The moment she enters the house, she just knows that something is off.
For one thing, there’s an extraordinary amount of flour coating the air. Along with an unhealthy amount of smoke.
It’s enough to cause Beau to go into a coughing fit. Enough to make her cover her mouth with her scarf and slip on her goggles.
Another thing that stands out is that it is unbearably hot in here. If it weren’t for her recent excursions to Marquet on Cobalt Soul business, this would be the worst heat she’s ever experienced.
And the source of the heat is unmistakable.
It’s coming from the kitchen.
Not long after, she can hear a litany of curses in both Celestial and Abyssal, a vulgar hymn of contradictory tones that would probably get someone kicked out of any temple within a five-mile radius.
Oh, dear. Yasha, what did you do?
Undaunted, Beau makes her way into the kitchen, also catching notice of a burnt scent. That explains the smoke somewhat.
“Babe, are you doing something in…”
As she turns the corner, her eyes go wide behind the goggles she’d slipped on.
Yasha Nydoorin, champion of the Stormlord and dedicated housewife to a high monk of the Cobalt Soul, is engaged in a battle against an unlikely opponent.
An opponent made of a mish-mash of ingredients that she is frantically trying to best before she burns the whole house down.
And what’s amazing is that through it all… it smells delicious, despite the burning.
So far she hasn’t noticed Beau’s presence. Her entire focus is on attempting to snuff out the raging inferno coming from the oven that threatens to burn the food to a crisp.
Finally, she decides to let loose her wings and fan the flames with them in an attempt to disperse the smoke.
This, unfortunately, has the unintended side effect of blasting the fumes right into Beau’s face. The earlier sight she witnessed had her momentarily drop the scarf, which leads to another violent coughing fit.
”Whoa, Yasha! Stop!” She manages to croak out between coughs.
But she’s still in the middle of a rage-like state.
So Beau takes what’s left of her canteen and tosses its contents into the oven, the water quenching the flames within.
It’s only now that Yasha finally notices and has the awareness to pull the food out of there before it gets soaked.
Even in the midst of makeshift kitchen maintenance, they’re in sync.
When the fire is finally doused, the efforts of Yasha’s wing beats finally bear fruit as the smoke thins out.
With the danger of a potential house fire now having passed, Yasha finally turns to face her travel-weary wife.
“Oh! Hi, Beau. Welcome home, I didn’t realize you were coming back so early.”
Beau grimaces. “Babe. I messaged you about an hour ago, and you didn’t respond.”
For emphasis, she pulls out her expended sending stone and shakes it.
Yasha has a sheepish look on her face. “Sorry, I was just so focused on cooking.”
You call that cooking?
Beau wants to say that out loud, but she knows better than to undermine Yasha’s confidence. Besides, she had to admit that it was rather hot to see her do battle in the kitchen like that, even if she ultimately needed rescuing.
Instead, she says, “Yeah, I could tell. So…”
She then gestures to the item that was spared from a burnt demise. “What the hell is this?”
Yasha begins to cheer up as she produces what she cooked: a circular foodstuff made of dough and decorated with cheese and small pieces of meat, as well as some kind of sauce.
“While you were gone, Veth had come by to share this new recipe she discovered in Nicodranas. Apparently, it’s called ‘pizza’.”
She then takes a large chef’s knife and begins to cut into the confection, dividing it into six smaller pieces. Then she takes one of the slices and hands it to Beau. “Here, try it!”
Beau gives her a skeptical look. “Huh? You haven’t tried it yet?”
”W-Well, I wanted to surprise you. And… I didn’t want to try it without you, so…”
The monk then shrugs. “Welp. No time like the present. But how about we both enjoy it? You grab a slice, too.”
Yasha nods, a bright smile on her angelic face. “Okay!”
She grabs a slice as well and, on the count of three, they each take a bite as their first official taste test.
For a few brief seconds, there’s silence as they savor the moment.
It’s not long before they both exclaim, “Damn, that’s good!”
From that day on, there would be pizza being made every once in a while, and each time they would discover that there are so many possible combinations when it comes to toppings.
Easily one of the best things Beau’s ever come home to in quite a while.
