Today's #flashfiction #HexsKitchen

“Silence is Golden.”

King Midas* #quote

Went to a card game thing today. Couldn't muster up a story that I liked in time for y'all so I decided to give you one from the archives way back when. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Hex's Kitchen

        “Salad!?” Chef Yamsar's face turned it's token red. “You're preparing salad!? You idiot! We're serving dragons! No dragon is going to want salad! I should toss you off the show right now just for having that stupid idea cross your mind let alone actually the dish! Toss that in the garbage before any of them see it!” If Chef Yamsar could breathe fire he would. It could certainly add to the drama of the reality show being filmed. Hex's Kitchen was an absurdly popular show on wizard television. It was also one of the few shows that got praise from Merlin. Probably because it had an older more experienced wizard yelling at younger ones.

        “Sorry!” The young chef replied.

        “Sorry doesn't do anything! You need to start fixing the problem! The other team is already preparing actual meat for the dragons! Get to work!” Chef Yamsar left that contestant alone. All the chefs were contestants in this mess. Their team loses and their least performing members get kicked off. So they were competing with both the enemy team and their allies. The temptation to curse the dish of a teammate was high and had been done before.

          But enchanting your own dish was much more important, and expected. Wizards used magic in the kitchen. That didn't mean life was easier than for people in worlds without magic. That meant standards were higher and Chef Yamsar didn't make it easy to focus when his voice rocked the kitchen. Even when he wasn't yelling his presence made the chefs uncomfortable.

        “This isn't like last week when we served some golems. You can't just enchant some clay and put it on a plate. Dragons have tastes. Particular tastes. And these are nobles! They demand class!” Chef Yamsar made sure he grinded his point home to the contestants. It was in his contract.

The Chef's made themselves busy. Very, very busy. The show made it so that the chefs didn't have orders to work off of. They had to just had to “surprise” the dragons. That was the week's challenge. That's what caused the salad incident. That chef dealt fine with orders before. Imagination wasn't his strong suit though. But glancing over to his partners and copying them with a few variations convinced himself he had been original enough.

      “What is wrong with you? I see your mouths move then you put something on the grill then your mouths move again. Can't you idiots chant your spells and cook at the same time? No wonder all the dishes these kitchens spit out don't have enough magical punch to them! You're not actually using magic! Cast, cast, cast! Do I need to explain everything to you?” In earlier seasons Chef Yamsar didn't give the Chefs advice like that but based on fan chatter picked up by producers they decided to have him drop things in so he didn't seem as “unfair”. But naturally he had to be mean about it. Whether or not is was advice his shouting barraged all the chefs.

       Well, except for one. One very clever chef. A young girl. Half home schooled in wizardry by herself. Home schooled in the manner that she spent most of her days and nights of her youth in the library studying magic. She lived deep in the city with a single father who worked long hours. Since he couldn't take her anywhere the only place she could apply her magic growing up was either in normal wizardy school or cooking. She managed to learn nearly every trick in the book and invent many of her own. She could wield a wand and spatula simultaneously, casting enchantments on many dishes at once. A feat that may sound odd or silly to those who don't understand how absurdly difficult it is. Chef Yamsar did yell at her, that was mandatory of the show, yet he had to make up excuses to do so. Posture and mannerisms was what he could come up with. He had to hold her to higher standards.

          Yet despite all her skill she did lose the competition. The goblin is in the details. She may have been a genius in magic and had practiced magic on food for so long but her skills could only take her so far. She practiced at home. Her friends and father were her taste testers. But she never was formally schooled in cooking. So in the final week of the competition she found out the hard way that ice giants were allergic to red peppers. If a human had eaten that dish they would have been wowed by the flavor. But that ice giant had been sent to the hospital.

         Didn't stop her from selling a cook book.