pronunciation is not awful even if it takes him a moment to read the words.]

I'm not sure I'm old enough to drink. [He's also not sure it matters, considering he's dead and the Far Shore probably has no rules about alcohol consumption.]

[fauxcalibur]

This is a Cabernet Sauvignon!

[Saber holds up one of the bottles, still beaming.]

And what do you mean "not old enough?" Certainly you're capable. I see no reason why you shouldn't.

[swordofzero]

I was looking at different laws as part of the prayer me and Edge were helping with. [Gambling laws specifically but drinking laws got mentioned a lot too.] There are age limits in many of the countries, at least in this world. [He has no idea if it had been the same on his own.] But I doubt there is such a law here in the Far Shore.

[He takes the bottle with another smile as he reads the recipe. This doesn't look too difficult.]

[fauxcalibur]

I was commanding armies by the time I was your age and yet here they won't let you have a glass of wine?

[He shakes his head.]

Well, none of that nonsense applies here. You may drink as much as you like, so long as it's not all of it. Some of these were quite expensive.

[swordofzero]

I guess it's pretty silly. [Suzaku had been a soldier on his own world and here he was a weapon. Such laws probably didn't apply.]

I won't sir. I don't even know if I like it.

[He's not yet found anything he actively dislikes taste wise. He begins pouring some of the wine into a pan and putting it on the heat. This he was supposed to boil.]

[fauxcalibur]

[Saber patiently waits for Suzaku to be finished with the wine, then gets a glass out of a cabinet and pours himself a some.]

How could you not? You won't find any finer!

[swordofzero]

I've never tried it before, sir. [At least not in his afterlife and before that is a whole swathe of nothing. He begins gathering the other ingredients needed.

The vegetables might go cold, he should have started this sauce earlier.]

[fauxcalibur]

Never?

[What's the world coming to?]

Then we'll serve it with dinner.

[The dinner he's still not really helping with.]

[swordofzero]

That's a good idea, sir. [At least if the food is awful the wine might make up for it?

The sauce is bubbling nicely and Suzaku moves back to cutting the meat, pouring soup into bowls and serving out vegetables. His coordination helps him here, he can work fast but without any mishaps.]

I think we are done.