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"How was school, honey?"
She tries to make the kids' favorite meals on their first day of school, but when she asked Iomedae's favorite meal the girl first stared at her blankly and then after some extended clarifications proposed that they could roast a pig, and she can't actually roast a pig, so dinner is pork chops, and potatoes, and salad from the farmer's market. Iomedae is not a picky eater.
(The girl is in fact clinically obese. The doctor suggested they talk with her about cutting back on junk food, but the social worker said that was a bad idea, with a kid new to care - don't restrict her food access at all, just get her more exercise. So Jenny signed her up for swim lessons at the YMCA and for track and field at school. Iomedae balked at the swimming lessons on the grounds that swimsuits were immodest, and they do actually make hijabi wetsuit things but apparently not in her size. Hopefully track and field she'll actually enjoy.)
That is code for do not talk about the thing you obviously called me to talk about.
"Oh, hi Haley!"
He rapidly thinks of a new topic.
"So I'm planning out stuff for the tavern at next event and I'm wondering if you know anyone who wants to volunteer behind the bar.... Roger? Really?" That miserable hellion? "....no you're right. I can - ...Yeah, if you're sure... I guess... No, nope.... Okay. And you're still thinking you can help us out with mead supply? You have that friend up north... oh that's lovely.... mhm... yeah.... Oh yeah I'll see you soon. Totally yeah I'll call you back."
Lucy wants to inhale an entire bowl of the hash brown cheese melt stuff and there is nothing that can stop her from doing so!
They get a circular table big enough for everyone and people settle in there one by one as they arrive, gossiping and joking. The waitress knows them by now and keeps returning to take orders in chunks.
....oh, everything at Waffle House is expensive and Jenny is wincing. Iomedae asks for a cup of water, "please and god bless you."
" - yes, for that reason I buy childs Costco cinnamon rolls on Sunday, feeds twenty, six dollars."
" - if you do well in sports you can get scholarships to college, you know. Pays for itself, being an athlete."
"Schools for adults will pay for you to go, if you are very good at sports, because they want you at their school. School is very expensive, so it's a good deal if you can swing it."
"...it is like, more like a steel cost than like a clothes cost?"
Robert has no idea what she means by that. "It's smart to train hard and do well at sports," he says again instead of answering that.
Iomedae is tired of being so confused. It is so hard to be confused all the time. She will order a steak and eggs.
Gabriel would definitely normally intervene and just buy a meal for any fifteen-year-old worrying about having enough money for food, but he knows how much Robert makes. Robert can afford Waffle House.
Nicole doesn't like being drenched in sweat, so she always has a spare change of clothes in her car.
She arrives slightly late at the Waffle House dressed in a strikingly elegant asymmetrical blue sundress (it's her last chance to wear these things before it gets to be really autumn!) with a white jacket and some ballet pumps (she normally likes kitten heels with this but thinks those are inappropriate in a Waffle House). She's pulled her hair up into a high ponytail so that it won't stick to the back of her neck and she can cool off. It's so delightful to be in light breezy clothes after the hot confines of armour that she almost forgets to be dignified and not twirl her pleated skirt around like she's twelve.
Nicole sits down directly next to Jenny, flags down the waitress with a tiny wave and a polite smile, and asks, "Can I just get steak and eggs? And the infinite coffee? Thank you."
Once everyone has settled down, Cináed will start asking questions. "So I'm trying to plan out a meal rota for Kalomeros Baronial at War of the Wings and I'm trying to get a better sense of numbers. Who all is camping with us at war?"
This question is directed at the people who are listening, which is only about half of people because the other half are ordering food or inhaling food or having side conversations about Italian poetry forms or looking at pictures of Haley's new kitten.
Iomedae knows what a war is from her history class! She is not surprised the order is going to fight in a war, that being what knightly orders do. America like Taldor is as far as she's been able to determine in several declared and several undeclared wars at all times; she kind of feels like it ought to be possible to do better than that but no one ever has; Azlant was like that too.
"Who war with?"
"...war is over who most steel man?" Iomedae would dearly like to not get involved in that. It is a great way to die accomplishing nothing.