B2 Chapter 29: Chef Spicefury

Shiver – after Flora’s revelations

There was a single question on Shiver’s mind.

Well… it was more accurate to say that there were two of them. Shiver had pushed the other to the furthest recesses of her consciousness.

Her first, most crucial thought was - where did one go to find popsicles, in the Archcity of Life?

Iltheria, the ice glades were too far away. No matter how hard Shiver searched, Virgil was nowhere to be found. She swore, that she would catch the slightest glimpse of him, before he would turn around the nearest corner and disappear.

She had a strangest feeling that the Fearshaper of stars was avoiding her.

“Impossible… who would ever want to avoid me! I’m perfectly friendly. Nothing like that insane plant bitch.”

She hummed, puzzling over the curious phenomenon when she halted in her tracks. Shiver paused, her eyes lighting up with a hint of… success. She took a deep breath in, inhaling the delectable scent of a ban            quet in the midst of preparation.

Eventually, she heard the telltale signs of what she was looking for.

The castle’s kitchen.

Shiver whistled nonchalantly as she slipped into the bustling area filled with servants and chefs. Her eyes grew wide as she glimpsed flame leaping into the air, and the satisfying sound of sizzling meat in hot pans.

“Bontom, what did I tell you about handling those bloodcarrots! The gatherer’s risk their lives slipping into the arse of the shadow woods for those. If you try to wash another one…”

“But... chef, the carrots bleed. Surely we need to wash them before-“

“I will shove one of them up your arse boy, and we’ll see what bleeds! That’s the whole point of the bleeding carrots, don’t get rid of perfectly good flavour! Do you want me to throw you to a Vampress? Hmm?”

“No chef!”

Shiver stared at the castle’s head chef, a man with an immaculate white apron despite the sauces and flames flying in every direction as the castle’s staff scrambled. A towering white, chef’s hat sat on his head, drooping slightly as it defied the pull of gravity.

The cook he was speaking to – Bontom -  paled at the his words. Rushing to grip carrots that looked like they had been dipped in blood.

Woah… that’s a bloodcarrot? What’s a vampress?

“Well if you don’t pick up the pace, I’ll use your blood to saute the emberhare. GET TO IT!”

Shiver looked on in awe, as her eyes fixed on the myriad of ingredients that seemed to defy all reason. In one direction were two elfs that fanned a flaming cut of meat, while another poured a sauce over it, which produced a cloud of steam.

Is that… the meat of an emberhare? Is the meat cooking itself?

“AHH!”

“Sonya, what have I told you about handling the sparkleaf? WEAR THE FEARDAMNED GLOVES.”

“Y-yes chef!”

Shiver turned her eyes to another, calmer corner of the room. It was only calmer by comparison to the other end of the kitchen. Her eyes grew to the size of globes as she spotted ice cream that gleamed – quite literally – from the sparks that flew from tiny silver shavings that it was garnished with.

“YOU, GIRL.”

Shiver’s mouth continued to hang open, as she swivelled to face the voice that barrelled into her.

The head chef’s muscular forearms were almost the size of her torso. They were covered with tattoos that danced on his skin. Shiver watched as an inky black horse which left black lightning in its wake, galloped from one forearm to another, as his arms crossed.

“Nice.”

“If you keep that mouth open any longer, you’ll flood the kitchen with your drool. What do you want? Don’t tell me…”

The head chef’s eyes narrowed. Shiver couldn’t help but wonder if the man was a Fearshaper of… cooking? Or whether he was just Feardamned good at his job.

“You’re here for the rat in our kitchen.”

His kitchen staff stopped in their tracks. As they froze, an eerie silence filled the air, interrupted only with the light crackling of emberhare meat.

“IT WAS FIGURATIVE YOU BLOODY IDIOTS. GET BACK TO WORK.”

In a panic, his staff redoubled their efforts, as they handled countless ingredients native to the Dreadwood.

“What rat?”

The huge man strode over to a kitchen cabinet in a quieter corner of the room, and opened it.

Inside, was an exceedingly elegantly dressed little firefly, who looked up at them with wide eyes.

Blaze was dressed in an elegant orange dress, which seemed to hold the hue of the sunset. Shiver suspected its maker had taken inspiration from the Dawntree – the perfect dress for a young noble lady.

Shiver met Blaze’s eyes, where she hid in the cabinet.

“Nope.”

The head chef casually shut the cabinet with a slam, which provoked a soft yelp from within.

“Then what in Insanity are you after in my kitchen?”

“Got any popsicles?”

“Disgusting. A sorry excuse for a dessert, you’re in search of a glorified flavoured icicle? You’d be better off pissing on one in a cave and licking that, girl.”

Blaze’s subdued voice emerged from the cabinet, barely decipherable over the bustle in the kitchen.

“Don’t give her any ideas! She’ll do it!”

“Silence, rat.”

Shiver spoke to the closed, cabinet door.

Then, her cerulean eyes fearlessly drilled into the dark gaze of the head chef. His veins were bulging across his arms, and Shiver watched as an inky wyvern soared from arm to arm, breathing flame.

“If you truly are a good chef, even you would be able to turn a piss icicle into a delicacy.”

Once again, the bustle of the kitchen crawled to a standstill. The sous chefs, cooks and assistants turned to her in abject terror. A low growl emerged from before her and the room seemed to rumble.

“Are you challenging me, girl.”

“Bring it on.”

“CLEAR THE ISLAND.”

“Chef Spicefury-“

Shiver snorted, looking in the direction of the assistant who had spoken.

“Spicefury? You’re kidding. What sort of a name is that?”

The assistant that mentioned the head chef’s name stared as he disappeared into another room, his steps echoing as he walked.

“He was an orphan.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ve heard that one before. So they named him after a Fear of spice?”

The assistant shook her head. The elf looked to be about her age, with hazel brown hair and light green eyes. She wore a lopsided chef’s hat that was a fraction of the size of Spicefury’s own.

A Trainee chef, perhaps?

“No. He’s Fearless. He was named that, because spice has a Fear of him. Besides…”

The assistant’s eyes narrowed as she broke away her gaze and fixed it on Shiver.

“Who are you to talk, with a name like ‘Shiver’?”

“You- huh. You have a point.”

Spicefury emerged, his forearms bulging under the weight of the greatwolf’s head that he lugged into the kitchen. The onlookers stared on in horror, perhaps they were surprised that not even the most tremendous of the Dreadwood’s creatures avoided the chef’s pan.

He slammed the head onto the kitchen island.

“This was your work, wasn’t it?”

Shiver nodded, recognising the pack leader she had tracked and killed.

Spicefury pried open the wolf’s mouth, and broke one of the fangs of frost that drooped from its mouth.

“Ugh. Disgusting.”

Shiver shook a finger in the direction of the voice. Blaze looked like she was about to vomit.

“You have no taste. Let’s see what he does with it.”

“Ifree, ready the phoenix’s tears.”

Deathly silence swallowed the kitchen once more. None of the elves within moved a muscle.

Ifree, the elf she had been speaking to, had turned as pale as Vale when she caught a glance of a spider. Which was to say, she would have blended right in with the winterlilies that shrouded Iltheria’s floor.

“B-b-b-but chef… it would be a waste. Those tears can heal most mundane wounds-“

To Shiver’s surprise, Spicefury laid a reassuring hand on Iltheria’s shoulder. The girl - bless her soul with Serenity – looked up at him with hopeful eyes.

“For this frosty bitch to challenge me, something must be broken up there, in that empty, cavernous head of hers.”

“Hey…”

“DEFECTIVE. I will see to it, that the poor girl sees the light. Guests of House Flora are treated to only the best.”

Somehow, Shiver doubted that the other guests of House Flora would be jumping to be subjected to Spicefury’s ire. She watched, as Ifree ran to the backroom, presumably to ready the tears.

Then, she turned to watch Spicefury in awe, as the man drew a gleaming meat cleaver from a drawer, than began slicing the fang with such precision that it was reduced to a fine frost powder.

It was such an unnecessary display of excess, when there was a mortar and pestle right within his reach, that Shiver had to nod appreciatively. Sometimes, style took precedence. It certainly did, as Spicefury’s cleaver flashed and a fine powder of frost was collected into an ornate glass bowl.

Shiver caught the words Spicefury was muttering under his breath.

“Popsicles… She must be pitied. What kind of a life did the poor girl lead. One of destitution and mouldy bread, no doubt.”

Shiver frowned, as she heard an evil cackling coming from the cabinet behind her.

“Wait a minute- “

Her words fell on deaf ears.

Spicefury shook his head, consumed in his work as his knife flashed onwards. The fang the size of her forearm was being reduced to a soft, mountainous hill of shaved ice at a rapid pace.

“I will introduce her to true cuisine. Popsicles… HA.”

With a flourish, the final remnants of the fang were reduced to a fine frost powder.

Shiver smirked at the result of the chef’s display of skill.

“That’s your grand dessert that will impress me? Far from a masterpiece-“

“GIRL. One does not often make masterpieces of single ingredients. It is true, that even if you were to piss in this very bowl, it would far surpass any popsicle you might find. That much, I guarantee.”

Spicefury’s eyes flashed as he thundered into the back room once more.

One of the chef attendants spoke up in a whisper.

“Why does he keep mentioning piss, I feel sick-“

Ifree spoke up once more, her eyes taking on a look of a veteran of a hundred wars, as she stared into space.

“He sees disgust as a mere challenge to be surmounted. It is why he makes so much mention of arseholds, shit and piss as he cooks, and even while he serves his dishes.”

Her light green eyes flashed as they fixed on Shiver.

“To him, a lesser challenge would be pointless. Why do you think he used a fang from a beheaded frostwolf as the base of his dessert?”

Finally he emerged, with a number of ingredients in his grip. Shiver watched as he slammed down a number of jars of glass. They were surely reinforced, for any mundane alternative would have shattered upon impacting the kitchen island.

“Ooooh… what are these?”

When Shiver met Spicefury’s gaze, she realised, that she had fallen right into his trap.

“The first touch. The base. For the flavour.”

He uncorked a bottle filled with liquid that shone like rubies. He gently poured it over the shaved ice, and as the liquid made contact with the ice, it coalesced into tiny, hydrophobic red orbs.

“The venom of the vampress.”

“Uh… is that, safe to eat?”

Spicefury met her gaze forlornly.

“Safer than mouldy bread, fellow orphan.”

“Alright, cut it out-“

“The venom is deadly when introduced directly into the bloodstream, but when ingested?”

The man executed a masterful chef’s kiss, which spoke for itself.  

Shiver frowned.  

“Wait a minute… How did you know I was an orphan?”

“With a name like that…”

“Hey-“

“And taste like shite. It was obvious.”

The latter came out as a whisper, but the man was already moving to the second jar before she could respond. He uncovered an opaque box, which began to shine as soon as its cover was removed.

“The horn of a unicorn.”

Small golden cubes fell onto the soft ice. As they made contact with the Vampress’ venom, it flashed and dissolved the small, red globules back into liquid form, which sunk into the ice shavings.

Ifree whispered under her breath.

“Yet another ingredient of healing. How much is needed, to bring light into your dark soul. Chef… it is wasted on her.”

Before Shiver could protest, Spicefury shot forwards, dramatically raising the penultimate ingredient in his hands.

Two small, brown balls lay in the very middle of his palm.

“Wyvern balls.”

His eyes, slowly lowered, to meet Shiver’s own.

Shiver felt a pang of pity for the onlookers. She was certain, that some of the unlucky Fearless bastards that numbered amongst them, would walk away with a new Fear this day.

Then Spicefury broke into a smirk.

“Got you there. It’s just chocolate.”

Sighs of relief echoed around her.

There were limits to even Insanity, it seemed.

Shiver’s eyes just narrowed in suspicion.

The last time I thought something was “just chocolate”, I awakened as a bloody Fearshaper.

“Now for the final ingredient.”

With reverence, Spicefury produced the tiniest vial the size of her thumb. It was miniscule, in his enormous palms. Even so, he uncorked it with precision and grace, such that it was never at risk of shattering under his grip, and evenly dripped it over the ice.

“Tears of the Phoenix. May it heal you. Let us pray.”

Spicefury’s expression began to fill with solemnity, as he clasped his hands together.

The rest of his kitchen staff followed suit.

“You Feardamned-“

“Avalkin below. Please free this tortured soul from the ailments that curse her. If this masterpiece is insufficient, she is surely doomed to Insanity’s grip.”

The silence was deafening, as not a soul moved, in the kitchen. Shiver could hear snickering, muffled behind a cabinet door. Finally, Spicefury opened his eyes and met Shiver’s gaze.  

“But there are things even Phoenix’s tears will not cure. Poor taste, for one.”

He gestured to his masterpiece.

“Eat, and be enlightened.”

Shiver’s eyes settled on the “popsicle” before her. Ifree handed her a spoon, and fixed her with a glare filled with envy and disgust.

Shiver delicately dipped the spoon into the shaved frost, so soft, that it relented immediately at the slightest pressure she exerted.

Shiver heaped a huge spoonful of the ice, which captured with it, all of the ingredients the chef had added. Some of his apprentices stared at her in abject horror.

Where she would squander his masterpiece, they would have savoured it.

She took a bite.

The first sensation that she was met with, was the cold. She felt it spearing through her body at the first contact with her tongue. A concern surfaced in her mind – that it would undermine Icey’s ability to restrain her Fear.

Then, the sensation was washed away by burning. Harsher than what flame could wrought, the Vampress’ venom that softened the ice washed over her tongue.

Finally, the sudden pain and adrenaline it had invoked was replaced in an instant by sheer bliss. The relief brought by two of the most potent healing reagents in the land – the unicorn horn and tears of the phoenix.

For a moment, Shiver floated high above the Dreadwood on clouds of Serenity. Her troubles, concerns, and thoughts forgotten – even the one that she had buried in the recesses of her mind, that threatened to surface itself.

In the span between seconds, Shiver experienced an eternity.

Finally the sensation faded.

She looked the chef in the eyes, and rendered her judgement.

“Popsicles win.”

Spicefury’s eyes narrowed, as he searched her gaze.

Then the giant elf staggered, as if wounded by a mortal blow.

For he saw her sincerity.

Shiver had been given her very first popsicle by an ignorant merchant, who had found her crying on a rooftop in Brimstone’s lower circles. He had caught her throwing pieces of mouldy bread at children below, happily gripping their parents’ hands.

The kindness that he offered, would induce terror in its recipient. Pov didn’t know better.

When Shiver tasted her first Popsicle, in Brimstone’s warmth – she had experienced what had been unprecedented before. Terror, in the safety of the Archcity of Flames.

Hallucinations were nothing to her. The ice shades that had plagued her, even as a child.

The kindness that it was accompanied by?

The meagre generosity of a destitute merchant, who struggled to make a living?

There was nothing that could compare.

As Spicefury fell to his knees, in utter defeat, Shiver walked to the cabinet and dragged out Blaze by the scruff of her puffy orange dress.

“I’d give it an 8/10. Not bad. But fine dining isn’t for me. Thanks for the… shaved ice.”