Ienzo, as it turns out, is a bit prim and fastidious about his snacking tastes.
Whenever he does appear with food on hand, it's the darnest, most deceptively simple put-together things... like an elegant handful of breakfast radishes with their stems trimmed appropriately for finger-food, dipped in soft sweetcream butter and flecked liberally with sea salt. He brings these alongside the first of spring's fiddlehead ferns, quick-pickled and tangy, coiled in tight little green spirals and laid out in a shallow wooden bowl with some small, crispy pressed biscuits, made of oat flour and a multitude of seeds.
Nothing scary, like some of his other slimy fermented bean pastes and more pungent food 'projects'.
It's as if he's out to prove, particularly with someone he's hard at work to impress, that he's quite matured beyond sea salt ice cream sticks. Trouble is, it's never quite enough to be satisfying- a teasing pleaser, a sampling of just a few daily curiousities he's rooted around for in the vegetable beds....as if he hadn't fussed around for longer than intended for his entire work-break before even coming to find her, making everything just so.
But today he also shows up at her favorite doodling spot with another little surprise, which he's probably-overpaid some moogles to aquire from offworld- a baking tin. Twelve shallow shell-shaped depressions.
"For Madeleines." He explains, setting it down with the snack bowl beside Namine's set of pastels. "You know, uh... like in Proust?" Ienzo beams, as if that's sufficent enough of a logic map for anyone to follow, before clarifying- "(For memories.)" A wink. The apprentice clasps his hands behind his back, seeming to preen just a little bit for the keeness of his gift-
"Or if you're a wary of tackling sponge cakes, er..." Don't buy any of that humble-bashful shrugging for a moment, Namine, that's the biggest illusion of them all. "I figured you could always use them to mix paints?"
...sorry, but looking like a total nerd is unavoidable.
Whenever he does appear with food on hand, it's the darnest, most deceptively simple put-together things... like an elegant handful of breakfast radishes with their stems trimmed appropriately for finger-food, dipped in soft sweetcream butter and flecked liberally with sea salt. He brings these alongside the first of spring's fiddlehead ferns, quick-pickled and tangy, coiled in tight little green spirals and laid out in a shallow wooden bowl with some small, crispy pressed biscuits, made of oat flour and a multitude of seeds.
Nothing scary, like some of his other slimy fermented bean pastes and more pungent food 'projects'.
It's as if he's out to prove, particularly with someone he's hard at work to impress, that he's quite matured beyond sea salt ice cream sticks. Trouble is, it's never quite enough to be satisfying- a teasing pleaser, a sampling of just a few daily curiousities he's rooted around for in the vegetable beds....as if he hadn't fussed around for longer than intended for his entire work-break before even coming to find her, making everything just so.
But today he also shows up at her favorite doodling spot with another little surprise, which he's probably-overpaid some moogles to aquire from offworld- a baking tin. Twelve shallow shell-shaped depressions.
"For Madeleines." He explains, setting it down with the snack bowl beside Namine's set of pastels. "You know, uh... like in Proust?" Ienzo beams, as if that's sufficent enough of a logic map for anyone to follow, before clarifying- "(For memories.)" A wink. The apprentice clasps his hands behind his back, seeming to preen just a little bit for the keeness of his gift-
"Or if you're a wary of tackling sponge cakes, er..." Don't buy any of that humble-bashful shrugging for a moment, Namine, that's the biggest illusion of them all. "I figured you could always use them to mix paints?"