Chapter 4: Stir

"Again! Again!" Riki hopped around like an overexcited child.

Melia leaned on the steering wheel of her hovering ship and shook her head. "You've already had one more turn than everyone else, Riki, and it's getting quite dark. We wouldn't want to lose you if you strayed off course."

"Awwwww." Riki looked back up the giant slide that was the Great Battle Scar before boarding the ship alongside everyone else. "Melly right. Riki disappointed but can always come back later."

"And we probably will," said Shulk, "once we've got what Bozatrox needs. But for now let's finish some of what we started back in the colonies."

Now that everyone was seated, Melia turned towards Colony 9 and accelerated up to maximum speed. With the fastest ship ever made under her control, it would only take minutes to travel from one titan's leg to the other's. It was an invaluable tool for the group's quest, allowing them to effectively teleport around the world at will and quickly solve problems that would otherwise take weeks of harsh travel and transport.

"So what's the plan for tomorrow?" Reyn asked.

"Nothing too special." Shulk flipped open his notebook of requests to the Colony 9 section. "Let's just go through the list and see what can be done. We've got access to Machina technology and items from the Fallen Arm now, so there might be stuff all over we can get cracking on."

Sharla stretched out her back. "It'll be nice to sleep in an actual bed tonight. I'll bet there's not a spot spot on the whole Mechonis."

Melia couldn't help but feel guilty that she had a sleeping bag while the rest of the party had to sleep on the raw metal construction of the mechanical titan. At least when they slept at Dunban's house, she refused to let Sharla give her possession of the bed in Fiora's room.

Of course, while the Mechonis landscape wasn't exactly friendly territory, and the sprawling catwalks and maze of elevators would be a massive pain to navigate through even without the Mechon guarding them, the presence in Melia's chestplate provided several advantages. While she had yet to directly communicate with the voice again since the first night on the Fallen Arm, she continued to have random flashes of insight, providing tidbits of information about Mechon weaknesses and nearby landmarks. She considered it akin to Shulk's visions in a way - unpredictable, not necessarily reliable, and a little disorienting, but indisputably useful.

I expect to not hear from the voice while on the Bionis. There's nothing there she could have any knowledge about. I should feel alone in my mind once more.

It was a relief to be back in Dunban's kitchen after the toil of navigating up through the Mechonis' leg. Being back in Colony 9, a familiar stomping ground, was a massive de-stresser.

It was Sharla's turn to make the meals today. The group kept a fairly regular rotation of Shulk, Dunban, Reyn, and Sharla for meal duties; they excused Melia for having never made a meal before, and Riki couldn't be trusted to create something that anyone else could eat (or to keep the kitchen in a livable state afterward). They tended to use Dunban's kitchen when possible, as it was already well-stocked and it wasn't hard to keep it that way.

Sharla took some already-sliced Spicy Cabbage out of the fridge and looked it over. "This stuff won't stay fresh for much longer, let's use it up."

"Aw yeah." Reyn almost clapped his hands together, but decided it would look silly and stopped partway through to turn it into a double fist pump. "No better lunch to keep a good day rolling."

Reyn's opinion was not shared by the others. Riki looked pleased at the offering and started wobbling around in his seat, but Dunban grunted noncommittally, and Shulk and Melia both quickly lowered their heads back into their reading materials in disgust. All in all, it was about as good as anyone could hope for; the group's tastes were so disparate that no one had yet found a single meal that everybody liked, and getting an approval rate of over 50% was a pipe dream.

Sharla quickly got to work on readying the salad. While the cabbage itself was pretty much already prepared, she was still missing any sort of toppings. She went back into the fridge to find a suitable fruit.

"What would go well with Spicy Cabbage?" she asked, mostly to herself. While she was the best cook of the bunch - Spicy Cabbage by itself wasn't exactly beginner's fare - she still had a lot to learn outside of her personal favourites.

"White Plums and Juicy Grapes." Melia didn't even look up from Ecology of Valak Mountain. Only recently had she finally shaken off the last lingering effects of her ether deficiency suffered in Makna Forest, and she was hoping to find inspiration for her once-again battle-ready ice elementals.

There was a pause before Sharla responded, a little baffled. "You came up with that right quickly, didn't you?"

"...I suppose so." How did I come up with that idea so quickly? True, putting fruits I like on a salad I dislike is a simple way to ease the pain, but no one has ever combined White Plums with any food on the Bionis before. Why would I so easily believe it's a good idea?

"Well, we didn't bring these plums with us to not eat them." Sharla grabbed a few plums and placed them on the cutting board. From there, she began the slow process of removing the fruit from the pit inside: make two cuts to form a slice, wrestle it away from the centre, and repeat. It was clear she didn't work much with pitted fruit.

After about a minute of seeing the struggle in her peripheral vision, Melia almost sighed in exasperation as she turned a page. "Run a cut around the entire circumference and twist the two halves apart. Repeat twice to obtain eighths. Remove the newly-exposed pit."

Everyone stopped what they were doing and focused their attention on Melia in bewilderment.

"I thought you were clueless in the kitchen," said Dunban, half teasing and half impressed.

After Melia realised what she had said, she became as equally befuddled as the others. "I...am. Or...at least I'm supposed to be. I have no idea where I could have collected such information."

Shulk pointed at her chestplate. He didn't need to say anything; the implication was clear that he thought the voice within had given her another hint.

Melia shook her head. "That was my first thought too, but why would a Machina, a species that does not eat, know how to prepare food?"

"...huh, yeah." Shulk lowered his book on calf meteorology and wrinkled his face in thought. "Maybe there was once a Homs chef on the Fallen Arm, and she picked up a few facts from him?"

"Well, wherever you got it from, it works." Sharla was now motoring along, using the newly-dispensed tip to great effect. In no time at all she had the de-pitted plums sliced up and sprinkled into the salad. The grapes quickly followed, and within minutes everyone had a helping of salad in front of them.

Reyn was the first to dig in and make a comment. "Could do without the plum, but other than that it's as tasty as usual."

Riki was clearly trying hard to not scarf his whole helping down all at once. "Plum-grape-salad very tasty!"

"Oh yes." Sharla looked equally as pleased with the novel combination. "It just all works together. I'll remember this."

Shulk turned his fork around disinterestedly. "It's okay. Better than just the cabbage would be alone I guess."

Dunban looked equally nonplussed. "It's passable."

Melia didn't expect much, but was pleasantly surprised to find that her tongue didn't burn off quite as bad as it usually did when eating Spicy Cabbage. "The assembly is still not to my liking, but the permeating presence of the sour and juicy fruit dulls the painful spice admirably." Without thinking about it, she stood up and darted to a cupboard. "Do we have any nutmeg? Or parsley? One of those would bring out the fruity taste even more. Ah, here we are." She found a shaker of nutmeg and went to sit back down.

"Okay Melia, I've seen enough." Sharla put her fork down a bit harder than she intended. "You clearly aren't nearly as culinarily hopeless as we believed. Dinner's on you tonight."

"Er...what?" Melia had finished sprinkling the nutmeg over her salad and was about to test it. She suddenly realised that she'd done it again - shown cooking knowledge out of nowhere, for the third time in the last ten minutes.

"Works for me." Reyn held his hand up. "All in favour?"

Riki and Sharla raised their hands with gusto. Shulk lifted his up a bit and wavered it around in indecisiveness, creeping his other hand towards the nutmeg shaker.

Dunban wasn't convinced. "That's a pretty big ask of her, you realise? A few pieces of advice over a salad doesn't compare to cooking a meal for six."

"I didn't say I'd make her go it alone," Sharla countered. "I'd stick around for when she needs help."

Melia instantly felt slighted, and rebuffed without thinking. "I don't need your help."

Sharla appeared insulted for a split second, but her face quickly changed to a wide smile. "You go girl, break that shell you've been hiding in. I look forward to seeing what's for dinner."

Everyone appeared to consider the decision a done deal and went back to eating; Shulk was going a bit faster now that he had dumped a heap of nutmeg over everything.

Melia paused for a moment to consider what she'd just done. As a result of acting uncharacteristically impulsively, she was now expected to do something in about five or six hours that she'd never done before - and succeed. And the nature of her reaction blocked her from asking for help. It was a very unappealing scenario.

At least the voice's cooking instinct appeared to be good; the nutmeg she had applied made the meal taste almost good enough for her to give it a "neutral" rating. Given that Spicy Cabbage was one of the things she hated the most, this was impressive. If she could find a way to harness that instinct, she might not have much trouble at all.

The clock passed four-thirty. Dunban's kitchen sat clean and empty, with everyone helping out various colony residents. Except one person.

Melia looked around the empty kitchen with a twinge of interest overshadowed by fear. She wasn't all that opposed to trying something new in these unusual times. But now that she'd had a few hours to think about it, failure seemed all but inevitable, and the penalty would be very harsh: a disgusting or outright inedible dinner, followed by disdain and disappointment from the others.

She pretty much had no idea where to start. She had made reasonable preparations by flying up to Alcamoth and purchasing a pair of bright blue cooking gloves to belay her anxiousness over touching raw food, but that was about all she had figured out. The occasional flash of insight over what someone else was doing at the time didn't help her magically determine what to cook or how to do it.

She reasoned that if she could get herself into a zone where her subconscious mind could take over, and it triggered the buried cooking instinct, she might be able to ride it out for as long as she could avoid thinking about what she was doing. But this was of course a challenge in itself - how does one activate a subconscious instinct? Presumably it would have to be triggered by doing something reasonably related. But that would mean she'd have to start before knowing how to start. There were a few cookbooks in the kitchen that she could refer to, but a preliminary glance revealed they were all geared towards experts and not newcomers, and consciously following directions would almost certainly keep her too actively engaged for the instinct to surface.

The one beacon of positivity was that she felt surprisingly comfortable in Dunban's kitchen, as if she already knew where all the ingredients and tools were. It wasn't a feeing she could remember from any previous visits, so it must have been tied to the voice's cooking knowledge somehow. Of course this didn't made a whole lot of sense beyond first thought, since the odds of the voice having visited this exact Homs house in the past were unfathomably miniscule, if not outright zero.

Time passed by as Melia paced around in nervousness and indecisiveness. What was reasonably simple for a beginner to try? What was something that at least two of her friends would like? What was something that could be turned into something else without too much hassle if something went wrong? She really didn't have an answer to any of these questions, aside from vague ideas of the party's preferences: Shulk liked bitter things and hated vegetables, Dunban disliked fruits and sweetness, Sharla loved fruits and anything spicy, Riki would eat almost anything, and Reyn was literally her exact opposite. It was like trying to maximise a mathematical function of twelve variables in a world where she barely knew how to do addition.

Once it became five o'clock, she slapped the counter in frustration and threw on her cooking gloves (overtop of her regal gloves, of course). I'm out of time to dither. I'll just throw something together, and if it turns out horrible, too bad, I can blame the others for pressuring me into doing this. Lasagna seems simple enough and is expected to look ugly. I'll need a pan, cheese, ground meat, tomato sauce...

She turned on the oven for preheating, collected the ingredients, and began work. The Armu meat was instantly tenderised by blasting it with a bolt, followed by grinding it up and mixing it together with powdered cheese and some eggs in a bowl. The substance was browned by submerging a flare into the bowl, which worked a lot faster than leaving it on the stove, followed by dumping half a jar of tomato sauce into the mix and stirring. Once the mixture was fully blended, she haphazardly layered it into a pan with noodle strips. With the pan filled with several alternating layers, she shoved the dish into the oven, alongside another flare to compensate for the lost time sputtering in indecision. Finally, she collected all the dirty dishes together and chucked them into the sink, washing them thoroughly.

After putting away all the cleaned and dried dishes, Melia stood back and considered what she'd just done. ...wow. That was...surprisingly easy. Did the cooking instinct lead me through that entire sequence? I feel like there was very little thinking involved at all. The time just flew by.

Unsurprisingly, Reyn was the first to wander into the room, nose-first. "Oooh, that smells good, Melia. Nice, meaty...aroma. Knew you had it in you."

Melia could feel herself blushing. "That's...a bit premature, don't you think?"

"No way. Smell's half the deal, isn't it?"

"I suppose so."

Dunban was next to walk in, also nasally intrigued. "What's this, now? Smells like lasagna. Good choice."

"OOOOOH!" Riki flew in like he was shot out of a cannon and started dancing on the table. "Riki has no idea what this is, but he likes it already!"

Could we all calm down for a moment? Melia didn't really have anything to respond with; it was a bit unnerving to be collecting so much praise for what was essentially an unfounded preview. She continued to mentally orbit the flare inside the oven around the pan, cooking the dish at a heat beyond what Dunban's oven was naturally capable of.

Sharla and Shulk both arrived at about the same time. Neither of them made a verbal comment, but Sharla nodded with anticipatory approval, while Shulk seemed a bit mystified at what the smell was.

Reyn put himself down in a chair. "So when's it gonna be done? Can't wait."

"Er..." Melia hadn't been paying attention to the time. "It...shouldn't be too long now?" It doesn't smell burnt, so that's a good sign...but how do I know when to stop? No, stop thinking about it. Do something else so hopefully the instinct resurfaces. She went to the cupboards and started setting the table.

Just as she was pouring the last of the drinks, she came to the decision that now was the time. She opened the oven only to get blasted back by the sheer heat wave it emitted. Everyone could feel it was way hotter than it was supposed to be.

"I hope you haven't broken my oven," Dunban said with a mixture of chiding and worry. "That doesn't feel normal."

Melia took the flare out of the oven and dispelled it, just so everyone could see she hadn't modified the oven itself. She then summoned two wind elementals as well as an ice one, and began using them to suck the broiling air out of the oven, chilling it to a reasonable temperature while also dispersing it through the kitchen. Once the job was done, she could reach into the now-quite-cool oven and extract the pan, filled with a well-cooked and already-cool-enough-to-eat lasagna. Becoming a little excited, she placed it in the centre of the table - before realising that something was very wrong.

As it turned out, all the instinct in the world couldn't make up for a lack of skill and practical experience. The lasagna didn't hold its shape properly before it had set, instead dissolving into an indistinct mess of yellow, red, and brown; it looked more like a meat-and-noodles cake than a layered pasta concoction. Presumably, she hadn't layered the noodles tightly enough, and the movements of the flare in the oven produced asymmetrical heat waves that helped the mixture roll about instead of settling in place.

Before Melia could react to the realisation she'd messed up, Sharla jumped in. "It's a bit different, but it's a lasagna all right. Looks tasty."

Reyn nodded. "Oh yeah. Bring it on."

Despite the encouraging words, Melia's mood was still soured from what she considered a failure. She slowly took a knife and extremely carefully began to cut sloppy, indistinct slices out of the pan and onto six plates.

Riki was the first to have a portion placed in front of him. He leaned forward to snarf it, but decided against it and jolted back, rocking his chair back and forth. "Nonono. Melly taste first. It only fair!"

Melia completely expected someone to say something of the sort. It was indeed only fair, after all - punish the cook for failing, not the guests. With everyone else served and anxious to get it over with, she sat herself down a bit too quickly, removed her cooking gloves, lopped off a gob of her own serving with her fork, and resignedly stuffed it in her mouth.

She didn't know what she expected, but it wasn't half bad. She'd used too much sauce, and she didn't really like red meat to begin with, but the noodles and cheese combined to stand out unexpectedly well from the sludge.

Reyn waited for a moment and fired his prepared joke. "Well she ain't dead yet, that's good enough for me." He began filling his gob.

The others all joined in. Silence fell as the first mouthfuls were taken.

Riki was the first to break the silence. "Melly has Heropon stamp of approval!"

"I'm impressed," said Dunban. "Worlds better than my first attempt at lasagna. Of course, my being fifteen and disinterested probably had something to do with it."

"Impressed? How about astonished." Sharla took another small bite before continuing. "I have to be honest, I expected something smaller and a bit undercooked. But this is perfectly well-done. You must be gifted at this, Melia."

Reyn's cheeks were stuffed. "Uwh yhh, ths ys lk dh bsp-" He received an elbow from Sharla, and didn't bother to continue.

Shulk didn't seem interested in making a comment, instead absent-mindedly feeding himself like he was trying to simultaneously crack a physics problem written on the far wall. Sauce was aimlessly painted around his mouth.

Melia chose to interpret Shulk's lack of reaction as indifference; he was continuously touted by the others as having no taste, of course. So all in all, it was a reasonably successful dinner, especially for a first try.

"So what do you think, Melia?" prodded Sharla. "It's your creation, after all, you must have an opinion."

"Well, I..." It took a bit to collect the opinion together. "Lasagna was never really one of my preferred dishes, and I can see many areas of improvement. But I am...pleased at how well it did turn out, compared to my initial expectations."

Shulk finally spoke. "It's perfect."

Melia couldn't help but be confused, and the others appeared likewise. "How so?"

"It's...it's just the way I like it. Without the defined layers, it's an easily-controllable blob instead of a bunch of sheets that spurt out everywhere when you try to cut it." He shook his head and chuckled. "Fiora would always get upset when I scrambled it up before taking a bite, like it ruined the art or something."

It was the first time that Shulk had mentioned Fiora since the the party left the Fallen Arm. The way that he appeared to do it without hesitation was a bit of a surprise to all, but it gave off the positive impression that perhaps he was quickly moving past it.

"...I see." A thought had manifested in Melia's mind, and it grew to completion very quickly: it was not the Machina spirit in her mind that she was taking cooking inspiration from, it was Fiora's. The idea didn't make a whole lot of sense, but it did seem distantly possible - the chestplate could have preserved a slice of Fiora's personality and knowledge. It would explain why she didn't feel the instinct until the first time returning to Dunban's kitchen. She began to wonder how much of Fiora she could be carrying around - certainly not too much, or she would've felt it far earlier than now.

Of course, now that she was thinking about it, her mind moved onto considering what else she might want to try cooking. She never cared much for the subject as a child; she knew it was very messy, and it didn't seem worth learning in a world where she'd always have someone to make her meals for her. But now that she'd received a big head start, and she really didn't leave much of a mess at all despite her choice of attempt being a naturally messy one, her interest was piqued. In addition, her instinct to use elementals in the kitchen was a fascinating topic that she wanted to further explore - she'd never heard of similar being done since the usage of nebulae was banned from the royal kitchens.

And...and maybe stepping in to fill a position last held by Fiora would steer Shulk towards her. But it might instead simply continuously remind him about the past and drive him to further hold onto his departed one. It seemed like a gamble. Was it worth taking?

"I...am interested in attempting to cook something else again tomorrow."

Shulk, whose turn was next, swallowed his most recent mouthful and nodded. "Go ahead. It'll be way better than whatever I'd be scraping up."

The others all agreed; they would rather have another taste of Melia's nascent culinary skill than Shulk's known lack thereof.

Melia felt an odd sort of stir in her chest. It felt quite unusual to possess a skill that had a practical real-world purpose that others appreciated, yet that a royal was not expected to have by default. It made her feel much more of an asset to the party as a whole - it wasn't as if she felt useless before, but she did sometimes feel like all she did was check the group's diversity boxes for "ether attacker", "High Entia", and "friends in high places".

She made a mental note to try even harder tonight to communicate with the voice in a dream, with her new burning question of how much of Fiora had been drawn into her. She almost thought she was getting somewhere last night, finding herself in a red-lit landscape, but it quickly morphed into something else that she couldn't remember. Hopefully finding the cooking instinct for the first time would help stir something up.