#but i am loving asra in this chilis tonight

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

we had a chef MC headcanon, now how about M6 when MC made them a meal but it tasted just downright horrible and MC is just kinda oblivious to it, asking M6 with the brightest, most innocent smile "Do you like it?"

i hope you have fun writing this if you do choose this humble request

- 🌼

The Arcana HCs: When MC is a terrible chef

~ this reminds me of the time when teenaged me combined old rice, hot dog chunks, cold broccoli, and buffalo sauce (in one bowl!) for a late-night snack. thank you for the giggles this gave me, yellow flower friend, let's hope I pay them forward! - brainrot ~

-- to set the scene --

Somehow it's been one of those weeks when everything in your food supply begins to reach its end or expiration date at the same time. You know your regular grocery shopping is tomorrow, and you have an extensive list prepared, but dinner is up to you tonight and you don't have anything comprehensive planned. It looks like it's time for your famous "everything but the kitchen sink" stew. You've only made this in the past when it was just you in the shop and you were still figuring out how to cook, but you remember it being fairly edible.

(Continued below the cut)

You get some beans boiling (there hasn't been time to soak them), add a cup or two of vinegar to soften them faster, dice the not-molded parts of a tomato and onion you found at the bottom of a sack, and rinse the slime off of some wilted greens before throwing them in. You're craving something spicy, so you dump in the rest of your chili sauce, but when the steam makes you tear up you scrape out the rest of the mayonnaise to even it out. It was starting to smell funky anyways. Your hand slips when you add the salt, so you pour in some honey to counteract it, and in a final burst of inspiration, you plop in two bananas that have gotten too mushy to eat. The signature suspicious scum of your original dish is just floating to the top of your soup when your beloved returns, hungry from a day of work.

Julian

Too happy to see you to notice the poison on the stove at first

The words die in his throat when he does. Tell him it's a potion. Tell him it's a curse. Tell him it's a prank. Don't tell him, don't tell him it's ... it's dinner, isn't it?

He watches you happily ladle a generous scoop of your curdled concoction into his bowl and gulps. He loves you. He's got this. He will eat your food, he will tell you it's delicious, or he will die trying

He's starting to get caught up in the poetry of it as he sits down across from you. Like a lamb to the slaughter, accepting the sweet taste of death from his beloved's cruel hand - stew isn't supposed to be sweet, oh god why is it sweet

But for his darling's delight, he will overcome -

"Julian, is everything alright? You look like you're about to go on stage."

"Oh, is ah - is that what I look like, my dear?" He's pale and sweating at this point, poorly disguising the tremble in his hand as he brings his second glass of water to his lips

"It's my stew, isn't it?" you dolefully lift a gelatinous spoonful and watch it fall back into your bowl with a sickening squelch. "I remember it tasting weird, but not this weird ..."

"No, no!" His voice cracks against his will as he sees your sadness as proof of his failure. "It's delightful, delicious - worthy of the gods, even." You hear him mumble a prayer for forgiveness under his breath and drop your spoon

"I know when you're acting, Julian."

"Ah, so I - so I am. You know -" he stands abruptly, his chair falling behind him in his haste. "I just remembered that Pasha invited us for dinner tonight. Shall we?"

He's never been so happy to see you walk out his front door

Asra

They can smell it as soon as they walk into the shop and are immediately concerned. That is the smell of death. Why is the smell of death in your shop oh no - "MC? MC, where are you?"

"I'm upstairs!" Thank the patrons, you're okay

Then again, maybe you're not, considering how perfectly comfortable you seem standing over whatever monstrosity is releasing toxic vapors into the atmosphere. Is that ... soup?

Color him intrigued. He's doing his best to hide a laugh and find a way to ask what enabled you to create something so terrifying out of simple kitchen ingredients without insulting you

"So, is this recipe an MC original?"

"Yep!" You smile at him cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to the stomach-churning way that the chunks plop from the soup spoon into their bowl. "I always make this when we're running low."

"You've made this before?" They're starting to get concerned again

"Just a few times, when you were on a trip. Do you like it?"

He takes a bite, so intrigued by the way it seems to wriggle down his throat that he tries a second. "I've never had anything like it."

"What do you think of the mayonnaise? It smelled a little funky ..."

We have mayonnaise? They wonder, but on the outside they're still smiling. "It certainly adds to the experience. Is this ... banana?"

"Yeah, it seemed too mushy to eat on its own, so ..."

Asra sets down his miraculously empty bowl with a loving smile. "MC, you shouldn't have to do the cooking so often. Let me help out more often."

Nadia

She doesn't know how it's come to this. Nobody knows how it's come to this, when the Palace kitchen is kept fully stocked and there are chefs available at all hours

But you had said that you missed your home cooking, and she had given you full access to the backup kitchen to do as you pleased, and - ah, the only things kept in there are leftovers

That would explain the stench

Speaking of, her respect for your resilience has reached new heights. How you've been able to survive on your own is a mystery to her. Please tell her this isn't how you ate for three years -

But you seem as deathly serious as the radioactive sludge that's churning in her fine china like a lava lamp, and she realizes that this is going to be a labor of love. She must eat her fill and do so with elegance

You watch her bring the daintiest (read: tiniest) spoon of slime to her lips, pausing to test the aroma before setting her jaw and putting it in her mouth

Oh, look at that, she's already eaten her fill

"MC, my darling, what do you say to an evening walk? It seems I haven't the appetite to dine at this moment, how about a stroll around the palace gardens? The night is still young."

She's relieved at how easily you agree, deeply concerned by the fact that you've already finished half of your bowl, and eager to get you out of the palace so that the maids can make dinner disappear

She's going to lose sleep for the next three months about whether or not she should be honest about what happened to your soup

There's now a bald patch in the grass behind the kitchen that hasn't been able to grow anything in three years. There's a rumor that stepping on it will release a stench so foul that you won't be able to eat for twenty-four hours afterwards

Muriel

He's not too worried. He used to eat spoiled food out of the trash heaps all the time as a kid, he's sure he remembers how

But he's a little surprised that said rotting food is being actively cooked. By you. Seemingly in a choice made of your own free will

He wasn't expecting ... this, but a quick glance around the hut makes it clear to him that nothing terrible has happened, that you seem perfectly sane, and that you don't think anything's wrong

Well, you seem to trust your cooking, and he certainly trusts you, so ...

He side eyes Inanna's dramatic performance of whimpering and pawing at her nose, eventually turning to let her back out of the hut as you serve your bowls with a smile

He takes a glance at his serving as you dig in. Asra still talks about the time he ate a whole chili pepper without flinching - he can do this. He picks up his spoon, scoops up a jiggling chunk, and eats

You're a little surprised at how quickly his bowl disappears. You're not really enjoying your food yourself, but you're not going to judge his strange enthusiasm

"Muriel? If you're still hungry, there's more on the fire ..."

"I'm fine." He's getting out of his habit of depriving food of himself, but in this case, refusing to eat is a personal kindness

He drinks several glasses of water while you finish your dinner, asking you about your day and trying not to grimace at every silent burp that pulls the aftertaste back into his mouth

Inanna buries the rest after the two of you go to bed. Nobody knows how she managed it without opposable thumbs, but everything is possible for a wolf desperate to preserve her nose

Portia

Her brother might be an award-winning actor, but her flair for the dramatic only goes as far as silly little bits designed to make people laugh and pretending that she isn't about to punch somebody

She is a woman who knows her mind, her heart, her strength, and her limits. This is a limit, and she is doing her best to pass it

You can tell right away that she doesn't want to eat what you've made. You've never seen her smile look so uncomfortably tight, and you certainly didn't miss the way her stomach heaved when she leaned over the pot to take a closer look at your creation

But she's insistent on going through with your evening, even steering you towards the kitchen table and serving the bowls herself. She tries so very hard to mask the look of revulsion on her face when different chunks of stew jiggle at different frequencies

She places your bowls on the table and lifts her spoon, waiting for you to take the first bite in the hopes that your eyes will be opened and you'll insist on eating something else

No such luck. You're two spoonfuls in, so in the spirit of keeping an open mind, she loads up her utensil and shoves it in her mouth

You weren't expecting to be sprayed by the choke that seizes her, but sitting across from her puts you in the splatter zone and you're quick to give her your napkin and ask if she's okay

She nods weakly, looking slightly green. "MC," she says, "you are definitely stronger than I imagined." She takes another look at the gelatinous blobs on her table. "Stronger than you need to be."

She dusts off her hands and practically drags you out of the cottage. "Let's eat out tonight! My treat. And I just had the best idea for our next date night - we should take cooking lessons together!"

Lucio

He notices Mercedes and Melchior acting up on the way back to your campsite, but doesn't have any idea why until he gets a whiff and - oh, that is nasty

Some kind of skunk jacked up on magic must have done that, never fear, MC! He's here to save the day now - what do you mean that's dinner? That is not dinner. Dinner is not supposed to smell like that

He's not sparing a second to consider manners or acting. Lucio calls it like he sees it, and all he sees is poison

"MC, do we have to? It smells so bad, look at it MC, just loo - bleugh - no I'm not being dramatic! The smell made me gag for real, watch!"

And he leans over the pot again, just to take a deep lungful and subsequently let out the most visceral gagging belch you've ever witnessed

"See? It's bad, it's really bad, and I don't want to eat it! Why are you being so mean to me, MC?"

To be honest, you're not particularly excited to eat it either, but it's all you've got until you make it to the next town tomorrow, so you tell him as much as his pout slowly deepens

"Fine, I'll do it. I guess it can't be that bad if you made it -" He watches the way it slops into his bowl and gulps. "I take it back."

Sure it's a little spicier and clumpier and saltier and sickly sweeter than you planned, but you're able to stomach it just fine

And to your surprise, Lucio can too. He complains loudly the whole time, but his whining somehow grants him the ability to eat three full bowls

"See, you ate so much of it!"

"Well of course!" he puffs out his chest proudly. "I'm the best. At least it's not as bad as what we had in the army. But - MC?" he looks at you with pleading eyes, "please don't make that again."

[vide0-nasties]

hi there! you're a darling, eustacia is a babe. how about 2, 3, 11, 17, 21 questions for the ask thingy? (ps. your answer to 20 question was something. i didn't know i need this imagery, god bless you *furiously fans self*)

i'm blushing irl because you called eustacia a babe, i've seriously never lived before today!!! ALSO, real talk? i'm probably going to make that into a longer standalone bc holy shit it was fun to write

asra angst at the top bc i love dying.

3. How would your apprentice handle being so close tosomething that they desperately want, only to have it ripped away? What was it?

It comes back—all ofher, she comes back. Asra’s done it—he’s done the impossible, he’s given her back to her. Only moments ago, hewas a complete, but friendly stranger, and now—now—

“Asra,” she sobs,reaching for him. He looks so relieved, tears spilling from his eyes, and hebreaks down himself, hacking up his own sob, “Eustacia, oh, shit, fuck, thank god! Thank all of them—”

He tries to bury his face in her chest, her stomach, but shedoesn’t let him. No, she drags him up and kisses him so hard they will bothsurely wear bruises.

Everything. She remembers everything. Every little detail.His hand lies flat on her chest, over the heartbeat he so excruciatingly loves,and they cry against each other’s mouths. It’s been so long, too long. Neveragain. They’ll never be apart again. She won’t let it happen.

She’ll tear apart the fucking heavens with her bare hands before he’s made to hurt again.

“The Count?” she asks, between kisses. “He’s dead?”

“Lucio’s dead,” he promises her. “He’s dead, and he’s never coming back.”

Another sob rips from her, and she’s made even stupider andmore boneless by relief. “Nadia lives?”

“Nadi lives. She’s alive, I think she’s safe.”

Eustacia draws him back against her mouth, mistaking the wetfrom her nose and the sting in her eyes as tears. But when her body begins tojerk, disobeying her will, and something trickles from her ears, and her mouthfills with the unmistakable tang of blood…

NO, she wants toscream, but she is frozen in place. Her body stands rigid as her expressiondrops and goes hollow, blank, even wrapped around Asra.

NO! NO-NO-NO! WE HAVESUFFERED ENOUGH. HE HAS SUFFEREDENOUGH. NOT AGAIN, NOT THIS, NOT ASRA. NOTASRA. NOTASRANOTASRANOTASRANOTASRA—

“Eustacia? Eustacia?!Wh-what happened, you’re—why are you bleeding? Eustacia? You…can you hear me?! No, no-no-no, PLEASE,” hepanics, and his panic turns to anger, despair, heartbreak. All of it, writtenplainly on his face, and she can do nothing but watch and scream silentscreams. Agony so intense, it might’ve shattered her beyond repair, if Asradidn’t take it back.

#’s 2 (nsfw), 11, 17, and 21 under the cut!

2. Does your apprentice get flustered over anything? Whatmake them flustered? Do they turn red? Stumble over words?

To give herself some credit—not the overblown, clownishly arrogant kind of credit a person thatthinks poorly of themselves uses to make cover for their self-loathing—Eustaciais usually the one to throw someone off-balance.

But, then Doctor Julian ‘I’m Actually Taller Than You And,Also, Look At My Lovely Red Hair, Dashing Eyepatch, And Big Pretty Hands’Devorak breaks into her shop, and ever since that moment she’s hasn’t knownpeace.

What a fucking suckershe is.

The Rowdy Raven is in rare form tonight, packed to therafters and so loud you’d be lucky to hear a thought in the confines of yourown head. The fugitive and the witch are hardly worthy of note, tucked into a far-backbooth as they are. But they’re having their own party. The masquerade is soon,and everything is up in the air, down to the wire, and all to sea.

It’s a shame Eustacia’s never had a knack for divination,otherwise she would’ve foreseen Julian’s very pleasant, and handsy mood.

The absolute filthhe whispers in her ear. It would make a seasoned brothel girl blush. But, toher credit, it takes Julian slipping his hand down the front of her pants toreally begin to undo her. She remains tucked into his side—nose-to-nose, hisarm around her shoulders—wheezing jagged, nervous laughter. Even with his gloveon, his fingers feel amazing circlingher clit.

She has to be an obscene red from her navel to her chin, andshe knows she keeps trying to bunch up like a dead spider—crossing her legs, duckingher head, hugging her middle, or tryingto. Julian’s making such good arguments.

Her laughter rises to a wild pitch, one of her hands flyingup to cover her mouth when he removes his hand and sucks her slick off hisfingers. She knots a hand in his shirt and thinks her howling laughter willrattle her apart when he kisses her and purrs, “You are the best thing I have evertasted. I really think I might die if I don’t get to hear how you laugh whenyou cum.”

11. Talk about how your apprentice deals with emotions. Boththe ones they like to feel, and what they don’t like to feel.

Unfortunately, especially for Asra, Eustacia knows she isthe sort of person that either feels everythingat the height of their extremes, or she plays numb to cover what she does notwish to display.

Her elevated moods, the good and the manic, make her brassy,brazen. Difficult to stomach for long periods unless you’ve trained yourself towithstand them. In these states she’s loud. Overwhelming. Her energy isfrantic, and she’s too lost to it to remember things like volume control, ormonitoring her mouth, or keeping her hands from being destructive when shetalks with them.

Everything is exciting, and everything needs done right now, right this instant.

Sadness, fear, anxiety—they all become anger. Her teeth andher muscles clench like her fists. Her voice bottoms out and her eyes weighheavy and unforgiving on any and all that cross her path. She stops walking,and ends up stalking, prowling. She watches empty air and waits for a fight tocome to her. When it doesn’t, she wants to look for one.

She doesn’t remember her old life, what kind of historycould happen to produce a person like she is, but she wonders how often shegave into the urge. She wonders if she ever tried to smother the impulse, killthis ugly beast with her hands breaking its neck, like she tries to do now.

When she is overtaken by anger, or clued into the vulgarityof her good moods, she pulls away from herself, putting her mental reins underan iron hand. Her incorporeal self takes a step away from her physical body,needing time and space to right herself, and her expression slips into a coolmask. Her body quiets, starting with her hands.

Only once she has made herself as placid as unbroken glassdoes she return.

17. Can they bear pain? How much pain can they bear? Do theyhate it or do they like it ala our good Doctor?

There’s something mean inside her, something ugly, and itfeels good to feed it.

This is a bar she’s never been to, and never will again. Shepours a beer in the lap of a man she’s never met, and never will again.

Her head snaps to the side when his fist connects. Laughterpipes up her throat, and a crimson bubble of blood on her lips breaks apartwhen it exits. The world blurs when the brawl starts. Eustacia splits herknuckles open on whatever they catch, throws her elbows, crushes feet with herheels, launches her knees.

Starbursts of pain make fireworks explode behind her eyes.Her nose gets broken, her brow split, her jaw rocked. Her cackle is howlingwhen she feels a rib grind together—broken. She rears her head up, catchingsight of Asra’s white hair weaving through the violence. He wades inthoughtlessly, as if he’s done this more times than he can count, a dance thathe knows by heart.

His expression is almost as murder as hers is, but itblanches to rabbit-hearted terror when she wipes her mouth on her sleeve,pushed by the crush of bodies out the door, bar brawl turning street riot likelightning.

It feels like the ocean is sliding off her body, and shestands straighter, taller, broader, as dark as an ocean trench’s bed.

She spits her blood in the face of a man that floors her,his hand eclipsing her head to slam it into the coarse pavers. The side of herhead shreds, pebbling with blood. Asra finds her again, hands glowing dangerously.He grabs the man by the nape, and Eustacia is bombarded by the stench of burnthair, laughing when her attacker screeches and wheels away.

“Get up,” Asra wheezes, taking her wrists. “You have to getup. The guards are coming—get up!”

He’s able to haul her away, her arm flung over his shouldersand her steps sometimes catching. Her head’s fogged, and she’s a littleconfused.

“I was gone for fiveminutes,” he barks. “Five minutes, and you start a riot. What were you evendoing?! What if you got stabbed?! Youcould’ve died, Eustacia—you could’ve died—!Do you know what that would do tome?!”

“Felt good,” she croaks, trying to wipe at her mouth, endingup hitting her nose and sending sparks into her vision. “Felt so good, getting—gettingthe pressure off. Don’t feel so badnow. Always feel so bad, like I’msick. It never stops.”

21. What’s their relationship history look like? What weretheir previous datemates like? Do they have a type?

At thirteen, she had her first kiss, and ever since thatmoment she was ruined. Completely andforever, in fact! When the girl that kissed her immediately stood up and left,scrubbing her mouth on her shirt and retching melodramatically, Eustacia was tooheartbroken to understand this was the beginning of a trend.

Through the rest of her teens, she would find herself drowning in romances—incredibly powerful,painfully short romances. The actualperson mattered very little, she went for all types if they spared a kind wordor a sweet touch on her.

There was a green-eyed woodcutter’s son that wooed herrelentlessly for weeks, and left her minutes after they finished fucking in hismother’s woodshed. A fellow witch in the Sisters that only met her in the dark,who went around calling Eustacia pathetic and creepy behind her back. A poetwith long, silky hair that introduced her husband to Eustacia the way wardensreleased hounds on escaped prisoners.

Her last ‘real’ romance, if you could’ve called a single onereal, was an opera singer. Renaldo Sarintoni, a man twice her age with a tenoras sweet as church bells. She’d gone to two of his shows, and after one of themhand-delivered a bouquet of roses to his door.

She’d scraped and scraped to afford those roses, and she thoughtshe might burst into tears when he ran his fingers over the petals and calledthem beautiful. What a sonorous voice you have, he marveled, do you sing?

Not much—she knew three arias and countless pub tunes—but,for Renaldo, she cleared her throat and sang a piece of a love song for him—libiamo, libiamo ne’lieti calici che labelleza infiora. The sparkle in his eyes was incredible.

That was probably her most intense love. He’d swept her offher feet, dressed her in fine things, wasted money on her to the point of embarrassment,took her to beautiful restaurants. They talked endlessly, for hours, abouteverything. She never wanted children, but might’ve had his.

Three months of otherworldly loving, until they woke up onemorning and he said, “I’m sorry. But…”

As badly as she wanted her heart to scar over and feelnothing, it didn’t happen. Left and right, she continued to fall in love, butno longer did she allow herself to wander into a place where her misshapen littleheart could get broken again. There was little to it left, and she wanted it toherself.

For a time, she fought herself, her nature, her ways. Shesnapped at suitors, laughed off ladies, and heaped scorn upon romantics that sniffedher out like bloodhounds.

And then, Asra found her.

She will end up wishing she hadn’t fought that love so hard.

[faust-the-danger-noodle]

Some Random Thoughts About The Update:

Helicopter Parent Morga confirmed and I am feeling vindication in this Chili's tonight

Morga is secretly soft and I love her

But she deffo killed Muriel's parents and uh...that's going to be a really dramatic scene when that's fully revealed

Khamgalai called Muriel a good boy so she knows what's up

Valdemar is definitely wanting Khamgalai's heart as payment from Lucio and I'm scared for her

Valdemar is so scary that they even freak out Morga??? Holy shit???

Asra is so fucking adorable??? He is so happy his two favorite people are falling in love???

Morga told me I'm doing a good job and my poor heart can't take it

Muriel, baby, no, you are not a burden, you only lift me up!!!