Pie for everyone

[inruins]

Who: Toriel & you!
When: April 2nd
Where: Mess Hall
What: Toriel announces on the network she's made Snail Pie. Clearly people should come and get some.
Warnings: Snail pie, monsters, shenanigans.

True to her word, Toriel has taken over a table in the mess hall to offer people some of her favorite type of pie.

A several paper plates are laid out along with borrowed utensils. On the table sits a uncovered snail pie. The pie itself smells savory and fresh. A tempting offer for any curious about what it could taste like. Newbies and oldies alike are welcome to approach the table.

Next to it is a covered dish. A firm 'Do not touch!' note settled atop it. Anyone who touches it will get a firm reprimand from the monster seated at the table.

Toriel herself is settled back in a chair, drinking some tea. Anyone who approaches will earn a friendly smile and greeting from the 6'9 boss monster.

"Ah, hello! Would you like a slice of pie, dear?"

Comments

[inruins]

The boss monster doesn't seem to mind the odd hours when it comes to Kain. Toriel naturally warms up at the sight of the other monster. It is more than obvious she's happy to see him.

She rises from her chair to properly greet the young man with a friendly touch on the arm. Living in such close quarters with someone certainly makes Toriel friendlier around her roommate. "I've only really made a single pie, but- it's lasted quite well."

At this point there are three slices left. "Would you like some, Kain?"

[dragonspride]

He's more at ease around those that are at least somewhat familiar himself. The mention of how much is left seems to surprise him; he's something of a latecomer, and he knows there's more people on this ship than that.

"If it's alright." He's giving it a brief, confused look. "I would've thought free fresh-made food would've vanished faster than that."

[inruins]

Toriel shrugs slowly in turn, hand dropping away from Kain's arm. She glances back at what remains. "Ah, not everyone was quite interested in snail pie. Only one person was really rude about it at least." Toriel takes some relief in the fact there wasn't an influx of disapproval or disgust over something she enjoys baking.

"Most were willing to try, which was heartening."

[dragonspride]

It doesn't entirely help the confusion. "It's not like it's that strange. Some kinds of snails are practically a delicacy back in Baron, and it's a human kingdom." He hadn't really encountered it in Ryslig, but considering how his finances tended to be either "questionable" or "mostly tied up in living expenses", he hadn't really looked. "They're not easy to cook right, either; the meat's as finicky as squid."

[inruins]

The boss monster thoughtfully hums at that, "People all have different thresholds of what they consider normal. I know I found quite a few human customs odd myself." Certain foods, certain habits and certain cultural assumptions still proved odd to the boss monster.

"Do sit down, dear. Let me feed you."

[dragonspride]

He shrugs, accepting that at least, and pulls over a stool that won't conflict with his tail. "Thank you."

"There was a hidden realm where the Eidolons - our gods - and some more powerful monsters lived back on my world; I never did ask what most of the food was when we were there." He's a little rueful about it; to be honest, he was distracted enough to not be paying attention. "...and different human nations can be different enough to seem like entirely different peoples, sometimes."

[inruins]

Toriel needs little encouragement to dish out a piece of pie to the younger monster. A fork and napkin being settled next to the paper plate after she slides it towards Kain. She listens without much comment initially, before she speaks.

"We're all made of such differences. It is rather beautiful in its own way. So many cultures, even those living close together can make something unique and thrive in varying ways." She smiles back at Kain, moving to sit down across from her roommate. When she's settled down and relaxed she speaks again, thoughtful. "I can tell you what foods we ate when I was a child don't quite exist anymore. It is a bit strange."

[dragonspride]

He's still occasionally a little awkward with the fork - it's a skill he's still adjusting to the claws with - but since coming to the ship he's at least relearned enough for it to not be much of a problem. Between his own dismal cooking skills and relying on what he can get from the ship's mess, Toriel's cooking is a treat; he ends up talking around spare moments while he's eating.

"What happened?" He's a little careful - it's probably a loaded question, but he's guessing not one that'd be completely avoided.

[inruins]

The question isn't as loaded as it once had been. Toriel quietly settles further back into her chair, hands stilling against the table top. "A great war swept through monster kind. Humanity did not want monsters any longer."

With another monster, even with one from another realm, she is more honest than she is with humans. "Most of my generation was wiped out, dear. Along with the generations of monsters before that. Many, many traditions faded with time, with the centuries that passed."

[dragonspride]

He goes quieter and more somber at that; he wishes it weren't a story that was becoming familiar by now. "So those of your people that are here... they're the survivors?"

He rumbled quietly, with a thin wisp of smoke. "Where I was before this, we at least had a couple of mad gods to give people a reason to be afraid - trying to drive us berserk, offering rewards if we preyed on humans. Most of us rejected it, but it doesn't take much to make people afraid. You and the others here...it just sounds senseless." He shook his head.

[inruins]

She shakes her head at that, quick to correct the misunderstanding. "Ah- no, there are much more of us. Not enough to fill up this entire ship, but here are many left. We recouped best we could from where we were sealed away."

Toriel reaches out to touch Kain's arm kindly, "I, I am sorry you had to live through such. It only truly takes a single spark before fear consumes everything. Even when you push back, fear is something deadly."

Senseless was about the right word for it. "I'm hoping we can have a new start, a better start now. So much time has passed since the war we can try for a more peaceful life."

[dragonspride]

"I hope so as well. I don't think any race deserves that...and your people seem peacable, at that." Granted, he knows that Toriel, Papyrus, and Sans may not be a good reflection of the entire race, but then, in comparison to the monster races on his world, he doesn't think they'd be nearly that at-ease about it if the culture were more aggressive and they were eccentrics.

He meets the contact with a quiet, distant smile. "My family have been knights protecting our people for generations; I've managed to protect others every time I've run into it, and that's plenty for me."

[inruins]

"We try. Even if some are not happy with humans, I doubt they would want another war." She banishes the thought of Asgore from her mind as quickly as it rises. A war of grief, a war of revenge does not mean hatred as much as it does desperation.

"Still. You deserve a chance to be more than a knight. To be protected as well." There might be a promise there, an unspoken word to keep an eye out for the other monster. Not that Toriel will voice it aloud here and now.

[dragonspride]

He rumbled quietly. "Anything that keeps it from turning into a vicious cycle is enough, even if there's always a few on all sides of that kind of conflict that don't want to let it go." As much as it was partly depressing personal experience, it was something he'd found to be true enough - even if he was so used to being the one keeping the overly-idealistic grounded that he wasn't great at articulating that it was something that still worked out in the end.

It wasn't helped by him turning a little awkward and unsure. "I appreciate it - although I'm not sure what else I'd do with myself anymore."

[inruins]

Kains words sure enough remind Toriel of Undyne to some degree. Even if the young royal guard relaxed her grudge against humanity, the fish monster still tended to get considerably heated. "It will not be easy, but I am certain we will be able to find peace here. A hard earned peace, certainly."

"Help others certainly." She pats his arm gently, encouragingly. "Be what change we want to see. It is easy to say, but it is what we can do in a place like this."

[dragonspride]

He closed his eyes for moment with a quiet rumble. "Everyone here is from different worlds... I'm not even sure they've thought about whether whatever fear or hurt they're reacting to is even something anybody else has a concept of. The more people realize how far they are from home, the better off everyone here is."

Gods knew that, while he appreciated the adoption, he knew that the kind of monster he was and the kind of monster Toriel was were two very different things - and he'd hate to have something like one of the Bloody Bones showing up, who were genocidal because of a loss and would probably refuse to acknowledge that Tori, Papyrus, Sans, and Asriel weren't the same kind of monsters.

"We managed some small things in the last place I was, even with the town that did this -" He tapped his broken off-spine and made a vague gesture at his wings, even if the scars covered the backs of them. "I think if there could be pockets of peace there, then it would be possible anywhere."