serendipity [zalea]

[samael]

[atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,width:380px; background-image:url('http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l37/raincloudbow/patterns/wall4_zps4d44e27f.png'); border-top:3px solid #D2B48C; border-bottom:3px solid #D2B48C;] "... Where am I?" Samael waited, but there was no response. No voices, no footsteps, nothing that indicated another human presence, just the rustling of leaves and a solitary bird cawing overhead. He was definitely alone, it seemed like, which meant he had to find his own way out if he got lost—or more lost, since he'd wandered a bit too far off the forest path and now had no idea how to get back to town. He reached out and felt around his surroundings, hoping maybe to come across something that could point him in the right direction. Let's see... trees this way. Some more trees over here. Ooh, a log. Hopping gingerly over the log, Samael continued to walk straight ahead, arms held slightly forward to guide him around obstacles. He wasn't particularly worried about his predicament; if worse came to worst, he might have to camp out in the open for the night, but that wasn't such a big deal. All he needed to do was follow the sound of the ocean, and he would make his way back eventually. He had been wandering aimlessly for a while when suddenly, his fingertips brushed something unexpected: something broad and flat. Samael blinked, ran his hands across the mystery surface, and began walking along what he guessed was a very wide wall—until he reached a sharp corner. A building? Could he have reached town already? He strained his ears for the familiar sloshing of ocean waves, but beyond the whispers of the forest he could only make out a distant, muffled murmur. Nope, definitely not out of the woods yet. But why would there be a building hidden away here, of all places? "There's gotta be a door somewhere on this thing," he mused, continuing to circle the building and occasionally stubbing his fingers on the edge of a windowpane. Samael guessed that it was a house he had stumbled upon, but throughout all his years living on the peninsula, he didn't recall meeting anyone who lived so secluded from the rest of town. His hand suddenly banged against a cold, hard protrusion in the wall, and after a bit of feeling around Samael confirmed that it was in fact a doorknob. He pushed the door experimentally and it creaked open without resistance. Huh. If the front door had been left unlocked, maybe there wasn't anyone living here at all. The first thing he noticed when he walked in was the scent. It wasn't musty or unpleasant like he'd expected of an abandoned house; no, it smelled... homely, almost. And if he wasn't mistaken, Samael could have sworn he caught the faint fragrance of herbs: had someone been cooking in here? Curiosity got the better of him. He stepped in further, taking slow, cautious steps and exploring the strange new place with a familiar sense of excitement. The more he poked around, the less likely it seemed that the house was deserted; nothing was particularly dusty, the cookware felt recently used and washed, and after raiding the pantry he had been pleasantly surprised by a stock fresh ingredients. Now, just who was the reclusive soul who chose to live all the way out here?

[pandachi]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 300px; padding: 15px; border-top: #cff4ae solid 05px; border-bottom: #cff4ae solid 05px; border-radius: 15px;] ★ EVERYDAY PON! EVERY TIME IS PON! ★ ❝ merii goo rando noritai no! tabun sonna ja dame desho! ❞ Zalea hummed as she tended to the small garden out back of her cottage. Gingy appeared on the branch of a tree a short distance away making a whole lot of noise as he jumped up and down on the branch. He usually did that around dinner time. She gave him a pouted look, her humming ceased for the moment. "Oh, you sure are spoiled! If you keep eating my food you're gonna be too fat to jump on that branch!" Gingy only cleaned his face as if he was ignoring her. Zalea sighed before removing the gloves her mother had left her and putting them on the bench just under the window to her kitchen. Gingy jumped form the tree and followed after her as she entered her home. Before she went in, she went into the small barn attached to the wooden cottage her parents had built before her. Inside is where Daisy the cow, Lily and Lilac the chickens and the alpacas Sunflower and Snowdrop stayed. They were each very gentle although Sunflower had her moments where she would get hyper and start rough housing with her sister. This evening, they were each going about their daily routines. She locked up for the night and said good night to each of them before she went inside, where Gingy was waiting at the doorway. She went straight for the kitchen, taking out some vegetables and herbs she had gathered before tying a white cloth around her head and getting to work on making soup. Zalea didn't eat much meat simply because her hunting skills were very lacking and she couldn't bring herself to eat meat when most of her friends consisted of animals. As if to make that point, Gingy jumped onto the counter top and watched her chop the carrots and celery she had found growing wild. His tail twitched as he watched and she sighed, handing him a small celery stick piece. He nibbled at it hungrily as she got back to cutting the pieces before dumping them into some water she had started boiling. She then grabbed a couple of apples and began slicing them up as well. Zalea hummed as she sliced and skinned the apples deciding that tonight she would make an apple pie. Soon, she had everything ready and she set a bowl for herself and a cup for Gingy on the table. She then went about cleaning up the things she had used. She finished up just in time for the soup to cool enough to eat without burning her tongue. Gingy was already enjoying his. And she began to eat hers, enjoying the mix of vegetables and herbs she had put together. Due to the lack of variety in her garden, she tended to spice things up with her soup, even adding in fruits to see what it did to the flavor. This soup had a bit of blueberry juice added for a bit of a sweet flavor that didn't seem to intrude on the overall taste. Then she heard the sound of something hitting the door. She stopped eating and looked towards the door. Gingy scampered off leaving his cup almost finished and she took that as a sign that it wasn't just her, she removed the soup from boiling and ran into the nearest closet., taking an empty pan with her. Then she heard the door squeak open and she felt her heart pick up its beat. She held tightly to her pan but no voice followed the sound of someone entering her home. How had they found this place? This was bad! When she heard the footsteps at her pantry, she opened the closet and stood, her feet firmly planted and the pan held out in front of her as if it were a sword, but she kept her eyes downcast so that her bangs would keep them from view. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here!" She tried to make her voice sound stern but anyone could hear how scared she was. She knew her arms were shaking too.

MADE BY CYANIDE CANDY ✖

[samael]

[atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,width:380px; background-image:url('http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l37/raincloudbow/patterns/wall4_zps4d44e27f.png'); border-top:3px solid #D2B48C; border-bottom:3px solid #D2B48C;] Oh, so someone was here! Samael perked up and turned around in the direction of the unfamiliar voice, though his orientation was slightly off and he ended up facing the wrong way, speaking to the wall beside Zalea instead of the girl herself. "Were you in here the whole time?" he asked. Even without body language cues, he could hear the stranger's apprehension at his presence, though Samael himself was more nonplussed than anything. "You don't have to be shy, you should've said something sooner. Would've helped me a lot." And then, as if he hadn't just committed the massive faux pas of breaking into someone's house uninvited, Samael turned back to the kitchen and continued to explore. "So why are you out here all by yourself?" he asked curiously, evidently seeing nothing wrong with making casual conversation in this situation. Then a thought occurred to him: "Oh, you don't happen to live with someone else, do you? Ah—!" He yanked his hand back in surprise when his fingers made contact with a rather hot pot. It only took a moment for him to recover though; it was unexpected, but the inn cook was no stranger to these kinds of small accidents. He cocked his head, intrigued, and carefully skimmed his hand across the air above the pot, trying to judge how close he could get without burning himself on wafting steam. Apparently this was the source of the good smells. "Did I interrupt your lunch? Sorry about that," he said with a sincere note in his voice; as socially careless as he could be sometimes, one thing that Samael did take very seriously was food. It was his job, after all. He bent over the soup and waved the aroma towards his face to inspect it more closely. "Well, that's a bit odd," he commented to himself. "Sweeter than I expected. This is soup, isn't it? Seems like it's mostly vegetables, but there's something else..." A crease appeared in his forehead as he tried to identify that extra mystery bit. He worked with soups every day, damn it, this shouldn't be that hard! Samael turned back around and spoke to that same spot on the wall next to Zalea. "Hey, did you make this? Mind letting me have a taste?" Never mind that he had essentially invaded her house and was now requesting to eat her food, and besides, he could just ask her for the recipe... no, that was out of the question: this was a test of his skills!

[pandachi]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 300px; padding: 15px; border-top: #cff4ae solid 05px; border-bottom: #cff4ae solid 05px; border-radius: 15px;] ★ EVERYDAY PON! EVERY TIME IS PON! ★ ❝ merii goo rando noritai no! tabun sonna ja dame desho! ❞ Zalea stood her ground, trying hard not to look at the stranger in her home, her frying pan at the ready still. The voice seemed friendly enough though so she eased up her stance a bit but her pan was still at the ready. She glanced at him through her bangs and he wasn't looking at her. She tilted her head slightly confused by this. Then it clicked. Her mother told her that the only person other than her soulmate that wouldn't be turned to stone were those that couldn't see at all. Was this one such person? This made her look up with a look of amazement. She lowered her pan and eased her stance to where she was just standing holding the frying pan to her chest. She felt herself blush a little bit at that. This was the first guest she had in her home! She wasn't exactly sure how a guest should act so him feeling his way around her kitchen didn't seem weird to her. "Uh... I'm cursed. If someone looks into my eyes they turn to stone." She wasn't sure if she was supposed to be straightforward or not so she just flat out said the truth. Then his hands went towards the hot pot. "Oh! Wait that's-" She moved to stop him but it was too late. His hand touched the hot pot she was letting cool before she washed. He didn't seem to hurt though because he raised his hand above the pot for a bit before he continued talking, asking her questions about what she was doing. She wondered if she had done something wrong but she was sure her parents said this square of land was theirs. Zalea focused more on the fact that he had burned his hand. She went to her cupboard and brought out a herb she knew to help nerves recover from burns. She had some already turned to a paste and she went up to the strange man. "Here, let me help. And don't worry about the lunch. You're my first guest so it's okay." She carefully touched his burnt hand letting him know what she was doing before taking his hand in her and putting a bit of the cool paste on it before wrapping it in a bandage securely. She was amazed at his nose. It brought a smile to her face. "Actually, yes and you've got a really good nose. Here, let me get you a bowl." She went and grabbed a bowl and put some of the spare into a bowl before she set it on the table and then she guided her guest to his chair before she looked for Gingy. She found him where he usually hid, in the cupboard. She coaxed him out and set him on the window seal. She went to the table and sat down her in chair watching her blind guest with a new found amazement and curiosity.

MADE BY CYANIDE CANDY ✖

[samael]

[atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=cellpadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,width:380px; background-image:url('http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l37/raincloudbow/patterns/wall4_zps4d44e27f.png'); border-top:3px solid #D2B48C; border-bottom:3px solid #D2B48C;] Samael paused at her confession. A curse, huh? He had heard stories about magic existing on Sepalum, and of course the legends about the harvest goddess and destruction god, so he didn't question her story (or rather, didn't want to question it: this was almost like a fantastic story unfolding!) At least now it made sense why she was holed up all the way out here; from the way she sounded so... harmless, this girl didn't seem like the type to waltz out to town and purposely turn everyone to stone. Well, everyone except for him, he supposed. "It's a good thing I can't see your eyes then," he said airily, though he didn't mention that he might be able to see a little bit if he got up super close and if they were a vivid enough colour. But he wasn't going to try that anyway because, one: he rather appreciated being made of flesh and bone, thank you, and two: most people didn't appreciate it when he shoved his face right up to theirs. By this point, he never really felt the need to know what people looked like. It was way too much effort trying to get any sort of use out of what little vision he had, and he'd decided long ago that it wasn't worth it. Samael detected movement in his direction and tried to figure out what she was doing, when a hand upon his took him by surprise. "Oh—" Before he could react, something sticky was dabbed onto the skin that had touched the pot, followed by a soft material wrapping around it. He blinked and flexed his now bandaged finger experimentally. "Hey, you really didn't need to do that. I get hurt by these things all the time, it's never a big deal. I just leave them and they get better eventually." Samael hoped she wouldn't get angry at him or anything. For some reason, his philosophy of "it'll get better eventually" was not often well-received when it came to injuries. He tensed up slightly when his host started guiding him, presumably to some kind of table. Usually he didn't allow anyone to do that unless he took the initiative to request it specifically. It was done with good intentions though, and this was allegedly her first time having a guest (ever?! Poor, lonely girl), so Samael took the seat anyway without much resistance. At her compliment about his sense of smell, he allowed himself a sheepish half smile and ran his unbandaged hand through his hair. "It's all right, I guess," he said with a dismissive shrug. "I kinda have to know these things, or else people get mad if I screw up their dinner." Himself, especially. He was not allowed to screw up something he prided himself on. And speaking of which! The bowl of soup she offered had been already been placed in front of him, and Samael didn't hesitate to have a sip. After a moment of consideration and a second, then a third taste, he twitched in mild annoyance; it still wasn't coming to him what the unidentified element was, which probably meant it was something he didn't work with on a regular basis. "Definitely a fruit," he mused, touching the spoon to his lips. "Some kind of berry, maybe?" Those didn't show up in his dishes very often, mostly because they were too small to keep track of and always ended up rolling all over the place, as if to spite him by making a mess of his countertops. And now they were trying to challenge his culinary competence. Stupid berries.

[pandachi]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 300px; padding: 15px; border-top: #cff4ae solid 05px; border-bottom: #cff4ae solid 05px; border-radius: 15px;] ★ EVERYDAY PON! EVERY TIME IS PON! ★ ❝ merii goo rando noritai no! tabun sonna ja dame desho! ❞ He didn't seem to shocked about her curse. She wondered if there were others with similar curses on them? She felt their pain if that were the case. Of course, she had read of the curses in her fairy tale books but she had never actually met another who was cursed, though she hadn't met many people who were. She wondered if this man in her home was cursed with sightlessness. To not be able to see must be very difficult but having the ability to see things but not look into the eyes of those who you care for was very sad as well. She decided then that this guy was destined to be her friend. She couldn't have many friends with her curse so having one that wasn't a squirrel was something she could only dream about until now. She felt excitement bubble up in her gut and her smile brightened. She shook her head before she thought any better of it but she went on as if he could see the movement. "Even a small wound can become a large problem if you don't take precautions." She gave him a smile that he probably couldn't see before she continued. "Although for a small burn I guess you may be right." He didn't seem to mind her having him sit at the table, she hoped she wasn't being overly rude by doing so. She blinked a few times at his statement about getting others food wrong. "You cook for other even though you cannot see? You must be very talented at it!" The last sentence was said with envy but it was also a cheery statement. She stood off to the side as he had some of her soup. She could see he was putting all of his focus into it. He guessed a fruit and she felt herself smile a bit bigger, the excitement of him trying to decide what it was getting to her. She hummed a bit as he narrowed it down to a berry. "You're exactly right! I used blueberry today. Gingy really likes blueberries so I figured I should add some for him today." As if on cue, Gingy jumped from the cupboard and back onto the table, obviously sensing there was no danger and he began to eat his soup again, his tail twitching periodically between bites.

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