Chapter 638 - 638 Specific Tastes

Back to Kat

[These are now Lily's thoughts]

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Kat opened her eyes and glanced out at the room. She felt no tiredness at all having had such an easy day the past two days. Her mind was clear, and alongside the demonic energy exercise she did yesterday she wasn't slowed by the lack of use in that area either. Lily could be faintly heard sleeping on her chest. The soft breaths from her small form inaudible without advanced senses like the ones Kat possessed, or Lily now.

With her mind so clear, Kat could feel a slight niggling at the back of her mind. Somehow, she could tell she was going to be summoned today. She wasn't sure how she knew, and would endeavour to ask Lily if she felt anything once she was awake, but Kat was certain she'd be summoned. For now though, it was a quiet morning and she was willing to relax.

Until she heard a loud crash coming from downstairs. Kat shot up, grabbing Lily in her arms so the girl in question didn't go flying. Lily woke with the sound as well but somehow knew what was going on thanks to the link and simply curled up closer to Kat. The pair flew downstairs to find… Callisto calmly sweeping up.

"Good morning you two," said Callisto with her lips pressed into a thin line. "I suppose you came for the crash. It is nothing serious. The clock just fell off the wall. It seems the structure on the back that's supposed to support it wasn't made properly and it gave way just now. Don't worry, it is not even a clock Vivian is particular fond of. It actually came with the house. The builders put it up for some reason and Vivian just told them to leave it. Frankly I'm annoyed with the fact they took it upon themselves to make a whole in the wall back when it was barely a week old…

"But it is not my house nor my money that paid for the builders. So instead of being sufficiently cowed Vivian just thanked them for the… 'nice'… clock and asked them to leave it. I wonder how they felt about that. Was it a clock they actually liked? Or just an old one they found lying around and took with them to construction sites? Vivian had that smile, the one that looks nice but says 'you're in trouble' as well? She used that and they folded like a weak poker player when the chips start going down."

[I don't know why but I was expecting something so much worse. I do wonder why Callisto was so close to the clock though?]

*Lily the kitchen is right there. I want to know where the broom came from. It isn't the small one she keeps under the kitchen sink but a full sized broom. I have no clue where it's stored so maybe it's reasonable… but I have demonic speed. Even if I didn't use it to maximum in case I damaged the floor or something she found that broom really fast.* 

"Would you like a hand?" asked Kat as if she wasn't trying to figure out what magic Callisto managed to pull to be ready and sweeping by the time the pair got downstairs.

"It's fine, you have your arms full with something much more important to you," answered Callisto with a nod towards Lily.

Kat couldn't help the fact her lips started to twitch upward at Callisto's words. She didn't really understand why either, it was simply a fact she was holding Lily, and Lily WAS more important than that clock. Before she could ponder it too long though Callisto asked, "Do either of you want breakfast? Not right now of course, just in a more general stance. I could tell you were not overly enthused with the food at all yesterday Kat.

"No thanks. I'm fine… I don't really want anything to eat," said Kat. *Even if I'm getting summoned today. What do you think though Lily?*

[Well… I'm not hungry. I don't feel like I want food at all. At the same time… if you're right about the fact we're getting summoned today… maybe I should have something anyway? There's no certainty that food will be easily available and even if you will be alright we don't yet know if I will be. Blegh… I don't really feel like forcing myself to eat. Hopefully it won't be too bad…]

"Something light for me I think," said 'Lily' "I'm not hungry but just in case we get summoned I want to have eaten something."

Callisto nodded as she started to group the pieces of the now destroyed clock onto a dustpan she'd taken out of the large pocket she had in the maid uniform. Kat was very surprised to see Callisto manipulate the pan with her foot, moving it around so that she caught everything in it without needing to bend down at all. *Ok that's just cheating. I have great body control now… but I have no idea if I'd be able to do that. I'd probably cheat and wrap my tail around it.* 

[I haven't seen you use your tail for anything that complicated… you think you could?]

*Well, I opened a door with my tail once… from the other side of the door. Had to get into the orphanage shed for something.* 

[Nevermind then. If you can manage that moving a dustpan around is nothing.] 

By this point the show was over and all the little pieces of clock had been collected. Callisto picked the largest pieces of the clock up and dumped them in the pocket the dustpan came from before collecting said dustpan from the floor and taking it all out to the rubbish bins. Kat frowned at Callisto's exit, a niggling feeling that she should have helped despite Callisto's insistence she was fine.

In the end though… everything was already clean so Kat just dropped herself onto the couch. Sylvie made her way downstairs not long afterwards, having been woken by the crash. Kat explained what it was, and Sylvie just nodded and joined the two already on the couch.  Sylvie snuggled into Kat's side and used the chance to give Lily some more scratches. Everybody was happy with this arrangement.

Callisto did work in the background, fancy pancakes were done for the three humans in the house, while Lily had some diced chicken on offer. Vivian somehow managed to make it downstairs at the exact time Callisto finished cooking. The pair clearly had the timing down to science.

"I hope you do not mind the chicken, Lily. I noticed that you found bread to be strange and suspect the same will be true of pancakes. Basic chicken breast in manageable chunks seems like a good thing to try. Let me know how it is,"

Lily sniffed the chicken carefully but didn't know what she was looking for at all. It was purely an instinctive reaction but without that bit of extra knowledge involving what to look for she might as well have not bothered. Still, it felt right to embrace her instincts a little and couldn't be called a waste from that perspective.

Lily tried a few bites and found it acceptable. She quickly cleaned up the rest of the chicken before stopping and wondering about a glass of water. Something she'd not needed yesterday. Kat fetched it for her, putting it in a bowl instead so that it was actually possible for her to drink it. Callisto waited for Lily to finish with that before asking, "So how was the chicken? I did not do anything to prepare it specially of course, but it is a good baseline."

Lily let out a mental sigh and got Kat to answer for her with, "It's really hard to describe Callisto. I can taste that it's different from other meat. It's distinctly chicken… but at the same time it isn't. I could tell you  it's chicken but… but it also just feels like generically good food. Grrr, it's so hard to explain this properly…

"It… it's like… hmm… Ok so… eating… eating is kind of an experience. For humans, there are lots of tastes and flavours and they combine in all sorts of interesting ways that can give a dish a complex and layered taste. That doesn't happen now I'm a Memphis. I get… just… it's almost like just swallowing a single block of 'ok taste'. Imagine if a sugar cube tasted like… I don't know… let's say carrot.

"It's ALL carrot at that point. There is no other taste, it's a carrot. Now, you try another cube. It's a different colour and clearly it isn't carrot. So you try it, and in this case, it's actually cucumber now… but to me it would still taste like carrot.. Because of the texture I could tell it wasn't carrot and the taste is slightly different… but not enough for me to realise it's cucumber and not carrot if I couldn't see the difference with my eyes. Does that make sense?"