video + text + action

[mucked]

Who: Peggy Carter & YOU
Broadcast: Y, fleetwide.
Action: Aboard the Starstruck, if you like.
When: Today.

[ a video feed flickers to life, and fights for a moment to adequately focus on its subject. peggy carter sits in the kitchen aboard the starstruck, cup of tea and her elbow and half a biscuit in her hand. dabbing at crumbs, she sets her food aside and offers the network a bright smile. ]

That message -- the ominous one, in the bizarre language? It put me in mind of the sort of cryptograms and puzzles you might see in the Sunday paper. [ her expression is cheery enough, although she's not being wholly honest about her interest in such games. she won't be the one to say the words bletchley and park.] I loved them. Them, and crosswords. I thought maybe some of you might like them, too. [ ... ] We could do a few together. I'm not saying we all join a club, exactly, but back home they were always better solved in good company.

Let's start you off with one that's easy enough. But there's no shame in needing a hint, if needed. For what it's worth, the text I'm attaching is, in its deciphered form, English -- not yet certain how the augments' translation will handle it. We'll see.

BLSTKBC YLBSFKGISRX XL QIYT SL SFVBWIKAKJR STR QKBZ VX V XSRVZU EIFELXR — V ELKBS LB OTKYT STR XLIA QVU NKM KSX KBSRAARYSIVA RUR.

[ -- and then an afterthought: ]

...By chance, has anyone been brewing their own beer?

Comments

[survivalistcookbook]

You're too kind.

[He huffs a laugh, tightening the lid and putting it back alongside the agreed-upon litre of no-frills space vodka.]

I've been thinking about moving operations into the Iskaulit. If only so I don't keep moonshining around a bunch of kids.

[mucked]

Not a terrible idea -- not least of all because of the potential for accidents. [ she grabs two mugs from the cupboard and tips them right-side up on the counter. ] Although, I'd suggest keeping it on the opposite side of the ship to the shooting range.

[survivalistcookbook]

Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure no one is going to thank me if I put it too close to anything else. Especially if I do get the materials to start branching out into brewing proper.

[One small pot still in the cargo bay? Manageable. But the smell's going to be something else entirely if he starts working at a higher volume.]

Do you seriously want yeast extract to make your own marmite?

[mucked]

Believe it or not, I'm starting to miss the stuff.

[ -- something she'd never expected to say. ever. not even after moving to new york. ]

[survivalistcookbook]

No, I believe it.

[He leans his elbows on the table, watching her go through all the familiar motions of preparing tea - something he might offer to help with if the galleys weren't so cramped on these ships. It's another thing that's almost familiar, almost home, and for a second he can ignore almost everything else and imagine he's in someone's broom-closet flat at some lightless hour of the night or morning, relaxing and talking shop.]

There's this thought that fermented foods - live foods, something that takes a microbe or a yeast - are the ones that really shape our tastes. Bread and cheese for most of Europe, along with the wine and beer, but there's sauerkraut, preserved fish in Scandinavia, kimchi and soy sauce further east . . . heck, even cocoa has to be fermented before you can use it to make chocolate. [He gives a one-shouldered shrug as his conversational trajectory brings him back round, out of that imagined flat and into a spaceship that he's landed on only after the end of the world as he knew it.] No one is going to starve out here, but there's not a lot of living food, not like most of us are used to. I think most of us miss that in one way or another.

[mucked]

[ things start to brew. and peggy, turning so she can lean her hips against the counter, finds herself treated to a wonderful experience: a lesson. although she doesn't quite smile, she does offer him a patient expression -- pleased, it would seem, with the chance to hear him wax poetic on living foods.

comfortably, she crosses her arms over her chest. ] Do you work with food?

[ not-so-lucky guess. either he's a professional (of some sort) or he's got one helluva hobby. ]

[survivalistcookbook]

Current ship's cook, former food journalist.

[There's a hint of self-consciousness in the smile he offers in return - not exactly bashful, but aware enough that he does yammer on when it comes to topics he knows.]

So I'm mostly trained to talk about it, ad nauseum. [Pun intended and wholly unrepentant.] Still. Years of research apparently comes in handy when you're re-inventing recipes out of the culinary scrap pile we have to work with here.

[mucked]

[ food journalist! she doesn't mean to laugh -- honestly, she doesn't. but it can't quite be helped. and odd sort of sharpish bark, betraying more surprise than anything else. certainly, there are critics in the broadsheets. and word gets 'round. but she's never ever heard anyone introduce themselves as a food journalist, former or otherwise.

but she can see how it aids him. clearly. ]

More of a credit to your ship than I first thought, then. Fortunate them, with fortunate taste-buds. We just lost our cook here on the Starstruck.

[survivalistcookbook]

[Once, he might have been offended by that laugh. But living in times of actual need, in legitimate extremis, have lent some understanding to that reaction. Food journalism is a silly and puffed-up job in the grand scheme of things. Society doesn't really advance that much from knowing where to find the best tuna tartare in Vancouver. So the praise salves over an offence that he remembers more than feels, and he gives a rueful look and nod of thanks for it and goes on.]

I'm sorry to hear that. If I'd known I would have at least brought over some bread.

[mucked]

Next time, [ she promises on his behalf. ] I'll add it's not a sorrowful occasion -- we lost him to the Pathstone, those wankers.

[ and with that, she decides the tea is steeped. peggy ushers both mugs over to the table and takes a seat across from eugene. there's sugar and milk between them, but she uses neither. ]

[survivalistcookbook]

Man, Pathstone. [The agreement is a grinning thing, no attempt made to honestly sound as if he bears a grudge against the Pathstone, or even knows enough about them to form one. It's a quip to keep the rhythm of the conversation and to pass the time until the tea is in front of him, steaming and fragrant. He curls his hands around the mug, taking a cautious sip and humming in satisfaction. Plain, unadorned black tea - perfect.]

This is perfect, thanks. I don't think I've had a decent cup of tea since I was brought here. Let alone a good one.

[mucked]

[ it's good, really. to sit and enjoy tea with someone. half of her social circle have revealed themselves to be coffee-drinkers above all else. a pleasure, then, to sit with eugene. ]

Heavens, yes. [ another sip; another swallow. ] It took a damn long while to source anything worth drinking when I first arrived. All those insta-options taste like -- sawdust in water.

[survivalistcookbook]

[He gives an indelicate snort at that, casting a commiserating look over the rim of his mug.]

Yeah, useless for drinking. I guess you could use it to tan leather in a pinch, though?

[mucked]

[ a crinkle of her nose as the crasser notes of the joke are recognized. but even so, peggy laughs. ]

Tell me. Have you been with us long? [ the fleet. ]

[survivalistcookbook]

Sort of. I was here for a handful of months, disappeared for another handful, then showed up again about four months ago. [Weird. He knows. Like everything else around here.] You?

[mucked]

Just over a year, actually. [ a half-smile. ] We must have missed one another. How delightful it is to still be surprised by who else is in the fleet, even now.

[survivalistcookbook]

It is. I'm trying to peek my head out of the kitchen more these days. [Waiting it out had failed spectacularly as a strategy, so, however grudgingly, he's making the best of it that he can.] What's your position on the Starstruck, if you don't mind me asking?

[mucked]

Captain. [ she answers without missing a beat. once upon a time, the rank was strange to speak, but now it's second-nature. ] While still moonlighting as a comms officer, when needed.

So, all in all, far less useful than yours.

[ cooks own, as far as she's concerned. ]

[survivalistcookbook]

Until you actually need to get something done.

[He tips his mug in her direction, a gentle rebuttal of that much praise.]

At that point, even I would rather have a captain who knows what she's doing than perfectly-browned dinner rolls.

[mucked]

[ dinner rolls! perfectly browned or otherwise, there's a quiet delight that steals across her features. wouldn't dinner rolls be nice?

but as for the thrust of his argument: ] I'm afraid I'm mostly making it up as I go along. I don't come from a time with anywhere near the same level of technological advancement. But we make do, here, aboard the Starstruck.

[survivalistcookbook]

Understandable. But I'm pretty sure leadership skills weren't invented with space travel. [Could be wrong on that one. But he's pretty sure.] When did they nab you from?

[mucked]

1947. [ summer thereof, though she keeps that to herself. who would care, unless they too were from that year? ] By most accounts, I lag some seventy years behind most people who come here -- at least, I do if they come from Earth. Usually.

[survivalistcookbook]

Yeah. Guilty as charged. But, we had a pandemic that almost collapsed human civilisation in the early 2010s, so we're still relying on radio and other technologies around that level.

[He delivers the revelation in a tone of blithe faux-chipperness, because really, it's just a fact of life at this point. Plus, hey. England in 1947? That's at least a little common ground in the 'oh god everything is still busted up' department.]

[mucked]

Radio! Now, I can manage with radio. Handily. [ a crooked smile. if she's horrified by the idea of civilization collapsing -- and at a point prior, in his world, to any other she's heard of, then peggy hides it well. she follows his lead in blitheness. easier, that way. ] I swear, the wireless will manage to outlive us all.

[survivalistcookbook]

I know! [A few notes of laughter edge in with the words, a strange sort of gratitude meeting her recognition.] I swear, if you had told me in 2010 that in a few years, I'd be in northern England, living in a glorified shed and learning morse-