Private They Fit a Whole Meal in that Box

[Loomi]

They Fit a Whole Meal in that Box
Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

Loomi was very excitedly scrambling her way down the halls, practically slipping and falling at each sharp turn. An excited expression was present on her face, filled with child-like wonder. A box was clutched in her hands sporting famous historical figures, alongside pasta vaguely in their likeness. Before long she was at the door of her friend's dorm, rather politely knocking. She wasn't just going to barge in. Whenever Aliris did open her door, the Godoan would very enthusiastically hold out the box and present it to her.

"Aliris, look!" she began. "They fit a whole pasta in this box!"

Was that even how you said the plural of pasta? Loomi didn't care. She was too excited. Cooking always seemed so interesting to her, and here seemed a very simple way to prepare something tasty that wasn't completely beyond her understanding, or at least aside from how they put a meal inside that tiny box in her hands. Loomi smiled quite widely, her one good eye practically shimmering.

"We gotta make it!"

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

Aliris stared blankly at the box.

She'd been napping. Recovering from her training. The Force Crystal Jalen Kai'el had given her was handy, but she'd been far too eager in trying to figure out how to see without her eyes. If she wanted to help the others, she had to, right? Groggily she reached up to rub at her eyes, then squint further at it. Realization settled in slowly for the sleepy teen. But when it did, her expression lit up like the sprinklers they'd recently burned together.

"I've never seen something like this before! Is that Master Yaddle on the cover? We absolutely have to make this, it looks- I imagine it tastes pretty good!"

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

“Yaddle… Is that their name?” Loomi remarked, tilting her head. She was terrible at history. “It looks good though.”

They had to make it. It was so tantalizing of a prospect not to. She liked pasta after all, and there was an entire one in here she and Aliris could share. That had to be good. All they had to do was make it first, which presented her first problem…

“Uh… I-I have an issue,” Loomi admitted with an embarrassed look on her face. “I-I can’t read… I-I don’t know what goes in it.”

At the very least she knew the kitchen at the temple had most of everything they’d need. It was just a matter of knowing what those things were.

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

"Pretty sure. I know a thing or two."

She didn't.

But she blinked in surprise. Loomi didn't know how to read? Wasn't that something the Jedi taught their uh.. Younglings? She was still learning some about that all, but it did seem very alarming that she didn't know how to read.

".. Well I can read! So.. I'll help with that. We got this, easy peasy!"

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

".. Well I can read! So.. I'll help with that. We got this, easy peasy!"

"Okay!" Loomi nodded.

Easy. They would be just fine. Aliris would read and Loomi would... do something Everything was going to work out great probably. With her friend in toe the Godoan would awkwardly shuffle off towards the kitchen. She hadn't ever really been back here before, usually being content living off of whatever was there in the cantina. It was probably for the best that she learned how to cook though, at least to get another skill under her belt. Loomi squinted at the instructions on the box and...

Right, she couldn't read. With a bashful look she handed it off to Aliris.

"Alright," she began, "What am I grabbing?"

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

Aliris watched Loomi for a moment. It wasn't hard to tell when someone was doubting themselves. She'd done it enough herself. But how was she supposed to help? She wasn't sure in the slightest, but.. Well. they could focus on cooking. Right now, that's all she could think up anyway. .. Not that she was any good at cooking.

Oh crap.

"A pot! .. With water! And uh, a strainer! Probably. Heh. Yeah! I know what I'm doing."

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

"Y-yeah, okay," Loomi responded before scampering off to dig through the pots and pans.

What size did it need? It was a whole pasta, which seemed like a lot, but the box was rather small. Maybe it expanded? Loomi decided to get the largest size just to be safe. The pot was so large she could very easily fit her entire head within, which was in fact very large as well. She filled it up rather full and heaved it across the kitchen, trying her best (and failing) to not slosh water across the space before getting the pot to the stove.

"Right," she nodded. "Pot. Uh... what's a strainer?"

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

"It's uh, like a pot, but full of holes to drain the water!"

Aliris nodded quickly. She would dazzle Loomi with her kitchen knowledge at this rate. She cracked open the box, staring at the packet within. So that was the cheese mix? Okay, that was put to the side. Then it was the rest of the ingredients. Water, milk, butter. Whatever they needed she helped out to at least point. And of course helped to measure what needed to be measured. Helped Loomi figure that part out, anyway.

She'd really have to learn how to read soon.

"Now we gotta get the water boiled."

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

Pot with holes. She could do that. Another scramble to find this strainer thing resulted in the procuring of a bowl that did have holes at the bottom. Easy.

“I found the thingy!” Loomi exclaimed, waving it above her head rather proudly. “It looks kinda like a funny helmet.”

She considered putting the strainer on her head, but reason deterred her from doing so. Instead she made her way over and begs to read the ingredients that Aliris had pulled out. She wasn’t very good, but Loomi needed practice, right?

“Bu… tter,” she worked out, frowning. That was a new word. “What’s a butter?”

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

A funny helmet?

Aliris looked it over for a moment before nodding. Yeah, she could see that for sure. So much so she had a bit of a giggle thinking about it. But the topic pretty quickly shifted to butter of all things. She at least knew what that was! So she walked towards the fridge, smiling wide as she opened it to retrieve the butter herself and hold it aloft.

"It's butter."

Yes, very helpful.

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

"O-oh," Loomi frowned, staring into the yellow... block? It was a block, yeah. "I see, I think."

Alright, they needed to get started here. Boiling water was easy. All she had to do was turn the nob to one of the numbers on the sides to get the heat to work. Simple enough, and she did know her numbers pretty well now. Before long it was set to 8, the highest setting. Hotter stove equaled faster boiling time.

Probably.

"Okay," she continued, a satisfied look on her face. "I did it!"

"Now what do we do?"

It was going to take a minute to boil. They'd probably get bored.

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

"Now.. We wait!"

.. Crap. Aliris stared rather intently at the pot, practically trying to will it to boil faster. She wasn't sure what else to do at this point. The ingredients were all prepped up and ready to go, they just needed to wait. But what could they do as they waited? She was half tempted to try and read more of the box in a hopes to figure out whether it really was Master Yaddle, but Loomi said she couldn't read, right?

That'd just leave her out, wouldn't it?"

".. Why can't you read?"

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

"Well I..." Loomi began, frowning a little.

It was hard to recall. So much of her past was shrouded in the wall her own mind had put up. Where did she even begin.

"I-I don't remember much," she continued, "But I remember being little. Surrounded by very angry people. They forced me to do stuff, s-sneak into places to steal things. I-I think it was because I was small, a-and because I could feel things..."

Loomi's antennae flattened, hanging down ever so slightly. She didn't like that memory at all. She had never wanted to steal anything, but the bad people would do terrible things to her if she didn't. It made her feel hopeless, more than usual. The Godoan could only ever feel terrible about how incapable she had been to protect herself.

"I don't think they wanted me to learn how to read," the teen deduced. "Th-they didn't like when I asked things...."

Suddenly there was a rather violent spilling sound. A look of surprise spread across Loomi's face as she turned back to the pot. It was boiling over.

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

"So you had a hard time too, huh?"

Aliris spoke to herself on that, but blinked as she realized she spoke aloud. And immediately panicked. She cleared her throat, shaking her head quickly. She didn't mean anything bad with it. Ah man she didn't insult Loomi now, did she? She frowned before looking towards the bubbling water in surprise. She fumbled with the box to get the pasta in before she started to stir, trying desperately to keep the water from boiling over any further.

"Crap! Uh, crap!"

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

Loomi acted quickly, turning the heat of the stove down. Aliris stirring it seemed to help, bringing the water back down to a steady boil. The Godoan sighed with relief, glancing at the mess they had made. That was... fine, probably. They'd just clean it up later, right?

"So you had a hard time too, huh?"

"I... guess that's right," she remarked, tilting her head. "It seems like everyone has gone through hard times in some way or another. M-maybe that's why so many people end up here..."

Loomi frowned in confusion at the change in Aliris's mood. She seemed upset, like she regretted what she had said.

"Is... everything okay?" Loomi asked.

She didn't want her friend to feel bad.

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

"The water! It's, uh, boiling!"

No kidding. Aliris frantically set about making sure that it didn't boil over any further while also getting the mac itself to cook. Some stirs of the spoon, and the panic at least was over. But, then she frowned further. Glanced back towards Loomi.

".. I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to make light of your situation. .. Sorry."

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

"It's okay," Loomi assured with a smile. "You didn't mean anything by it. It was just an observation, y'know?"

She had found a point of commonality between the two of them and pointed it out. Loomi actually found that to be rather nice. It was good knowing that her struggles weren't isolated, even if they had grown up rather differently. It was nice. Yeah.

"So how do we know it's done?" she asked, peering into the pot with her good eye. "They looked kinda crunchy when you put them in..."

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

"Still.."

Still nothing, really. If Loomi said it was fine, who was she to argue? She let out a sigh, closed her eyes, then just nodded as she instead focused on the mac they were making. This was still only step one, so they needed to do more, right? The smile slowly returned on her face as she looked back to Loomi and gave a thumbs up.

"We just gotta wait for the noodles to not be crunchy. Tender is what it says."

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Aliris Tremiru

Loomi procured the spoon with holes in it, scooping out one of the noodles. She poked at it, frowning as she inspected it's crunchiness. It was, in fact, no longer crunchy. The pasta was soft now, vaguely in the shape of that Master Yaddle person on the box. Upon further awareness it became very clear that the pot she had chosen for the job was far too large.

"I think it's ready!" she announced.

 

[Aliris Tremiru]

"Oh! Perfect. Then all we have to do now is-" What started as a 'I know what to do next' sentence pretty quickly turned to Aliris checking the box again before pointing towards the sink.

"We strain it! Quick!"

Loomi