smashrising | [Open] Let them drink tea

[Open] Let them drink tea

Who: Peach and YOU
What: Did somebody say TEA PARTY? No? Well *I* heard it. Come drink tea and chat!
Where: The dining area
When: February 1
Warnings: C for CUTE

Winter months were always dreary, especially if it meant being stuck inside to get away from the cold. Sure, some might not mind it, but others did. Luckily, there was someone around. Someone who had made it her mission to get people to smile and be happy.

That someone was Princess Peach.

Maybe you'd come for a snack, maybe you just wanted a quiet place to eat and read. Regardless, when you entered the dining hall, Peach was there, decked out in her finest, and she'd commandeered the space. There was pink everywhere. Ribbons, tablecloths, curtains, you name it. She was brewing pots of tea in elegant china, and she had plenty of blends to choose from. Plates were filled with cookies and cakes, that she'd spent hours baking herself. "Welcome!" she would greet people with a smile. "Please, come and have a seat! The party's just starting!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"It has been a while," Cyrus mused, setting the pot aside to turn and stare at Peach. "I have not seen tea in this place for months. Perhaps ever. You are a leader and yet I have not seen you in some time either." Segue? What segue?

"Well, I have my resources," Peach giggled happily. Making people smile was her business. And business was good. "Why yes, I am! Princess Peach is my name. I've only been here for a few weeks, and I've been trying to find a way to make myself useful!"

That was strange. He was certain they had met before. But that seemed to happen from time to time. Suddenly someone would lose all their memories, alter their histories...

"My name is Cyrus. I was previously the ethics teacher."

"Ethics teacher?" Peach asked curiously. "You worked at a school?" Clearly she didn't know about the old academy, from the way she was talking.

"Yes. This place was formerly a school...I suppose that was a universe ago." It wasn't the world he wanted. But it was something he could shape...

"We have revitalized it from there, but we have so...very far to go."

"Goodness, a school?" Peach asked, glancing about the room. "You wouldn't know it to look at this place, to be sure. Well, now that I'm here, I'll do what I can to help! Won't you have a seat? I'll pour you some tea!"

Cyrus obeyed her offer, but stared at the far wall. "...This place..." he murmured, lost in thought."

"Hm?" Peach asked, noticing his trialing off thought as she set a cup out in front of him. "Oh, I almost forgot, do you have a favouirte blend?" she asked him. "I have a few to choose from."

That seemed to snap him back. "Orange pekoe, please." He wasn't sure why, and started pondering the nature of such things. "...such things are highly subjective. That one should create greater serotonin production when a similar taste should not, all flowing, all individual...it is curious, isn't it?"

"Coming right up," Peach said, taking a pot and starting to prepare the tea to brew. "It'll just be a few minutes!"

She tilted her head towards him as he waxed philosophical about the tea, and smiled. "Perhaps so, but when you have so many possible flavours to choose from, it's impossible to say which is better or worse! At least not scientifically or objectively... So it's up to us to decide!"

"Which itself is curious," he continued. "We, regardless of origin or, in this place, species, have similar brain chemistry. And yet those things cannot be quantified. There is something in them that prevents us from understanding them, and that itself cannot be understood, at least under current scientific ability..."

"Maybe," Peach replied, pouring a cup for him and offering it to him. "But they DO let us enjoy simple pleasures like tea!" she giggled.

"Enjoy..." He mulled over the word softly before taking a sip.

"Exactly!" she said, clapping her hands together. "So... How is it?"

The concept of enjoyment was unnecessary, wasn't it? It had to be.

"The taste is...good." A simple word but the only one he could think of.

Enjoyment was necessary. That was the difficult part, because it shouldn't be.

It was better than nothing, as far as she was concerned. "I'm glad!" she replied. "How would you like some cake or cookies to go with it?" she suggested with that ever-present smile.

He supposed it couldn't hurt. He needed energy for his later walk, after all. "I will try both but in small amounts."

"I can do that!" She replied, glad to see him relent finally. Perhaps he'd change his mind and request more after he'd tasted the small sample platter she put together for him; a small slice of two different cakes, and a couple of different types of cookie.

"I will reserve these for later," he muttered as he wrapped the cookies in a napkin and slipped them into his jacket. "As for the present..."

The way Cyrus tasted the cakes was a process that could be defined only as elaborate. Taking a small piece from the end of one, he sniffed at it, took it on his tongue, let it sit on the tip, moved it slightly back, pushed it against the roof of his mouth, and finally swallowed it, only to repeat the process with the other piece.

"Hm. I prefer the lemon cake, although the carrot cake has more nutritional value."

"Well, in small quantities, and as an occasional treat, nutritional value isn't as important, is it?" Peach asked him with a smile, looking him in the eye. "Indulging every now and then is fine, as long as you don't overdo it! Would you like some more?"

He stared down at the plate, thinking. "I would prefer to remain with the tea, if you could demonstrate a different variety," he decided.

Health and prosperity, he remembered.

"Oh, I can certainly do that," Peach suggested, tapping her chin. "Do you have any favourites? Or favourite flavour profiles?"

"Citrus, usually. Although I cannot keep with it. Something mild must be used to keep us alert to those changes."

He seemed to recall having that conversation years ago with a lower agent, before he had begun stocking the break room refrigerator with the everpresent energy drinks.

"Well then, I think I can get you something for that," Peach suggested. She thumbed through the tea bags she'd found, settling on an herbal tea packet. "Here we go! It's got orange, and..." She sniffed at it. "Ah! Green tea blended."

She set about preparing it, pouring hot water into a cup, letting it steep, and offering it to Cyrus. "See if you like that!"

He nodded in reply, but sat silently and watched the tea spread itself through the water. The change was simple--the mixture was added, but it just sat there, making no action of its own but changing everything around it. There was something deeply philosophical about that.

Finally he broke the silence, not knowing how much time had passed. "As with everything, the influence of doing nothing spreads."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject