[RP] A Crisis of Insulin

I’m surprised at how much blogging got done last month, all things considered. Special thanks goes out to all my flash fic subbers, who were so kind as to provide me with guest post material in the name of fun writing challenges. It makes me want to open up another challenge soon! Feel free to post comments with ideas or oh-god-please-no-mores.

My first day post-NaNo saw me back to no good on 750words.com. It’s nice to do a little stream-of consciousness writing as a change of pace. I also have some ongoing projects that need work. Like what, you might ask? Let’s see: Odd blood elf priest counsels a troubled paladin; Ambika completes her penance with Zana’zua’s help; Veldarin the mage eats his Wheaties and becomes The Predicament, a might warrior. Yonah completes Brooms, primer one, and her jelly jar sees Frederick #2391. Thiyenn elopes with a turnip farmer only to return to Stormwind after the Sundering with the horrible certainty that she is Bad Luck to any man she touches.

There are more, I’m sure--let’s not even talk about Ysani, because that whole situation is a can of worms I don’t know if I’m ready to deal with yet--but you get the idea. I have a lot of writing to do.

I have an awesome surprise for the culminating post of The Tree, but it will take a wee bit longer to finish. Please enjoy this little fluffy filler-post in the meantime.

Authors: Me & Hammy(Fenn)

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With the huge linen sack slung over her shoulder and her cheeks red as roses, Ysani looked like the world’s most giddy Greatfather Winter. She smelled like it, too; the scent of cinnamon and cloves wafted off of her like a bakery in full holiday swing.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” she said when he opened the door, not wasting her breath on silly things like ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’. Plop went the sack onto the floor.

“He was going to throw them out! I don’t even.” Her pale fingers rapidly untied the cord that held the bag shut as she talked a mile a minute. “I’ve been hoarding them all rather than chuck them out and he’s still baking but they’re so good Fenn you just don’t know.”

She yanked open the bag. A heap of golden muffins dotted with the red marks of crushed hot cinnamon candy and covered in veritable drifts of cinnamon-sugar threatened to tumble out onto the rug. She rescued one from toppling over the edge and practically shoved it in Fenniel’s face. “Eat!”

Fenn sniffed the muffin for a moment before tenderly taking it from Ysani’s hand, shoving about half of it into his mouth. A blissful expression spread over his face as he chewed. “Thff if amayhin.”

“I KNOW.” She crammed one in her mouth and chewed, savoring the crunch of undissolved and buttery sugar. “Let’sh go get shider,” she said around a mouthful of crumbs, and closed the bag up once more, hoisting it up over her shoulder.

Fenn shoved the other half of the muffin into his mouth, a few crumbs spilling out as his cheeks filled up like a chipmunk. “Mmhmm.”

In the Legerdemain, they ate one delicious baked good after another, washing down every other bite with spicy mulled cider that was just making its seasonal debut. Waitstaff and barkeep alike watched with growing amusement, then alarm as the bag of muffins deflated and the pair just kept on shoveling it in.

At some point, Ysani’s enthusiasm for crumbly, cinnamon-candied sweets began to wane.

“Urmph,” she said to no one in particular, as she waved away the server who’d come to refill their cider mugs for the umpteenth time. “I think imma be... imma be sick.”

Fenn stopped mid-bite to look at Ysani. “Are you okay?”

An enormous belch was her only answer, and it appeared to make her feel slightly better. If nothing else, she was less green.

“Uh. I’ll be fine.”

She pushed away the unconquerable half-eaten muffin and Fenniel eyed it. “Are you gonna eat that..?”

“Go for it.”

She ordered a glass of cold water and sipped at it while he worked his way through the last half-dozen candy-studded confections. He didn’t even appear to be slowing down, and that was pretty fascinating to the redheaded girl. Such fortitude! Surely she should strive for such staggering stamina. When the last crumb was gone and he licked his fingers for the last glittering bits of crystalline sweetness, she smiled.

“Let’s go outside, I could use some fresh air.”

Fenniel nodded in agreement. “I’m kind of full.”

They sprawled out on the grass under the enormous statue of Antonidas and watched the stars slowly appear in the evening sky, eyes glazed, groaning periodically as their distended bellies gurgled various complaints against the evils of excess.

“Fenn,” slurred Ysani.

“Hm?”

“I just realized I’m gonna have to taste-test more muffins when I get home.”

They both stared up at the sky. It was impossible for a casual observer to tell whether they lay there in companionable silence or in a state of metabolic shock. Regardless, no one fetched a medic and they were allowed to rest undisturbed.

Back at the chapter house, Keilos baked.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m going to pause the tale in progress to wish you all a lovely holiday. No matter how big or small your gathering, no matter what you’re eating, or with whom you break your bread, I hope you have something wonderful to be thankful for this season.

For me, it’s the sheer awesomeness of the friends I’ve made over the years, my awesome family, and my perfectly brilliant husband and son (hubby brought me breakfast in bed at least three times in the last week and seems determined to spoil me).

If you were in my neck of the woods, I’d gladly share a slice of the pie (yep, that pie right up there, I made that!), feed you with all the goodies we’re having, and keep the mulled cider--or wine--a-comin’. But since that’s highly unlikely (sadness), I’ll content myself with raising my mug in the direction of my computer screen and wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving.

-Bika

Food Porn and Cheesecake [Safe for work! No, really]

Hubby was in Iraq for his birthday this year, so I finally made him a birthday cake. This is the same recipe I screwed up way back in high school when I accidentally put two layers' worth of batter in each pan. They filled those suckers all the way up to the top and took forever to cook, but they were the most dense and delicious carrot cakes ever.

As for the aforementioned cheesecake...

Dunwanna LaRoux, goblin librarian

The Cataclysm expansion is coming soon and I can't wait to make a goblin. I already have a name picked out and everything. Gary Larson specs and giant hooters, what's not to like?

Recipe: Apple Sour Cream Coffeecake

Even the little birdies on my favorite plates love this cake.

Once upon a time, when I was still a little girl, my mom found a kid's cookbook (almost certainly at Goodwill, she loves that place) and gave it to me and my brothers. There were some really easy recipes in there, like ants on a log (I used to think it was a shame to waste good peanut butter and raisins on a grody old piece of celery, but now that I am Grown Up I love the damn things, which is just further proof of my theory that Adults Love Gross Food) and a morning sunrise drink that taught me at a very early age how to whip up a fancy-looking cocktail using "nothing but" "cranberry juice" and "OJ".

Another recipe I remember from that skinny cookbook was the strata. It seemed bizarre to me at the time to make a bunch of ham & cheese sandwiches, stick them in a pan and cover them with raw egg. Now I realize that it probably would have been like eating an oven-baked, savory stuffed french toast and I am sad that I never tried it.

Anyway, the whole point of this was that one spring after getting this cookbook, we decided to try the coffeecake recipe for a Mother's Day breakfast. I'm pretty sure Mom had SOME hand in this, though she tries to give us kids all the credit; not to mention Dad provided the extra push and kitchen assistance we needed to make it a success. Whatever the catalyst, though, that coffeecake was damn good and became an instant tradition.

Mom got a coffeecake every Mother's Day for twenty years. The boys forgot this year and I was too far away to help, as I have been for more than a decade, but I made her one this summer when I went to visit. I used frozen blueberries because we were out of apples and it turned out so well that I only got one little piece before it was all gone.

I baked another one this morning with apples, but you can probably use most any kind of fruit.

Apple Sour Cream Coffeecake

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup sour cream

1 apple, peeled and chopped

Streusel topping:

2 T. butter

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

1/2 cup brown sugar

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, blend shortening and sugar until fluffy (I use an electric mixer). Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add half the flour mixture and half the sour cream, mix thoroughly. Add the remaining flour and sour cream and repeat. Fold in the apples and pour into a greased 8x8 pan.

For the topping, mix the butter, brown sugar and nuts (you can squish them together with your hands, it's fun) and sprinkle evenly over the cake batter in the pan. Bake the whole mess for 25-30 minutes. It should be done when it's no longer jiggly in the pan, and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cool on a rack (or just on the stovetop if you're lazy like me) for 15-30 minutes before cutting, if you can hold off that long.

One Breakfast, Hold the Brains [PG-Profanity & Contemplated Violence]

"One McMuffin, with egg and cheese, and no meat."

That's what I order for breakfast. No hash browns, no frippity-frack coffee-flavored sugar milk product.

Just an Egg McMuffin.

With egg and cheese.

No meat.

On repeating this six times at the drive-through, she still doesn't have it right. Every time I say the magic words "no meat" it filters through her own questionable brainmeats as unidentifiable gibberish.

Am I speaking english?

What do you mean, no meat? I don't understand. Why would anyone ask that. Can you use those words together in a sentence like that?

"So you want a egg McMuffin, with no cheese?"

"I want cheese. I don't want meat."

"So a McMuffin with no cheese, drive around."

At this point I give up and continue to the window.

"You had the McMuffin with no cheese right?"

"No."

"Oh, you got the McGriddle with a McCafe?" [**Author's Note. Every time I see or hear the word 'McCafe' I have a miniature aneurysm complete with mouth-foam. Hate the name, hate the ads, hate the pronunciation, hate the drink. It is nasty.**]

"No. I had a McMuffin, and I wanted it with egg. And cheese. With no meat on it."

The blank stare and silence that meet my slow, carefully enunciated words last longer than I would like, but believe me when I say it does not surprise me. Not in the least. I repeat myself.

"I. DON'T. WANT. MEAT. ON. IT."

"Ohhhh, I got that wrong! Hold on."

She tears up to the front, shouting "that's wrong, don't put meat on it!" and returns after a few seconds to stick her head out the window, speaking to me as though I were a small child with a lobotomy.

"Now, we gonna do it this way this time, without the meat? But we don't do that. We gonna do it this way this once, but we ain't gonna do that next time okay? We can't do that. That ain't a thing we do."

By all outward appearances, I am a calm and reasonable person. In my mind, however, I am yanking her out of the window by her hair and screaming "IT IS AN EGG A SLICE OF CHEESE AND AN ENGLISH MUFFIN. THIS IS NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE. GIVE ME A SANDWICH WITHOUT THE PORK OR I WILL SHANK YOU."

Rather than risk prison time, I pull forward again. Deep breath.

It's fine. Just get the sandwich and go. It's not like I'll be coming back anyway. Hell, I was just told, more or less, never to come back, which is fine by me. I go to McDonald's all of twice a year. No need to rock the boat! No big deal. It's fine.

At the second window, a dead-eyed blonde shoves a paper bag into my hand and I exit the parking lot talking to myself, my voice growing progressively louder and more shrill as I pull out onto the road and dig for my food.

"You're doing me a favor? By omitting a slice of ham? Egg. Cheese. Bread. What the hell is wrong with asking for no meat? Why you gotta look at me like I got three heads? I am not an alien! I just want a meatless sandwich! What the hell is wrong with people?!"

There is no cheese on my McMuffin.

I swerve into oncoming traffic.

[Yes, that's my illustration up there. The meat looks weird, doesn't it?]

[RP] The Faire, Chapter 3

[I have discovered that Thiyenn prefers not to speak in strict timelines. Because of this, I am going to continue posting her story in short pieces, with a non-linear format. I do apologize for any confusion this may cause, and will try my best to keep things as ordered as they need to be for the sake of coherence.]

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Mama. It was all I would say, through the weeks we traveled over the sea, then through valleys and over mountains, through forests so dense we could hear rain above but never saw so much as a drip. Without mama, I was lost. I had no axis, no tether. I was a planet without orbit, flung out into the void. My shoa understood, but he did not pity. His goal was to make me strong.

There was no room for pity.

"Eat," he said. It was raining, but he had found shelter for us in a hollow in the base of the mountains that towered over us to the west. It was a shallow cave, full of spiders. These he burned away with a torch, and the vaguely meaty smell of roasting insects and smoke made our bellies growl. He depended on the world to feed us; we rarely ate what few rations he carried in his packs. Sometimes he conjured bread and water from nothing. This bread was dry and simple, the water flat. It sufficed to feed us when nothing remained.

"Mama." I wanted to be home. I wanted Mama, not bread; nor did I want the soup he made of herbs, grubs, and tubers he dug out of the rich, mineral-smelling earth. I refused most food, I had grown gaunt. His patience, too, wore thin.

"Eat," he said.

"Mama," I cried.

My tears angered him, and when he set aside my portion and took my chin in his hands, I wondered if he might harm me. My bones were twigs, my body small, and he, who in those days seemed so big I felt puny in his shadow, could have broken me into pieces if he so chose. Instead, he knelt before me where I sat leaning against the cool granite, and held my face so I could not look away. He filled my vision, I felt his warmth.

"You must give up such things as tears and sadness. Your family has given you over to accomplish great things. You must not disappoint them with weakness. I am your family now. I am your uncle, I am your father and mother. I am all the family you need." His hand tightened on my chin and his steel-grey eyes would not let mine go. "If you choose to wither and die, their hopes die with you, as do mine. Do you understand me, girl? Will you spite me with selfishness and take your blessings to a grave in the cold clay?"

I trembled.

"Will you allow me to guide you to a greater destiny than you can imagine? These are the days that will decide you. These are the trials that will temper you and show me your worth." Gravely, he released me and pressed the wooden bowl into my hands. "Now eat, little one, your bones are not yet finished growing."

I ate, though it was so much ash and dirt in my mouth. I ate, and it pleased him. I found that it pleased me to please him; his disapproval was a dagger in my chest, a weight on my soul. So began my studies, though I did not know it then. We had many years of training ahead of us.

As for my bones, they would finish their growth within the season. I was no more than fourteen years old.

A little fun at someone else's expense: Mixing reviews and creative writing [Possibly NSFW]

I've been following Heidi Swanson's vegetarian cooking/photography blog off and on for some time now. I like her photos, and I have really enjoyed trying some of her recipes. At the same time, I find her writing style grates on my nerves. A lot.

Thanks to Miss Heidi, I now cringe any time I see the words vibrant, spritz, jolt, drizzle, pop, and flecked. Especially flecked. Everything Heidi makes is flecked with something. It's like the Glitter Fairy threw up in her kitchen ten years ago and she's still having a hard time keeping the mess out of her food.

Heidi, some words are fun. I understand that! But sometimes words are uncommon for a reason. Unlike salt, you can't just liberally drizzle them all over everything you make, or they stick out like sore thumbs.

I'm fairly certain she'll never read this blog. I'm also pretty sure that I would never quite fit into the odd yuppie-granola category that seems to be her target audience. It's not really any of my business how she writes (and I know that her hordes of fawning foodie fans would eviscerate me if I dared to criticize her on her own territory) but it's bothered me for a while and something came up tonight that gave me a reason to write about it.

I was discussing a typical Swanson-esque blog segment with my friend Andrew. Here's an excerpt from her recipe for Buckwheat Cheese Straws:

Crispy, cheddar-flecked, and rustic, it's the buckwheat flour that lends these slender creations their convincing shade of brownish gray.

He came up with the brilliant idea to write pornography using the same words. I got on that right away, because I'm always up to a pervy challenge. Sorry, Heidi, this one's for you.

They made love in the rustic cottage until the sheets were crispy and his face was a convincing shade of brownish-gray. She knew he was sated then, and as they lay twined together in her fine, cheddar-flecked linens, she traced her fingers up and down his body. He was perfectly vibrant; her strong, yet slender creation. "I think we're all out of buckwheat flour," said Martha Stewart.

Here's another example of Ms. Swanson's flavor text. If you pornify it (yes, I know that's not a real word) in the comments I'll send you something nice!

It's just the sort of thing to slather on a sandwich, dollop over hot pasta, or you can do what I did, and work it through a bowl of plump, chewy wheat berries. The bite of the arugula is tamed by the creaminess of the pine nuts, and the saltiness of the grated Parmesan and chopped Kalamata olive offsets the wheat berries nicely.

One more sample before I sign off, a little gem that was just a few lines down on the same page:

These wheat berries have a beautiful, barely-noticeable red blush when cooked, and they plump into perfect oblong orbs that look like they might pop between your molars.

Literary Food Porn? YES!

I stumbled over this blog today and I can't stop reading it. Vivid epicurean excerpts from literature served in blog form? Hell yes. They're like potato chips--crunchy bits of awesome that are delicious on their own and always leave you wanting more.

I still remember reading about Laura Ingalls Wilder's little farm boy and the massive homey spreads they managed to serve up every day. Food was a huge part of their lives. They grew it, preserved it, prepared it; it was their sustenance, their livelihood and the stuff of their memories.

We are what we eat. Food nourishes and replenishes us. The preparation and consumption of meals are intricate rituals born of a simple nutritional imperative, and have evolved into an experience more varied than any one lifetime could contain.

I'll always remember those who have fed me and those I have fed; the processes of cooking and baking; learning from others and through intrepid solo experimentation. The smells and tastes and textures invoke powerful recollections of people and places that hold no small significance in my life.

Not everyone feels as strongly as I do on the subject of food. Not everyone is passionate about what they put in their bodies or feed to their families. For some, food is fuel, and that is all. That's fine. But if you share my love of food, if you collect recipes and books and kitchen tools that never collect dust, do yourself a favor and have a look at Lashings & Lashings of Ginger Beer.

(P.S. Happy New Year!)

RL: A tiny little rant about chocolate.

I bought this bar of chocolate the other day: Ghirardelli's Dark Chocolate with Raspberry. It's not great. (In fact, it's not even remotely as pleasurable to eat as the back label would have you believe.)

Don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed the Ghirardelli brand. Some of their candies have, at times, made me woozy with delight.

I love dark chocolate. I love raspberry. There should be a frenzied chorus of orgasmic angels blowing out my ears when I eat this. But there aren't.

This is a boring candy.

The chocolate is pretty unwieldy even by dark chocolate standards. (And again, I love dark chocolate.) The texture is hard and unmelting, the flavor dull, dirtlike, and uninspired. This is fine if you like dirt.

The filling is okay. It's not the concentrated raspberry goodness I thought it would be. I was hoping for "silky, tangy, sun-ripened summer fruit" and got... well, I think it would be fine on its own. It's mostly freeze-dried fruit mixed with sugar and fat, a little gritty if you're paying attention, but the flavor is nice. Unfortunately, the chocolate utterly overwhelms it, going well beyond "subtle" territory and deep into the realm of "somewhere in the tread of this dirty leather boot is the crushed remains of a raspberry".

I've eaten medicines that were more interesting. Vitamin C tablets, for instance. Or these chewy, chalky little mint-flavored things my mom used to give me when I had indigestion.

I give it a 3 out of 10: Fit for Emergency Chocolate (hormonal) and gifting to strangers you don't really care about.

RP: I Like Turtles Pt. 2

The shop was actually something in a back alley, and as she nearly pulled him right past it he tugged her in the right direction. The Farstriders obviously hadn't given him prime real estate in the square. He went back into the alley and started to climb a thin set of metal stairs. "There's a loading dock if I need to get something big in, but this is the people entrance!" The staircase was just big enough for a turtle to go up, as Mister Gramms followed.

"Well... no wonder I've never seen it before. It's um," Ysani searched for a polite word, "...secluded?" She followed him up the steps, stuck behind the rather slowly-moving turtle, taking advantage of the wait to eat the last of her food. She wasn't coordinated enough to use the sticks for this last bit and had to tip the box back and scrape the rest of the noodles and the bits of sprouts and nuts that still clung to them into her mouth. When she lowered her head, cheeks stuffed, Firael was looking at her. She turned pink and tried not to laugh and spray food everywhere.

"It's just inside here, but I warned you, it's not much." He stopped, realizing he was staring at a puffy cheeked Ysani. It was kind of cute. He turned on his heel suddenly, his cheeks colored, and swung the door open, hurrying inside. He called back outside. "Watch the first step, it's painted yellow for a reason!" The door wasn't flush with the floor, rather it was a couple of feet above it, and Mister Gramms took the single step carefully.

The inside of the shop was actually quite spacious, and was very much like a loft. All around the shop there were work benches, table saws, scattered with tools, large machines and plenty of spare parts for all sorts of gadget and machine abound. Everything was messy and completely unorganized. Scattered throughout the room, mixed with various wrenches and screwdrivers were noodle boxes. Lots of them. It was clear that a bachelor and his turtle lived here. Strangely the one part of the room that seemed to be well kept was a corner with two beds, one rectangular and one a very large basket with tattered pillows in it, and a couple of bowls, much like very large dog bowls. Beside the bed was a door which led to a very small room with a toilet and a hanging water pipe with a drain on the floor below it. No curtain was present in front of the crude shower.

The damage from the thugs was still evident. Against the wall in another corner, near the loading door, were some broken looking machines. Several of the machines that could be fixed, were, and otherwise had only damaging marks left on them. Several newer machines were present around the shop.

Ysani gawped at the cluttered space. "You eat a LOT of noodl--" A table littered with shiny mithril parts caught her attention and she swooped in on them with a hushed "ooooh", bent over the mess to try and identify all the different pieces.

"That's the super industrial powered toaster, guaranteed to last for years! The one I showed you in the magazine at the Legerdemain. It's using the same power source as my last project."

She put a finger on her chin and sucked in her lower lip, one curious green eye darting over the litter of metal bits, then picked up a small, cylindrical casing that was heavy for its size and had a trio of wires protruding from a small sealed hole in the end. "Is this it? It's kind of odd, for a toaster battery. What sort of project was it?"

"Oh uh, uh. It was some of those massage things, you know, you put it on your back and it massages you. Yeah." Firael's cheeks were only a bit pink. "But I've modified them to generate heat instead of vibration. I'm hoping to nicen the shop up, but for that I have to clean it up first and..." He watched Ysani and she turned the motor over in her hands. His cheeks went from pink to dark in seconds. Ysani didn't notice.

"It's kind of a neat idea, keeping it housed in a water-tight casing like this. Although that's probably going a bit overboard, considering that a toaster isn't likely to come in contact with liquids." She looked up at him and paused a moment, tilting her head at his rather obvious discomfort. "Er... at least, I've never come across a waterproof toaster... are you all right?"

The momentary distraction was enough for him. "W-well, you know how dropping a t-toaster in the bathtub is dangerous right because of the power source and water? This fixes that!" He nodded, very convincingly.

"But... why would you have a toaster in the bathtub?" Her pale face turned up to his, she searched for signs he might be pulling her leg. She detected nothing of the sort. "Um. And you don't even have a tub. But I suppose someone might really want to eat toast while they bathe?"

"Well... toasters just come with that warning not to drop them in the bathtub, they won't have to include that any more I guess?" He gave an awkward smile. She just stared at him for a solid (and uncomfortable) thirty seconds before taking a deep breath and leaning back over the table.

RP: I Like Turtles Pt. 1

Here's another joint effort. James plays the part of Firael in this little fic, in which Ysani decides that something is interesting enough to override her fear of leaving the safety of Dalaran.

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Ysani stared wide-eyed at the night elf noodle chef. An expanse of stretchy dough twisted and roiled between his outspread hands, and he eyed her lazily as he repeatedly pulled the long strands out and doubled them on themselves. The mushed end of dough trimmed, he dropped the finished noodles into the bubbling pot of water at hand, and while they cooked he filled a large metal bowl with a smooth, steaming sauce that smelled incredibly tangy and rich to her underfed nose. Dipping a dented colander into the pot, he caught the hot pasta and slopped it into the bowl, tossing it all together with a wicked-looking fork as big as Ysani's arm. A bit of chopped nuts, sprouted beans and a pungent green leaf went over all, and he divided the sum between two clever paper boxes. Finally he jabbed a pair of cheap wooden sticks in each one and pushed them across the counter. "Four gold."

She dug in her pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. "I didn't even know this place was here. That's a pretty neat trick. And it smells really good." Ysani smiled up at Firael, then peered down into her container. "What are the sticks for?"

"You eat with them, like this." He held his chopsticks perfectly and picked up some noodles with them. "See? Now you try!"

Glancing doubtfully between his hand and her own, she imitated the curl of his fingers and almost got it well enough to pull a few noodles up to her mouth. They flopped back into the box and she blew hair out of her eyes, adjusted her grip and tried again. Three noodles made it and she slurped them up. "MMMPH!" She chewed blissfully and swallowed, speaking again without food in her mouth this time. "It's so good! I've been missing out all this time!"

Firael clicked his two chopsticks together. "They're fantastic!" He managed to say through a mouthful of noodles. "So did you want to see the shop now? It's not much, but if you really wanted to..."

"Um. I suppose I could. I mean... it's safe right? Is it in Silvermoon? Hopefully near a guard post or something...?" She crammed another mouthful of noodles in her face and chewed, closing her eyes with an expression near ecstasy. "How is it even possible for something to taste so good? They're almost as good as muffins."

"Of course it's safe, it's in Farstrider square, the safest place in all of Azeroth. The Farstriders watch out for the elves and keep us safe, it's why I'm an initiate with them!" He shoved a bunch of noodles in his mouth, they hung down comically from his lips as he looked at her for a response.

Ysani stopped smiling. "Oh." She sucked up a stray noodle from her chopsticks and stared down into her dinner. "I don't know if..." A scowl wrinkled her brow for a moment, then she straightened up and lifted her pointed chin. "Certainly it's safe. We should go." She paused. "You... have a noodle on your face. Right here--no, here.... little to the-- there, you got it."

"To the Silvermoon portal?" He would have grabbed her by the hand and dragged her to it, but he had his hands full of noodles, and was rubbing one off his face at that. He sucked it off the end of his finger and started off towards the portal, Mister Gramms walking beside of him.

"Yeah." She followed, noodles tucked carefully in the crook of her arm. On the other side of the portal, she made sure her food had survived the trip. Yep, still delicious. She forgot for a moment that maybe she ought to be afraid and simply sucked up bundles of saucy pasta, much to the annoyance of the magisters talking about important stuff nearby.

"And you've never read Engineering Digest? I've got so many back issues at my place it will make your head spin!" He slurped up some more noodles, Firael at least was quickly reaching the bottom of his box of noodles. "I've got some other mags, but they're not as good, they're just in it for the profit you know, they always feature these pictures of scantily clad gals in front of the machine you're trying to look at. Who reads those?"

Ysani blushed. "I guess goblins do, I've seen those in all their shops. ... Actually, that reminds me of this one time--nevermind, you don't want to hear that story." She precluded any attempt he might make at asking any questions about said incident by stuffing her mouth with more noodles.

"Stories can be good, but if you don't want to tell it that's fine." He pushed the last mouthful of his noodles into his mouth and pointed his chopsticks ahead, down a street of Farstrider square. The pointing came a good bit before his voice did, slurping and swallowing the noodles before speaking. "It's just down there!"

"It's really embarrassing, I'd rather not. I want to see your shop, anyway." Ysani stuck the chopsticks back in the box and gripped Firael's wrist, dragging him down the street. She suddenly wanted to get out of plain sight, and in a hurry. "Which one is it?"