How Girls Work (...we think) {Henry}

[Deleted]

"You'd be surprised how often tarts save the day," said Remy, grinning. He was tempted to point out that his sweets seemed to bring him plenty of female attention, but that seemed a little like excess bragging to him. Better to simply bite his tongue and nod, more or less going on with what Henry said.

Henry certainly seemed determined to go on as if Remy wasn't really there. The chef waited patiently for a while, but when it became clear that Henry was going to talk irregardless of how much attention Remy gave him, the latter walked over to check on the food. He tapped a light to get a good look at the goose, and somehow wasn't surprised to see that it was very close to being finished. Remy reached up and adjusted the temperatures, turning only when finished and when it seemed like Henry had run out of steam.

"I actually hang out with my roommate sometimes," he said, adding a shrug. "I hung out with my brother a lot back when I was a rat. Now... not so much," he paused, taking a deep breath. the smell was just... awesome. How could Henry not get distracted by something like that? Remy jerked his thumb toward the ovens.

"That should be done in a few moments now. It's on the browning process now...

[Deleted]

Henry tried to come up with a good come-back, something about being sour and sharp, but it just wasn't happening. He settled on "I'll bet," and let it go. This argument felt a little like hitting your head against a wall and expecting it to understand.

Not that Henry was necessarily opposed to injury without any result. So he just kept pounding away until he ran out of things to say, at which point Remy seemed almost ready to get the food. The thought of an imminent meal was beginning to distract the young prince, whose stomach growled with anticipation.

"Who's your roommate?" he asked, more as a passing question than out of any real curiosity. He hadn't been here long enough to know everyone at school. "I guess your brother's not here, then?"

Rising, Henry followed Remy to the cooking machine and tried to look at the food. He cracked open the oven the way the other guy had done, but all he got for it was a face of hot air. The sudden heat surprised him, and he stepped away, shutting the oven door with a bang. "It's worse than a fire," he said, stepping back and briefly checking his eyebrows. "How does it get so hot without giving off the light?" The whole thing confused him, and just as he had initially done with his new cell phone he looked over this new machine and tried to discover how it actually worked.

"How much of this is truly magic, and how much of it is not?" he said, mostly to himself. "If all of this is possible without a large fire, how might we be able to..." Then he trailed off as the food came out of the oven and he followed it with his eyes. "Well. Maybe we can think about that later." Much as he wanted to discover the puzzle of technology and how it could help in his home world, Henry's really was more of a one-track mind. Food first. Theory later.

"All right, well, so you can cook. Got any other great talents?" he asked, tearing off a leg of the bird and diving in. There wasn't much point in silverware, in his opinion. As he bit in, his eyes opened wide. "Wow, this is...how did...this is good! I wonder..." He thought back to the whipped cream. He wondered if this would taste good with that.

[Deleted]

"Uh, my roommate's a fairy, a fairy named Barinthus, though I haven't seen much of him lately," Remy shrugged. He had no idea that Barinthus, like so many others, would eventually fade into the background and out of the primary story. It mattered some to Remy, as he'd hoped to find a friend there, but he'd rebound easily enough. Truthfully, Remy was pretty sure he could rebound from anything, so long as he still had an opportunity to cook.

Lots of questions to answer. Remy left the one about his brother alone, instead focusing on his usual, favorite subject: "It makes heat through electricity, exciting the metal and stuff. I don't know the exact details, but this one doesn't run on fire. Just magic and science."

The bird was out. Remy sat it down and looked at it with admiration, taking a few tentative sniffs. He held up a finger, waved it slightly, and then darted off to grab something. He came back just as Henry was pulling out the whipped creme. Remy's hand flew so fast you'd think he'd had mother training, and he slapped Henry's hand. "No! Don't do that! Don't--just don't put that in your mouth. Jeez, aren't you supposed to be a prince? You should be used to eating awesome food. Just, eat the bird and the sauce, okay? It's perfect. Well," he did another last little adjustment, "it's as perfect as something I whipped up on the fly can be..."

[Deleted]

Henry shuddered. "I hate fairies," he said, not worrying if he was being completely racist about the matter. "They're always messing up people's lives when they don't belong." Henry knew about fairies, and he didn't trust them as far as he could throw an elephant. Or a mid-sized dog.

"...exciting the metal?" That sounded strange. How could metal become excited? "Are they supposed to mix magic and science like that? I am not so sure that sounds like a really good idea." In fact, it sounded rather explosive in the prince's opinion. Not understanding either field, he tended to think rather poorly of both magic and science.

When Remy walked away from the bird, Henry wandered over to the fridge and picked up the whipped cream from where he'd set it in the door. He wandered back to the table and was about to apply it rather heavily to his next bite of meat when Remy attacked. "Hey!" he shouted, dropping the can of whipped cream on the floor. He glared up at the cook.

"I do eat some pretty good food sometimes, but this whipped stuff is better than anything we had back home. And I thought it might taste good. What are you supposed to put it on, then, if I'm not allowed to eat it with the meal?" And sullenly he bit into the turkey haunch again. It still tasted good, but he couldn't help wondering how the added treat might improve the dinner.

"Yeah, sure, just whipped up. You do know this is better than stuff we get at home, right?" He sank his mouth into the leg, tearing off a large chunk and taking a few seconds to swallow before wiping his mouth with the back of his arm. "Most of the time there's at least some of it that's burnt. And I don't eat at home a lot of the time, anyway. I like hanging down at the pubs, and the food there is mostly gristle. You don't go there for the fancy dinners. You just eat what's there because it's food. It's not some sort of special art, it's just...food. Some of us can't afford to be picky."

[Deleted]

Remy gave Henry a weird look as the prince ranted about fairies. It sounded, well, it sounded like Henry had a personal grudge against fairies. Remy supposed that was entirely possible, since Henry came from a place where the fairies were a lot more active and involved. Plus, Remy really only knew one fairy, so he figured it wasn't best to judge. Besides, there was food to get to.

Though Henry had to complain about that. Remy rolled his eyes to the ceiling, asking the Great Chef to grant him patience when dealing with this poor, uneducated soul. The resemblance to Emile was just... uncanny. "Look, different foods go together with different things? Right? Like, you put that," he pointed at the whipped creme, "on ice cream, or desserts. Maybe some yams if you cook them in brown sugar and stuff. It definitely does not go on a goose that's been seasoned like that," he waved at his goose. Okay, so Remy had a thing for the food, he already knew that.

He'd moved to the goose now, carving off a bit for himself. While he did, Henry explained about the food back home. Remy had just swallowed his first bite and was on the way to his second when Henry said something that definitely struck a nerve; more like danced on it, actually.

"Food is... okay, look, it's important? You can combine flavors and tastes to make something wholly new. It's an act of creation, of making people remember and feel better about themselves. It's kinda what I do," Remy finished and took another bite of the goose, "and this definitely needs the sauce; it's almost too dry. I'm not used to the ovens yet..."

He began dipping his slice of meat into the sauce, glad he'd at least had the forethought to throw something like that together.

[Deleted]

"All right, fine," Henry sulked. "So maybe you're some food expert and you know what goes with what, whatever. But what about the rest of us? People who don't just know or whatever what you should eat with what. Right? Well, if we want to try different things together that you wouldn't like, how do you know I wouldn't like it?" A niggling thought in the back of his head asked him to extend this argument to other things, like fighting or potentially even ruling a kingdom, but that was logic, so he decided to ignore it for the time being.

Somehow it felt to Henry that Remy was ignoring his point. He furrowed his brow, and when Remy went off about sauce of all things, he slammed his fist down on the table. "And what if you don't have sauce?" he said, suddenly angry. "What if you don't have those chances? I once met this girl and do you know what she had for dinner once? Black bread. She shared a piece with her two sisters, and that was what they had until I went out and bought a leg of lamb. That family was thanking me for a year, every time I walked by. Lucy still didn't...but that's another point. I just...you treat food like it's a game. And most people in my family always did the same thing, and it bothered me. I'd always go out and hang out with the gang at the pub, and you know what? Most of the time I played to lose, because I knew those guys were broke and they were losing all their money and their family was going hungry."

Sitting back, he rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have...I didn't...you should probably just forget I said that, okay? It's not something I really talk about much." And why would he, when he wasn't supposed to be that close to the common people. He was supposed to be a prince, above that sort of thing. "The goose is good. Thanks for cooking." He took another bite and stared at the ground. "I guess you're probably used to not having much either. Sorry, I keep forgetting that you didn't always live here."

[Deleted]

"That's what people like me are here for: to help the rest of you," said Remy, adding a shrug. He certainly had no problems with instructing others in the proper way to eat food. He'd been doing it for a while now with Emile, so why should the public at large be any different? Henry did sound almost exactly like Emile, and it was around that point that Remy was perfectly willing to just give up his point, seeing the parallel and knowing there was only so much he could do with either of them.

Then Henry had to continue his rant, likely in response to Remy's sauce comment. The ex-rat stared openly at the prince while he ranted for a while. "Uh, did you forget I used to be a rat?" he asked, nearly cutting into Henry's talk. "You know, the furry, scrounging creature that had to steal people's trash in order to survive? There were times when my family would have loved to have a crust of bread to share between us, believe me. My brother? Emile? Yeah, he totally ate wrappers that sort of smelled like food. So yeah, I get it. Doesn't mean I don't want to create something and make the world better. Just because I don't want to go out... out there," he waved, "and fight with a sword or something doesn't mean I don't want to do something, make something."

Remy paused, biting almost sulkily into his food. Henry offered a compliment, which certainly helped sooth the chef's feelings, but it was almost too little too late.

"But yeah, totally slept in a sewer before I got here, where I was thinking about eating the pages of the cookbook I love," added Remy. He took another bite of the goose, almost vicious. "Plus I donate a lot of what I cook. Like, a lot."

Another bite, and Remy swallowed, having somewhere remembered that was what you did with food.

[Deleted]

In all the time (a few hours now?) that Henry had known Remy, he wouldn't have guessed the guy could get so hyped up on a topic. But then Henry had basically insulted him and told him he didn't know what it was like to go without. Instead it was the other way around.

"Sorry," he said again. "I guess that's good, giving food away. And it's not like there's a lot of people here who go hungry a lot." It was a surprise, really, to walk into town and not see people begging in the streets. "I just...it seems stupid to me. People spend all their time making things fancier when some people don't even have the basic stuff. I don't know." He shrugged. "My home is just so different. It's hard to remember sometimes."

He put the leg of turkey down on the counter and frowned at his hands. Then he looked up at Remy. "Do you miss it? Home, I mean. I mean, what sort of life are you going to have when you go back? Are you really going to be okay with going back and being a rat again?"

[Deleted]

Remy shrugged. "People still go hungry. I don't see why I can't make something good and beautiful and all that without worrying about it. If you are what you eat, I want people to be the best, y'know."

He added another shrug before going back to the goose, chewing contemplatively now. The words seemed familiar somehow, as if they were something that Remy had already said before. He'd had to frequently defend his choices, and it was true: there were times when he wondered about just how useful he was. Then he saw the expressions on people's faces, like when Henry first bit into that goose. You needed to treat people to goodness every once in a while, if only so they could remember it when they needed to.

"I sort of miss it. Sometimes. It's more like I miss my brother than anything," said Remy, adding another shrug. "And I don't really feel that different; you people just look at me different here. But... you know, I'm not sure I'm going back. It's not like I have anything to go back to. I've got a dad and a brother... and that's about it. Here, I've got, stuff," he waved a hand, "and a purpose and future and, yeah. So I'm probably going somewhere else."

Remy paused, then looked at Henry. "Besides, do you know how long rats live? I'd have about ten years left if I went back, maybe twenty, tops."

[Deleted]

Frowning, Henry thought over Remy's argument. It seemed to make sense, but then, so did a lot of things that Henry didn't necessarily agree with. It was hard to tell sometimes. But it was enough for him to let the conversation drop for now.

"Somewhere else?" he asked, picking up the goose again and trying another bite. Didn't taste dry to him at all. "Like where? Another one of the worlds?" He swallowed a large bite. "If your brother were here with you, would you stay?" He vaguely wondered what it would be like to have a brother one wished to be around for more than a day. Sounded kind of nice.

He took his turkey leg, now rather the worse for wear, and pointed at his friend with it. "Tough break," he said. "So does this mean that rats are a lot more common in your world? Humans somehow stopped exterminating them? Or do you not live in a place with humans?" He wasn't quite sure what else you would have, but it might be an option. "If I didn't think my father would hunt me throughout eternity, I'd like to try visiting some other places. I think they have some really great ideas." And some really horrible ones. But those weren't as important.

[Deleted]

Remy gestured toward the ovens, "Somewhere I can do this would be nice. I actually got invited to the Land of Sweets by the Sugar Plum Fairy, so I could always go there," he shrugged. "I just want to be able to be myself."

And Remy wasn't certain he could manage that back home. There had just been so many pressures, not to mention the difficulty of his form. Though sometimes Remy did wonder if he was just ducking out, insisting on staying here and staying human. On the other hand, he knew he couldn't have had nearly the same relationships if he'd stayed home, and he'd already grown to care too much about the people here to want to turn around and head home.

"Nah, they were about the same here as there," said Remy, shrugging. He turned to look at Henry again. "We had to live in fear of humans and all that stuff. I actually got a job as the official poison checker back at the colony for a while. Was Dad's way of trying to put my weird talent to use."

He chuckled at that. It was ironic, and it had been almost miserable at the time, but it was kinda funny in retrospect, in that ironic sort of way. He stretched, moving to take another bite of goose.

"My dad actually said that humans were horrible and wanted to kill us and all," said Remy. He grinned wryly. "The last human I met before coming here even chased me down with a gun. Boy, was that as much fun as it sounds," he took another bite, then turned to look at the goose. "You know, we're going to have to store a lot of this. It's a good thing people are used to food just randomly showing up around here."

[Deleted]

"But isn't being yourself being a rat? Though I guess I can understand why you wouldn't want to go back to that." For one thing, thumbs. Also the age thing. "And you won't get in trouble for not ever going home?"

Henry frowned. "So it's all the same?" That seemed a little...sad. The more things change the more they stay the same. Maybe Henry wouldn't enjoy Remy's world much. "Wait, how does being able to cook things help you to check for poison? Did you have to eat everything first?" That sounded horribly dangerous. "My father would never let one of us eat food to taste for poisons." They had other people for that. Mostly criminals who wouldn't be missed in the event of something untoward being digested.

Henry finished off his turkey leg and set the clean bone down on the table. "Send it back to the guy with the gun," he joked, not realizing it was probably in poor taste. "Maybe he'd forgive you if you gave him some food." He licked his fingers. "Humans are pretty awful toward rats. But rats are also one of the biggest problems, where I come from. If rats get into your food stores, that's an entire castle, sometimes an entire town that goes hungry for the winter. People starve to death because the food goes rotten and the rats get into it and the whole batch goes bad. We have to fight rats or else we would die." He shrugged. "It's just the way it goes."

[Deleted]

"Being myself is being... me," insisted Remy. He shrugged. "I still sort of see myself as a rat. I'm mostly picking the human thing because you know, dying young isn't as appealing as all the minstrels make it sound."

Remy shifted. He hadn't put a lot of thought into his whole transformation thing, nor did he particularly want to. He was quite comfortable where he was, and quite willing to stay there. Well, until he graduated, at any rate, after which he figured he could just take one of the several jobs already being offered to him. Maybe he could even open up an eatery here in town; wasn't like they didn't need good ones.

"Little old lady, actually," corrected Remy, grinning as he looked to Henry. he held his hand up at about his chest height, "about this tall. She couldn't aim very well and had thick glasses. Which is probably why my brother and I didn't get shot. But, yeah, before that, I was poison checker because of my freakish nose. That's pretty well why I'm good at the cooking thing."

Remy shrugged. He wasn't going to admit that it was also entirely due to the fact that he spent nearly all his spare time cooking and backing in some form or another. That was just something he did, not something he really thought about.

"What we really need is to come to some sort of arrangement," said Remy. "The rats and the people, that is. A rat can live off what most people throw away, or we could actually do something," Remy sighed, looking to the goose. "Though I don't know if all rats are quite as smart as me or my colony..."

Man, was this one depressing conversation.

[Deleted]

Henry snorted. "Yeah, I know what you mean. But young death is only popular in romances, so I think as long as you stay away from relationships you'll probably be fine. And maybe as you live here longer you'll start to think more like a human." It couldn't be healthy to think and act like a rat when you weren't one. It would always just remind you of what you should be, or at least that was what Henry thought. Running away from who you were didn't change it, and eventually you just got pulled back.

"Oh, the nose thing. Right." Henry had briefly forgotten about that, figuring most of Remy's skill was just based on some sort of magical force of cookery. "You were chased by a little old lady with giant glasses? And she didn't have any sort of magical powers? I think that might be the only story I've heard of where that sort of thing happens without magical explosions." Little old lady equals witch. Everyone knows that. Except apparently not in this other world, which just gained a few bonus points in Henry's estimations.

"Smart or not, humans aren't going to agree to stop chasing rats. We've been killing them for so long I don't think that will ever stop." Henry shrugged again. For him it was harder to see it as personal. It wasn't as though he was out killing rats, and not like he cared about anyone in that population in the same way. It was just life.

[Deleted]

Remy shrugged. From what he'd seen so far, he wasn't sure that thinking and acting like a human was all that great. He honestly preferred it his way: the hybrid way, where you thought a little like a rat and a little like a human. Or, in his case, you just thought like Remy. Either way, he didn't think it was something he should really bring up to Henry, especially since the prince already seemed a little keyed up about something; probably the goose. Geese did that.

"She had a gun," Remy felt necessary to point out, adding an actual point with his finger, "and I was a tiny rat. Trust me, this was one of the most terrifying experiences in my life. Think about how you'd feel if you were unarmed and being chased by a giant with a gun."

Remy really didn't want to mention that the incident was pretty much all his fault. Sure, he'd wanted to cook. Sure he'd been looking at the lady's cookbook (which was technically the one up in his room now). But still, shooting was a bit extreme. Then again, what did you expect...

"See, that's the problem!" said Remy, waving a hand. "You're all ready to just condemn an entire species because that's what you've always done! Humans are the only ones who think it's cool to do something like that. Oh, we've always gone around picking on the poor, innocent rat, so it's okay that we keep doing it. It sucks."

Remy sighed, reaching up to rub at his face. He paused to peer down at the goose, grimacing. "How did we say we were cleaning this up again?"