#i just think that lydia's chili can be curry and the dinner she cooks at mordred can be stir fry and eggrolls and rice—

[swarmkeepers]

3 & 4 for the abernant sisters? 👀 (my sister and i have been trading food we don't like that we know the other likes our whole lives and thinking of the abernants learning that kind of thoughtless intimacy between sisters... listen to me sola i know i'm predictable but listen)

3 & 4. quietly picks out the things you don’t like to eat on your plate and transfer it to theirs without you needing to ask them to & quietly gives you the things you like to eat from their own plate + adaine & aelwyn  (prompts linked here)

(post-sophomore year, in the chaos that is a mordred manor dinnertime. at lydia and ragh’s dinner table there will be rice and there will be lumpia because my diasporic half-orc agenda continues (and also if family style asian home cooking isn’t the epitome of saying i love you through food i don’t know what is, the prompt made me do it!). thank you ket i hope i did your favorite elven sisters justice)

In the house that no longer exists, Aelwyn sat at their father’s right hand, across the table from her sister. 

In this house that Aelwyn sometimes cannot really believe exists, she sits next to Adaine, sliding next to her sister on the bench they have claimed for their own because Kristen and Fig cannot be trusted to sit on a bench for fear that they will stand on it to make proclamations, or try to vault spectacularly over it instead of sliding into their seats. 

When Adaine was little she used to kick her feet under the table, restless and reckless and making it her own fault when she stubbed her toe on the table legs or banged into Aelwyn’s feet. 

Aelwyn has forgotten many things about her own life (She has lived so little of her lifespan. She wonders if what she has already forgotten will fade away, just a few months in a sea of other forgotten memories as she ages, or if she will remember their absence forever). 

But these little annoyances from childhood remain—annoying and endearing and just so, so Adaine—clear as day from when she was little too, still petty enough to remember those slights clearly. (Aelwyn wonders what memories Adaine has that she might call just so, so Aelwyn. She can’t think of anything worth remembering.)

Now Adaine doesn’t kick her sock feet but just pulls them up on the bench to tuck them under her as she sits. Something in the back part of Aelwyn’s mind reminds her that this is bad manners, but most of her honestly agrees that this is necessary at this dinner table, where the extra few inches of reach let Adaine beat Fig to the last of Lydia Barkrock’s excellent eggrolls. Aelwyn is learning things every day, lessons that come much harder to her than the effortlessness of abjurative spellwork or dragonfire conspiracies or how to flirt and act at Hudol parties. Now Aelwyn is learning to sit next to her baby sister at dinner without commenting on her feet on the chair; to dodge Ragh Barkrock as he carries a giant steaming pot of rice out to the table; to silently flick up a little arcane ward between Fig’s hand and the plate of eggrolls just in time for Fig to be distracted by Adaine starting to reach for the last one; to not be surprised when Fig starts half-jokingly hollering at Adaine for it. 

There are so many quiet things to learn and Aelwyn thinks maybe she needs to start a new spellbook to remember them all. There are so many quiet things to learn between her and Adaine, and there are so many loud things to learn about living in Mordred Manor in the bunk under her baby sister’s. On any given day Aelwyn doesn’t have nearly enough of them prepared, or maybe it’s that she doesn’t have enough slots to do all of them yet, but she wants to have them all to hand in a spellbook to try again and again and again until they come cantrip-easy. 

Next to her, Adaine is crowing gleefully with her eggroll in hand as Fig rolls her eyes and settles back in her seat. Aelwyn snaps back into focus (little things. One thing at a time) to find Ragh piling far too much rice on her plate, and she hurriedly shakes her head in a “no thank you that’s enough” because Ragh always says “tell me when to stop” and doesn’t pay attention to whether you’ve heard him. He just grins and tries to give her an elbow-bumping RVS secret handshake while also holding a very heavy pot of rice with the other arm, and Aelwyn will never have his dex but she does try to elbow bump him back. Adaine just leans over and scrapes half of Aelwyn’s rice onto her own plate, and Aelwyn’s fingers twitch to cast the same little ward to stop her. “What in the world are you doing?”

Adaine just puts Aelwyn’s plate back down, half her rice gone. “Stealing your rice!” she says as if it’s simple as anything. “Ragh gave you too much and I know you never eat more than one scoop, so I’m taking it.” She picks up a clump of rice she’d dropped on the table in the transfer—Aelwyn had noticed, and it was bothering her—and just reaches for the sauce bowl, pouring sweet chili into a little pool on her own plate and then adding a glob to Aelwyn’s own plate without even asking.

A year ago in their father’s house that no longer exists, Adaine wouldn’t have dared. Here and now in the manor, Aelwyn’s just confused. 

“Adaine!”

Her annoying, endearing little baby sister just shrugs at her. “Aren’t you going to want it for your eggroll?” 

Aelwyn looks down at her plate to see, sure enough, half of Adaine’s prized spoils of her little war with Fig on her own plate next to the rice, an eggroll broken in half with crispy skin and juicy filling. 

“You’re welcome,” Adaine says smugly, in the exact same tone that she uses to loudly declare victory over Fig in little dinner table skirmishes.

It’s good food, Lydia’s cooking unquestionably the best in the house, and eggrolls secretly are Aelwyn’s favorite of the non-waybread foods she’s started eating more of ever since moving into the Manor. Aelwyn knows more manners than to not take it. And knows better than to not say thank you.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, and Adaine just shuffles over on the bench a little to rest her head on Aelwyn’s shoulder as she munches on her own half. 

Aelwyn is learning many things but she thinks she knows what to do here, just leaning her head over on top of Adaine’s and smooshing her cheek into the top of Adaine’s hair. Adaine can probably hear her chewing and it’s probably horrifically bad manners but Aelwyn doesn’t care to remember that right now.

Here, in this house that Aelwyn pinches herself a little to remember actually exists, her baby sister is pressed into Aelwyn’s side, picking food off her plate and trading back Aelwyn’s favorites in turn. Aelwyn dips her eggroll in sweet spicy sauce and lets herself not care about manners and thinks that for once she’s sure that this moment is worth remembering. 

from the prompt list linked here! i’m closing prompts from this particular list simply because i have so many excellent ones to get through