Rosie peeked at Lee, who was heating up a wok of oil, from the other side of the kitchen table. While she was initially frightened by the sizzling sounds of deep fried tempura, the alluring wafts eventually won her over.
She watched earnestly as Tabby (who was wearing bright pink gloves to prevent any unwanted fur from dropping) prepped the eggplants, sweet potatoes, mushrooms and pumpkins for deep frying. After washing, peeling, chopping and cutting the vegetables and mushrooms into suitable sizes, he was dabbing them with cloth to absorb the liquid.
“Wanna help?” Tabby asked Rosie as he took some prawns out from the fridge to the kitchen sink.
Rosie hurried over. After demonstrating how to wash the prawns properly, Tabby showed her how to cut the pointy bits off and peel the head and shell. They formed a mini assembly line, Rosie was in charge of washing and peeling, while Tabby was in charge deveining, cutting and washing the tail and coating the prawns with starch. They rubbed the prawns in some sake and left it to rest.
Tabby laughed when he saw Rosie’s nose crinkle from the fishy, salty smell of raw prawns. As she was busy washing her hands, Tabby arranged the vegetables, mushrooms, and prawns neatly on a tray. He also included some shishamo and squid which he prepared earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, Lee was busy creating a batter using all-purpose flour, egg, and water. Satisfied with the temperature of the oil, he started coating the ingredients in the batter before deep-frying them in the wok.
While Lee was busy deep-frying the ingredients, Tabby decided to wash their cooking utensils. Rosie and Sparky were now taking the cutlery out and setting the table.
Tabby considered cooking some rice, but swiftly decided it’s not worth the effort. While some aspects of cooking were fun, other simple tasks might as well be accomplished using magic. He snorted as he then realised he could have washed the dishes using magic in the first place.
I am setting a good example for Rosie, Tabby thought to himself.
Feeling slightly smug after some self-praise, Tabby whisked an easy dipping sauce using dashi, soy sauce, mirin and sugar. Noticing Rosie aimlessly walking around the kitchen, he tasked her with guarding the tempura against any flies, knowing full well that their house was already warded against pests.
* * *
A few minutes later, Rosie was rewarded with a tiny mound of assorted tempura, pipping-hot seaweed-miso soup, and a bowl of rice. They was also some fresh salad and a plate of Cantonese barbecue meat as well.
Both Lee and Tabby raised their eyebrows at one another when they saw Rosie requesting to use chopsticks as well.
"Itadakimasu," Lee and Tabby said and clapped their hands, Rosie quickly followed suit. Sparky was already busy literally vacuuming his plate.
"This sweet barbecue pork is not bad, where did it came from," Tabby asked as he gorged on the char siew.
"I dapao'ed... I mean ordered takeaway from Earth," Lee said as he picked some chopped roast duck and chicken.
Tabby chewed on the meat for a while and realised something. "How come you have no problems travelling back and fro to Earth but had trouble creating a portal machine," he asked.
"That's because... don't rush, Rosie," Lee noticed Rosie choked slightly and gently patted her back whilst levitating a glass of water over. She eagerly gulped down the water in relief before attacking the food with relish again.
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"That's because I included being able to return to Earth as part of my reward for saving Harez-Hamuv with the High Council. However, I didn't specify how many times I could return," Lee grinned.
"So you exploited a loophole," Tabby pointed out.
"I exploited a loophole," Lee nodded.
"How did they react?" Tabby asked.
"Oh, they were annoyed. Old man Unang was especially pissed, as he is the god of legal counsel. While he wanted to revoke that clause, I managed to convince him that the reward was binding as it was literally etched to the fabric of reality," Lee seemed pleased with himself.
"Huh," Tabby picked a few pieces of tempura and refilled Rosie's glass. "Won't getting the High Council to wing some trans-dimensional teleportation magic at your behest be difficult though?"
"You don't say," Lee's expression dimmed slightly. "Unang rightly pointed out that while they were obligated to grant my reward, I didn't specify that they must do so immediately."
"That's why he is the god of legal counsel and loopholed your loophole," Tabby laughed.
"Tsk tsk, it took me 200 years of hard work to form a working theory, and another 50 years of trial and error, before I could send myself back to Earth," Lee recalled. "Then it took me another 30 years to be able to specify where and when I want to teleport, and I got stuck on Earth for 5 more years before I could get back here."
Tabby whistled. "The Magic Tower will flip out if they learn you succeeded teleportation in only 300 years. Can't you just reverse engineer the spell they used to summon you here?"
"It's not that simple. The summoning spell they used was like...," Lee briefly struggled to come up with an example. "Unlike teleportation, targets of summoning spells from other dimensions are embedded and assimilated to the laws of this world to a degree. For example, if I drop some dye in a glass of water and stir it, the dye will be part of the water in the glass permanently. Even if I stir the water the other way around, the dye can't reform itself. You follow?" Tabby nodded.
"That's why I can't just rely on reverse engineering the summoning spell. I can theoretically summon myself back to Earth, however that means I will be assimilated to Earth and lose my access to magic. What I really needed, and eventually succeeded, was to create a teleportation spell enabling me to move to another dimension without compromising my powers," Lee continued.
Tabby remained silent as he digested Lee's information. Meanwhile, both Rosie and Sparky were reclining in their chairs looking satisfied and dazed, Lee shifted his focus to the tempura.
All of them stopped eating several minutes later, Lee originally wanted Rosie to bring the dishes to the sink, but couldn't bear to ask her when he saw her pleading eyes. Instead, he had Tabby made the dishes disappear before taking some pudding out from the fridge.
* * *
After dinner was over, Lee went outside to the front porch while Tabby taught Rosie how to use the TV, against Lee's wishes. He smiled briefly when he saw heard Rosie's excited giggles at the TV, but then became sombre as he remembered that she was essentially abducted here against her will.
Sighing, Lee lied down in a hammock outside and was soon lost in thought. His reverie was interrupted by two red pigtails bobbing up and down beside him.
Lee sat up on the hammock, helping Rosie to climb up and snuggle against him. As he gently patted Rosie's head, he noticed the same undercurrent of anxiousness and lost when someone suddenly found themselves somewhere foreign reflected in her eyes. The two of them sat silently under the glittering stars.
While Rosie is a good girl who quickly accepted her circumstances, Lee felt especially apologetic and sorry towards her. He remembered his anger and sadness when he was first summoned over, and ironically now subjected the same cruel fate to an innocent child.
Lee wondered if he should apologise to Rosie, but stopped as he knew that it was worthless anyway. He sighed.
"Hey Rosie," Lee said after a while, "I promise we will send you home."
Rosie didn't say anything except giving Lee a wan smile. Something cracked inside him when he saw her expression. He raised his arms to hug her but froze halfway, unsure if she was okay with it.
Rosie flung her arms around Lee. He eventually relaxed and hugged her tightly as he felt her warm tears run down his shirt.
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Author's Notes
I believe most are familiar with Japanese cuisine so I won't delve deeply into that.
Cantonese barbecue meat here refers to 烧腊 shāo là (trad. 燒臘) in Chinese, and is also known as siu laap in Cantonese. It includes char siew (sweet bbq pork), siu yok (roast pork/pork belly), roast chicken, and roast duck/goose.
Harez-Hamuv comes from the Hebrew word הארץ המובטחת or ha'aretz hamuvtakhat, which is also known as "The Land of Milk and Honey" or the Promised Land which God promised to Abraham in the Old Testament.
Unang comes from the Malay word for law - undang.