THE CHRISTMAS MINGLE YOUR PARENTS WARNED YOU ABOUT

[carpevinum]

At some point in the night, taking advantage of the perma-silence, Lucifer and a few others sneak about to decorate the dormitory for the holidays. The morning of 12/25, you'll wake up to the smell of Christmas cookies wafting from the dorm kitchen, and upon actually leaving your room, there are string lights and decorations thrown up in the hallways and the common room proper.

The decorating is, of course, courtesy of Nene, who has been working hard to ensure that there's something more beautiful than those ghoulish paintings on the walls here. You can thank Helena, Sidney, and Lucifer for both the cookies and other, more substantial food which will periodically be presented throughout the day — Lucifer practically lives in the kitchen for the duration of the party and can sometimes be seen shooing the other two out to go have fun. That said, the table housing all of these dishes, ranging from traditional Christmas meals (as best they can do with limited resources, anyway) to more ostentatious treats will never be empty, so please eat to your heart's content!

Thanks to Amami, there's a large, undecorated Christmas tree in the middle of the common room that looks to be very well taken care of. Next to it is a table full of art supplies for making colourful paper ornaments, and a small card lying nearby that instructs those participating to write down a wish on the ornament proper before hanging it on the tree. It may not come true, but you know it'll be safe since no mysterious forces set this up — wish away!

Should you come to spend time at the party and fraternize, you'll find that you're being waited on by a number of small little imps except they're all wearing tiny Santa hats — they'll bring you food and drinks and candy should you request it, and they're on their Best Behaviour, so please be nice to them! They are simply underpaid service workers. They're absolutely thrilled to talk to you in chirps and weird demonic chittering, and they understand what you're saying at least.

In the back corner of the room, there's a minute-to-win-it type game set up: two chairs are tied by the backs together by two ribbons, about two feet apart from one another. Nearby, there's a table of candycanes for use in this game. The goal of the game is to toss a candycane while standing on one of the chairs and get said candycane to catch on the ribbons, or to see who can get the most candycanes on a ribbon in a minute. The instructions are explained on a little card sitting nearby, with further note to not eat all of the candycanes (there are more set out on the food table, you see) so people can play, and another smaller note banning the use of magic against an opponent who doesn't have it. Let's keep the game fair, people. And let's thank Hikaru for running out to get an obnoxious amount of candycanes for everyone.

Lucifer will intermittently come join the festivities from time to time when he's not cooking, wearing this, please feel free to bully the demon for celebrating the holiday from the religion he hates. He can take it, it's okay.

Last but certainly not least, Noah is roaming about the party using his magic to try and liven the place up. Little stars hang from the ceiling around him in a ten-foot radius, and should you frown at all, he will come up to you and put cat ears formed of magic shadows on you until you laugh. On occasion, he can be seen slipping out of the party with cookies and stacking them on a plate in front of Komaeda's door. The stars go with him, but the good news is that Natsume is also helping with their little lightshow, so the twinkling indoor galaxies will not be absent for long. It's a joint effort between Clamor's apprentices, and their hard work really shows through, magic training is difficult after all. Feel free to bother either of them to do magic tricks for you, if you'd like, or just lie down under a curtain of stars.

The night promises to be magical (semi-literally), even if we're all stuck in purgatory, so relax, put your feet up, and sing Christmas carols to your heart's content. And don't worry about the cleanup — just try not to pass out on the floors.

[OOC: Merr Crimmus try not to kill each other, that is my only request, otherwise go buck wild]

Comments

[sisters]

Ah, I'm not so sure he's that hard to please. His tastes seem pretty plain actually, but I guess that's just what he likes.

( he offers up a shrug, but his expression is warm and reassuring. actually, komaeda might be satisfied with plain bread, but amami can't say it doesn't make him kind of curious. )

Not that I mind the idea of helping. You don't cook often?

[silentabyss]

N...no. We... [Noah looks to the side,] House Ebalon was a noble house. We had servants.

["Had" being the key word, since he's the only living member of the family, and also that was five hundred years ago — long before Noah was sealed in stasis — so they're quadruple-dead.]

I wasn't ever shown how to cook until I arrived here. Even then, I only know some really basic stuff. Sidney taught me pancakes, and Subaru taught me miso soup, and everything else I've just kind of tried my best to figure out by myself.

[sisters]

It's pretty rough at first, huh?

( especially on your own. his voice is soft, sympathetic even as he doesn't have the full picture, but he watches noah attentively all the same. )

My family — well, we weren't nobles or anything that fancy, but we did have a maid. So I think I can sort of get where you're coming from.

( when cooking is something "unbecoming" for you, it makes it tougher to get a handle on the basics than if you'd been allowed to pitch in as a kid. in some ways, amami's envious of the people who get that, but right now he's kind of glad that it's something he skipped out on. if he hadn't, he wouldn't be able to relate to noah's struggle here at all. )

Still, cooking's a pretty good skill to have. Not only to look after yourself, but... ( he tilts his head slightly in the direction of komaeda's door. ) To show other people you care about them too. If you want, I can help show you some basics I picked up.

[silentabyss]

[Noah was always "too little" to learn, and then by the time he was old enough to start learning, he was "too sickly" to be out of bed. This never really stopped a very tiny baby Noah from trying to sneak around the house, but back then, making himself food was the furthest thing from his mind.

He subsists entirely on vending machine snacks if there's no one cooking meals for the entire group that day. Or chocolate chip pancakes.]

Ah... can you? I'd appreciate it. The only thing I know is how to work the oven here, really. I guess it's a start.

[He hasn't burnt down the kitchen yet.]

[sisters]

Everyone's got to start somewhere. Komaeda-kun is a pretty big fan of toast, I hear, but that's not really so impressive huh...

( either way, amami doesn't seem dissuaded. he'll tilt his head back down the hall, towards the kitchen, with the implication that they can start heading over. maybe lucy'll let them borrow it for a few minutes if they say it's for a friend. )

I was thinking maybe we can try making him some French toast and see if he'd like that. It's pretty quick, so it won't take long before you can go back to the party, and it might manage to lure him out too.

[silentabyss]

[Lucy has to let them into the kitchen on account of the spatiotemporal anomaly that'll occur otherwise. At least, according to Add that's what'll happen.

Noah will follow after Amami, then, to go kick Lucifer and whoever else is in the kitchen out so they can feed Komaeda (a very important mission).]

French toast... okay. How do you French a toast?

[What the fuck]

i love him

[sisters]

It's a style — where I come from, we have a place called France, and I guess this kind of toast must've got pretty popular there?

( or something? he doesn't know, that was korekiyo's job; he just ate the toast. speaking of which, he's going to grab some bowls and a frying pan and so on to get them ready. tilting his head to the fridge, he looks to noah. )

Do you wanna grab us a couple eggs, some milk, and some bread?

[silentabyss]

Oh. That makes sense.

[Like how Americans are a type of people on Earth where Senku and probably Amami are from and they don't have tails. Yes, of course. Things Noah is learning slowly about the Earth world.

Noah pokes his way around the kitchen to find said ingredients and sets them out in a particularly orderly fashion, going so far as to open the carton up and everything. You know, for ease. Then he just stands there like a diligent student, watching Amami like a hawk.]

[sisters]

( i didn't know senku had americans. but yes, noah seems to get it, so amami doesn't explain any further. instead, he'll see noah watching and wave him closer, handing him a bowl. )

First off, why don't you mix together some milk with these eggs, ( handing him an indeterminate number of eggs, ) and some butter. If you're making it for yourself you can add some sugar and cinnamon too — I'm not sure Komaeda is too big on those though.

( it's easier to learn things if you do them. at least, for amami it is, so he'll let noah do the actual cooking. )

[silentabyss]

[Noah's the same way, in that being hands-on is always better for him. He's gotten better at depth perception in the couple days since he lost his right eye too, although there's a small moment where he sort of awkwardly reaches for the bowl not because he's being awkward (I mean he is) but rather because seeing things is a little difficult. But once that moment passes, he's doing what's instructed.

It's probably a good thing that Noah's smart enough to know how to crack an egg or this would go downhill real fast.]

How... um. Smooth? Do you want it? The egg mix, I mean.

[Not that eggs are lumpy, but they're viscous, which is what Noah's trying to portray here and failing at as he mixes everything together with what he's mentally calling a whipper (it's a whisk) (you'd think he'd know this by now).]

[sisters]

( if they ever needed to start from cracking an egg level basics that would also be fine. they can work their way up. i believe in them. as it is, amami seems perfectly pleased with noah's ability to just mix milk and egg for now. )

As long as it looks like all the ingredients are mixed — if you add sugar, you want to make sure nothing is lumpy or anything too.

( anyway he just goes off vibe when he cooks mostly, so there's that. while noah's mixing, amami's gonna pull down one of those like, flat wide tupperware containers and some bread, and put a frying plan on the stove to warm up. he's gesturing to the container though, when he speaks. )

Once you're all done, pour it in here. We're gonna dip the bread in and then cook it on the frying pan.

[silentabyss]

[The egg mix comes out smooth, and Noah mixes it like a minute longer than he really needs to since he's trying to make sure there are no lumps he might've missed. Once the tupperware is set out with the bread, he pauses to look at it, listen to the instructions, and then carefully pour the egg mix into the container.]

Oh, okay — that seems easy enough.

[So this is how you French a toast!

Per typical French toast making protocol, Noah manages to get his fingertips covered in egg while dipping the first couple slices, so in-between batches he stands there with his hands sort of awkwardly up in the air near his shoulders and not touching anything with his eggy little hands.]

[sisters]

( not his eggy little hands. it's fine, amami will laugh a bit to himself before grabbing some paper towel to pass noah. please dry off your eggy little hands, it's fine. with that out of the way, he'll actually hand noah the spatula instead, since they probably don't need a full course meal of french toast quite yet. )

All you need to do now is watch them until they look cooked. Make sure you don't forget to flip it over and get both sides, and you should be good.

( maybe he can set aside the rest of this egg for later. can you do that? not sure. he'll Deal with it, one way or another, while noah finishes up with Frenching the toast. )

Not so hard, is it?

[silentabyss]

[Noah wouldn't know but would go with a "yeah you can totally save a bunch of whipped-together eggs in the fridge or something" because unfortunately they can't just Google that shit here. Which sucks, because Noah would waste hours on google just looking into completely random things that pop into his head.]

Yeah, this is a surprisingly easy recipe.

[He's very watchful, luckily, and after a few minutes he manages to flip the toast, though he thinks maybe he should probably let that side cook further after this one's done.]

...I wonder how you make something like this vegan. Clamor doesn't eat animal products. We tried to make vegan pancakes once, and they turned out... pretty badly.

[Really that was Noah's entire fault for thinking that 2 cups of oil was a reasonable substitute for 2 eggs. He's trying.]

[sisters]

Oh? I didn't know that.

( or did he. maybe noah said it on the network and he forgot, but it's good to keep in mind for when they manage to make clamor an elf instead of a sickle again. and either way, amami seems to give the question some serious thought. )

I'm sure Kamo-kun could pick up some almond milk or something for us, but the egg is pretty tricky, since we'll need something else to thicken it. If you want, maybe we can experiment with that in the morning some time.

( he's got some ideas, but isn't really willing to pitch something like corn starch at this precise moment, because it's still far off enough to leave room for doubt... anyway, if they test it out, they can make sure it gets the right texture, so... probably better to save that anyway. )