Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Korr, Korr, Korr, What ARE We Going To Do With You?

I didn't want to chase this truth, because I didn't want half of it, but the hunt was the hunt, as Itek and Asund would say: you didn't catch prey you didn't stalk. It wasn't like the mouse was just going to wander into my mouth.

But suddenly caring about the mystery was a new feeling. Was this how the other kids had felt? It wasn't that I had thought they were silly (or worse) for daydreaming or thinking about it, I'd just never felt any need to do it. Or cared.

And I sort of still didn't care. It felt like there were two sides of me: part of me that wanted to say this doesn't matter, you're still Theia, you've never cared before, does it really matter? while the other part did want an answer. Mostly it was the part of me that hated feeling like bits, pieces, seams, patches, tatters, with a brain of headcheese and things that didn't make sense.

"What are you doing?" Korr asked.

I paused in mid-knead, up to my wrists in squishy, sticky bread dough. "What does it look like?"

"Is that a trick question?" he came into the large, immaculate kitchen, where the single cook that they employed on a part-time basis moved about preparing the next meal. He glanced in her direction, then back at me.

"Of course not. I am just uncertain if you're unfamiliar with how bread gets made. And don't come in here with that hair." Korr's hair was unbound, without so much as a ribbon, because that's what happened when he shifted--bound hairstyles weren't a thing, as far as I knew.

Korr stopped at the threshold, face clouding. "Theia, what are you doing?"

"Taking my frustrations out on the dough." I'd asked the cook if she minded if I made the bread, she'd gotten grumpy until I'd told her I knew what I was about, and I guess in five minutes I'd been able to demonstrate I knew how to stay out of the way in a busy kitchen. Even if this kitchen wasn't busy. It was a kitchen for a high house, but had just the one cook who came in a few times a day to make sure the residents didn't starve. The cook clearly knew what she was about in a large kitchen, and didn't suffer my presence cheerfully, and I knew right away not to ask what a high-house cook was doing in this particular house. She was here and her reasons were her own.

And I might have been Lady of the House, but if I wanted to enter her domain and make bread, I better do it right.

Korr took another step.

"Didn't I tell you stay there? You want hair in your food?" I said. My own hair was braided and tied down and under a scarf.

He paused like he hadn't considered this, but his expression just got sterner. "Theia."

How did I explain that I wanted to know that my memories of making bread hadn't been a dream? No, that appeared to have been very real, and the motions of kneading and shaping and scooping and twisting and folding were all familiar and easy. My hands knew what to do, my mind knew what it all felt like, how it should feel. My body was grateful for the familiar motions and the familiarity of being in the kitchen, which was hot from the ovens at the same time it was profoundly cold from Korr's influence.

I used a flat piece of polished metal to scoop up the large blob of dough, flip it over, twist it, and shoved it into a smooth blob with the palms of both hands. The cook looked over at Korr and glared at him, but turned back to her work with a classic hmph.

He watched while I finished kneading the dough, sliced it into several sections, then shaped those sections into loaves, and tossed towels on top of them to leave them to rise. I washed off my hands and toweled them dry. The cook came over and peaked at a few loaves, then grunted approval.