eswareinmal | Bring out the cups and honey too

Entry tags:

Bring out the cups and honey too

Characters: Princess Tatra and Sasuke Uchiha
Open? No
Where: A nice tearoom in the northern wing
When: Following Sasuke's recent post
Warnings: None

Tatra was always ready to entertain company, but there were extra arrangements to be made today. A tray of crackers and cheeses were prepared for the strange boy, as well as lemons, milk, honey, anything she could think of he might like in his tea. She also asked that the serving people prepare a bath for her guest for just as soon as he was done with his tea.

Let it never be said that Tatra was anything less than the perfect host.

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The first thing he noticed upon entry was the smell of tea. Perfectly brewed, no scorched odors at all; floral and clean and lovely. Just breathing it in felt cleansing, in a way. Familiar.

Like it had to return home after school, with his mother waiting for him with a tray of freshly-sliced tomatoes and a pot of green tea. He still remembered the ceremony for it, from watching her so many times.

He walked over to the table and paused, glancing over his hostess. She looked nothing like Mikoto--bronze skin and red curls tumbling down over her shoulders.

Willing the thoughts from his head, he nodded at her.

She smiled sweetly at him, giving a little half-bow from her seat.

"Do please sit," she encouraged him, taking the moment to pour a cup for each of them. Her own had a bit of milk, giving the tea a rich color and smooth taste.

Milk, Sasuke found, made the tea too weak, too much like sweets. After pulling back the offered chair and sitting, he pulled the cup towards himself and lifted it to his lips, breathing in the steam.

Under her gentle gaze, he was aware of the fact that his clothes were more than a little dirty. He hadn't bothered to find replacements and had been wearing the same thing since his arrival--his own pants and sandals, with the undershirt that had been provided upon suiting himself up in armor. With this awareness came a tiny, barely glimmering shade of embarrassment.

This was not how he'd been raised.

Not that it mattered. He knocked back a long gulp of tea, the taste perfect but downed too quickly and scorching the back of his throat, and resisted the urge to kick himself for trying to spite his own internal sense of decorum.

This showed in a slight narrowing of his eyes and tightness of his mouth, but otherwise he kept still. The cup clinked softly when he replaced it on the saucer.

"Good," he said, flatly.

"Oh good," she giggled, delighted. "I'm so glad you like it!" It was customary where she was from to treat guests with nothing but respect and hospitality. That meant brewing a strong tea and providing everything they might need to make it exactly to their liking. After all, everyone had different tastes.

"It seems as though you've had a tiring couple of days," she noted conversationally. He looked exhausted more than dirty. She hoped a nice bath would help in both of those departments.

"It's just good tea," Sasuke muttered, but he took another sip anyway. It calmed and focused him, the taste pleasantly bitter.

He looked at Tatra, trying to figure out if she was trying to politely point out his state of disarray. Another sip of tea. "I didn't sleep last night."

"Just" good tea was a monstrous understatement in Tatra's book. A good cup of tea could do so much more for a person's physical and mental wellbeing.

"Oh?" she asked, concerned. "Bad dreams?"

"Trying to prevent them," Sasuke answered, darkly. He drained the cup and set it back down in the saucer, not bothering to ask before he refilled the cup, watching the steam curl into the air.

She nodded her understanding. Tatra was no stranger to bad dreams.

"Be careful you don't overexert yourself," she advised him, "or they may catch up to you regardless."

"They can't if I don't sleep."

Resolutely, Sasuke drained the cup in three long drags. Shin's face flashed in his head and he slammed the cup down a little more forcefully than he probably should have.

"An ordinary human can survive about a week and a half without sleep," Tatra mused. She could hardly assume he was an ordinary human, but it was a place to start.

"How long have you been awake now?"

A week and a half. Sasuke was sure he'd gone longer than that at some point, although he was more liable to take quick catnaps than to deprive his body of rest. He couldn't afford to be performing at anything less than seventy percent capacity at all times.

When the body was overtired, reflexes slowed. And he already channeled more energy than he had into using the mangekyou. Sleep was never a luxury he'd outright denied himself. Until now.

"Just last night." He paused, running his finger around the rim of the cup.

She nodded. It was a horrible plan, but she knew it wasn't her place to tell him how to deal with his nightmares.

"Then you should be alright for a while, at least."

He gave her a twitch of his lip--hardly a smile, but close enough--and raised his cup. "That's why I wanted tea. To help me stay awake."

"Well, you're welcome to come back as often as you want." Perhaps it was irresponsible of her, but she just wanted to help.

"I will." So far so good--he wasn't feeling anything that would imply the tea had been spiked. The risk was always somewhere in the back of his mind, though; he hesitated before reaching over to a plate of cheese and picking it up.

Tatra sipped her tea happily before reaching for a cracker herself. Even if she did have a guest who was her enemy, she wouldn't poison them. It was unbefitting of a princess of Chizeta.

He watched her smile as he bit into the small block. The taste was unfamiliar, but pleasant--sharp and tangy. His mother had only cooked traditional food, and he'd learned to cook from her recipes; everything else came pre-packaged, and he tried to stick to low-fat, high-protein food when he didn't make it himself.

He carefully chewed and swallowed, then observed for a moment more. The smile was genuine and delicate, reaching her eyes. Ladylike. She was either very good at deception or very settled into whatever role she'd taken.

"Are you nobility?" he asked, pouring himself another cup of tea.

She blinked at the question. It was so easy to forget here that if you introduced yourself as a princess, it didn't necessarily mean you had always been one.

"Why yes, I am. I am the first princess of Chizeta, my home."

"You present yourself like a Daimyo's daughter." Sasuke took another piece of cheese and paired it with a cracker this time, trying to pace himself so he didn't look like a starving urchin.

"Thank you! Although I'm not familiar with the word..." But it sounded like a compliment, so she took it as one.

"Sorry." He took another sip of tea. "Daimyo--lords. They own countries, basically. Useless, but fancy, and we run around doing their errands."

"Ah, it's rather like that," she mused. "My mother and father rule over Chizeta now. When they retire my sister Tarta and I will take their place."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. She seemed aware of her uselessness, but at ease with it--her thought process made no sense. Usually, stupid people denied that they were stupid, in one way or another.

"No sons?"

"Just us," she answered with a smile. The meaning behind the question was lost on her. In Chizeta daughters were valued every bit as much as sons.

"Why are you sharing it?" Sasuke murmured around the rim of the cup. "Isn't it easier to have one person in charge and delegate to lower tiers of command?"

She shook her head. "My poor dear sister would be so lost without me. We balance each other out quite well."

"So you're both morons."

He raised an eyebrow.

"That's a horrible thing to say about your host," Tatra protested. Despite appearances she wasn't offended in the least. She wouldn't make much of a princess if the comments of an ungrateful child got to her, now would she?

"I'm not known for being polite." Sasuke gave a quick, dry smirk and picked up another cracker. "And it's not an insult if it's true. You said you were completely useless when I first showed up here."

"Useless in this conquest," she corrected. "But I'm no fool. I know where my skills are most useful." Here it just happened to be in providing some comfort to the others.

"And that would be? Aside brewing tea." He bit down on the cracker and chewed, then rinsed the crumbs from his mouth with another sip. "I guess soldiers are just as obsolete in a fucking children's book."

The thought still made him angry, boiling somewhere in the high parts of his stomach.

"Back home my sister and I were preparing to lead a country." As well as an invasion, but she left that out as she took a short sip of her tea. "These people don't need another leader. And the visitors from other words would not have one even if they did."

"Leadership is a broad concept." But she was right. Himself included, he didn't think all the other heroes from other worlds would take kindly to having a leader forced on them.

Well, some of them, anyway.

Some of them seemed like they would like someone to take control, but she wasn't that kind of person. She would only take the position if she was asked. And even then, she didn't know how this world worked. What use could she really be.

"It hardly matters, regardless. I was summoned to do a job that is simply beyond my capabilities. I will help however I can, but there isn't much I can do."

"You can give the rest of us caffeine so we stay on our feet," Sasuke deadpanned, raising his cup to her.

"I do what I can," she agreed with a giggle. No matter how lonely or helpless she felt here, her smile would never falter unless she wanted it to.

Sasuke pushed back from the table, wiping his forearm over his mouth to get rid of any lingering tea that might have been there. "Can you direct me to the baths, then?"

He felt sticky. There was a layer of grime he could never quite scrub off, but he knew it was mostly psychological; the dust covering him now was still very real, and his muscles ached.

"Of course," she nodded, cheerful as ever. She called one of the serving people over and asked them to "please direct our guest to the bath prepared for him, if you don't mind?"

He didn't like being fussed over, but exhaustion and tension let him tolerate being ushered towards a suite off the tea-room, full of scraping and bowing. When the steam hit his skin, an image flashed in his head of himself, his father and brother--he couldn't have been more than three--Itachi scrubbing Sasuke's hair into fluffy points while their father soaked in hot water.

His chest panged.

He glanced over his shoulder at Tatra. "Thank you for your hospitality."

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Bring out the cups and honey too

EEEEEEE~

<33

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