You'll Never Know If You Don't Put It In Your Mouth And Find Out

Anise Benoit, 19, and I never f*cking learned how to read || Daughter of Camazotz || Student of Mushies and Lover of Books (I work at the Lion's Den) || RP blog for Mount Phoenix

[anisexmp]

mp-yuqi​:

Yuqi watches Anise’s writing with some hesitation. She was rather worried on what the woman was going to make her do. However, these beginning stuff was simple, and she was thankful she pointed out how she cried when hurt. It was something so little, but she hoped that it would stop the girl from trying to get her involved with something that would end up hurting her. “Yeah. We can start with some brainstorming. I think that would be really easy!”

At question, she chuckles. “I’m okay. Chinese is my home language, but I learned Korean to move here. I’ve been trying to learn English, but I have been having a hard time at it.” She mentions, nodding her head. “I would definitely call myself average. I do not think my powers have anything to do with this.” She explained. Yuqi did not know why she felt excited going through this. She knew what her powers were. She was just too scared to let the woman know what they were. 

‘Having a hard time at it.’

What a shame. That means there is no way Yuqi was a child of Seshat. The goddess herself is a master of languages, so picking up new ones would be no struggle at all for her children. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Yuqi herself confirms this next, while Anise’s mind is already hurrying along through the series of questions she might want to go through next. Reading, eating sweets, and hurting makes her cry. It’s an unbearably short list. The lack of information on her paper already starts making Anise a little frustrated. She will have to work around it by making her own observations. She’s polite, Anise thinks, nice even, but she doesn’t write any of this down. Well, until she changes her mind and writes kindness under attributes. The child of a god of compassion thing is starting to seem more feasible with each passing moment.

“What else y’good a’?” Anise asks, per pen shaking almost violently between her fingers. She stares the girl down in a way that her father would probably chide her for being very impolite, but she can’t be missing any possible visual cues of Yuqi’s powers. 

She’s pretty, Anise’s mind adds unhelpfully.

[anisexmp]

mp-yuqi​:

Yuqi mentally notes what Anise states about the deities. She was nervous around gods mainly for she felt like such a little ant compared to a much larger specimen. However, Yuqi was completely harmless, and there was in no way or chance that she could anger the mighty gods and goddesses of Mount Phoenix. Most appeared to find her cute.

She tilts her head, trying to gather what the woman said. However, she finally gets it. “Oh, no. I don’t think hurting me would help. It would just make me cry.” She frowns softly, kicking her legs that dangle from the chair. Yuqi felt a little better about knowing that she would not have to face imminent danger for that situation would be a fail for her. 

“I am good at reading! I eat sweets really well.”

At the top of the paper, Anise writes YUQI in her usual handwriting of neat, slightly blocky letters to use for a title. Several rows are segmented and devoted to observational research, split in half into Attributes and Skills. Under Attributes, she writes hurting makes her cry. It feels a little silly to write it like an actual observation, but for all Anise knows, Yuqi could be the child of a god of compassion or something along those lines. At worst, it will be something a little humorous that touches her legitimate research. “Th’we c’sta’t w’brai’sto’min’ an’ moo’ t’prac-ti-cal resea’ch aftuh.”

Reading, eating sweets, Anise writes under skills. The latter doesn’t really seem like a skill, but it’s better not to leave anything out when doing this kind of research that overlaps with magic in such unpredictable ways. “Readin’...” Anise mumbles, flicking her pencil in her fingers. “How ya w’lornin’ lang-ua-ges?” The idea that she might have found a child of Seshat made Anise bounce in her seat for a few moments before she reminded herself not to get her hopes up like that.

[anisexmp]

mpxyuyan​:

General Education +Yuyan

Was it too late to drop this stupid course? Probably. Not that she would have been able to bring herself to do that, anyway. She was simply too stubborn for that. But man, she had really picked a bad humanities elective, and she was not about to let it drag down her otherwise stellar GPA. They just had to get through this project with a decent grade. Surely they could do that. They may have both been biology nerds, but it could not be that difficult to translate regular science smarts into political science smarts.

“Maybe you can look at the president and I can look at the prime minister, and then we can exchange notes?” At this point, efficiency was the key to them both maintaining their sanity, she was fairly certain. Dividing and conquering seemed like the best way to get through this with the least amount of pain on both ends.

Damn it. She liked Anise and hanging out with her was fun, but why couldn’t the professor have paired the two of them up with more government-savvy people? It would have saved them a lot of headaches.

If nothing else, it seemed like Anise and Yuyan were going to be able to brute force their way through this project. If Anise could just realign her thinking...well, maybe the Russian government worked a bit like mycelium. Each deputy prime minister and smaller governing body was an individual hyphae, and maybe the president and prime minister were the stipe and the cap, respecively? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it gave her a place to start from at least. From there she could rework her analogy as she went and maybe actually figure this out. 

“San’s like a plan,” Anise answered, more than happy to let Yuyan break up the work for her. If it was just one little piece of the equation, then it would hopefully be at least manageable, if not easy, to untangle this unpleasant puzzle.

For the next 15 minutes, Anise mumbled quietly to herself as she shoveled through source after source of borderline-incomprehensible explanations of what the president of Russia actually did. After that, the girl was silent for a while as she compiled the information in her mind in order to form a slightly more sensible idea of her portion of the research. Finally, after what felt like far too much time, Anise looked up at her partner with a bright grin and sparkling eyes.

“Might’a got mah bit. You?” 

It would be like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without any idea of what the picture is meant to be, but if Anise had anything, it was stubbornness. This was her grade she was talking about!

[anisexmp]

mp-yuqi​:

She tilts her head. “Oh? That is reassuring, but haven’t they always broken the rules?” She muses out loud, thinking over it for a second. Technically, if they did break the rule, there would be other gods to resolve the situation, but that was still rather frightening. “I will have to try and meet some one day. I’m sure it would be interesting.” She chatters happily. 

Yuqi follows the woman like an obedient puppy. Even if she did not know how to handle Anise, she still wanted to have her as a friend. She would definitely learn with time if she could survive these tests she would put her through. 

As she arrives to the table she had been sitting at, she smiles at the other. “My name is Yuqi.” She watches Anise with unease. “What is the plan, boss? You aren’t going to get me hurt, right?” She laughs softly, rubbing the back of her neck. 

“Dey warn’ he-a befo’,” Anise replies simply with a shrug. If the gods broke rules while away from the island, it wouldn’t matter much to those living on the islands, at least not in the legal sense. When they came to the island, they would have had to follow the rules. That’s what rules are for. “Chief o’ po-lice ‘s’a god.” What an interesting way of thinking this girl has, Anise muses. Very different from mine.

As she sits down at the table, Anise nods at Yuqi to do the same. Anise, meanwhile, pulls a notebook and pencil from her backpack. This notebook is the one she uses for all her recreational research, not to be confused with the many, many notebooks she has for her actual classes. “Would’n’ be ver’ innerestin’ t’hur’cha. ‘Nless y’think mi’ help.” Anise says this matter-of-factly, the same way she says most things.

“Le’s sta’ with...what kind’a thangs y’good a’?”

[anisexmp]

mpxyuyan​:

General Education +Yuyan

Yuyan let out a long sigh, sitting back up and scrolling through the Wiki page, skimming the headers and information as if she might find something to latch onto. As if. It was all just gibberish to her. Did people in Russian even understand their own government? It all seemed far too convoluted for any layman to understand. Maybe everyone there was a political science major or something.

She had never felt so stupid in her entire life. Even in high school, she had done well in the one politics course she had to take. So why was she so bad at this? Maybe that resurrection had taken half her brain, too. The half where the political smarts were, apparently.

“Sounds like a plan,” she murmured, only actually considering it a little bit. Much as it might have seemed preferable at the moment, she would have been a terrible stripper, if she were being honest. “Let’s try…” She opened up a word document and started jotting down a few little pieces of information, hoping that breaking it down as much as possible might help them figure out what the heck was going on with the Russian government.

“I… I guess as much as we need for context? Depends on how similar the current government is to the Soviet Union, I guess.” Ugh, yet another thing to research, then.

Considering Anise already basically lived in the woods - highly preferable to regular society except with significantly less access to lab tools and instruments for her research - it didn’t take much brain power to switch over from thinking about government to thinking about becoming a swamp witch living in a hut full of hanging dried herbs and jars of mysterious syrupy substances and fermenting mystery items. It definitely took much more brain power to switch back over to Russian politics.

The idea of doing additional research into historical Russian politics made Anise scrunch her face up like she had just tasted the most sour and bitter food she had ever had in her life. No thank you. If they needed Soviet context, they would pull up the most basic information necessary and move on. For now, Anise needed to break things down before they broke her down.

“From th’beginnin’,” Anise half-sighed, making a whine-grumble sound very much like a dejected and starving dog. “Who’s’n cha’ge?” The more she looked, the more confused she became. “Looks, uhh, like dey gotta pres’dent an’ a pri-ministuh.” Her eyes hooded in annoyance, but she looked over at Yuyan anyway for confirmation. “Guess we c’n sta’t wi’ who does wha’?”

[mpcamazotz]

Would you lend me a hand?

[mpcamazotz]

@anisexmp

Camazotz stood in front of a familliar door at the end of a work day. He had to stay a little longer due to an issue with a contract write up that required his immediate attention but he was here now, in front of his daughters apartment. Their relationship was still strained but he hoped his offer of Mayan dishes, boxed up and stacked in his hands, might get him a foot in the door. She’d always liked her mothers cooking, maybe she’d appreciate something homely from him as well. Maybe. 

He was still in his suit and tie despite having gone up and gathered the boxes from his apartment a couple of minutes ago. With an elbow he maneuvered himself to ring the bell while simultaneously balance some of the food on one knee. He was starting to look like his boss at this rate… That wasn’t a development he was looking forward too, so the moment the bellrang he pulled himself back together and waited, peeking over the plastic lids to where he hoped to see his daughters face when she opened the door. And when she finally did, at once and beyond his control, a small smile came to his lips. “Anise, do you have a few minutes? I wanted to ask your help with something.” He was straightforward as ever, for both of their sakes.

[anisexmp]

Though her body sat at the little table that served as both a desk and a dining table in what might generously have been called her dining room, Anise’s mind was far away in the rain forest, observing and recording various environmental and meteorological phenomena and the way the impacted the area around her. In what had ended up being something of a surprising turn of events, Anise found herself being quite interested in her environmental science class. It figured quite intimately into her love of the plants it impacted which lent the class to having grown in her esteem since day one. But it was also a science class, so that definitely helped. 

The sound of the doorbell barely registered at first, the sound coming through her study haze like the sound of a far off church bell. When she realized what the sound must have been, Anise’s previously glazed over eyes brightened and sharpened, and the girl pushed her glasses up on her nose as her gaze turned toward her front door. Someone was visiting? Opening the door revealed the more of an annoyance than a visitor, but two things stopped Anise from shutting the door in his face.

The first was the smell of what looked to be an abundance of sharply flavored food filling his arms. Anise liked to think that she couldn’t be bought, but then again, could she really consider food to be currency? The second thing that stopped her was her father’s request for her help. She was simply too smug about the request in the first place to turn it down.

“Sho’uh, fine. C’mon.” Though the words themselves were somewhat clipped, it was a vast improvement over the way she had spoken to her father during their first interaction on the island. She even held the door open and closed it behind him as he entered.

[anisexmp]

mp-yuqi​:

Yuqi did her best to try and understand the woman. Patience was her biggest virtue, and she, at this point, was so desperate to make a friend that she would go through anything to get close to this female. She was so excited to be able to even experience this that she valued all moments of their conversation, including those few confusing ones. 

“Get to know them?” She covers her mouth, afraid her volume would get too loud for the library.  The thought of such truly frightened her. She had been so used to seeing stories of the gods and their actions causing trouble that she wanted to be no where near one.  “They scare me so bad. What if I make one of them mad? They could literally squash me!” 

Yuqi was well aware of powers, so she knew that she was wasting the other woman’s time with this. However, it seemed to her that Anise almost seemed excited to help with this, so she had to agree. 

“Of course.” She rubs the back of her neck. “I won’t get hurt, right?”

“They not ‘llowed to,” Anise replied simply as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. The places outside of Mount Pheonix had rules in place to protect citizens, so it only made sense that the island would have special rules in place for its special inhabitants. If it was the sort of place where violence and chaos ran amok, Anise would have long since returned to Baton Rouge until she found somewhere safer to attend university. “An’way, most of ‘em ah friendly. Nice, ev’n.”

While it did strike Anise as odd that this girl had ignored most of her questions, Anise couldn’t deny the excitement that came with the potential of a new hypothesis to test and experiment to design. The only question was where to start.

“C’mon,” Anise said with a sharp turn, making her way back to her favorite table under the assumption that the other girl would follow her. The idea that she wouldn’t didn’t even occur to Anise until she arrived at the familiar seat when she turned back to make sure the other was there. “Ah’m Anise, by th’by. An’ you ah...?”

[insomniac-arrest]

what is it about fungi that’s so mythical and freaky and set in humanities heads as “fable and Other Folk” fodder

the lore

the vibes

the spooky feeling in the Ghosts and Aliens Section of my brain that goes off

like, look at this and tell me that magic isn’t real and doesn’t want to strip us bare and use our souls as bartering chips in cosmic games of poker

[insomniac-arrest]

mushrooms are an ancient force of growth and decay, life and rot, collapse and creation; they have been here long before us and will remain long after we’re gone- devouring that which kills us and creating that which forgets us.

it is best you tread carefully.

[hyperactivehedgehog]

I’m studying biotech and every time someone brings up mushrooms our current professor will look either extremely exited or pained and go “listen.. mushrooms are neither plants nor animals nor something in between. They elude all attempts to categorize them. We do not know what they are. Some are immortal. Some produce live saving substances. Some are so closely related to humans that eating them may cause an allergic reaction against your own body. I cannot teach you about the mushrooms”

[anisexmp]

mpxyuyan​:

General Education +Yuyan

Yuyan should have known that taking a course on world governments was a mistake from the beginning– but unfortunately, that was something she had only figured out later on. And, of course, she was not the type to drop a class. Nope, she was too stubborn for that.

Perhaps her only solace was that Anise was in the same boat as her. Which was good for solidarity, but bad for the outcome of their project.

“Okay, but what the hell is all this about a president and a prime minister? Aren’t you supposed to pick one?” She asked, squinting at the Wikipedia page in confusion. She was no expert on governments, obviously, but she’d never heard of a place having a president and a prime minister at the same time. It seemed like a messy way to do things.

“And the president appoints the prime minister? But isn’t a part of the government? How is that possible? Are there two different governments? I’m so confused,” she grumbled, resting her head on her keyboard in resignation. Between the stuff she was reading and what Anise was saying, she was starting to think they were in way over their heads.

“Is it too late to drop out and become a stripper?”

Looking at the Wikipedia page and all of its seemingly senseless information was becoming far too much for Anise; she clicked the X button in the corner and the words blinked out, replaced by the background picture on her laptop: a collection of several different species of dirty mushrooms in a basket against a forested background. She stared at the picture for several long and silent moments. Her eyes, blank but warm, hopped from mushroom cap to mushroom cap. She counted each as she went.

At least now she didn’t feel like she was going to scream in frustration.

“There... there gotta’ be som’way t’tackle this. An...angle, ‘f nothin’ else.” Anise took a moment to rub her eyes with her palms, perhaps a little harder than necessary. But then, it wasn’t like was doing it because she was sleepy.

“You be a strip’ah, I’m’a go live in d’woods.”

With a sigh, Anise opened a new internet browsing window and typed ‘russian government’ once again into the search bar. She had to force her eyes not to glaze over as she considered each resulting link in turn. Only a handful of results seemed to address the current state of the Russian government. The rest simply led to historical pages about the Soviet Union.

“How much’a Soviet’istory d’ya think we gotta’ go in’na?”

[anisexmp]

mp-yuqi​:

Yuqi was for a loss at the other female. She seemed so sweet, but at the same time, Yuqi was overwhelmed. She was still new to real interactions with others, starved for attention at home and utterly rejected by her classmates in early level courses. “Ah..” Shyly, she tilts her head down and grips her book. “I don’t know much about the gods and goddess, so I thought it would be nice to read a love story!”

The other’s question about her heritage made her uneasy. She would much prefer her father’s identity to be unknown, fearing a repeat of history. “Uh.. I know I’m not a Greek demigoddess.” She reaches up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I’m in the Japanese pantheon, but they never told me who my parent was.” 

There was nothing wrong with a small lie, right? She could convince herself of that. “I’m really new here. I haven’t met many people, but I will note that about Eros!” Yuqi took a step to the side, as to allow room for the other woman. “I’m sorry to be in the way!” 

A love story. Right. Anise herself had never much seen the point of them. Why bother with romance when there was so much real world knowledge to sink your fingers into? There was so much to learn! Yet so many people still decided they would rather experience romance vicariously (not even in reality!) than read up on their favorite topics. Anise didn’t think she would ever understand. But that wasn’t her problem.

“Y’know...lea’nin’ bou’ ‘em come much-easiuh by gettin’ t’know ‘em.” What was the point in reading folklore when the gods themselves lived a few floors up or a block or two away? The new information had Anise nodding, more in confirmation than of agreement. The girl knew very little about her own pantheon, let alone what any others were like. If this girl said she was the child of a Japanese god or goddess, Anise had no reason not to believe them.

The fact that she didn’t know her god parent, though? Now that was a question that Anise might know how to answer. Her eyes lit up as she turned the conversation toward one of her favorite subjects: experimentation.

“I c’d pro’ly help ya. Wha’ kine-a powuhs ya got? D’ya know? You wan’ tes’em an’ fin’ out?”

[izzetheking]

What the Heck is a mushroom?Well let me tell you… its like a plant… but stop right there…Its not a plant… its nota planet and not an animal.. Its something else… Something fucked up that we havnt ever seen before… You can eat it on a steak but its not an animal or a plant… So what is a mushrom? Its a fungits

[anisexmp]

General Education +Yuyan

research subject: anise w/ @mpxyuyan

lab results: two science brains don’t always make the best team

“Why-” 

Of course Wikipedia wasn’t considered a valid source, but as far as Anise was concerned, it was a good enough place to start. That said, she hadn’t expected the Wikipedia article on the current government of Russia to be simultaneously incredibly confusing and lacking almost any useful information whatsoever. She scrolled down the list of current Russian “ministers” with a deepening frown.

“Why does a country need tha’ many deputy pri’ministers? Wha’ even is a deputy pri’minister? And why’s that diff’r’nt from first deputy pri’minister? There’s-” Anise took what felt like the longest moment of her life to count just how many deputy prime ministers Russia currently had. “Eight. An’ then the’s the rest of ‘em. It jus’...keep goin’. More ministers.”

Anise and Yuyan had barely even begun their project and Anise was just about ready to call it quits. She was pretty sure this part of their mutual World Governments class was a torture specifically designed just for the two of them. This had to be a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

“Why d’they need all dem deputy pri’ministers if they gon’ have all dem specific ones? Why?! Why...?”

It was safe to say the project had not started out on a good note.

[anisexmp]

Hot Choco; +Freyr

While Anise had never really been one for coffee (caffeine made her feel odd and made her mind race uncomfortably), she was always up for some hot chocolate. Lately she had even been adding cinnamon to it, and today her plan was to order a proper Mexican hot chocolate with both cinnamon and chili pepper in it. The idea of pepper in chocolate before might have thrown her off, but Anise had realized she actually quite liked spicy food and that chocolate could be delicious even with weird additives in it, so what was there to lose? Especially when she had just won herself a handful of gift cards, one of which was for the Flower Mill.

She proudly handed the cashier her shiny new gift card after ordering her Mexican hot chocolate. With the exchange done, Anise bounced over to the pickup counter to wait for her drink with a big excited grin. On her way over, however, she found herself bouncing right into another man. Anise backed up immediately, both embarrassed and uncomfortable that she had come so close to a stranger - and a strange man of all people.

“Shoot, sorry mistah, didn’ look whe’e I’as goin’.”

Hopefully he wasn’t the kind of guy that got mad over these kinds of little incidents. It would certainly spoil her hot chocolate.

@mpfreyr

[rpmemes-galore]

spooky scary haunted starters … sentence starters

“Did you call me?”

“Was that a scream?”

“Did you close that door?”

“It just turned on by itself!”

“I just saw that shadow move!”

“That was definitely not the wind.”

“It sounds like someone’s in here.”

“Is that… is that a face over there?”

“I heard breathing, right in my ear!”

“Ow! Something just scratched me!”

“I swear, I’m not joking, I saw it move!”

“Does it smell like perfume/cologne to you?”

“It’s not faulty wiring, something turned it off!”

“I didn’t slam the door. I thought that was you.”

“It feels creepy in here. Can we leave, please?”

“The lights are flickering… that’s not a good sign.”

“I could’ve sworn I heard someone talking in here.”

“There’s something standing at the foot of my bed…”

“There’s no one in here. You’re just imagining things.“

“But, there’s no one else here… who’s walking upstairs?”

“Listen, you might not believe me, but I know what I saw.”

“Wait, I thought you came home earlier. I heard your voice.”

“Haha, spooky message on the mirror, very funny. You wrote it, right?”

“It was your bright idea to use a spirit board, and now look what’s happening!”

[anisexmp]

mp-yuqi​:

After getting over her momentary fright, Yuqi studied the other female’s features as they asked her a question. The other female seemed to be nice, and she allowed her guard to be lower, not that this was ever a hard feat. Glancing back down at the book, Yuqi showed the book to the other person. 

“It is a book about Psyche and Eros.” She whispers in a excited but hushed tone. She was always quick to go into a rambling session, and within seconds, she was moving between being new to the town to wanting to know more about the gods and goddess that might reside here.All this stemmed from nervous energy, but each word was laced with enthusiasm. 

Concern quickly overtook the demigoddess, Yuqi leans closer to the other woman. “You weren’t trying to read this book, right?” A small frown grew on her lips, not wanting to be a bother to the other woman. “I can always find another!” With big and earnest eyes, she gazes at the other, almost seeking permission to move forward with her book selection. 

Anise blinked several times as Yuqi answered. Was this girl trying to study mythology or history? There was no difference on this island, Anise supposed, but as far as that story was concerned there were far better stories out there. Anise had even read some of them. “What’cha doin’ tha’ fo-ah?” Anise asks just before a possible answer pops into her head. “You’unna dem Greek folk?” It was a far better reason to read the story than for pleasure, at least in Anise’s opinion. Gathering intel about one’s family made a lot of things acceptable that otherwise probably shouldn’t be.

The thought made Anise wonder if using Yoongi as essentially her lab assistant that time would be otherwise considered distasteful. Or maybe it was distasteful and Anise simple hadn’t realized it.

“Don’ live’n mah buildin’ anyways. Eros nahce, but I c’n only ‘magine wuh bein’ his kid’s like.” While a perfectly amiable person himself as far as gods went, having powers that correlated to emotions rather than to the real world...well, the idea made Anise uncomfortable to say the least. “Nah, I w’s headin’ fuh boh-a-ny.”

[anisexmp]

Anise as fem!Sherlock Holmes

Though not the type to wear a skirt, Anise found a costume of one of her favorite fictional characters in just her size. Rather than dancing, she spends the majority of the ball writing and drawing in her vintage leather notebook.

[anisexmp]

mpcamazotz​:

mpcamazotz​:

I’m here for your birthday

Standing at the door of his daughter her apartment his posture was still straight and exuding of confidence and control. It was his face that gave away he wasn’t happy with today. A mix of emotions were just slightly hinted at. He wasn’t a man for strong emotions in the first place. It had taken forever to even understand the principles of having them. Camazotz then watched as his daughter looked at him, thought, and eventually went inside. She left the door open as he remained at the step.He knew better than to invade her private space without permission. Those kind of boundaries were learned early when you breached people’s homes to take their souls.

Eventually, Anise did speak. Just one sentence in her accent. He was allowed to come inside though and talk to her. At this point, he figured that was something. He had no idea why she was so hostile towards him, he hadn’t expected to start from square one, literally. Maybe even lower than square one. But if that was the start then he’d work from there. His steps were heard on the floor as he took just a few strides inside. He couldn’t help but look around for a few moments at her apartment but then kept his politeness and focused on her. As she… Unloaded her groceries. Fine, it seemed to keep her calm even if it made him feel partly ignored. He’d deal with it. He was the father here, it was the least he could do for her.

“I don’t know what your mother told you about me. But, I want you to know I sincerely loved her and I love you as well.” He wanted to say more about how he didn’t appreciate her behaviour today, about how he didn’t know why he had deserved this treatment. But it didn’t seem important, so instead he just put a smile on his face as he looked at her. His daughter was beautiful. He couldn’t wait to know what else she was. Hard-working seemed to be on the list as well. “Happy 20th birthday.” He let that rest for just a moment as he kept his gaze on her, melancholic but adoringly. Eventually though he reached for his pocket and pulled out his wallet, he took a business card from it and then next up reached into his other pocket. Of course, he hadn’t shown up empty handed. He’d hoped to give it to her in the restaurant with a bit of fanfare but alas. He placed the small finely wrapped box with a decorative bow and some dried flowers on the table along with his business card with his phone number. “You can always call me or visit me, I work in the hospital but the staff can let you up to my office. I’ll make sure they know you can come anytime.” With that he briefly felt awkward about his now empty hands, he pressed his lips together for a second as he considered his goodbye for that evening, and eventually he let out a soft sigh before nodding at her once with a curl of his lips. “Have a good meal.” With that, he turned towards the door to let her be alone. He had a restaurant reservation he’d have to hurry to catch now, dining alone.

With her hands busy on the menial task of putting away groceries and beginning the cooking process, Anise’s mind was free to really hear and take in what her father was about to say. In a way, she was more able to focus on both projects for the sake of having two vastly different things to do at the same time. That was just how her brain worked; it was why she did things like study and forage for mushrooms and plants at the same time. It was easy to repeat and internalize information in her mind with her hands and eyes occupied. Knowing this was what had allowed her to become a straight A student.

But Anise also knew that many people didn’t know she focused better while appearing to be engaged in a different task entirely.

Not much, Anise thought bitterly. A new pang of longing struck her hard in the diaphragm as she thought once again of her mother. For her next birthday, the girl swore to herself that she would go back and visit her mother. Her father’s silence stretched for so long that Anise eventually had to turn around to confirm he was still there. The roux was starting to change color now, the process of the recipe now reaching a somewhat more delicate stage. Whisking her roux while turning to look at her father ended up being trickier than Anise would have thought, but she managed it. She watched as he put a few things down on the table, then finished his little speech and turned to leave. She even watched him close the door behind him. Well...damn. Now Anise felt much worse for the way she had acted all day. Maybe he had deserved it at first, but now? She couldn’t be sure. “You too,” she breathed into the now-empty room.

With the roux finished and safe, Anise finally began the process of chopping vegetables, something that felt more like a meditation than a chore for her. Before she began though, she went to investigate what her father had left on the table. There was a collection of dried flowers that gave off the classic scent of floral perfume and a hint of organic decay. It was a smell Anise had grown to love, spending as much time deep inside of forests as she did. Opening the box was a little more confusing for her. Inside was a simple little bottle with an amber liquid inside. Was it a potion of some sort? A perfume? A...beverage? Pulling out the stopper instantly answered her question. It was some sort of scent bottle filled with that same smell of floral decay multiplied a thousand-fold and mixed with the scents of the forest: fresh leaves, clean early morning air, many different wildflowers, and the musk of dead leaves and mushroom spores under it all. It was a surprisingly nice gift. Or maybe not so surprising.

Maybe - just maybe - her father wasn’t as bad a person as Anise had always decided him to be.

She left the bottle open in her room that night, falling asleep with a belly full of her mother’s gumbo and a nose full of her father’s forest-scented gift.