An Evertech Tale Chapter 8
#8 of An Evertech Tale
A little sister chapter to 7, introducing more of Aurich the skunk along with a little dream sequence... what could that mean?
Splicer took 45 minutes to make it back to his room, every step was like climbing a mountain. His air supply felt like he was at the top of a mountain as well, each one feeling like he was barely getting any air in his lungs, his eyes were burning a blood shot. But he finally made it home, well back to his room within the office. The wolf wanted to kick himself for thinking of something so stupid, but he had no energy left, his last action was to collapse to the floor and made the final few meters on all fours, collapsing on the plush pad within. He looked up at the grey ceiling through the black bars of his crate gasping for air, he felt his pulse pounding. He wasn't sure what was going on with the nanites inside, but it must mean they were still on the fritz from the tranqs. He wondered how he could take advantage of this knowledge, perhaps he could find the right dosage to put the nanites out of commission without doing the same to the rest of his body. The idea brought a smile to his face as he felt his eyes sliding shut, unable to keep up with the lack of oxygen.
His sleep was peaceful, it felt like he was weightless. He found himself floating over his own body looking down at the calm expression on his own face. What a strange feeling...
He looked towards the walls of his room, he felt weightless so maybe...
He slide through the walls of his prison, soon he was flying out and above the dense forest surrounding the office building, feeling the wind zooming through his fur, he was free, he could see the edge of the forest!
SNAP
** ** He felt his body yanked back by the neck. He reached down and felt a long rope attached to his collar, the collar that was forced on him. He tried to take the latch off to get himself free but as soon as he touched the silver metal, his paw passed right though. He felt the leash pull.
"No... NO!" The wolf tried to pull back, but he couldn't put up much resistance, the leash's pull only got stronger the closer to the office building he got. He tried to at least pull back on the leash to draw whoever was pulling him away from the office, but he didn't have the strength to.
He let his body be reeled in closer, close enough to see what was on the end of his leash. It was that pink badger, why couldn't he just leave well enough alone? He was already ruining his waking life, now he wasn't even free to dream? Laguna's pull got even stronger, drawing the wolf closer, filling the wolf's soul with a mounting, heavy dread. He was face to face with the badger, who was smiling that same smug smile he always is. He felt a paw on his shoulder, pushing him down onto his knees, until he was looking up at the badger, this felt so wrong? But underneath it all there was a sense of belonging, he belonged here, that couldn't be right? The badger's mouth opened...
WAKE UP PUPPY
** ** The pink colour burned in his eyes, which soon shot open, jolting the wolf awake. Sitting up fast, his nose collided with the roof of his cage.
"FUCK!" The wolf was gingerly rubbing his nose. He spoke to nothing, but knew someone somewhere was listening "The fuck do you want?"
I did tell you not to get comfy, you still have work to be done! Elevator in 2 minutes.
** **"Whatever..." The wolf grumbled, crawling out of the cage, stretching out. "Can't escape this bastard..."
He walked to his table and scratched a new line into it just incase he couldn't later and sat in front of the elevator, waiting. He heard the door open with a ding and debated whether or not now would be a good time to try and test the elevator waiting game, but today he was already drained of resistance, maybe tomorrow...
The elevator took him to a floor he didn't recognize, Not that he recognized most of the floors he entered, it was like the floor plan of the office was ever changing, but that couldn't be possible... Even if it were, why? He shook his head, no way, he was just imagining things. In either case there was only one way to go, down the hall were two swinging doors with circular windows. He snuck down the hall and peered through one, He saw a relatively large kitchen, looking like it could run a staff of 50, but instead of fifty there was only one, that gold striped skunk was happily humming to himself as he took his time sharpening his knife set.
"Shit..." The wolf stopped looking in the window and gently pressed his back to the wall.
"I saw you looking in, no point hiding now~" Aurich's voice called through the doors, taunting the wolf, who's ears flattened in response.
"Yes world's best spy I am..." He muttered pushing the door open, walking up to the skunk who laid his final gleaming knife down in front of him. Splicer's eyes couldn't help but wander to look over the smooth surface...
"I don't know what you're thinking, whatever it is, it's incredibly stupid... One you may never touch another chef's knife without permission, two if you even thought for a second sir Laguna would let you harm one of his pets, you must be severely concussed from earlier."
That last comment stung, Splicer touched the side of his muzzle that the skunk struck, he was right, it throbbed with a dull pain and his lip felt a bit swollen.
Aurich pointed to another knife set that was just a little further down the counter, The wolf picked one up in his paw and looked at it in awe.
"Not that I want you here..." The skunk started. "But sir thinks we need to start getting along. That's your knife set there, I already sharpened it for you all you have to do is help me prep his dinner."
"Wha? Oh yeah sure..." The wolf barely even heard Aurich's jabs, too engrossed in the quality of the knife he was turning over in his paw. Was clearly Japanese, with a Damascus pattern that let the wolf see his reflection between the gasoline-coloured swirls of the blade. He didn't even notice unti the skunk slammed a cutting board down in front of the wolf causing him to jump with a light yelp.
"HEY! No daydreaming, we have work to do! This is my kitchen. You will do as I say, no questions asked!" Aurich handed the wolf a list of vegetables, "I want you to go out back, find everything on this list and cut and prepare them, get to it!"
The wolf didn't think twice, he grabbed the list and jumped obediently towards the back pantry.
"Always the whipping boy..." He muttered to himself, but his mood almost picked up when he saw the well-stocked pantry it was massive with fruits and vegetables he had never heard of before. He wandered around for a bit, taking in all the sights and smells. He ran his fingers along the surface of a few interesting specimens he had never seen. "I mean garlic, onions, those are easy. But, what the fuck is a daikon? Fennel?"
...
Ten minutes later, Splicer had appeared from the pantry, arms loaded with everything he could carry, hoping everything on the list was in there somewhere, Aurich was not amused.
"Oh my god... You could have asked what you were looking for..." The skunk cried out in dismay, not enjoying the desecration of his pantry.
Splicer's ear flattened and he looked at the ground face only slightly red "You said no questions asked..."
"Oh yeah I did! How funny... well, here..." Aurich helped separate the required vegetables from the superfluous ones, before leaving the wolf with instructions that left his head spinning.
"Julienne? I don't know her..." The wolf whispered under his breath, he wasn't sure id Aurich heard him, but he swore he heard a slight exhale from his nose. "Ok here I go..."
Splicer had raised the knife well above shoulder level, before grabbing his first poor victim, an innocent carrot. He swung down hard vice gripe on the carrot increased, making sure it wouldn't escape as he hacked away, until he brought the knife down a little too close to his paw and hit his finger with the knife, right below his claw...
He dropped the knife to the counter and gripped his hand looking for damage, but somehow it was fine?
"WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!? ARE YOU FUCKING STUPID? Jesus, you would have lost that claw if you weren't nanited like you are..." The enraged skunk was shouting at him from across the counter. But Splicer was still a little in shock. "Have you ever fucking cooked before in your life? Like holy shit I've never seen someone so inept as you..."
Splicer felt his knees weaken until he shrunk to the floor, pressing his back to an oven, his ears flattened, his body was even allowing tears to freely flow from his eyes as he hid his head in his paws.
"I-I'm sorry... My profession had me moving around too much to settle down, I've never really had the chance to learn to cook for myself, I would just hit up whatever restaurant was in town of my mission..."
Aurich's verbal assault stop, he had forgotten the wolf wasn't exactly what you could call domesticated, maybe he could help fix that though.
"Heeeeey, I'm sorry too, you just surprised me is all. I'm used to working with world class chefs and not a total, and utter amateur like you..." He was trying his best to be reassuring as he rubbed the wolf's shoulder, but still couldn't stop himself from adding in a light rotating here or there, I mean he did just almost cut his finger off, that warranted a bit of shouting, didn't it?
He cradled the wolf's chin in a paw using his sweat towel to dry their eyes. "Here let me show you how to actually use a knife..."
The next 40 minutes were filled with stern but gentle instructions on proper knife technique and form, soon enough the wolf finally fell into a solid rhythm of chopping and slicing, still not perfect but leagues better than their initial attempt. Soon all the prep work was done.
"Thank you, but there's no way in hell I'm letting you touch the protein, lest you ruin that perfect cut I got. Clean you station, wash your knives and head back to you room, bring the knife set with you." Aurich instructed, happy to have made even a little progress on the wolf's cooking journey.
Splicer was unsure of why he was allowed to keep the knife set, but he also knew better than to ask stupid questions, he quickly washed up and bowed his head. As he touched the swinging door with a paw he paused for a moment. "...Thank you.."
He was gone, Aurich smiled as he set to scoring his master's steak.
Splicer stepped off the elevator into his room, laying the knife set down on his table, before unravelling it. He picked up the sharpening stone he hid withing the cloth wrapping. He might not know how to cut vegetables, but he could sharpen a knife to a razor like no one else. Not that he even planned to use his chef set as weapons but better safe than sorry, and the smooth rhythmic scrapping of metal on stone was something to do, plus it helped set his mind at ease. He sharpened to what he imagined would be his heartbeat, once again replaced by the mechanical whirring. Soon enough it was supper time. He heard his machine ding, before he was presented with one option, a cut of steak.
He pressed the button, his meal was quickly delivered, he could see his uneven cut vegetables among the glistening steak, he ate hungrily.
The meal's taste was somehow better than any other he had eaten at the facility... Maybe better than he had eaten anywhere... he was happy, if only for the night.