Let Food Be Thy Medicine [DAI; Krem, Dorian]

[schizoauthoress_library]

Title: Let Food Be Thy Medicine
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: G
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none
Prompt/Fill: from phoenixtalion on Tumblr -- "Krem + favorite food"
Word Count: 758
Summary: Krem doesn't really have a favorite food, but that doesn't mean he doesn't like certain dishes.

Note: When this was originally posted to Tumblr, there was no title given. I've only added one when cross-posting it here in 2018.

Let Food Be Thy Medicine

To Krem, especially while he was living in Tevinter, food is for survival and little else. You eat so you don’t die. And if you’re lucky, you don’t have to worry too much about preventing the second option.  Krem has known too many people who weren’t lucky, though; too many people who suffered in silence because nobody in power cared.

Krem shakes his head to banish those thoughts.  He’s not in the Imperium anymore; he’s with the Chargers, and he doesn’t have to worry about those things.  Not social classes or fitting in with them, not bowing and scraping to the mages in power, and not where his next meal is coming from.

Well.  Unless they’re in some shitty little town with a particularly shitty tavern, but that’s not being anxious -- that’s just being smart.  There are some people that ought not be allowed in kitchens, and too many shitty taverns that don’t care or have no one better.

Krem doesn’t understand why Dalish will climb some gnarled, unsteady looking tree in early winter for tiny bright green pears -- which she’ll then devour all on her own unless Skinner pleads with her. (Girls are weird?  Elf girls are weird?)

Usually, the Iron Bull is the one who foots the rest of the alcohol bill after a job -- because they always end up going over the allotment that Stitches allows for -- but there are times when Krem takes it on.  Has to, because the Iron Bull will sometimes blow most of his share on that cocoa stuff when they’re down south around the frigid asshole of Thedas.  Krem has tried it.  He doesn’t understand that appeal.  Or... he does understand that it’s a treat and it tastes good, but it’s not worth as much coin as the boss is willing to spend.

And he has no idea why Rocky makes such a fuss when Grim brings in a catch of fish.  They’re out in the field, for one thing, and they are camped by a river so it only makes sense to go for the easy food, and Maker damn it, if he wants to eat something else he can go blow up a ram.  (Rocky grumbles when Krem tells him that last part, but eventually says that he ought to conserve his blasting powder and accepts one of the slightly charred fish-skewers with no further complaint.)  It’s just food.

And then, one day, as he is handing his horse over to Master Dennet, he hears a shout.  It immediately puts Krem on alert, because it’s Tevene -- and then a moment later he remembers about Altus Pavus being part of the Inquisition, too.  It wasn’t profanity, either. In fact, it sounded like... praise.

Krem stops to lean against the well and unstrap his boot.  There’s something rattling around in there and poking into his heel.  So he doesn’t even see Altus Pavus coming.  He smells him first.

Well, no.  Not the mage himself, but what he’s carrying.  It smells of honey and sesame seed and even as Krem upends his boot and successfully shakes loose the pebble, he’s transported back to the tiny open air kitchen of his childhood home.  Mother didn’t get many chances to make them treats, because she worked just as hard as Father did.  And it wasn’t like they had a lot of money to spend on sweets either.  But sometimes, on special occasions, she would bake honey cakes.

Honey cakes like the ones on the tray that Altus Pavus has balanced on one hand.  The mage’s other hand is occupied by a cake that has already had a bite taken out of it.  He smiles -- smiles! -- at Krem and holds out the tray in offering.  “The Fereldan cooks can be taught!  Have one?”

Krem drops the boot, but has the presence of mind to use his other hand to select a cake from the stack.  “...What?“

“I have been trying to get these barbarians to work with recipes from Tevinter.  I even translated them into those strange, inexact measurements they use in the south!” Altus Pavus takes another big bite of his cake, then chews and swallows before speaking again.  “The head cook is hopeless. Orlesians. Can’t even ask them politely to use garum in their stews.  But the Fereldans he has working under him?  They made these! Tastes just like the ones back home, eh?”

Krem takes a bite.  He remembers... and it’s a happy memory of home, for once.

“Yes,” he says.  “Just like home.”

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