HtH106 – INTERREGNUM Jules Learns to Wake Up
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Jules feels nightly tremors.
Julienne knows that this is a dream.
The setting is one that she comes back to again and again --- apprentice chefs wearing white mill about the room, moving from the ingredient shelves to their cooking bench. Atop each bench are identical stoves and white ceramic soup pots. Late afternoon light is filtered through wrongness, for there is no glass on the windows. Furthermore---
It is quiet.
Too quiet.
The scent of butter is in the air, it pairs nicely with the crisp smell of sautéed onions, most well-caramelized, some with a slight over-sizzle.
All around her is the rhythmic chopping of vegetables and burning of slow-cooked fire.
Here, there was no pressure to perform--- no frantic scrambling to get lunch service right.
Lunch service is a battlefield.
It is nothing like real life, after all.
When Jules takes a taste of soup from a wooden ladle, the scene swirls and turns upon itself...
"It's good..."
The swirling scene turns to the outside of a gate, apprentice chefs leaving for home at the end of the day.
"Where do you want to be posted when you get your 'greens', Julienne?"
"The capital, I want to be posted to the largest cafe there."
Those were familiar words, but hearing them now, and knowing what happens next made them... unpleasant. Like words that came out of her mouth by unwanted reflex and outside expectations. It sounded right--- it even matched the image of she was 'supposed' to be then.
Even the people she walks alongside are familiar, unfamiliar faces. They are all people who she would never have talked to back in cooking school. They all had a similar trait, now that she thinks back, but she buries that thought somewhere behind a closed door.
The group skips ahead, laughing, talking, smiling, while Jules trails slightly behind.
It is the end of the day, and they were headed for an impossible location, for such a thing had not been built then---
--- a train station.
The 'train' is a relic of a time long past, the Continent has not seen such a thing for hundreds of years at least. Only someone unhinged and totally mad like the current Princess of Vespana would bring it back. An ill-portent of the future to be sure.
But the group walks right past this place.
Still laughing, still smiling, our chef is the only one who lingers.
But she departs anyway.
The group reaches a sheer cliff, and as if they practiced together countless times, start to help each other up a sheer cliff. It is not like the cliff is overly tall; the top ledge was simply a little out of arm's reach.
The group had boosted each other up one by one, and the ones who made it up top helped the final one up.
Jullienne stayed behind, so she tries scaling the cliff by herself.
Her fingers dig into the mud, but she cannot find a good footing.
She tries and tries, but each dig into the side of the cliff feels fruitless.
That is, until...
A red sleeve extends her hand downwards, and with a single pull, Jules hoists herself up.
A little inelegantly to be sure, but she does.
When she tumbles onto the ground, the roar of a train breezes by, the group watching and clapping in amazement near the 'tracks'. It throws up rock and debris as it passes, rattling the foundations of the track.
However...
This person who had helped her was not with the group to begin with.
She wears the distinctive puffy-sleeved red uniform of Conditorri Cafe, a stark contrast to the other trainees in the dream. The girl with long auburn hair and a distinctive forehead stands there, poised and elegant, completely out of time and place.
"This is a dream," Jullienne remarks, regaining control over her own dream. "This is a dream because..."
She looks towards the figure, the last carriages of the 'train' whistling past behind her,
"... when I first met you, Chisame, you wore green."
The girl closes her auburn eyes.
And the dream ends.
When Jules wakes up, she recalls very little about the dream, except that it felt like something good had happened. Fatigue no longer dogs her breath, unlike previous dreams of this nature.
That was the past, it is all over now.
She is here, at Theatre House Delaroux.
Here, there are no more lunch service slips; just a small list of wishes that hang on little slips over the kitchen counter. Lumi has an irascible sweet tooth for example, Ablam has taken a liking to Nangmen-style cuisine, and the dramaturg always appreciates her steak well-done, amongst other things.
There is some heresy in the last one, but Jules lets it slide with a smile.
Soft black chef's attire adorns her body once more, and she buttons her coat up.
She stops at the last few buttons.
Here, she doesn't need to do that.
Tying her hair up in a short ponytail, she pushes past the door---
"Greetings, Jules! It is pleasant that you are up so early! As an early riser as well, Mistrál salutes you!"
In one breath, the girl has told two lies! She wears a pair of transparent safety goggles, pushing a trolley laid with construction tools. The most eye catching one being a portable piledriver, lying atop the top panel! The device had clearly seen some use moments ago, for the bottom of Mistrál's lab coat sports a fresh layer of dust and dirt!
"Haah... It seems you have been working through the night."
"Mistrál has no idea what Jules is speaking of," our blue-haired tinkerer waves her hand in a spirally circle in front of her, "Jules saw nothing here that she can tell Eclair."
"Nope, I totally saw nothing at all." Jules waves both hands in front of her as well, misunderstanding the girl's motion for a secret pact.
The blue-haired girl blinks, the smiles mischievously.
"Mistrál is glad we have reached a common understanding. Mistrál shall try to be more discreet with her construction work in the future--- Looking forward to a good lunch!"
With that, Mistrál departs, leaving a trail of concrete debris behind her.
Our chef leans down to pick up a piece of debris--- what strikes her is how familiar it looks,
"Isn't this wood from the first floor stairway?"
Jules scratches her head, wondering what she just witnessed.
But she doesn't think too much of it, incredible, fantastical things are a daily occurrence at the theatre house.
There are meals to be made, marketeering to do!
"The kitchen clock ticks once. Twice. Jules reaches for the peas."
We are trying something different! This is a simul-posting at the same time as the Scribblehub release! Go check out the entire series at this link!
