“What’s gotten into her?”

“Who knows, maybe this is what she’s really like.”

“But she’s even wearing an apron…”

Rucille ignored the muted voices coming from the living area as she hummed a carefree tune. It was understandable if they thought she was putting on a brave face in the wake of Selius’ recent announcement, but the truth was that she was genuinely happy. Selius might have pulled a fast one on her earlier today, but once they had arrived at their rather lavish accommodation he had immediately put her on food duty and for that she was glad. His logic that ‘it’s a woman’s job’ didn’t sit particularly well with her, but the end result was more important so decided not to correct him.

The kitchen was a rectangular space consisting of about six or seven square meters of timber floor with a U-shaped bench of black granite running around it. There were plenty of clean white cupboards with shiny steel handles, and the appliances were clearly a lot more modern than what the people were using on the plate above them. An open window at the end of the room let the warm summer breeze drift inside while giving her a view of a neatly trimmed lawn on the other side, and to her left was a wide serving window that looked out to the dining area. It was open enough for her to be able to have an idea of what was going on in the house, but at the same time closed enough so that she could mind her own business.

A well-maintained kitchen wasn’t that different from a lab when she thought about it. Clean benchtops, cupboards full of whatever utensils she would need, and an extractor fan above a stove. Cooking a meal and making a basic concoction like she used to when she was young shared a lot in common, and for that reason she felt rather comfortable. This would be her space from now on, and she wasn’t about to allow anyone else to get their dirty hands on it.

The only downside was the general consensus of the group indicated that should stick to ingredients sourced from their home plate above. She had stopped by the shop before and was amazed at the range of local ingredients on offer, but randomly throwing them together was something that wouldn’t be earning her any plaudits. Trying different combinations of ingredients back at the lab was what got her to where she was today, but her opinion that trying new things was one of life’s pleasures inevitably fell on deaf ears.

“Spatula, spatula, spatula…” she sang as she rifled through one of the drawers. The main difference between the kitchen and her lab was that in this kitchen she didn’t know where anything was. It reminded her of her mother back when their relationship had been reasonable, although it had quickly soured when she tried to set her on the path of a homemaker. ‘The difference between a house and a home is that you know where everything in your home is,’ she had often said. Maybe there was some truth to it after all.

“Are you done?” Selius asked as his head appeared in the doorway, probably attracted by the aroma that had filled the dining room. Now that he was out of public view he had ditched his tight-fitting clothes in favour of casual summer shirt like the rest of them, although he still opted for pants for some reason. One step at a time, she guessed.

“Sorry, not yet,” she smiled as she finally found what she was looking for before turning her attention back to the pot on the stove. “Soon though, could you set the table?”

Selius looked at her with a strange expression that seemed to ask why he of all people would do any actual work. Left with no choice but to sigh inwardly and reach for a stack of plates, she placed them in the serving window before dropping a pile of cutlery on top.

“Get someone else to do it then,” she said while trying to hold her smile. “It’ll be ready soon.”

True to her word, Rucille finished her cooking around five minutes later. The large pot of traditional Zaffre stew was complete, and proud of her handiwork she brought it to the dining room to find that everyone was already present and seated. The men were talking idly as she entered the room, but her entrance attracted their attention. First it settled on her, but quickly it settled on the pot that she placed at the centre of the table.

The dining room was rather basic in comparison to the kitchen with a hardwood floor and a large rectangular table for eight in the centre. The only ornamental features were a decorative cream rug which sat under the table and a small but tasteful chandelier which hung from the centre of the ceiling, but the open double doors which also led to the lawn outside provided some welcome contrast. The seating, however, was a little strange. Usually there would be three seats on each of the long sides of the table and one at each end for a total of eight, but Selius had apparently decided to change that. While he himself sat at one end, the seat from the other end had been removed and squeezed in on one of the sides instead. The resulting setup was that while four of them would be crammed into a space designed for three, Selius wouldn’t have someone sitting opposite him.

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A typical head of the table.

“Sit,” he said in reference to the only available chair, which just happened to be the one directly to his left. It wasn’t lost on her that at a traditional Zaffre table this seat was reserved for the wife, but there were no other options and she knew that Selius would hold it against her if she commented. Obediently taking her place at the table, she paused before looking up as she realised that the room had turned silent. It seemed that Selius’ declaration about their relationship-to-be was finally sinking in for the rest of the group, but quickly one of the men cleared his throat before reaching for the ladle.

“So you can cook,” Selius finally said as Rucille ladled stew into his bowl. She had done it without being asked as she assumed that he wasn’t planning on dishing up for himself, and his lack of thanks proved that her assumption had been correct. It wasn’t a problem, however, as she was quickly done and so she proceeded to serve herself before sitting down.

“I guess so,” she replied as she reached for her spoon. “It’s not that hard if you follow a recipe, quite like science.”

About to dip her spoon into the stew, she stopped as Selius reached for her bowl. Swapping their dishes over without a word, he gave her a wry smile before proceeding to sit there with an expectant look on his face, ignoring the strange gazes from the rest of the group. Rucille resisted the urge to grin, and instead pretended as though nothing had happened as she dipped her spoon into what had been his bowl.

“Can’t be too sure of things, right?” he asked with a smile as he patiently waited for her to take a mouthful.

His question was awkward. She assumed that it was his way of intentionally causing the rest of the group to have second thoughts about trusting her, but at the same time it was a game that she didn’t mind playing. His comment had caused the table to fall into silence as the group waited to see her reaction, so she simply shrugged in response before giving him what he wanted by continuing to eat as though there wasn’t an issue. If Selius had concerns about her to the extent that he would swap their plates around, he could have simply gone to a restaurant or had someone else do the preparation instead of wasting their time. Instead, he was using this as an opportunity to drive a wedge between her and the rest of the group that he could take advantage of.

Selius smirked as he placed a spoonful of stew in his mouth, obviously satisfied with the tension that he had fabricated. By drawing a line between Rucille and the rest of the group, he could not only monopolize her but he could also permanently damage her chances of becoming a leader at the same time. Apparently he had already identified the fact that she was the strongest personality among them apart from himself, so knocking the competition down a peg while he could was a logical step that she would have taken too.

The group ate in silence for a minute or so, but as a result Rucille was finding it hard to keep a straight face. She could already see the opening signs of what was to come, but she pretended to be unaware as she innocently continued to make her way through her bowl. Someone would tip them off soon enough, and when they did she would be interested to see their reactions.

She didn’t have to wait long.

“This…?” one of the men asked. Lucan, Fenm, or maybe Graslich, she didn’t know who it was. His arm was slow, almost mechanical as he tried to raise his spoon from the bowl. Halfway up to his mouth, however, it slipped out of his hands as it crashed onto the table, the noise distracting the rest of the group as they too began to panic.

“What is going on?”

“My arms?”

Already too late to act, the men quickly found that their legs were also rapidly losing functionality in the same fashion. The colour quickly drained from their faces, and most of the horrified gazes made their way across the table to where she sat with a leisurely expression. One moment they had been fine, yet the next they had lost control of themselves before they even had a chance to react.

Rucille finally cracked a smile as one of the men topped from his chair, his limbs frozen in place at awkward angles as he came to rest on his side. Dropping her spoon onto the table rather audibly now that the moment was finally hers, she breathed a sigh of relief as she stood up from the table.

“You…” Selius hissed through clenched teeth. His limbs were now largely unresponsive like the rest of the group, and his attempt to claw for the pistol that was strapped to his hip was in vain as Rucille took the chance to walk around behind him.

“Did you really think it would be that easy?” she asked with a tinge of condescendence in her tone as she placed her hand on top of his head. “You’re not the only one who worked out that positions mean nothing here.”

Selius tried to respond, but he was having difficulty forming sounds now. Rucille didn’t care, however, as she felt that there was very little to be said between them. From the moment that they had dropped through to Areinis and abandoned their home above them, only one of them was destined to survive as the person that they currently were. Rucille, however, wasn’t going to let go of her dreams. There was a whole world of experiments out there waiting for her. Selius could be damned for all she cared; she wasn’t going to give herself up as soon as she had been let out of her cage.

“You lose,” she said with a smile before she gripped Selius’ skull and then smashed his face down into the half-empty bowl of stew that sat before him.