Nuuzael

╭━━━━━━━━━━╮ ♕ N U U Z A E L The Chef ╰━━━━━━━━━━╯ ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮ ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ ╭━━━━━━━━━━╮ Blue Jelly Plant This block of jelly takes on the taste and characteristics of whatever it is cooked in. 33 3 Vegetable Oil Plant Makes cooked foods even more delicious. 400 20 Soylent Yellow Insect Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your meat, plants, and seafood smashed, crushed, and centrifuged into something that tastes like bugs? No..? Oh. 18 8 Daisy Flowerfall Apparel A cascade of daisy petals fall around you. 2000 Loves Aesthetic | Vegetarian | Sweet ╰━━━━━━━━━━╯ bio template by squidragon adapted by Katalist xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Would you like to lick the bowl?" ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━ b i o ━━━━━━━━━━━━╮ Nuuzael is a sunny dragon with a passion for pastries. With her own pastry shop in the marketplace located at the Great Tree, Nuuzael flits around, serving customers and making sure the twists aren't burnt. It's not just pastries she sells, either. Fresh sandwiches, fluffy puffs of meringue, cooling beads of lollies and drops, chewy combs of honey, curry puffs, spring rolls, rosewater cakes, in fact cakes of all types deccorated the shop. And in the middle of it all was the pretty little pearlcatcher. She didn't mind the hustle and bustle of it all either. The customers came, complimented her looks, bought her food, complimented her cooking, and paid dearly for the service. While not one to boast, she loved packing up at the end of the day, and taking the bags full of the day's profits to Voltair. She loved the way he looked over his glasses at her, closed his book, and nodded politely, his fins flapping. She knew he was proud of her. Nuuzael seeks out compliments from dragons, and craves the feeling of pleasure she gets from their words. It's not like she begs for them either; she works hard, and gives as much opportunity as possible for someone to notice her work and praise her on it. As such, all her pastries are top market, with the finest goods, and every cake is made with the best of intentions. Every customer receives a big smile with their order, and every gift is received politely and with great thanks, be it an order of fish or a bouquet of flowers. Nuuzael's mate is Kilandhi, though not by choice. As Ember was staying behind, Kilandhi chose her apprentice to breed with. She doesn't mind though, as his mate Tauga provides her with safety and pretty flowers. Nuuzael is comfortable skipping through the darker parts of the Tribe with her money bags in hand, as she knows Tauga is trunbling behind. Kilandhi often drops by with fresh wildflowers to decorate her shop, and often letters are sent from the old workplace, with recipes from Ember. She knows she is loved. And she loves her role in the Tribe. ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ ╭━━━━━━━━━━━━ l o r e ━━━━━━━━━━━╮ There is nothing sweeter in the Tribe than the pastries cooked by Nuuzael; Unless you count the personality of the dragon herself. Nuuzael was born in a rich, dark environment, but her obsession with light and fire resulted in her being sold at the marketplace. A new opportunity, her mother had told her. Nuuzael held no animosity towards her mother; she had meant well, and knew her passion would not be fully reached in the darkness of her home. And so, with her mother's love and her father's pride, Nuuzael set off to make her own mark. And her own mark she made. She had bravely walked up to Tauga, the guard, and asked for a night's stay with a smile. When told the only utilities were available for workers, she had asked for a job. The sight of the little hatchling, with her heavy lashes and glittering pearl, melted his heart and he gave her access. Tauga always preferred pearlcatchers. She worked hard too, despite her small appearance. She started working with Ember, scrubbing the floors and taking out the trash. She still beamed and welcomed everybody who entered, and her presence lifted the sombre wildclaw's spirits. So, Ember gave her small chores. Baking the bread, rolling croissants, stirring stews, fetching water from the nearby stream. She excelled, and dragons began asking for Nuuzael's bread. And she got more chores. Ember didn't mind sharing the workload; the more customers that entered the door, the less scraps that were thrown out at night. The pair were working efficiently, with Nuuzael taking over the pastries and Ember focusing on the savoury foods. When the decision came to move to what is now the Great Tree, Nuuzael wanted to go, but Ember chose to stay behind. She loved her dinky old kitchens, and with her out of the way, Nuuzael could open her own patisserie, in the marketplace. She was plenty good enough. Nuuzael cried at her departure, but as Ember stood and waved as the Tribe moved onwards, into the jungle, she wiped her teams and smiled. ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ ETYMOLOGY - Nuuzael: French for Free-born, Noble. Also named after a flower. RELATIONS - Kilandhi Mate ╭━━━━━━━ X ━━━━━━━━╮ Her mate as part of an agreement settled years ago by Ember and Tauga. Nuuzael feels no romantic feelings towards the quiet pearlcatcher, but still tries to love him and Tauga dearly. ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ Ember Old Friend ╭━━━━━━━ X ━━━━━━━━╮ Her boss and old workmate. Nuuzael still tries to keep in touch with Ember, but recently letters have told her Ember is travelling to new places. ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ Leilani Friend ╭━━━━━━━ X ━━━━━━━━╮ A coatl with similar disposition to Nuuzael. Was Ember's best friend, but doesn't have much contact with her anymore. Still enjoys Nuuzael's cinnamon rolls, one of Ember's old specialties. ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

The smell of cinnamon rolls filled the air, a summons for a particular dragon. Ember lay them out on the shelf and waited. She will come. She always came to the smell of cinnamon, her favourite. The sky was lit with pinks and blues, the delicate pastels drifting down through the trees. Ember loved where her little kitchen lay, on the edge of the cliff. Whilst the rest of the clan was surrounded by the shade of jungle, she was blessed with misty views of the sunrises whilst she worked. It was beautiful.

But even the sunrise couldn't beat the beauty of the dragon standing in front of her. Curled up quietly in front of her, nibbling on a cinnamon roll, Leilani had snuck in whilst Ember was admiring the sunrise. The light caught on the waterdrops covering her, and glittered. She had just come back from a morning swim. A petal fell from her soggy flower lei, and fell on the cinnamon bun she was holding, but Leilani barely noticed.
This was curious behaviour for the normally trilling coatl.

Ember moved closer, taking her gloves off and crouching near Leilani. Watching a drop slide slowly down her graceful neck, Ember reached out a claw to catch it, but Leilani moved away. Something was definitely wrong.

Sighing, she stepped in front of Leilani, who had grabbed more buns.

"Leilani?"

The coatl stopped gathering buns and placed them on the table, before turning to Ember. Her gaze still drifted to the side.

"Leilani, what's wrong? You're grabbing too many buns, and you haven't said anything today. Are you sulking? What about? Tell me."

"....You bred."

"What? Yeah, I bred, I told you about this the other night. Tauga and Kilandhi, the new guys, came to me and arranged a mating because I have good genes. Why is this bothering you now?"

The soft spoken coatl's voice grew ever quieter.
"...you said you'd wait with me. But you didn't."

Ember was starting to get annoyed.
"Lei. We made a promise to get attractive partners. I found one. Besides, he's taken already, he just needs a mate. There's no way I'd fight Tauga for him, no thankyou. Besides, if it's a mate you're wanting, there will be one for you soon. New dragons come and go every day!"

"You don't understand."

"No, Lei, you don't understand. I don't love him. I'm just doing my duty as a member of this clan. It's a breeding clan for a reason. I'm honestly quite surprised why you've taken so much offence to it. There's nothing between us, Tauga would kill me if there was."

"Ember- "
Leilani interrupted herself midsentence, and drew herself up, trying to make herself look bigger. Ember was temporarily distracted by her beauty, until she began to speak.

"Ember, you're rushing too far into this. You're whoring yourself out, for nothing. I don't like it, not at all. You said you'd wait for me, and now I'm alone. You've left me for some male, and now what am I to do, go around collecting pretty pearls to give to you and act like nothing is wrong? You expect me to believe that nothing is going on, that it's all sunshine and roses with your boyfriend?!"

A spark of temper flared in Ember. Leilani wanted to fight.
"Leilani! What is your problem?! IT'S JUST A JOB! Purely Platonic!I cook, I bake, and I mother a few hatchlings for Glademother. It's got nothing to do with Kilandhi! I don't like him! Besides, if you have such a problem, then why haven't I seen you even bother going out and finding your own partner?"

"I tried, but they weren't interested. Not like you would have cared, gallivanting about, flashing your fertility like a massive "Come Get Me" sign!", the coatl hissed. Finally, she met Ember's gaze. Furious blue eyes met fiery purple. Neither dragon was backing down.

"Take. That. Back."

"No!"

"Leilani take that back!"

"Noooooooo! You said you'd wait for me, you promised! You said you'd stick with me to the end! And I trusted you! I trusted you when you said that, and then you went and broke my heart! Like I can mate with a male anyway!"
She'd shouted herself hoarse. Tears ran down her cheeks as she stood in front of Ember, cinnamon buns forgotten. Ember didn't care anymore. Leilani's words hurt, and she wasn't going to have the final word.

"You're just repeating yourself now, and you haven't even said-"

"I love you, Ember, and you're too stupid to realise!" the coatl screamed, before whirling around and taking off. Seashells clattered to the floor and smashed, as her favourite net got caught on the door, ripping off. Ember ran to the door and watched a small ivory dot dive into the ocean like a gull, too far away now to hear her.

Ember turned and looked back at her kitchen. Pearls and puddles decorated the floor, along with shards of shells and sticky, syrupy buns.
And now the bread was burnt.
Just like her heart.



Culinary Headcanons:

-Light Flight food has very clean, bright (no pun intended) flavors. They use native plants and animals in light dishes that tend towards the summery- salads, summer rolls, sorbets, light soups, etc. They are very keen on presentation and a Light feast will feature elaborate displays. It’s similar to Thai food in some regards, though it’s almost never spicy. Non-carnivorous Light Flight dragons eat very little meat.

-Shadow Flight food features- unsurprisingly- a lot of mushrooms and ground-hugging forage. Dense, mysterious gumbos and stews are the flight’s signature dishes, but Shadow dragons have a notorious sweet tooth as well. Sornieth’s best candies and pastries come from Shadow confectioneries.

-Nature Flight tends to eschew cooking as a whole, preferring to eat their food raw though not without seasoning from the herbs and spices that grow in their lands. A popular hazing ritual for new dragons in a clan is to eat the hottest pepper that can be found- without making a face! Nature dragons delight in fresh fruits and vegetables and in the summer may eat little else.

-Ice Flight dragons prefer food that is easily stored and freezes well, and aren’t picky about what they eat. They tend to prefer fatty foods that will provide essential calories in the cold, and meat-eating dragons will keep a stash of animal blubber for particularly hard freezes. Ice Flight dragons are fond of a dessert similar to akutaq comprised of animal fat and berries..

-Plague dragons are always ALWAYS hungry and will eat damn near anything, rotten or not. A dragon from Plague Flight will think about gorging itself first and flavor second, though when a clan has sufficient stores they greatly enjoy preparing dry, spicy dishes typical of desert-bound beings. Any excess food is dried into jerkies or pastes that can be reconstituted or eaten as-is.

-Lightning Flight adores junk food above all else. Its workers often bring stores of chips and other greasy things to tide them over during long hours in the Boss’ workshops. They will fry ANYTHING given the chance. Some of Lightning’s more ambitious chefs enjoy pushing the boundaries of what can be considered food, producing dishes that exist purely as vapor, entire liquid meals, and other feats of culinary engineering.

-Water Flight’s amphibious members don’t do much cooking for obvious reasons and prefer their food to be extremely fresh. A particularly fine catch or harvest might be sliced and presented in a way similar to sashimi, as Water dragons are very conscious of their food’s aesthetics.

-Earth Flight food is simple, humble, and filling. They very rarely include more than a few ingredients in their dishes, and like Ice favor food that can be stored and preserved easily. Earth feasts are very communal affairs where each participant is expected to contribute with whatever they can offer.

-Arcane cuisine is bizarre. They have a habit of twisting their food into new and unorthodox forms inspired by the alien landscape of their home, such that Arcane dishes sometimes aren’t even recognizable as food. They especially favor crystallized desserts dyed to resemble the Starfall Isles’ peaks.

-Wind food consists of many small, varied dishes served in the manner of tapas. Wind dragons tend to snack all day long and typically don’t have large regular meals at all. They are perhaps the most adventurous when it comes to other Flights’ foods and will gladly try anything once.

-Fire Flight food is spicy, dense, and not for the faint of heart. Roasted chunks of meat impaled on sticks are a signature dish of many clans. Fire dragons excel at baking and produce all manner of breads that pair well with the bold flavors of their cooking.
Apprentice to Ember