Steak dishes with tomato, cheese, egg, and ham, chicken dishes with butter and savory sauce and greens, "broomstick" dishes with a long loaf of rich-looking bread and a pile of sides at the base and dipping sauces, savory stews that sound mouthwatering, fish dishes with mushrooms and roasted onions and rye bread, Baklava and European style dumplings and other desserts. It all seems very homey, the portions look big from the menu's pictures, and almost everything has at least two kinds of meat in it.

Oh this looks delicious. "I'll get the fish. This looks lovely! How long have you been doing this? You clearly have a passion for it."

"Oh, ever since the war, dear. I do try my best, thank you. Fish it is! Need anything special with it? I don't think I've seen many like you, and you're not digicasted..."

"Awww, thank you. Yeah, I'm Inkborn, and while I'm not sure if this is all of us or just me, I do need to have some ink with meals. Was planning on just having some when I got home, so no need to go out of your way if nothing's handy."

"Hmph! And not serve a guest what they need? Nonsense, dearie. What makes good tasty ink?"

"I'll have the steak and ham dish here. And maybe these pork dumplings. Cooked medium."

"I'm feeling like soup. Chicken noodle? Classic and simple, you know. And some bread."

"Of course, of course!"

"Well," she muses, scritching Lenora some more, "I've only tried two so far. Only awakened a few days ago. Cheap pens you get by the carton from the dimestore taste like cardboard, while high quality Japanese calligraphy ink tastes better than fine sake. Trying to generalize from that, I'd say the pigment makes the biggest difference — especially the... I guess the richness, if that makes sense? The solvents and binders probably matter too, but I'm gonna have to experiment to see how it all fits together."

"Well don't you worry, Grendel will find something. Any requests, you two?" She smiles brightly at Lenora and Abyssia. The pair shake their heads.

"Okay then! It shouldn't be too long, I'll have your food out in a jiffy, dears. You want some bread or salad to share in the meantime?"

Sable shrugs cheerfully. "I'm fine either way. Up to y'all."

"Yeah, let's have a salad."

"Yes, very good! And I throw in a small bonus for new students, some cookies. Lemonade and salad and cookies will come out soon!"

And Mama Grendel waves and turns to trot back into the kitchen.

"This place is kinda... Something. It's nice, but I can see wanting to just eat something sometimes instead, I mean."

"Yeah, sometimes you wanna do something low-effort, where it's okay not to interact as much."

She giggles. "Yes, even me, there are times when I don't want to interact as much. Not many, though."

"That's just life. Ups and downs..." She sighs happily, taking in the smells. She could tell just passing by, but this close its amazing. "Have a good library run?"

"Um." Glance at Sable. "Yeah. Did some research on consortation. Seems likely to be useful with care and moderation."

"It does seem like we've got some safe angles on it. Also, Hell is even worse than I expected, and seemingly even for the demons."

"...This isn't really lunch conversation." Sigh. "Can I talk about my job instead? And you should tell us more about sparring, Bys!"

It is at this point that a heavily pixelated, stylized waitress zips past their table at high speed, perfectly depositing a large salad bowl, three individual plates and cutlery sets, and several bottles of dressing - all without slowing down in the slightest.

A bare moment later, she zips back with three glasses of lemonade.

Bys double-takes.

"I thought that was you for a second!" She exclaims at Sable.

"Oh wow, that's really cool! Is that what Digicasting can do?" She boggles a bit at the waitress.

Then to Lenora, "Sure, either or both of those!"

She scoops some salad onto her plate and pours a bit of a comparatively light dressing over it — a vinaigrette or something — then digs in.

"Yeah, it has to be digicasting. That's, um. I don't know her name, but she's from this mobile game, Diner Dash."

"I guess digicasting is strong enough to create strong minions. I wonder what rank that is. Cool!"

She starts serving herself salad. "I wanna learn that. But I want to learn everything, so... What I did today was pretty cool actually, though. Apparently I'm good enough with rocks to like physically meld them. This company's now paying me to turn a bunch of gravel into pretty paving stones. They mixed something silvery and I think fool's gold in too, it's actually very pretty-"

shiny.png

"Isn't it?"

Sable bounces in her seat and wags delightedly. After she (hurriedly) swallows her current bite, she gushes, "Oooh, that is so pretty! Now I'm wondering about eventually prettying up the house—damn it, Lenora, you're giving me ideas~!"

"If it involves doing creatively difficult things to rocks, I'll totally help! It was a workout. Not, like, a real one, but a magic workout. I was doing Earthbending stances, but I need to watch it all again some time, get a better feel for it. Maybe I can digicast into Ba Sing Se."