Rudolf Sagramore
&
Ranbu no Izayoi
That evening, the smell of food cooking drew Rudolf to the safehouse's kitchen. One of Ciradyl's staff, moved over from the previous safehouse, walked hurriedly away from the kitchen, murmuring apologies towards whoever was inside.
Upon peeking in, Rudolf would behold a strange sight to his eyes: Izayoi manning the stove, an apron laid over her usual kimono as she simmered fish in a saucepan. She glanced up upon hearing footsteps, raising an eyebrow.
"Is there a problem? I requested that the previous occupant vacate the kitchen." A beat.
"Are you hungry? I'm making several portions."For his part, the young man took a moment to blink, as he reconciled the scene before him with a few expectations that had just died. Of all their number that might have been crowding the staff out the kitchens, he had to admit he'd not expected
her, even after beginning to learn of the woman behind the legend properly.
"Ah, no, none. I just..." his hands raised high in surrender, as the savory odor continued to pull a void in his stomach closer to the forefront of his attention.
"I guess I didn't expect to see you back here."Even if he'd denied his appetite, after the days of travel they'd taken in returning to Kugane he could tell the lie would have soon been revealed once that empty stomach became vocal. So instead, he stepped through the partition, and rolled up his sleeves.
"If you're making a lot, is there anything left you could use a hand on?"Izayoi resisted the urge to give the boy an exasperated look at his obvious surprise upon seeing her within the kitchen. What did the Edrenians think, that she feasted on the blood of the fallen?
"Surely this can't come as too much of a surprise." She groused as she checked the fish.
"Someone had to keep my family fed, and my husband, gods bless him, was useless in the kitchen." Izayoi moved on to the soup, waving Rudolf off.
"Go, sit. I'm nearly finished here as it is.""Be that as it may, this has been a long journey back for all of us." the young man offered quickly in reply, clearly electing not to force his way into whatever workflow she had left. At certain times, the greatest virtue to offer was in accepting generosity, rather than demanding parity in every moment.
"Etro knows, if any of us are due for a rest rather than taking on another task, you'd be high on the list. Things were definitely touch-and-go."He made an effort not to unintentionally take a patronizing tone on the subject-- honestly, even he might have begrudged it, were the positions reversed. Few things grinded at the gears more than being considered, even remotely, as "fragile" to those that lived by the sword.
He pulled a nearby stool free, and sat on his haunches with crossed arms.
"Being too injured to fight and too injured to perform menial tasks are two entirely separate afflictions." Izayoi retorted, giving the miso a brief taste before nodding in satisfaction. She quickly plated up two portions of rice, miso, and simmered mackerel onto individual trays before carrying them over towards the small kitchen table.
"Eat. I will leave the remainder for those who are currently absent." She took a pair of chopsticks and began to dig into her own meal rather noisily. Evidently, table manners were something that had never quite stuck with her.
"Thank you."In Rudolf's mind, there was a little more granularity than those two options, but he wasn't about to get bogged down in it. Instead, he offered a silent word of prayer in thanks, took up his chopsticks, and began to eat as well.
Perhaps ironically, the young man claiming to hail from a hard-nosed warrior village ate almost elegantly by comparison, systematic and precise as his utensils cut through and portioned simmered fish into bite-sized chunks.
"This is good," he said between mouthfuls, appreciative smile on his face.
"Really good. Where I'm from much starker flavors are customary, but this is a really nice balance. Gentle, almost."The slow-simmered mackerel's savory-sweet flesh, with the salty tang of the miso coating both fish and rice, was a far cry from the Sagramori and Shilagean shared fondness for pickled and spiced meats, drowning in invigorating brine, cayenne, and at times char. A warm hug as opposed to a slap on the back.
Another bit of light shed upon her, that burned away what he'd believed of a spectre before they met. A warrior of her skill and renown, surely, would have eaten food that was supposed to make you strong. Right?
He had to admit, his curiosity was piqued now, and everything he learned about the woman before him seemed to make her a little less
scary and a little more
real. Had he not been paying attention to them, he wondered if he would have acted so swiftly, there on the dunes.
"What kind of useless in the kitchen was he?" he asked, after swallowing the last of the fish.
Would he have still done the right thing, were he still terrified?
Chefs were often their own worst critics. Izayoi was no different. Even as Rudolf praised her cooking, she compared the flavor in her mind to previous examples of her food, to say nothing of the same dish she'd sampled from other venues.
The verdict was poor. Six months of no practice resulted in slight overcooking. The texture was just a tad dry, and she'd used too much water with the rice. Mushier than it should have been. Izayoi frowned as she ripped through her meal nonetheless.
Rudolf's inquiry brought her thoughts back to her immediate surroundings, and she raised her head.
"I asked Isshin to prepare rice but once, on a day where he had no house calls and I went to fish." She reminisced wistfully, lips quirking ever so slightly upward in spite of herself.
"I returned to witness him scraping burnt rice out of the pot somehow. Foolish man. Before we wed, he largely subsided off eating from the village inn's kitchen." She raised her soup bowl to her lips, taking a brief sip before explaining.
"My husband was the village doctor. Without him discovering me on Atsu's outskirts, my death on the mountain five years ago would have been one in truth.""I'll admit, its falsehood was a hell of a shock." he joked.
Similarly, he brought the bowl to his lips, but paused before the liquid could reach them as a detail stood out in his mind.
Atsu. A village at the foot of the mountains separating Edrenian Midgar and Ospreyan Aitsuragi. Close enough to have seen a village doctor discover the bloodied, beaten, and broken war hero before her final stand had claimed her, and return her to health.
One that Valheim would return to, six months before now, and burn to a crisp. Searching for her, last known to be in the area, and by happenstance just up the mountain, searching for medicinal herbs. Raze it and rend it to the earth... including one such inn, big enough for two bumbling foreigners to accidentally fall down a wine cellar, just a few weeks ago, when Valheim came to sweep the area once more.
He set the bowl down, and looked at the wistful samurai before him... No, at the
widow, fondly tending to the old flame in her breast. The small, all too rare smile on her face— maybe the last she had left to indulge. He knew this look, all too well.
She was there again, for a moment. Memories of simpler, fonder times, transporting her back to a moment that could coax a grin out from behind even
her stern scowl.
He wanted to ask, to confirm the sudden deduction, to apologize his tresspassing even, but seeing that...
"Still, for as confidently as word of your death was spread, he must have been a superb healer." he continued after the beat, fishing for any straggling clumbs of rice with his chopsticks idly.
He
couldn't. He wouldn't dare bring Valheim back into the picture, not when this talk afforded her some form of respite from its long shadow. He didn't have the heart to rip it away from another.
"He was." Izayoi confirmed, still practically somewhere else at the moment.
"Isshin received his education in Kugane. Atsu was his hometwon. He'd returned to the countryside upon tiring of city life and lacking the funds to establish his own practice within the capital."Five years passed in her eyes in a blink. Five years of peace, joy, love, all gone in one afternoon. Izayoi took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing herself back into the present. Focusing on what was in front of her would center herself. She resumed her meal, occasionally looking up out of the corner of her eye.
The boy was oddly
well-mannered in terms of handling chopsticks and eating, especially for an Edreni. Especially for an Edreni monster hunting vagrant. She hadn't seen table manners like this outside of samurai that weren't upjumped peasants like herself.
Finishing her soup, Izayoi studied Rudolf intently for a moment, suspicion in her gaze.
He nodded along with her as she spoke, content he'd made the right choice. For someone who wore tension around her like a second layer of her robes, he had no way of knowing what kind of good the trip down memory lane had done in truth— But at the very least, when it ended, it was on her terms, set aside with a calming breath instead of snarl or spittle.
For someone like him, even doing that much exceeded par.
"Well, I understand it isn't my place to say, but..."He studied the liquid in the bowl for a moment, trying to choose his words carefully in paying respects.
"Even if he couldn't find funding, I think it's a good thing he found y—"As he looked up, he found himself under the microscope in a way he had
forgotten to be ready for. Her piercing gaze had returned to her in the wake of her reminiscence, and she'd quite squarely turned it onto
him.What happened? Why's she staring? I got carried away, didn't I? What do I know, I'm the child of her enemies back then. I shouldn't have said that. Am I gonna die?He tracked her gaze closer, finding it locked to his right hand at certain moment— and glanced between her and the chopsticks about three distinct times to make sure he wasn't going crazy.
"Oh. Uh... Am I holding these weird? I tried to copy you and Ciradyl's grips mostly..."Izayoi continued to subject Rudolf to her unwavering stare for several moments before she deigned to speak.
"You are surprisingly well-mannered at the dinner table for a mere monster hunter." The samurai said simply before returning to her meal. Once she finished the last few bites of her mackerel, she continued.
"One would almost think you were raised with, or at least trained in noble manners as I was." She rose, starting to clear the kitchen table of both Rudolf's and her own plates and bowls.
"Am I to assume you hail from a family of recently-disgraced knights or retainers?"Crap.
He'd never needed to police this before now. So often, the roasted or grilled meats and vegetables from the village never really brought the old habits out of him, skewered and carved to be eaten by hand anyway. He'd not even thought of the way he ate to be something to draw anyone's notice. He'd already been burned, almost literally, once before by trying out his "playing dumb" card...
"I'd appreciate that, if I didn't feel like it's put me on trial." he began, before following up, probably a smidge too quickly, with
"No, my family hasn't fallen from high standing or anything like that."Much the opposite, as a matter of fact. Cutting off their disgraced excesses was sure to see them rise further. Not that the world knew of him. Last he'd heard from Earl Demet, the going story was that he'd fallen deathly ill, bedridden for five years straight by some plague brought home from the war.
"Sir Galahad mentioned this in brief when we first joined, but Sagramori're more than just monster hunters— that's simply the most common trade for our skills, especially with the onset of Blight."He too rose, reaching for but being a little slow on the draw for his own plate.
"We're chiefly swordsmen. Midgari initiates often winter with us to embed within the crucible— others from the village have even risen from sellswords to peerage upon battlefield merit before. It's probably those nobler types that rubbed off on me." he half-explained, half-lied-by-omission.
It wasn't lost on him how close this story was to the truth of things, through the focus of a different lens. Hopefully, that'd serve to make it more believable than the opposite.
"I'm a skittish guy, really. Polite eating keeps people out of my face."A beat.
"Usually.""Hn." Was all Izayoi said in return, giving him one last hard stare before moving to set the used dishes aside and start plating the remainder of the food into lacquer boxes for the others.
"Curious, how I've never seen or heard of your sword style during the war, then. Off with you, you've other things to be doing." She dismissed him brusquely, turning away.
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