Owls and Open RP: Nothing says Thanksgiving like Pharmaceutical Fruitcake

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

((Backdated to Thanksgiving Day))


Geoffrey-

Happy Thanksgiving! I know fruitcake’s more Christmas-y, but it’s my friend’s special recipe. Just don’t drink or drive after you’ve eaten it, okay?

-Molly



Nny and Devi,

Hi guys! Happy Thanksgiving. I’m a shitty cook, but I made fruitcake--Nny honey, you might want to avoid this, since it’s got Vicoden and stuff in it, but Devi might enjoy it.

Love,
Molly



Arya,

Happy Thanksgiving! (It’s a fairly major holiday in the part of the world I’m from--basically you get together with your family and eat yourself sick.) Here’s some fruitcake, though don’t eat much at once and really don’t mix it with alcohol. Let me know if you want to get in some sword practice soon.

-Molly



Cyclona-

Hi! I met you at your Sorting, though I don’t know if you remember me. Anyway, happy Thanksgiving--this is some of my friend Mavis’s fruitcake, which is tasty and fun but which you shouldn’t mix with alcohol. Like, ever.

-Molly




Doctor Maturin,

Hi. I never did give you a proper thank-you for the potion you made me, so I made some Thanksgiving fruitcake. It’s my friend’s recipe, and it’s good, but you really want to avoid drinking or operating heavy machinery for four to six hours after eating it.

-Molly



Jaime,

Happy Thanksgiving! I made some fruitcake, but don’t take it eat it with alcohol, and don’t drive or anything for a while.

-Molly



Shaun,

I know you’re not American, but happy Thanksgiving anyway, and have some fruitcake. I’ve sent some to your friend, too, and I’ll tell you what I’ve told her: don’t drink, and definitely don’t drive after you’ve eaten it, okay?

-Molly



Susan,

Your buddy’s not American and you’re not even from Earth, but happy Thanksgiving--all you really need to know about the holiday is that it’s an excuse for people to eat themselves insensible. I made fruitcake, but it’s special fruitcake, so don’t drink, drive, or otherwise do anything requiring any kind of hand-eye coordination for four to six hours.

-Molly



Miss (Mrs.?) Evans,

Hi. I don’t know if you’d remember me or not--you fixed my back up after I went and fell off the roof like a complete dumbass. Anyway, it’s Thanksgiving in America, so I’m giving out fruitcake--this stuff is good, but don’t eat it with alcohol, and definitely don’t drive for a while.

-Molly



Attached to each owl is a paper cup of small, pretty fruitcake cubes done up in waxed paper. They certainly look and smell appetizing, whatever else might be said of them.

It wasn't until the owls had been sent that Molly realized she'd massively overbaked--she had enough left over to send out probably twice the parcels she had.

Damn. Well, it really would be a shame to let it go to waste. People could be weird about eating something left out for common consumption, but maybe if the person who actually made it was there, it would be a little better. Might as well try, at least.

Accordingly, she hauled all her goodies down to the Great Hall, dragooning a small herd of house elves to help her set up a little stall. Some of them got some fruitcake, too, and wound up staggering off and occasionally bouncing into the walls, giggling. Molly smiled--it was always nice to see people properly enjoying the holidays.

Comments

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

First, a return owl flew back to Molly:

Molly,

Thank you for the cake. We don't have that holiday in Westeros, but I appreciate it. Thank you for being so understanding.

I'm still practicing every day so you can join me whenever you feel like it.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

-Arya

About ten minutes later, Arya poked her head into the Great Hall. The rest of her followed, though not exceptionally quickly. She felt like she was dragging herself through water, and she had to keep reminding herself that she was on her way to the Hospital Wing. She saw Molly and made her way over (every move looking like she was taking twice as much concentration as usual to make it look right, thus making her look decidedly weird.)

Once she was close enough that she wouldn't have to yell and make a scene, she made sure she was standing firmly on the ground and glared up at Molly, trying to hide her panic. "I think it was poisoned."

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

...oh hell. It wasn't supposed to cause that kind of reaction--it was supposed to be good fruitcake.

"What's going on?" she asked, hoping to God she hadn't just given the poor kid one more thing to be traumatized about. "What do you feel like?" She debated pointing out that no poison could be fatal here, and kept quiet--at the moment, that wasn't the issue.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"I ate about half of what you sent me, and then I started to feel... sleepy and dizzy and sort of calm." She paused, trying to remember what was so bad about that, and then added, "I don't usually feel like that. And now I can't really move." She started to panic again. "I think I need to go to the Hospital Wing."

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Oh. Oh. Well, there was probably a way out of this that didn't involve lying.

"It's okay, honey," Molly said. "It's the fruitcake--it's supposed to do that. I should have warned you better; it's not like you'd've ever had fruitcake before." Nevermind that one technically had nothing to do with the other. "It's not poison, but if you want to go to the hospital wing, we can." Though, if her presents had found their way around it, the hospital wing might not be the most reassuring place in the world.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

Arya calmed down slightly. She was still suspicious of the unfamiliar feeling, but was relieved that it wasn't poison. "No, that's okay. If it's supposed to do that, I won't waste their time."

So what was she supposed to do, then? She couldn't practice with either Needle or her pistol like this. "I think... I think I'm going to find someplace quiet to lie down."

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Her relief relieved Molly--the last thing she wanted to have done was traumatize the hell out of the poor kid with fruitcake. "You sure, honey?" she said. "You can hang out here, if you want. The fruitcake's supposed to be a nice relaxing thing." Relaxing, or some equivalent thereof.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"Maybe." Arya had gotten quite used to keeping herself company but in her current condition she realized the wisdom of staying around someone more functional. And Molly was both nice and able to use a sword.

She sat herself down (with some relief, as she hated feeling unsteady while she stood) and realized something. "It's like milk of the poppy," she said. "They used to give it to people in Westeros for pain and to help them sleep."

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Milk of the poppy...poppies made opium, didn't they? And Vicoden was an opiate. Molly could definitely see the comparison.

She handed Arya a bottle of water. "You might want that," she said, "this stuff can make your mouth feel dry. One of the ingredients in the fruitcake actually is a painkiller, though I've never found it makes me sleepy. A friend of mine makes it that way every Thanksgiving and Christmas, because she says both holidays are such a pain in the ass."

She took a swig off her own bottle of water. "You weren't here for last Christmas, were you? I love it--it's always been one of my favorite holidays, even when I was little and had to take care of my brothers."

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

She wasn't particularly thirsty, but took a sip of the water anyway. Molly probably knew what she was talking about.

"Christmas... that was the one where you give gifts to people, right?" She smiled a little, remembering. "I got a dagger and a shield." The dagger she carried with her. She didn't know how to fight with a shield, and it was too large to be easily concealed, but it still held a place of honor in her room. "I should get presents for people this year. I have more people here that I can get presents for. It was just me and my sister and brother last time." She sipped at the water again and her smile got a little wider and softer--a real smile, not the tense, guarded one that she used on the rare occasions that she smiled these days. "Now there's them, and my mother and father and another brother."

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Molly returned the smile. "I'm glad you've got your family here," she said. "Family's important." Even if it's damn weird, sometimes. Her own had hardly been conventional, and her new adopted family certainly wasn't, but she loved them anyway. "I could take you shopping, if you like--Christmas shopping can be a pain in the ass if you don't have company." She had a fair few people to shop for herself, come to that, though what on earth she could get Nny, she didn't know--he probably already had every kind of weapon known to man. Maybe she'd ask Devi.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"I think I'd like that," she said, waving an arm in front of her experimentally. Yes, everything still felt fuzzy. "And I need to get things for the people who're nice to me." Friends. It was very nice to have them again, wasn't it? She wondered what she should get them. "Do you think it's nice or mean to get a scarf for someone who used to have their head cut off?" And Robb/Grey Wind, what was she going to do about him/them?

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was certainly a question she'd never been asked before. "I don't think it would be mean," she said. "Their neck's bound to get cold just like anyone else's, right? And if there was a scar, it would hide it."

She munched another sliver of fruitcake. "I've got more than a few people to buy for, too, and some of them are really hard to shop for. A couple of them have really helped me a lot, too, so I need to think of something especially thoughtful." Add into the fact that she really didn't know much about either of them and her job was even more difficult.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

"That's what I was thinking," she said, and then an idea struck her. Matching scarves for her father and mother, maybe. Nice thick soft gray ones, and maybe she could find someone to embroider (because Arya had given up embroidery as something she would ever do again even before King's Landing) a running direwolf on each of them. There was two gifts done already!

Now for Jon, Robb/Grey Wind, Sansa, Lily, Molly, Ray (even if she hadn't spoken with him since the pizza months ago,) Ryder (he had been nice to her, and that counted for something,) Laura (who had given her a very useful protective amulet last year and who she should probably thank better,) Brienne... she'd seen Professor Lupin's name on the popcorn plaque the last time she'd passed it, which was a shame. Two down, nine to go. And only a month to get it all done in.

"I think I can see why your friend sent the fruitcake out around the holidays," she said. "I wonder how stressful it is for people who have more friends to shop for."

She could have used this in Westeros, she decided. Except for the part where it slowed her down and made her thinking fuzzy. Then again, it was probably better she'd never had it in Westeros.

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

"It can be a royal pain the ass," Molly said. "At least there's a lot more shops around here--I used to live in a really small town, and driving into the city was...difficult." Theo had taken her, most years--she had a car, but traffic made her nervous, and bad things tended to happen when Molly got nervous. "And I always had some people that I had no idea what to get. My husband was really the only easy one." Which reminded her, she had a lot of people back home she had to mail things too. She wondered if the wizarding post could even send things over the Atlantic, and all the way across the U.S.

[runaway-stark.livejournal.com]

Royal pain in the ass. That sounded like some people she was familiar with, and the thought made her giggle. That was odd, she thought. I can't remember the last time I giggled. It was a stupid word and a stupid noise, but... rather fun to make.

"I never had to shop for anyone until last year. We didn't have anything really like that back home." She frowned. "I still don't know who signed me up for 'Secret Santa' last year. I know I didn't sign myself up. I wonder if they'll do it again this year."