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What Sasha's mind registers first isn't the forms and shapes, but the wealth of her surroundings, as the rays of sunshine colour everything in her sleepy vision. The opulence seeps from everywhere in sight: the patterns in the ceiling, the golden swirls in the cornice, in the thick brocade curtains over lattice wooden windows.
And so Sasha blinks. Then again, now properly blinking away the last remnants of sleep as she carefully rolls out of bed into a crouch, and... Sasha realises that she doesn't feel any pain.
No, there is a slight tug in some of her muscles, but it's one of... disuse. Not something expected. As if she lied in for some time, and had a good, restful sleep.
Huh.
Sasha flexes her hands in front of herself, with all of her fingers, remembering everything from the past days, putting every puzzle piece of memory back into their places, and feels a smile hide itself in the corners of her mouth – which also, on its own, is as unfamiliar as the relaxed softness of her body.
What do you know? Eren (and, well, Aphrodite too, probably) patched her up quite good, in Sasha’s opinion.
She does some experimental exercises for movement, soundlessly jumping from one leg to another in a low gait, crouching till she almost touches the floor with her knees, and then springing up like a-- well oiled ratchet lever in a perfectly tuned music box.
Sasha feels how laughter starts to bubble in her chest. But first, she comes to the cabinet with washing supplies, where the mirror is, all the while struggling with her shirt, and tries to look the best she can over her shoulder at the back.
No blood. Scar is still there, with the ornate feathers and a beak and all other falcon-y stuff. But now it doesn't feel like a premonition of turning into something else, but like a bird taking off – a sign that she survived. And will survive.
Sasha washes up with giddiness she hadn’t felt in ages, and, dressing herself and quickly taking stock of her knives (all there, of course, but never wrong to check), she’s off – through the window up to the mansion roof.
The view here, from the hill overlooking the Cairo city… is nothing short of breathtaking. In the early morning colours, and all the boundless sky over it that Sasha can look into forever, and all the rooftops and streets she could enjoy more on her own some day? It’s wonderful.
Except the morning stillness is broken by anxious babbling somewhere on the first floor, as she's taking a stroll, taking everything in. Curiosity wins her over, as Sasha carefully swings herself into the room through the window, landing atop an ornate cupboard.
There’s a gnome… cook, judging by the clothes, pacing in front of what must be a main kitchen door, babbling in Arabic about… a lot of things, actually, because Sasha can only figure out ‘children’, ‘key’, ‘destruction’, and, what perks her up, ‘goblin’.
So of course she sneaks past the cook, who’s too busy bemoaning their fate, makes a quick work of the lock, and slips in, closing the door behind herself without a sound.
And as she turns… Everything is, in fact, alright. The kitchen is intact, even if there are patches of white all around the furniture and various surfaces. And sure, the twins are making a bit of a mess with flour clouds exploding in the air from the table in front of them, but… they’re fine, laughing and roughhousing only a little bit for the sake of it.
Grizzop is on the other side of the table, smiling to himself and, apparently, showing young Tahans ropes of… baking? As he sees Sasha, he waves, a bit awkwardly, and then turns back, mimicking to the twins how they should be working.
"...'lright there, Grizzop?" she asks as she approaches, looking over to the rambunctious halfling teens (that she still can't get who's who) now trying best on their own at kneading a big-looking piece of dough, all while not breaking into a fight.
Grizzop just waves her question away, his own hands kneading another piece as well, and Sasha's eyes catch on how unprotected they look, without the gloves and arm guards, as his fingers work on the dough, quick, but with care.
"You involve the kids in the story enough, give them some proper instructions with advice on what they can do their own way, and it's really easy to handle any of them, if I’m ‘onest", is Grizzop's answer as he takes a rolling pin. He rolls the dough into an even sheet quickly and effortlessly, like something he had done many times. He then passes the pin to the twins, and they, after initial squabbling, start to roll their own dough in four joined hands on the wooden kitchen tool.
It. Kind of makes Sasha feel both happy and hurt, seeing this. She hides a sad smile behind her hand, trying to remember if she and Brock ever had a happy moment like this. She... can’t.
Grizzop meanwhile found the time to take one of the knives from somewhere in the various cupboards and shelves in the luxurious kitchen.
"Do you know what day it is?" he asks out of nowhere, checking the knife's edge as it could affront him. Sasha scrambles for a bit, suddenly realising that she doesn't really know what year it is, before Grizzop sighs and continues as he cuts the dough sheet in front of him:
" 's no matter anyway; Meritocrat calendar, while useful at some matters, isn't that big on", he waves the hand with the knife in it, "holidays and traditions. As uniform as it could be! But it's sixth of Elaphebolion by Attic calendar."
And here, as he says that, Grizzop looks impossibly... gentler, as he carefully starts cutting some sort of figure, and Sasha wouldn't have even noticed the change in his face if she didn't look. He, however, interprets that as a request of sorts, and cuts a small stripe of dough for her. Sasha takes it wordlessly, rolling it up into a ball in her fingers.
"Well, technically there's also a whole mess of some people not really accepting the calendar, and how in many regions it's hailed as Artemisios , but that's a history lesson and a half I wish I didn't get dragged into as hard as I did, as a temple’s acolyte", he laughs, still working at the figures. As Sasha looks at his knifework, she gets excited – it's very precise and careful, something that takes a lot of learned skill that she admires, and the more Grizzop works on the shapes, the more she sees in them the four legged creatures with branching horns.
"Deers'', says Grizzop unprompted, "are offered for the 'deer slayer's month, as the chosen hunters of Artemis' temple bring their kills to the altar in a sign of devotion. And the bodies, as far as I've been told, are then blessed and cured for the others to feed on; but those who can't hunt, for one reason or other", and he quickly disposes of unneeded cuttings to show his work, now shaped proper, "Make these".
The dozen of small dough deers, as they are now, look a bit like small carvings on the walls of Artemisian temples; ones that Sasha remembers all too well for the wait she had to go through in Prague. She snorts, and as she does so, Grizzop notices the dough still rolled in her fingers:
"You should eat that quickly, or it won't have the same taste. It's sweet, lotsa honey there. Or, y’know, could pop it into the oven with the other stuff, bake it into a sort of... pastry ball.”
He points her to the tray, on which Sasha, after a bit of deliberation, places her tiny dough piece. The twins, meanwhile, had divided the dough into many, many stripes, making their own figures.
“You’re… super good at all of this, Grizzop'', Sasha points to him, both at the twins and the dough figurines he’s egg-washing with a bit of something more stickier. More honey, perhaps? “You look like you’ve been doin’ these from when you w’re a kid”.
“Oh, nooo ”, Grizzop laughs for a bit, flicking his ear almost in Sasha’s face, “I was the worst at this for a while . Couldn’t really make myself wait for the dough to rise, couldn’t put the time into learning how to cut shapes proper, and then would burn the pastries with magic…” He winces here, looking somewhat ashamed of himself. Which is a bit weird, as Sasha thinks – isn’t Grizzop still pretty much the same? But she doesn’t interject as he continues:
“So, I was torn between giving it all up as a senseless task, which it isn’t , and feeling bad for myself not getting it. But”, he smiles here, sharp and happy, “I have a good teacher! Gave purpose to the tasks without making them tedious. Helped me a lot with cutting corners for myself instead of following tradition, and also, eh, she has a lot of trouble being patient herself.” Grizzop’s smile gets even wider, as he looks at the kids making braids out of dough stripes they rolled out. “That helped me with handling the tiny Tahans too.”
“...how did you make twins wait for the dough to rise then?” Sasha asks, curiously.
“We climbed out of the kitchen window into the courtyard so I could show them how to shoot my bow, obviously”.
And this is where Sasha finally laughs , feeling all the joy that has been building up this entire morning finally find a way to release. It’s so sudden she has to clasp a hand over her mouth, but the laughter is so powerful Sasha clutches her stomach with both of her arms, almost crumpling on herself, and has to lean on the counter with her back. It feels… unspeakably good, to laugh with abandon.
As she finally gulps for air after her outburst, Sasha looks up at the others; the twins, worried, and Grizzop… with a sad look, that somehow fills his whole figure.
“ ‘m fine”, she breathes out, in what she thinks is broken Arabic, “just… too good? Um”, she looks at Grizzop, in what she hopes is assurance, and then back at Ismail and Ishaq, and says in English: “I feel very good”.
And, apparently, the words make enough sense – the twins smile at her, and her friend now looks fondly at her, before turning back to the tray and placing the unfinished pastries on it.
"It suits you", says Grizzop while putting the baked goods into the oven, twins also looking at their work over his shoulders. He turns his face to Sasha then, and that makes her realise that the words were for her as he continues: "Being happy, that is."
She… doesn't know how to respond, and just stares at him, who is also staring at her , still so fond and oddly patient.
Then the twins squeak, and both Sasha and Grizzop realise that the main kitchen door was breached by a quite angry halfling cook, with some helpers on the way.
"Scatter!" Grizzop yelps in a manner more like himself. In a moment of brilliant unity, the four of them jump out of the window one by one, Sasha first and then helping the twins, catching her goblin friend in her arms right after as they all keep laughing. Then, they run as fast as they can.
Later after breakfast, Grizzop takes some cookies away to the makeshift altar, placing them carefully near a lit candle, closing his eyes, his lips moving in a quick prayer.
It also suits him, Sasha thinks, to be at peace. Or a semblance of it, that they can make, together.
She pops her tiny baked ball into her mouth; it's delicious, and almost melts on the tongue.
It's really good.