prophecized | summer comes yelling, loud as hope

Entry tags:

shion,
sophie

summer comes yelling, loud as hope

Elora has experienced Pride exactly once before. Last year, she'd been totally caught off guard by it, thrown for a loop by the whirlwind of color and joy, flags she didn't recognize, clothes she had definitely never seen, at least not in public. Like so much else in Darrow, she hadn't understood it at all. She still isn't sure she understands it, really, at least not beyond the broadest strokes as they were explained to her at the time.

Those broad strokes are just all she needs to throw herself into it wholeheartedly. The how and the why of it don't matter a fraction as much as the result. As she's seen printed on an assortment of merchandise, love is love, and Elora loves love. That she's had only one real brush with it herself, an ill-advised fling-slash-engagement with a prince who was never really right for her in the first place, is beside the point. She loves seeing it, spent last year, once she'd begun to get the sense of it, delightedly taking in the sight of people celebrating who they are and who they love. It's a beautiful, joyous thing, the best possible reason for such an occasion. So, while she may not understand all of the finer points of it, she has every intention of taking part and helping others celebrate, too.

Over the last year and a half and change, she's worked at enough other events that it isn't difficult to reserve herself a booth for the day of the Pride parade. All she really has to take care of is the goods to sell.

Which is what brings her to the kitchen at Shion's place. Since the mansion's arrival, she's come to spend a lot of time here — for him, yes, but also for the kitchen, so much more spacious than the one in her apartment, where she's constantly running out of counter space or knocking things over. It's sufficient for a batch or two, but she needs far more than that for what she has in mind. All sorts of ingredients for cakes and cupcakes and cookies are in front of her now, a couple recently-acquired recipe books propped up as well. Lately, she's been experimenting with concepts she never heard of before Darrow. There seems to be a big market for baked goods that are vegan, gluten free, sugar free, or some combination of those, and she's practiced enough to feel confident while also still wanting to have the recipes as guidelines. If Pride is about people being able to love who they love, there should be no dietary restrictions on that, either.

And, on one stretch of counter, she has icing ingredients and mixtures in progress, an assortment of organic food coloring, and her phone screen pulled up to a page listing different flags associated with different sexual orientations. In the end, there will be cakes decorated to correspond to them. For now, she flits about the kitchen, relieved that fashion here makes it perfectly reasonable for her to wear a tank top and light knee-length skirt, her hair pulled into a messy bun to keep it out of her face and off her neck as the room heats up from oven use. Of course, as a thank you, she's already planning to set one batch of cupcakes aside for Shion and Sophie, both of whom she knows are around here somewhere. Whether they come in to keep her company or not (or just steal cake samples), she's in her element, and it shows.

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It's later in the day when Shion strolls in, and it's clear Elora's been at it for some time. At this point, he's pretty sure she knows this kitchen better than he does. When they first moved in, they had no real use for it, aside from the massive icebox. That's been replaced with a modern fridge, though until recently it didn't contain much other than blood, and that only when he was pretty sure no one was coming by. Nowadays there's no need to hide it. Elora and Sophie both are perfectly aware of his dietary needs, after all.

For that matter, after an afternoon of playing with Sophie, he could do with a snack. Since there don't seem to be any pastries ready for him to snatch up, he heads for the refrigerator, grinning at her as he goes. "You look a mess," he teases. She looks good, clearly enjoying her work, but no less messy for it. It's endearing. He grabs a blood bag before finding a clear spot on the counter to hoist himself onto, swinging his legs like a cheerful child. "If you get any more flour on you, I might mistake you for a cake."

"I know I taste good, but I don't taste that good," Elora quips without missing a beat, the smile she shoots Shion bright and teasing. "And before you ask, yes, there's already one set aside for you and Sophie." She wouldn't very well take up all this time and space in his kitchen and not share the fruits of her labors. It's the least she can do, really. They have, she thinks, found a good rhythm here, with her coming over to bake or cook or both, spending time with both Shion and Sophie, sometimes staying the night. That doesn't mean she wants to take any of it for granted. This kitchen really is so much better than the one in her apartment.

She spares a glance at his little bag of blood, brow raising not at all because of the contents, entirely because of the amount of baking she's doing here today. "If you get blood on any of these, you're buying me the ingredients to replace them."

"Oh, I beg to differ," Shion teases back, though Elora's very much still talking. He's lucked out, he thinks — not finding her, actually, being found by her. She's clever and talented and more than holds her own against him in every way, not to mention beautiful and a ridiculously good cook. All that and she takes his little snack in stride, without expecting anything more — which, really, is wonderfully reasonable of her, because what they have is fantastic. It's just, plenty of other people would turn this into a what are we kind of thing, but the two of them know what they are. Like all the best relationships in his life, it's something without a proper name.

Unlike most, though, it's all the benefits with none of the drama. If he weren't as certain of that as he is, he wouldn't have brought her around with Sophie in the house, but Sophie adores her. It's as close to domesticated as Shion gets, living like this.

At her ultimatum, he nods, grinning impishly. "Yes, ma'am," he says, taking a little sip as he eyes the array of goodies. He wouldn't want to waste any blood or her work, so he's careful to keep the bag close. "These looks amazing."

"You think so?" Elora asks, giving him a bright smile, almost like she's surprised or uncertain — not seeking out compliments, not exactly, but there's a very faint undercurrent of self-doubt under most things she does, which it's hard to let go of. When it comes to baking or cooking, she knows she's fucking fantastic. Back home, though, it tended to be a more utilitarian thing. If there were visitors, there might be some sort of elaborately decorated pie, and meals would be laid out to look as good as they'd taste, but there was never really decorating to this extent. It's been a process of trial and error, figuring out which ingredients have the best results and in what quantities. She's pleased with the outcome so far, but it's nice to have that outside approval, especially from someone whose opinion she values so much.

It's maybe a little strange, how easy things are with Shion. Refreshingly uncomplicated, really, after she got in so over her head with Airk back home. As a friend, she adores him, and as a bedmate, she couldn't really ask for better. The two make for a great combination, but also remain what they are, without anything muddying those waters. It's a good feeling.

"I figure if there's any occasion to go all out for..."

"It's a celebration of love?" Shion teases. He's a hopeless romantic — hopeless for himself, romantic for everyone else — and Pride mingles that with a sense of... well, pride in one's identity. There's only so much of his own he can claim openly with most people, but he's not shy about his sexuality. He hasn't seen reason to be in quite a long time. That doesn't make him any less appreciative of a chance to celebrate. If anything, it makes him all the more delighted to see how things have changed. At Vamfield, no one seemed to have any idea that this was something to talk to them about; they wanted to keep them children forever, it seemed. This meant, though, that he wasn't as prepared as he might have been to find that the outside world had very strict notions about what desires were appropriate and which were immoral.

Granted, he never really cared about it from that perspective, but given how much they wanted to keep themselves safe and hidden, it was a complication. He's glad to be well rid of it now.

"They look incredible," he says firmly, grinning, "and I know perfectly well they taste just as good or better. They're gonna be a hit."

"Exactly," Elora says emphatically, pleased if unsurprised that Shion gets it. She always has loved love — probably the product, at least in part, of such a humble upbringing and all the time in her head to daydream as she cooked and baked and cleaned. If it was going to be out of reach for her, then it might as well go up on a pedestal. None of her own experiences have ever lived up to that ideal, but that hasn't changed for a second her romantic heart. That enthusiasm is just now for other people rather than herself. For her own sake, she's perfectly content to have, as the typical parlance here seems to be, a friend with benefits in Shion, someone she likes sleeping with and hanging out with in equal measure but without any emotional complications.

"I kind of feel like I'm going overboard," she tells him, moving to check the temperature of some of the cooling cakes to see if they're ready to be frosted yet. "But I want to make sure there's something for everyone, you know? Whether in colors or ingredients."

"It'll be fine," he assures her, watching fondly as she bustles about the room. "People go crazy blowing their money on events like this. Everyone wants something that represents them, and if they can eat it and not have to carry it home, even better. You're gonna be a hit." Even if Elora's work was just middling, he's pretty sure that would be the case. But with how pretty her pastries are and how incredible they taste, he has a solid feeling that word will spread quickly through the festival about her wares. Granted, Shion wasn't yet in Darrow to attend last year's event, but he's been to enough of these to have a good handle on what goes on. All it's gonna take is a handful of people snapping pics for Suddengram and she's gonna have more customers than she can count.

Admittedly, the way he puts it, he knows, sounds depressingly commercial, but he's not wrong. And he doesn't see why that has to be totally at odds with the spirit of the thing anyway. "Maybe it's silly," he says, "but seeing a bit of yourself displayed with cake when you spent a lot of your life thinking it shouldn't be displayed at all... even for people who don't think like that anymore, it's validating. And people pay to feel validated and seen. So you have nothing to worry about."

Practical as Shion's assessment might be, Elora finds that she appreciates that. He knows more about this era than she does, after all, with Tir Asleen evidently being most comparable to hundreds of years in the past. It makes for valuable insight, and these are considerations she wants to be able to keep in mind if she's going to make a go of baking as more than just a hobby. These things matter. No amount of effort or recipe-tweaking or studying different flag color combinations will make any difference if no one wants to buy anything. In a weird way, though, it sort of feels like the more she has, the better off she'll be. It would be pretty shitty to show up to an event like Pride and only decide to represent certain groups of people there.

"I don't think it's silly," she says, entirely earnest, then cracks a smile, gesturing to the various baking supplies on the counters. "I mean, clearly." If she didn't think it were worth the effort, if it seemed trivial or unimportant, she wouldn't be doing all of this. Instead, it's part of what she thinks is so beautiful about Pride. The seemingly simplest, smallest things can go the longest way toward helping someone feel recognized. "And that's exactly what I want. For everyone to get to feel seen and acknowledged in some way."

Shion smiles at her, shaking his head, utterly fond. She's a good one through and through. Treating someone differently because of who they like or are seems a bit stupid to him — well, who they are in the sense of their gender, not in the sense of whether or not they're an asshole. Those are separate categories. At Vamfield, it was never an issue. He'd occasionally hear the maids gossiping about relationships and infatuations, and there were a couple comments about what boys should or shouldn't do or pretend to be, but those were cut off early by Ms. Marge, one of the few things he thinks she did right. He's pretty sure, in retrospect, that she was more concerned about how they might grow up thinking about women, though, and not about themselves. She should have cared about both.

Once they left Vamfield's walls, though, the outside world was a different story. He gets it in the most theoretical sense, the constant need to assert oneself as the norm, to be suspicious of any variation that calls their expectations and assumptions into questions. But the whole world is made that way, full of surprises and exceptions. Living decades, centuries, requires adaptation. He's not sure why an ordinary lifespan should be so different.

"When I was growing up," he muses, "it wasn't something anyone talked about. And then when I saw more of the world, if they talked about it, it wasn't very nicely. It's... it's good, to see the world changing. What was it like in yours? Were people dicks about it there?"

"Not like it sounds like people were in other places," Elora says, one shoulder lifting in a lopsided shrug. "I mean, some people were. But everything's got someone who'll be a dick about it, right? And of course there were bullshit expectations for people with status. Princesses have to marry princes, and all that." That never applied to her, but she could still see the way both twins railed against the boundaries imposed on them in their separate ways. Queen Sorsha was a good ruler — a good mother, too, from all that Elora could tell — but that didn't stop there from being certain rules and requirements.

She wonders what would have happened with Kit and Jade when they got back to Tir Asleen. The wedding surely would have been off, what with Graydon being gone, though there's no telling what fallout his absence may have brought. Stubborn as Kit is, Elora doubts anything would really have stopped her from being with Jade, anyway.

"Mostly I think people were quieter about it. Less hate, but less openness, too. Definitely no parades or flags or anything like that."

"They go hand-in-hand," Shion points out. "Plenty of people who claim they don't mind those types as long as they don't make a big fuss about it, like wanting to be recognized as people with rights." He shudders dramatically. In the end, he knows, it doesn't really affect him. It's not even about whether or not he's capable of romantic love; he still mostly doubts it. It's just that, being what he is, there's not a hell of a lot anyone could do to him in any period in time. They're pretty well past the part where rights are a problem, and if Darrow has any of the sort of homophobic freaks who'd like to commit acts of violence against random queer people, well, he welcomes them to provide him with the entertainment of it. Even so, it's gross that they exist at all.

He grins, shrugging. "Well, nothing they can do about it but stew in it," he says cheerfully. "But there'll be plenty of people at the festival who grew up around those types, and that's your market."

Elora is so pretty, Sophie thinks. She's got beautiful red hair, like Sophie's, and she's so nice, and she's even a better cook than Jaan. Sophie loves it when she comes to bake here, because it fills the castle with comforting scents.

She comes into the kitchen now holding a broom and dustpan, an apron of her own over her little dress.

"This is your hourly cleanup warning!" Sophie announces. "You might slip on flour that's gotten on the floor so I'm here to sweep it up and keep you safe!"

Elora draws in a breath, only slightly exaggerated, and grins as she turns to look at Sophie with her cleaning supplies. She really is just the cutest child. Granted, Elora hasn't spent much time with children since she was one, but Sophie is absolutely precious, giving her one more reason to enjoy the time she spends here. It feels right in a way she's not sure anything else ever really has for her.

"Why, thank you, Miss Sophie," she says, and ducks into as proper a curtsy as she would have for Queen Sorsha herself. "You are such a thoughtful kitchen assistant."

Sophie gives her a curtsy back, and giggles before straightening her face. "Kitchen safety is very important, you know! If you slip and fall because of the flour, you can't make any more baked stuff!" She carefully grips the dustpan against the broomstick and begins to work, tongue poked out as she carefully swipes the bristles across the floor and gathers the flour into a tidy pile. Occasionally, she uses the toe of her shoe to check how slippery the floor is and sweeps over some spots a second time.

"You're so right," Elora agrees, pausing what she's doing for a moment to watch Sophie clean. Somewhere in the back of her head, part of her feels a little guilty for it — she would never have asked Sophie to come in and clean — but she'd caught on quickly to the fact that Sophie seems to enjoy doing these things, and it's deeply endearing. "We definitely don't want any kitchen accidents. Now, when this has passed inspection—"

With a smile, she gestures toward a tray she's set aside from the rest of the baked goods. "I have a few things you can try, if you want."

Sophie gasps with excitement, but she forces herself to focus on the first task. She's nearly done, at least, and once she's satisfied, she moves the broom and dustpan back over to its spot.

"Okay!" she declares loudly. She brushes her palms together and walks back over. "I'm ready to be your taste-tester! That's a very important job, too," she adds like it's a secret Elora didn't know.

"Oh, that might be the most important job of all," Elora says very, very seriously. "I've been experimenting with different ingredients for some of these, so I need someone I trust to tell me if they came out okay." She has no doubt that they did. None of these are her first attempt with the ingredients, and the kitchen is maybe the one place in which she trusts herself completely. Still, she could definitely use the outside input, and it feels good to involve Sophie in her process, seeing all her wide-eyed enthusiasm.

"In that case..." She moves a couple of things around and takes up the tray of mini cupcakes, an assortment of flavors contained therein. "I think it's cupcake time."

"Cupcakes!" Sophie says with an excited gasp. Elora's cupcakes have always been delicious and sweet, but not so sweet it makes her mouth burn, so she's excited to have more. Then she straightens her face and tries to compose herself. This is serious.

"I'll do my best to tell you how they came out," she promises.

"Amazing, thank you," Elora says, beaming as Sophie seemingly tries to make herself look more serious. She is entirely too cute for words. The kitchen and its spaciousness was reason enough before for her to want to spend time here, her apartment too cramped for her to be able to bake in large quantities like this, but having Sophie around makes it even better.

"Now, a couple of them have sort of different ingredients, but I don't want to say which — I want to see if it's too noticeable or not. Think you can do that?"

"Oh!" Sophie says, looking surprised. "You mean tell them apart from each other?" She nods, looking excited. "Like a game! Yes, I want to try! I'll do a good job, I think. I'm good at tasting things, and smelling them, too!" Or, she's getting better at that part, anyway. She's trying. Her nose is strong, but it's hard for her to totally understand the things she's smelling. Mouse, rabbit, pig, chicken, it all smells like 'food' when she's a wolf. Shion smells like Shion, but other people in the city sometimes smell like him, too. She doesn't know if she would know the difference with her eyes closed.

But maybe tasting them will be easier. The cupcakes, not the people that smell like Shion.

"Like a game, yeah! See, I knew you'd be the right girl for the job," Elora says, grinning, as if there are any other little girls around here whom she would have asked instead. She will probably get Shion's input on a few of them, too, but Sophie's opinion matters to her, and setting it up as a blind taste test seems like the best option. The last thing she wants is for something with one or more substitute ingredients to be noticeably different — and probably worse — than the rest.

"Now, if you can't tell any difference, that's not a bad thing. And if you can, that's not, either. I just want to see how they are compared to each other."

"Okay!"

Sophie pretends to push up sleeves she over her elbows, then pretends to crack her knuckles, then shakes her shoulders — then she giggles a little, knowing she's being a little silly. Then she holds out her hand, palm up.

"I'm ready!"

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summer comes yelling, loud as hope

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