[mcg] great chieftain o' the puddin-race [emma]

thursday 21st august

“They just need like a tiny bit of water,” he reminded Emma, “just like a mist,” he gestured with his free hand, mimicking water spraying out of a bottle to settle on his beloved plants. Emma had come to the Frida’s stall and ordered herself a whisky margarita, which she had almost finished while waiting for his lunch break. Noah squirted some ketchup onto his tray, ignoring the look a man head-to-toe tartan beside him was giving him; out of the corner of his eye the New Yorker saw the Scotsman put some whisky mustard onto his tray and Noah decided to do the same.

He turned and fell in beside his roommate as they began their circuit. Noah had been granted one-hour lunch breaks for the duration of the games, he presumed to make up for the fact that the hours were so long rather than to allow him to indulge -- but he planned to, at least to a degree. He had no special interest in whisky (or ale or gin), but he was eager to try something from every food stall over the course of the four day event. Made sense to start with the one he was manning and work around.

“You want a haggis taco?” he asked Emma, biting into one and holding the little tray of three out to her to share. “They’re really good.” He dipped one end in ketchup and the other in the mustard, then tried a bite of each (not pausing to swallow between them). “Sofia was saying I’ve gotta try the black pudding and scallops,” he mumbled with his mouth half-full. “I think there’s some guy doing mussels on pizza, too,” he smirked.


@Emma Hennings

Emma had pulled a face at the first sip of her whisky margarita (vodka, tequila, cider, and occasionally gin were usually her go-to) – but the more she sipped it, the less she winced.

“Yes, yes, I remember,” she pretended to scoff, mocking her friend spritzing his succulents. “Like cacti. Used to arid climates. I have several of my own, you’ll recall, one of which is on our coffee table and is now at least” – she paused to count on her fingers – “six? years old and going strong.”
Granted, there may have been a month or two here and there within that window where she’d been so caught-up with work that she’d quite forgotten her poor plants… but that had been few and far between, and all had – for the most part – recovered nicely.

Finally, Noah’s lunch break was upon them, and the pair set off across the grounds. It was a truly excellent event – colorful booths peppered the moor nearly as far as the eye could see, and all sorts of tantalizing aromas hung in the air. Emma was keen to explore as much as possible and she knew Noah was on the same wavelength, and so coordinating with him had been a no-brainer.

“You want a haggis taco?”

She eyed the offering warily and shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to eat after him, so much as what it was. Emma loved tacos – but the idea of haggis was wildly unappetizing, in any form.
“Ew,” was her reflexive reply, but then she corrected herself hastily since they were still in earshot of the Frida’s booth (and she was a frequent patron of said establishment). “Er… no, thanks. Not sure I could stomach it…” She waggled her eyebrows knowingly, following closely with: “Ba-dum, tss.”
It was a godawful pun, but she had no shame whatsoever.

“I… will also pass on the black pudding. But! Scallops, and mussels on pizza both sound excellent. Where d’you reckon those booths are?”
Emma scanned the scene before them briefly before shrugging her shoulders. At one point she’d had a map and a directory, of sorts, but she suspected she’d left it at the Frida’s booth.

“I know I just—” Noah bit his lip softly, lowering his voice as he uttered his ex-girlfriend’s name, “— Jenny used to like, under water every normal plant and then somehow overwater the succulents. Like, how do you even do that?” He’d specifically gotten her succulents because she’d liked having plants in the house but failed to keep anything alive, and then somehow it had become his thing instead.

Emma gave him a look and Noah glanced from her to the little paper tray of tacos in his hand, back to his friend. “What?” He grinned, though not without a hint of nervousness now. “Why is it ‘ew’? You eat beef all the time, it’s just like, smaller, right?” He was unaware that the entire Frida’s team had chosen to join in on the joke upon finding out that Noah didn’t know what haggis was, telling him that it was just the name for meat from a miniature cow from Scotland (he had been imagining a scaled-down version of Highland cattle).

“Oh, come on, have you ever tried it?” he asked, about the black pudding now. “You gotta try everything once,” he told her sagely. “Besides, I think the dish is like, scallops with black pudding, they complement each other.” As a chef--albeit a relatively new one still--he felt like he could get away with saying things like this.

But, “Hmm,” he hummed as he tip-toed, despite being a foot taller than most of the people around him. He brought his taco-less hand up to shield his eyes against the sun as he scanned the booths. “Looks like there’s a woodfired pizza thing over there,” he said, using the same hand to point in the direction they would need to travel. They set off and he had another bite of his taco mindlessly. “So, are you back at work tomorrow?”

“Merlin be praised I'm not Jenny, then.” She grinned wickedly.

“You eat beef all the time, it’s just like, smaller, right?”

Emma blinked. Was he being serious? Sometimes he did well with staying straight-faced through a joke, and sometimes not. It wasn’t an entirely incorrect statement… but she decided to call his bluff, with a touch of sarcasm and a hint of an eye-roll.
“Ha, yes well it certainly is smaller.”

She raised an eyebrow at her very American friend when he tried to counter her with the age-old ‘have-you-even-tried-it?’ gambit.
“Need I remind you that I went to Hogwarts for seven years, in the middle of the Scottish Highlands?” she laughed, gesturing around her. “Black pudding was, effectively, a staple of the menu.”

Noah went up on tiptoe, a hand shielding his eyes as he scanned the sea of people for their intended target – and a humorous thought popped into Emma’s head at the visual.
“Legolas! What do your Elf-eyes see?” she teased, channeling her best Aragorn impression.
They had gone to see The Two Towers when it debuted in theaters this past December; with each of them having a No-Maj parent, movies had been an easy non-magical thing for them to bond over as kids, and their respective tastes had continued to overlap fairly significantly into their adult lives. Emma very much enjoyed inserting movie quotes into loosely-applicable real-life scenarios.

“So, are you back at work tomorrow?”

“Tragically, yes.”
Emma laughed – she truly did enjoy her job, but who didn’t like random days off here and there?
“What’s your schedule like for the upcoming week?”

Noah grinned abashedly -- Merlin be praised, indeed.

“What?” he asked again, more uneasy this time. “It’s just a dwarf species of cow, it’s the same as normal beef,” he told her with more confidence in his tone than he really felt -- he was parroting exactly what he’d been told during prep earlier in the week.

Noah shrugged. “Fine, fine,” he said, waving her off with his mouth half-full. He knew black pudding was kinda gross, if you thought about what went into it, but he’d been told the flavour was worth it -- and Sofia hadn’t let him astray with her foodie recommendations yet. “You’ve gotta try something new though,” he reasoned, almost pleading with her.

Legolas! Noah sniggered. “The Hobbits!” He cried--not quite able to remember the full quote verbatim, but figuring that was kind of close--before shrinking down to a more normal height, aware of the many eyes now upon him. He shoved gently at Emma’s shoulder, grinning. “Now you bring it up, this is some Lord of the Rings kinda shit,” he said, looking around the Games and the surrounding highlands. A man in the near-distance was tossing a caber, and the resulting thud sent a small tremor through the earth. “Surprised you didn’t want to wear costumes like the nerd you are,” he told her with a smirk.

“Well, same,” he smiled, continuing on their way towards the pizza stall with its chimney pumping out smoke as a point of reference. “I’m working today, tomorrow and Saturday, but I get Sunday off, so I’ll probably use that to check out anything I can’t see on my breaks.”