Page 83 of Culture and Curiosities
I wasn’t sure if it was our bond, my role as Daddy, or just my own emotions influencing it, but I could feel my own stress going down as his did. The only difficult part of it was deciding when to be quiet and when to chatter like a human.
“Can you sit at the table for me?” I was glad the room came with a small space for eating, but I had to admit jealousy for the others who had a full kitchen.
Then again, I would’ve been tempted to try to learn how to use their appliances if they were readily available.
“Cooking as a human can’t be as difficult as Kenzie made it sound.” Frowning as Wren giggled, I huffed as I was supposed to as I started setting out our food. “I have traveled the stars, my mate. I can defeat a stove and make food like a human.”
Wren’s happy sounds turned teasing and wicked as an outdoor fire sprang up in his mind. “You can cook like that?”
Would fire or a stove be more difficult?
I could make fire a variety of ways but I’d never thought to cook like that before.
As more question marks started floating around his head again, I did my best to guess at his intention. “Well, I’m often invited to others’ homes because of my role and I will admit to eating out at our local version of your diner. However, I can provide for my mate and make appropriate meals.”
Just not anything resembling a dino nugget or mac-n-cheese.
He popped some of the question marks but there were still several left. Wondering what else I could tell him as I got his cup for water out of the refrigerator and put his milk in it, I made the thinking sounds he found funny and dished out our food called meatloaf and mashed potatoes. “We have similar food on my world, a ground meat kind of loaf and a root vegetable that we mash. The texture is slightly different, though.”
What else?
“I do not have dino nuggets made from chicken but I can make you nuggets made from dinosaurs.” It wouldn’t be hard since he’d explained their contents. No. Ingredients. “Should they be shaped as chickens?”
He found that just as funny as the children on my world would probably find chickens. But his snickers and the food being ready got his thumb out of his mouth, so it was productive as well. “Your Walmart store had them in letter shapes. I remember you showing me those.”
Additional context made them make more sense.
“Klynn appreciates the dino shapes, however, so their original form might be best.” Being a Daddy instead of being little might make my views on the subject slightly unhelpful. “Here’s your fork. Do you need help?”
He shook his head as he took the utensil, but I watched him closely when he still didn’t see the need to speak. “Good boy.”
Giving him a kiss, I sat down beside him and kept up the chatter. “We’ve got food that is similar to types of soup served in the diner.”
A picture of Kenzie popped up through our bond.
“Yes, he wouldn’t like that at all but I think everyone else will be fine with it.” Nothing in our records indicated they should have issues with our food, but we had asked everyone about known allergies since many of their families had bred with humans in the past.
Cupcakes popped up with the question marks.
“No, we don’t have those but we do have similar cakes. Ours are usually denser and not as sweet, but I think that’s a preference not a difference in our baking ability.” The question marks wiggled as he took a bite of his potatoes. “I remember my mother putting in too much of the ingredient we use to make baked goods rise and the cake was very fluffy. It was closer to a human style of cake and she said it was ruined.”
Wren nearly choked but that was my fault for shocking him when he was swallowing. “Are you okay?”
Coughing, he nodded and took a drink out of the special container he called a sippy cup. When it was obvious he was fine, I relaxed back in my seat. “The cake is still good. I think it’s just a cultural difference.”
Kenzie popped up in his mind again. “Yes, he’d have a hard time with that too but he might know some dense-style cakes that my people would like to try. We’ll have to remember to bring some next time.”
The question marks danced again and that time an image of the portal was with them. That wasn’t as easy to guess but I assumed it was related to the comment about next time. We had spent too much energy not talking fully about our plans for the portal and where we would keep our family, so I had a feeling little Wren was done with ignoring the obvious.
“Well, the plan is two weeks and then we come back to the human world so that everyone can give detailed reports.” I had originally suggested a month but it was quickly denied because everyone felt they didn’t have that much patience.
Even Wren had to admit his mother might go charging through the portal and end up causing an interstellar incident.
That was when everyone decided two weeks was an appropriate length and that we needed someone with the scientific knowledge to figure out where our worlds were located in the universe. No one had maps detailed enough to figure that out and they were still debating if there was a way to use computers to do it.
I thought that question should’ve been asked years ago, but evidently no one could remember any of our people going into that kind of science. They thought it might have something to do with those careers being closely tied to their government, but I thought it was because they preferred more creative or what they calledhands onjobs.
My people had focused on our skills with magic and fields related to that, and the disaster with the portal hadn’t helpedthem want to explore. We had basic knowledge about our place in the universe but nothing I was getting from Wren made it obvious where they were compared to us.
