Tarybris Brun

Twenty-Seven

Female

Luciole

Despite somewhat gaunt features - violet-colored circles and a slightly ashy complexion - Tarybris’ demeanor betrays a self-assured and rather cheerful personality. Her posture and body language are of someone who is commanding and confident, yet poised and non-threatening; back erect, hips fluid, and a big ol’ grin slapped across her face. She is no Luciolean beauty - not a specimen of refined grace or allure, but there is something very calming and reassuring about the way she carries herself, and this in itself is charming. Tarybris’ clothing of choice reflects her attitude, as she prefers loose-fitting and relaxed, flowing clothing where allowed (the royal vessels of Baleine would never allow a head chef to be so informal). Her fascination with the cultures of the Archipelago’s isles as well as those of the Ichiren Dominion extends to her clothing choices, as when possible she enjoys donning brightly-colored garments of those places. This is either fun, or looks somewhat goofy and misplaced (Ruched silk, for instance, is easily stained by hot water. Oops.). Her appearance, however, is always kept to a strict-level of cleanliness, and she is well-put together, particularly when the situation calls for it. Anything less would be unacceptable.

Nimble and skilled as Tarybris is, her forearms sport scattered scars and her hands are calloused from years of working in hot kitchens, or outside harvesting plants. Her frame - tall and hardy - has allowed her to stand up to a bit of wear-and-tear, though, and ship life has been kind to her. Physically, her hair is the color of flax and set in her oat-colored skin are pale green eyes that hint towards a more humble background. Her voice is both calming, but it is a bit jerky, and there is a slight cadence in the lilt of her voice.

With a bevy of siblings, Tarybris has learned to take a joke, and can make them just as well. In general, she is quite affable and easy-going, and there is a reassuring air to her demeanor - like an aunt or cousin one has fond memories of. She is self-assured, but not boastful or cocky - though she is confident in her abilities, and prefers to meet aggression with comfort. A naturally inquisitive person, she is totally fixated upon not only the flavors of the known world, but chasing new experiences in general. This is sometimes successful and other times disastrous, as some of her concoctions have been less than palatable.

Along this line, though, Tarybris is an extremely adventurous person, and is unafraid to volunteer herself to complete difficult or questionable tasks if it is to an important end. When truly devoted to an idea or person, her loyalty is unquestionable. Her childlike fixation on mundane things - the taste of rind of citrus, for instance - can be sometimes annoying to those around her (she has the tendency to ramble on). As an adult, though, she doesn’t really care.

Her childlike fixation on things endears her to other people, though: Tarybris is genuinely an empathetic person, and when she’s not completely irritating, she is rather charming. Likewise, she will go out of her way to take care of people whenever possible, given that she likes them and they’re not too stuffy.

Recent years upon exquisite vessels have made her more conscientious of the world beyond her corner of the Archipelago, but have also built a slow-burning resentment towards the upper echelons of Archipelagan society - The Chaleuran specifically, who would more often than not be attended by servants when they were not even of royal blood themselves, or even particularly rich. Their society in general was incredibly backwards, and it made her seize up a bit to think they let the poor among them die while they dined upon delicacies without a care in the world. These sorts of thoughts stung though, because she was complicit to this sort of system. Here she was, hypocritically making food like it was some sort of art while people were still dying from famine in Leannán.

The middle-child of her family, Tarybris grew up being needled by her siblings, and had always vied for attention from her father, as had most of her siblings. A need for some sort of validation beyond the reassuring smile of her grandmother had turned her somewhat bitter, and it wasn’t until leaving for culinary school that she felt somewhat at ease about herself, finally independent from her family. Studying cooking, she finally found the sense of validation she had lacked as a child, and secretly felt herself a bit better-off than her siblings. As a result of these things, however, Tarybris is poor at taking criticism, and can be rather haughty when it comes to things she feels she is good at. Criticism has the capacity to really cripple her, more than anything, turning her to emotionally withdraw, and this is the ugliest side of her personality. Now established, she no longer hungers for praise from others, but criticism - particularly from stuffy nobles who have no idea what they’re talking about - can turn her to stone. And while she may deny it to herself, her consuming obsession with food as art (and restoration) has turned her a bit stuffy, too.

● Fan of Knives - Having quite a few years experience cooking aboard fast airships, Tarybris is extremely adept at both cooking and maneuvering around tight quarters to do so. As expected of someone with such experience (and formal training to boot), she can prepare nearly any dish or ingredient thrust upon her with relative ease.
● Robust - Tarybris has expert experience in vomiting, as she has dared to try even the most “authentic” cuisine from dodgy-looking alleyway food stalls. One might suppose she also has a lot of experience working in a high-pressure environment for a long time, and aboard ships in general.
● Trivia Expert - When most of one’s education about the world comes from reading about every ingredient known to man, they’re bound to pick up some weird facts here and there. A great amount of Tarybris’ knowledge about the world is through this lense.

As one might imagine, working in royal cruise vessels to prepare the most artery-clogging, heart-stopping (decadence is always in fashion) variety of foods - in tight quarters nonetheless - does nothing good for one's waistline. And given that Tarybris spends her free time compulsively tasting odd flavour combinations, her physical capacities are rather limited. Anything that requires a great deal of stamina or endurance is a challenge for her; and while she has considerable experience on ships, that experience did not consist of climbing masts, or any of that nonsense. Similarly, she is a civilian, and much more than a quick tussle with knives (and this in itself is dubious) extends beyond her physical capacities.

Tarybris was born to a Luciolean shopkeeper, and a Leannán farmgirl, the latter having escaped to Luciolean with her mother ten years prior to Tarybris’ birth. Her family was large - three sons and two daughters besides Tarybris - and her father was the proprietor of a baking supply shop that had been around for many generations. They were not too wealthy, but very comfortable in the cobbled streets of San Michel, living in an apartment behind and above the shop. Tarybris spent her childhood tidying the delicate aluminum pastry moulds, and transporting some of the goods from their manufacturer, a man who lived a few towns over. Many times they had too much inventory for their shop, which was nestled in a fashionable street of San Michel, and she slept with the towering crates of steel-cast bowls and spoons next to her bed.

Somewhat surprisingly, her fascination with food did not come from her father (though it was certainly amazing to look into the window fronts of neighboring Luciolean boulangeries). It was the neighboring Ichiren tea shop (such exotic concepts were quite popular) that had first awakened her palate. From birth, she had been fast friends with the shop owner’s son (of similar age, though he was much shyer), and one spring day they had been eating lunch together, when he’d shared a sweet given to him by his aunt, for one of the unfamiliar Ichiren holidays. Wrapped delicately in translucent paper that shuddered in the spring air, the small cake was dusted in a slightly nutty, sweet powder. There was a thin, crunchy shell that tasted of woodsmoke, blending with the cloying nuttiness, and the inside of the cake was filled with a sticky paste that clung to Tarybris’ mouth. It was, at one moment, too sweet - some sort of bright legume - but gave way to a bright sourness that sent a shudder up her spine. After a moment, her mouth was filled with the taste of flowers. It was intrigue and exoticism wrapped in a slip of paper.

When she’d learned as a teenager that cuisine was exceedingly popular in Baleine, and that there were sky-vessels that served all matter of foods from around the Floating World, and that this was something she could do as work, Tarybris was hooked. When not working, she spent her free time nibbling weird ingredients she bought with pocket-change from San Michel’s open-air market: funky-smelling curdled yolks from some island under the Ichiren, some sort of healthy lichen drink from Bridesend, a sliver of dried ham from Calor. She read about the grey-feathered pheasants that flocked to some island off of Baleine, which supposedly tasted like saffron. Upon completing some small amount of education mandated by her father, and becoming an adult in the eyes of the state, she applied for a scholarship in a well-regarded culinary institute in Baleine. After two years, she was accepted, and studied under the nose of Archipelagan chef instructors, graduating after two years. She then found work as a saucier upon a lesser-known cruise vessel, The Mourneau.

The fashionable pastries of The Archipelago and especially Baleine and Luciole were generally made using whipped egg whites, which created an airy base that was otherwise impossible to create in the high altitudes of the Floating World. As such, making fresh pastries or bread was impossible on an airship, lest it had a coop of birds aboard. Tarybris’s claim-to-fame, so to speak, was discovering that the juice from an incredibly protein-dense root would form a strong foam when whipped. And this could be used to make all sorts of pastries and breads and cakes with no need for fresh ingredients. After replicating a Luciolean pastry - topped with glazed fruit and caramel, as was the fashion - aboard The Lilliene, Chef Brun became the talk of the Baleinese socialite culinary circle for all of a few weeks (which made her very uncomfortable). After all, what self-respecting patron of the culinary arts could really bear to be on a cruise vessel for very long, without access to a boulangerie? It was truly, truly a revelation. After this incident, and perhaps one involving pickled yuzu, Tarybris became somewhat well-known among fashionable socialites as a chef of haute couture and her career similarly oriented towards serving the elite.

It became less of a struggle to find a good position on any vessel of her choosing after this incident, because she was not only able-bodied and skilled, but also because Chaleuran and Baleienese socialites lived off of feeling special, catered to. Indeed, Tarybris’ scant stint under the limelight catered to this, though it was nothing more than a flash of light in an unending reel of upper-class gossip. Though admittedly, no one could make food quite like she did - warm bread that was not hard or stale (as par the course for vessels), but tempered to be soft with the addition of citrus juice, airy and light from a base of root-foam. Luxurious and comforting, studded with crisp nuts and small dried fruits. While cooking aboard a vessel was light years more interesting than being stuck in Baleine or Calor, Tarybris found it terribly uninspiring. Chaleurean nobles only ever wanted to eat fatty beast-meat in pools of overly decadent butter, and too-sugary pastries served on tiny plates. No one was interested in her pickled fruits, or the breads she made from root-flour, or the small slivers of fish she’d dried with herbs, to make them salty and fragrant and wonderful. And the chefs she worked alongside weren’t too keen on the weird Ichiren vegetables she’s tried to grow alongside the fruit trees, either.

It was incredibly frustrating, not what she’d imagined. And by this point, she was far too experienced to work on a dingier vessel, one of those trade vessels permeated with a rousing mix of sex and excess - though she was leading towards trying to, anyways. Maybe she would go back to Luciole and work with one of her brothers or sisters at the baking supply shop. But that wasn’t a real alternative, and with any luck, Luciole would turn to Calor’s caste system and they’d all be screwed, anyhow. She would sooner try and move to Gekkō and start a tea shop, or make pies there which were actually bombs. The hint of an opportunity came when news of Madame Le Fèvre’s search for a crew arrived. It was intriguing, to say the least. Tarybris had actually met the Madame before, and her name said nothing about how spry she actually was - adventurous and interesting. Affable, even. The prospect of working on a vessel charted by her - a living legend - was too good to pass up.

Heading into her late twenties, Tarybris feels as if she’s done nothing of real interest or value, and this scares her. The years after graduating from school have afforded her the ability to gain practical job experience, but all feels very constrained and stodgy to her. While respectable, her latest position upon a royal Baleinese vessel has left her feeling mentally and physically unfulfilled - without the heady blend of excitement and intrigue that had made airship life appealing in the first place. And hardly any room for her unwavering creativity, curiosity. The North Wind seems like a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience for a civilian like Tarybris; to escape the rigidity of The Archipelago and explore the unknown is an exciting prospect. Perhaps she could grow interesting plants and herbs, fruits on the ship, prepare something other than exquisitely fatty beef or river-fish to Beauchene-wannabe nobility. There were so many places beyond Baleine and Luciole and Calor that seemed unbelievable, exotic, of legend. A patron of The Feuille had once given her an orange fruit from Migiwa he insisted upon having with his fish. The dull, unassuming kaki turned out to have a wonderfully woodlike, slightly spicy yet muted flavor. In one of her old books on Ichiren cuisine, there were a scant few illustrations of the ornamental wagashi made in Tennō - supposedly made from fruits and starch, carefully carved into flowers. An old mentor of hers had once spoken of gold-speckled moss that grew along the rim of The Cauldron, which supposedly tasted like lava smelled, with a dash of citrus. The sulphurous teas of Tijan were rumored to make one spread one’s arms out in benediction. Cumulus had written about horned, multicolored frogs around Kujira that tasted like the wind, and springtime. And so on.

● Roll of Knives - A canvas-bound roll of knives - one for paring, one serrated, and a large one, with general heft - for everything else.
● Codex of Tastes - Rather beat-up and seriously worn, this book chronicles different ingredients in the known world. The margins and negative space are heavily marked up with notes.
● DIY Spore and Herb Kit
● Sachet of Dried Ichiren Plums - A great comfort to suck on.