nexus_crossings | Jamming in the Afternoon

Cooking did not happen too often in Mantis’s home. It was messy. It was hot. It took time. He was going to be all day with this latest project. Wandering into the industrial area of the Nexus will allow people to see an unusual sight. Rather than wearing his usual mask, Mantis had a scarf wrapped around his face vaguely similar to how one might imagine a ninja might look. He was seated in front of a portable stove with a pot cooking away over the flame. Next to him were several packages of fruits, empty mason jars, bags of sugar, and massive jugs of water. He sat in a folding chair situated beneath the shade of a large umbrella with a pile of long grass on his lap. Every so often, he’d pick up a piece and add it to a growing weaving project in his hands.

One might recognize the simple operation as a jam making jamboree. It’s an old, but fun way to make the most of a day and a harvest of fruit. Perhaps those who know him might be able to recognize his somewhat gaunt frame as he lounges back in the shade. Some who do not might be curious in general. Pale grey eyes dart up every so often to the cooking pot, but he’s not about to get up and rush for anyone or anything. He gets the jam stirring every so often with a flick of his wrist and a well-used wooden spoon.

There are a lot of jars, in spite of himself. With how time-consuming this was, that jam was going to last him a while. He wouldn’t have to buy any, wouldn’t have to borrow any, and that left him with visions of a personal hoard of sugar-sweet goodness. He sighs as he keeps with making his grass-woven project and sniffs the air. The question was half asked to the air around him, but it does deserve to be answered: “What should I do with these first?”

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Mantis's ego is going to swell with all the people coming over to tell him how good his cooking is. This is a dangerous game to play for someone who's ego is everything. That said, he watches the teen approach and nods in acknowledgement of the new attention.

"I'm making apple jam right now. It should be cooked up fairly quickly if you don't mind a bit of a wait."

"I can be VERY patient," he declares with a nod, going back to observing the pot. He says this but his mind is ever going a mile a minute. He likes adventuring out into the wilds and he wonders if he can find his way back to those bushes he found last time.

"Hey... If I bring you a bunch of berries do you think you could make me a batch?" he asks curiously, "I'll get a lot and you can keep anything that's leftover."

Mantis is instantly at east with the eagerness by which the boy handles himself, but also the sincerity in his body language and words. He didn't expect children, even a teenager like him, to be in the Nexus.

"If it's a berry, I can make a jam out of it. What kind have you been able to find in this place?" He cools himself with the fan he's woven. "I'll be here all day anyway. If you bring me the berries, I can make a batch."

"Cloudberries! You can find a lot of interesting things to forage for out in the wilds as long as you're careful not to disrupt anything TOO dangerous," he liked going out there. Similar and also very different from the vast danger filled forests around his cabin back home.

"My mom used to make jam out of them every year..." he trails off a bit, frown tugging at his lips. He shakes his head, "Anyway. We're in agreement then! I'll get the berries, you can make the good stuff?"

Oh no. He knows that pout. He wore it himself for a decent part of his childhood. Mantis isn't one to consider himself susceptible to emotional ploys, but he does understand why this jam would be important to the teen.

"I will make as much jam as I can from them." From one person who grew up without a mother to another. "I trust you've got enough survival skills that you should be able to go out and come back unscathed. When you get back, you can tell me about the wilds as the price for my cooking."

"You will? It's a deal!" he visibly perks up and grins jabbing a thumb towards his back, "And I'll be fine! My bow isn't for show. So... I'll get them and then I'll be back! As long as you'll be here for a while."

Excited he wastes no more time and runs off, presumably strait into danger for the sake of berry gathering.

It's some couple of hours later that he returns, a little worse for the wear given the assortment of scratches on his face and arms. He's smiling though so he's PROBABLY fine. He's got with him a couple stuffed canvas sacks and something big and floppy wrapped up in a few giant leaves.

"Jam-Man! I'm back with the berries," he jogs the rest of the way over once he's in sight, "I found some other good stuff too so I figured I'd treat you to lunch too."

Several jars have been filled since the boy ran off. Mantis has long finished his fan and is taking a more active roll in the jam production. He's just filled out a batch of apple jam and is boiling water in the pot to clean it. The scratches get a little head tilt out of him, but the kid is smiling enough, so probably nothing to worry about.

Mantis gestures to his seat and nods. "Seems I was right about your skills. What did you find out there? You look like you lost a fight with a bramble."

He asks in part because it seems to be oozing out of the leafy packaging. Mantis scrubs the pot harder and beckons the boy to come closer. "And my name is Psycho Mantis. From the look of you, I would say you hunted something or killed an assaulting animal in order to get to these berries."

Psycho Jam-Man-tis he thinks but wisely doesn't say. Yet.

"Atreus! And I wasn't really using any sort of path so there was a lot of shrubbery in the way," he nods. Branches and brambles. There's only so much you can do to avoid an excessive amount of those.

"It was worth it though, I got a lot," he opens one of the sacks to show off a mountain of beautiful red and gold berries, "And you're not wrong about assaulting animals. This guy here leaped out of a stream I was passing and tried to take a bit out of me. So I'm going to eat him in retaliation."

'This guy' being the large salmon he had wrapped up in the leaves after presumably cleaning and gutting beside the stream he was attacked at. A particularly large salmon that looked like someone had replaced it's normal head with a piranha's.

"I found some wild garlic and mushrooms too," he pauses and then adds, "They're the eating kind, not the kill you type or the give you visions type."

Mantis wouldn't mind that kind of nickname. It would be fair enough, and the kid is young enough that it's entirely forgivable.

"Atreus. That's a very interesting name." He stoops over slightly to look at the berries inside. They're certainly beautiful, but he'll want to have a taste to figure out exactly what he'll have to do to make sure he knows how much sugar they might need. The fish is even less of a surprise outside of that face. He even lets out a low whistle in approval. "I can help you preserve that if you didn't get a chance to salt it yet."

The mushroom comment gets him to genuinely laugh, if quietly. "You'd be surprised how many people like the visions and death mushrooms. They have a purpose, just like the edible ones. Just remember to wash and cook them thoroughly."

He gestures to the berries as he sets them down, just a wordless sort of 'help yourself!' There are a LOT of berries in there, and he definitely ate a bunch himself while picking them. And on the journey back. There's not much that can beat a berry picked fresh off the bush.

"Those type definitely have a purpose," he nods in agreement, poking through the mushroom bag to find the bigger ones.

"This guy I know.. he's kind of like teacher or a weird uncle I guess you could say. Anyways he was the advisor to this king for a while. To convince the king he was worthy of the job he offers him a 'well of wisdom'. If that sounds hokey that's because it was," he snorts recalling the tale as Mimir told it to him, pulling hi knife out to shave off any of the bad bits he found in the examinations of the day's bounty.

"It was filled with enough magic mushrooms to make a god see visions! He said he wasn't sure what vision made him tear one of his eyes out but he ended up restraining him before he could get the other."

If Mantis is up on any common Norse mythos he might recognize the tale of Odin exchanging an eye for a drink from the well of wisdom. Just... a little different.

He crouches down, sitting perfectly flat on his feet, to get a proper inspection of a few berries. Not too small, not too big, an excellent color. He rubs one between his fingers in part to clean it and in part to try and release some manner of smell from the juice inside. He lifts his mask up to sniff at it before popping the whole thing in his mouth.

"Tangy, but sweet. Perfect." Mantis stands up fully as Atreus tells his story, floating a mass of the berries into one of the waiting buckets of water. The story catches his attention, but so does the manner in which Atreus strips down the fish. He washes off the berries by hand and laughs more and more as the tale goes on.

"We have stories like that where I come from, but it's equally as dumb as your uncle. The two that I can remember involved one guy hanging upside down from a tree and the other being rendered completely blind. As far as I know, they both had relatively happy endings apart from the impaired vision."

Jamming in the Afternoon

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