02-02-2017, 12:18 PM
The night was marked by uncomfortable, uneasy sleep for Malon, but at least her fears of Scar not keeping true to his word and letting some of his men enjoy the captives for the night - after seeing the horribly underfed, emaciated appearances of the people around them, she wouldn't have put it beyond him to be a liar. She was woken up with a kick to her side, enough to nearly turn her over, and found herself staring in the face of one of the bandits. "Up", he said. Malon obliged, was unbound and promptly led to the "kitchen" area. As much as one could call it the kitchen anyway.
She silently wondered what was wrong with those people, to have big fires like this in an underground cavern. The smoke was making the air near-unbreathable and the food that was laying on the shelves without any protection was smelling worse as a result. The man that had brought her in gave her a shove and closed the door behind himself, then sat down on a chair from which he could supervise the entire room. "You're assigned to cooking duty, girl", he said. "Scar told me to do it, but don't think that it'll get you any better treatment. If I catch you sneaking a bite of the stuff, someone else isn't going to be eating their ration, so you had better watch out. Now get to work."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Do I LOOK like your bloody mum? Good, cause I ain't. Just figure it out. Breakfast's up in an hour, you better have it ready by then."
She just followed the lead of the other people who were already working there, surprised to see that most of them were her age or younger, and although many of them were girls they didn't seem very competent with anything kitchen-related. Even when peeling potatoes they were cutting way too deep, wasting a good amount of it.
Her mind jumped back to what Sera had said..."Be careful when talking, they'll think we're planning an escape if anyone is talking", she had told her. But if she could make everyone's lives a little better... no, she had to risk it. "Hey, you, listen. Just wash the potatoes in water, don't peel them. We'll eat the peel along with the rest. And you over there, make the fire a bit smaller, the heat is too high for the soup."
"Oi. New one! Keep it quiet over there!" the guard said.
Malon took a deep breath and mustered all her courage to reply: "I'm sorry, Sir, but we're wasting a lot. This all gets thrown out, right?"
The guard blinked. "I don't like potato peels. Tastes like shit." He seemed a bit thrown off by Malon's response though.
"Then let the pri... the workers eat it. There's enough peeled potatoes for you and your comrades. I know a recipe that's less wasteful and faster. I just need to coordinate people a bit... but I'll talk loudly so you can see that it's just kitchen related."
The guard grunted and waved Malon off with a "none of my business"-type of motion. What did he care what the workers made, so long as he got to eat and they weren't revolting. Malon rolled up her sleeves and first explained to everyone what she needed, then headed to one of the kettles and reduced the fire to a bearable degree. This whole cooking process was wasting half the food that they had... no wonder that the prisoners were all starved. It made her angry somehow, to see good food being wasted like that... maybe because she had been forced to learn being resourceful when Ingo had kept the best food for himself and left her with the rests.
On the plus side, many of the workers were doing their own thing in a silent chaos because they weren't allowed to talk, but with Malon forcing them to listen the kitchen turned a little more efficient. A little, because most of them just silently agreed and didn't speak back, leaving Malon in the dark, and because the kitchen tools were designed in such a way that they couldn't be used as weapons - knives where Malon couldn't tell which side supposedly was the sharp one, ladles made of wood that would crack under too much force and so on. But at least it brought a little order into the room. While they cooked Malon noticed that many of the girls were wearing rags with the remainder of some emblem on the surface, which she didn't recognize. Could it be that they were all from a school or such?
Finally the guard clanked his sword against the stone wall. "Oi! It's almost food time. How's the meals coming along?"
"D-done, Sir", one of the girls spoke. There were two big kettles, one with the peeled potatoes, one with the unpeeled ones. Vegetable soup, essentially. Two more guardsmen came in to guard the entrance while the one that had supervised them stepped closer and took a sip of either.
"Mmm, not bad. Very nice actually. But how do you expect us to fill our stomachs with this little?" he asked while pointing at the peeled-potato kettle. Before anyone could reply he snagged a ladle and began passing unpeeled potatoes out of the unpeeled-potato kettle into the one with the peeled ones. Malon was forced to watch as the one potato she had allocated for each prisoner, which was already cutting it very short, was reduced to kid-sized portions as the guardsman laughed. He waved the ladle at Malon when finished, spraying some of the soupwater over her. "Thanks to you we'll finally be able to fill our stomachs with something tasty again", he said gloatingly. Malon looked to the ground and pictured herself forcing his face into the hot embers. Then he called over the other two and they took the big kettle with most of the potatoes to bring it upstairs, while one of the girls was left to dispense what little they had left to the prisoners who lined up. Her only consolation was that with the amount they were being given, they barely had any more or less than what they had been given the last evening. Nontheless when she was brought back to the confinment area only her refusal to show her tears to the other prisoners kept her from crying bitter, hate-filled tears.
She silently wondered what was wrong with those people, to have big fires like this in an underground cavern. The smoke was making the air near-unbreathable and the food that was laying on the shelves without any protection was smelling worse as a result. The man that had brought her in gave her a shove and closed the door behind himself, then sat down on a chair from which he could supervise the entire room. "You're assigned to cooking duty, girl", he said. "Scar told me to do it, but don't think that it'll get you any better treatment. If I catch you sneaking a bite of the stuff, someone else isn't going to be eating their ration, so you had better watch out. Now get to work."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Do I LOOK like your bloody mum? Good, cause I ain't. Just figure it out. Breakfast's up in an hour, you better have it ready by then."
She just followed the lead of the other people who were already working there, surprised to see that most of them were her age or younger, and although many of them were girls they didn't seem very competent with anything kitchen-related. Even when peeling potatoes they were cutting way too deep, wasting a good amount of it.
Her mind jumped back to what Sera had said..."Be careful when talking, they'll think we're planning an escape if anyone is talking", she had told her. But if she could make everyone's lives a little better... no, she had to risk it. "Hey, you, listen. Just wash the potatoes in water, don't peel them. We'll eat the peel along with the rest. And you over there, make the fire a bit smaller, the heat is too high for the soup."
"Oi. New one! Keep it quiet over there!" the guard said.
Malon took a deep breath and mustered all her courage to reply: "I'm sorry, Sir, but we're wasting a lot. This all gets thrown out, right?"
The guard blinked. "I don't like potato peels. Tastes like shit." He seemed a bit thrown off by Malon's response though.
"Then let the pri... the workers eat it. There's enough peeled potatoes for you and your comrades. I know a recipe that's less wasteful and faster. I just need to coordinate people a bit... but I'll talk loudly so you can see that it's just kitchen related."
The guard grunted and waved Malon off with a "none of my business"-type of motion. What did he care what the workers made, so long as he got to eat and they weren't revolting. Malon rolled up her sleeves and first explained to everyone what she needed, then headed to one of the kettles and reduced the fire to a bearable degree. This whole cooking process was wasting half the food that they had... no wonder that the prisoners were all starved. It made her angry somehow, to see good food being wasted like that... maybe because she had been forced to learn being resourceful when Ingo had kept the best food for himself and left her with the rests.
On the plus side, many of the workers were doing their own thing in a silent chaos because they weren't allowed to talk, but with Malon forcing them to listen the kitchen turned a little more efficient. A little, because most of them just silently agreed and didn't speak back, leaving Malon in the dark, and because the kitchen tools were designed in such a way that they couldn't be used as weapons - knives where Malon couldn't tell which side supposedly was the sharp one, ladles made of wood that would crack under too much force and so on. But at least it brought a little order into the room. While they cooked Malon noticed that many of the girls were wearing rags with the remainder of some emblem on the surface, which she didn't recognize. Could it be that they were all from a school or such?
Finally the guard clanked his sword against the stone wall. "Oi! It's almost food time. How's the meals coming along?"
"D-done, Sir", one of the girls spoke. There were two big kettles, one with the peeled potatoes, one with the unpeeled ones. Vegetable soup, essentially. Two more guardsmen came in to guard the entrance while the one that had supervised them stepped closer and took a sip of either.
"Mmm, not bad. Very nice actually. But how do you expect us to fill our stomachs with this little?" he asked while pointing at the peeled-potato kettle. Before anyone could reply he snagged a ladle and began passing unpeeled potatoes out of the unpeeled-potato kettle into the one with the peeled ones. Malon was forced to watch as the one potato she had allocated for each prisoner, which was already cutting it very short, was reduced to kid-sized portions as the guardsman laughed. He waved the ladle at Malon when finished, spraying some of the soupwater over her. "Thanks to you we'll finally be able to fill our stomachs with something tasty again", he said gloatingly. Malon looked to the ground and pictured herself forcing his face into the hot embers. Then he called over the other two and they took the big kettle with most of the potatoes to bring it upstairs, while one of the girls was left to dispense what little they had left to the prisoners who lined up. Her only consolation was that with the amount they were being given, they barely had any more or less than what they had been given the last evening. Nontheless when she was brought back to the confinment area only her refusal to show her tears to the other prisoners kept her from crying bitter, hate-filled tears.