sirenspull_logs | opened up a book for culinary survival

Entry tags:

ahiru,
replica riku

opened up a book for culinary survival

Who: Joe and Ahiru!
When: RIGHT HERE. RIGHT NOW. No but seriously it was earlier this afternoon.
Where: The Apartment That Never Was.
Summary: Joe promised to teach Ahiru how to make spaghetti for her birthday! Confessions happen.
Warnings: Diabetes.

After leaving a note saying she'd be out for a few hours but back before sirens, she heads out of the mansion towards Joe's apartment. She'd decided hours before departing that today would be the day she told him. Though the idea makes her nervous, she's certain she trusts him enough to know he wouldn't overreact.

As she approaches his door, she takes a deep breath before knocking, making sure she looks presentable.

"Joe, it's me!"

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She takes the salt shaker in hand, sprinkling (probably a little too much of) the substance into the water. She watches with interest; though boiling water might seem mundane to most, she'd never had access to stoves like this back home.

"Now what? Do we just wait?"

"Uh huh. Until it's all bubbling, we don't have to do anything. Make sure you don't put the pasta in till it's like that."

He likes being a little bit instructional, even if it's cooking- being able to be just a little bit bossy without feeling mean, just feeling competant at something is a nice way to be.

"I guess if we weren't using sauce right from the jar, we could start make sauce now, but I don't really know what I'd do for that." Joe shrugs, wrinkling his nose a little.

"I don't know how to make sauce, either. It seems like it would be sort of hard! But I thought spaghetti was hard to make in the first place, too, so I could be wrong."

She leans against the counter, wondering how to lead into the information she wants to convey.

"I've seen Riku do it from scratch before."

But he's never bothered to try, because really, it seems like too much effort and too long a shopping list. And usually when Riku cooked over here, it was because he was cooking for a bunch of people.

"You use a tomato can, and...other stuff. Garlic. Onions. Peppers from the market. Meat? Whatever you want."

"That all sounds good! Maybe I'll ask someone to show me how to do it sometime. I don't eat meat, though."

She pauses. Now would be as good a time as any to bring it up, as an explanation for the aforementioned vegetarianism. And if she didn't say it now, would she have the nerve to mention it before she left? It'd seemed much easier for him to talk about being a replica. Though she tries not to make it noticeable, she sighs, looking intently towards the counter.

"Actually, about that... I've sort of been meaning to tell you something."

"Huh?"

She didn't eat meat...

Oh. Oh no. Was Ahiru becoming one of those pushy girls like the one that accosted him in the meat section of the supermarket, with pamphlets about how SERO pumped cows full of chemicals and made chickens grow too heavy to walk?

Joe glanced her way warily. He didn't want to think about stuff like that, when he ate burgers with Maya, or had hot wings at the club.

"I, um..."

Despite the fact that Fakir had helped her accept herself for who she was, there's always the lurking fear in the back of her mind that others wouldn't see it that way. No matter how much she trusts Joe, it makes her longer than she'd like to, wondering exactly to phrase the next words out of her mouth. The seconds drag on before, finally:

"...Joe, I'm a duck."

He waits. Oh gosh. What if it's something really awkward. What if it's even worse than going vegetarian? What if she's about to confess something, like... she like-likes him?

And then Ahiru tells him she's a duck.

He blinks at her a moment. Cracks a smile, which breaks into a full on grin, shaking his head.

"You're a what?"

Before he starts to smile, she's preparing herself for the worst, staring down as she waits for him to say something. By the time she hears him begin to laugh, she looks towards him, shocked by his reaction. Did he not believe her?

Regardless, her own mouth begins to twitch as she can feel the stress pass away. She can't deny she's relieved that he isn't admonishing her, though she knew deep inside of her he wouldn't. When she speaks up, it's with a small laugh of her own.

"A duck! I'm not kidding!"

"How are you a duck?" When she starts laughing too, the giggles just start getting infectious. "You don't look like a duck!"

He's trying to imagine Ahiru looking even remotely like Donald. Or talking like-

Okay no. No, that's impossible to imagine without 'quack'ing up.

"You don't sound like a duck either!"

Though she continues to laugh, she wonders vaguely if she should be more nervous about him thinking it was a joke. As soon as she considers the situation, though - making spaghetti with one of her best friends as she tries to convince him she's a bird - she presses a hand to her mouth, trying to keep as quiet as she can despite the laughter.

"Someone's going to hear!"

"So?" He chokes, grinning bright-eyed and ear to ear. A duck. Really? Just who did she think she was kidding "So what if anybody hears?"

"What's the big deal- even if you are a duck- only I don't see how you're any kind of duck!"

"It's because of this - this pendant I always wear." She grabs on to the chain, holding it up so it's clearer. "It's magic, so... That's how I can look like this and talk and stuff."

She doesn't have an answer for the reason it matters, though. Despite believing that it was her defining quality before, everything had changed since that dance on the bottom of the lake.

"I always thought that was just your soul gem" He squints, leaning in to look a little closer. Although he'd always known she had it, and come to think of it.... he'd never seen her once with it off.

"So you're not a talking duck normally?"

"No, that's here." She holds up her arm, pushing up her sleeve to show a chain with the Gem hanging off it.

"If I take it off, I turn back into a duck." She answers, finally looking up to make eye contact with the boy.

"That's the first time I've ever even heard of anything like that."

There was Fratley of course, who was a Rat-Knight, but could turn into a human if he wanted. And there was also Donald and Goofy and The King...who were animals, but could certainly walk and talk just as good as any human person.

But a magic necklace that turned ducks into girls?

"How did you even get like this? Get the necklace?"

"Yeah... Even with people here from a lot of different worlds, I haven't heard of anything like it either."

Even if she'd come to accept it as a natural part of herself, she could still acknowledge that it was a little, well, odd.

"A man back home gave it to me." The sentence comes out a little more tense than she'd meant it.

"Why did he want to turn you into a person?" Joe smiled uneasily in confusion, noticing that Ahiru seemed a little anxious about telling.

But then- it had to be a big important secret, if she'd kept it for over a year, right?

She pauses, running a hand absentmindedly through her hair as she thinks of how describe it without sounding too ominous. She didn't come here to worry him, after all.

"I guess he wanted to see what would happen."

"So... What, was he like some kind of...magic...scientist?"

If Vexen could turn girls into ducks just to show he could do it... he probably would have. Maybe he and Ahiru were even more alike than he originally thought.

Except, at least as far as Joe knew, he'd never started out as a duck. That would be pretty embarrassing- well. No wonder Ahiru kept it quiet!

"You like being a girl more than a duck, right?"

"No, he was a writer, but he had to ability to turn his stories into things that really happened."

There's more to it than that, of course, much more. At his second question, she smiles slightly. Ever since she had come back to the Port, she'd been treasuring every day she could spend like this. Even if she knew she would have to go back someday to save Mytho and change everyone back from the ravens they had become, it was nice to let it wait, at least for a short amount of time.

"Yeah, I like it a lot more this way."

"What a weird power." ...and a powerful power, too. It sounded a bit like Namine's, to draw things that felt like real memories.

But writing ducks into stories to turn them into girls? That was just bizarre.

"What's it like being a duck? Do you take off the necklace to go swimming?"

"Yeah, I guess it is pretty weird. People can use it for really good things, though." At least, Fakir had. That was easily enough to convince her of how worthwhile words could be if put to a good use.

"No, I tried not to take it off unless I absolutely had to. It's really frustrating, in a way. I mean, I can't talk, and not many people have seen me enough to realize who I am when I'm like that."

And because that really can't help but prompt the curious question

"Soooo .... what do you look like? As a duck? Will you show me?"

She pauses, and then laughs, a little bit surprised. Well, Blaine had asked the same thing, hadn't he? Maybe it wasn't that strange. She'd probably be curious in his position, after all.

"Is there anybody here who might come down and see?"

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