singillatim | Я вернулся в деревню

Her babushka would roll over in her grave to see Svetlana cooking with canned beets. But they were a rare find, something from Milton that had rolled underneath a cabinet, and it gave her an idea. She started gathering the cans she would need, the vegetables and any scraps of beans or spices she can manage. They weigh her down, but it’s worth it.

Over the course of the day, in the little Cabin Office, she makes a big pan of beet soup - borscht. It certainly isn’t perfect, but it comes out delicious and Sveta will offer a bowl to anyone with a hint of a rumbling stomach who comes inside.

But there’s one reserved as a thank you for a friend. It’s been a while since he pulled her out of the ice, but she hasn’t forgotten it. The kindness should be repaid. She goes out to find him, a bowl wrapped a towel causing steam to surround her.

He's not sure where Diefenbaker's gotten to– ever since they got here to Lakeside, the wolf has taken off almost every day, leaving early in the morning and not returning until late in the never-ending day. It's worrying, with how strange and aggressive the animals here are, but Diefenbaker can take care of himself.

It means he's uncharacteristically alone, sweeping snow off the front porch of the cabin he's taken for the time being, when a familiar figure comes in sight. The Mountie smiles, lifting a hand in greeting. "Svetlana. What a nice surprise!"

His eyebrows lift as he takes in the steam wreathing her face. "What do you have there?"

"Benton Fraser, it is good to see you!" she calls back, stepping to the porch, around the pile of snow that he's seemed to accumulate from his sweeping. She holds up the little package when he asks.

"I hope you are hungry. I made - well, I should not call it borscht, but it is close. It is a thank you for saving my life."

Almost at the same time as she says the word — hungry - he catches a whiff of the steam. It might not truly be borscht, but it smells heavenly anyway, and Fraser's stomach gives an audibly loud grumble. "Ah—"

He colors, glancing down with a smile before he opens the door to the cabin, politely showing her in. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I've mostly been eating pemmican and a little fresh meat, these last few days."

It's a good thing he accepts, because Svetlana was not taking no for an answer. She walks happily inside and sets the bowl on the table. "No, you need this. It's warm," she tells him. "Sit and eat."

She looks around the little cabin, her hands on her hips. "These are - different than the ones in Milton."

Fraser, never one to argue with a lady, and certainly not about to argue about homemade food, takes only the time required to dig out a spoon and sits as requested. Ordered?

He pauses a moment with the spoon held over the rich red soup, looking up at her before casting his own glance around the cabin. "Yes— I believe they served a different purpose. These seem mostly to have been vacation residences, for people unused to the northern environment and weather."

For example: the fireplace is almost inefficiently large, the airy, open space with its enormous windows is difficult to heat without some sort of central system supplementing the fire. "I came across an unusable hot tub outside one of the other cabins, which suggests to me both a degree of luxury that would have been difficult to maintain in Milton and a resort's lack of efficiency and gratuitous use of resources. A sauna would have been much easier to build and maintain, and could even be used in our present circumstances, if a heated outdoor element was desirable."

It's certainly not the sort of place she would have chosen for herself to live, but it seems the perfect cozy cottage for a getaway. A holiday. It would have been nice to stay somewhere like this willingly, with central heat and a fireplace, and - did he say hot tub?

"Why have a hot tub when you can have the hot springs in Milton?" she says lightly, shaking her head. "What happened here?"

She settles herself at the table, her arms crossed on the table.

"I wonder how easy it was to get back and forth from Lakeside to Milton, before," he muses. "There are plenty of cars and snowmobiles around. But I suspect that anyone who came here to vacation wasn't looking to spend much time hiking to hot springs."

He dips the spoon back into the soup and takes another few bites, deeply enjoying the bright, complex flavors after so many days of meat. "Have you ever been to a resort like this?"

Unlikely, considering her accent, but you just never know how people will surprise you.

Look, Ruby was a teenager. And one who wasn't very good at cooking herself. So the scent of a freshly cooked meal is enough to drag her out from where she's been making herself at home to explore. When she comes across the cabin office her eyes go wide like saucers at the sight of the soup.

"Oh my gosh. That smells so good." There's a pause and then she looks over to Svetlana. "You made that?"

Sveta's smile is humble. "I tried," she admits. "It isn't terrible, I hope. But it is warm. And filling."

Ruby gives a wide smile to go along with her shrug. "Hey. Trying has to count for something, right? If there is one thing I've learned while being here it's that I can't cook at all." It was something that ran in her family, from her dads side apparently.

Either way she slides in and grabs a bowl.

"I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself here. You're offering, right?" The groan of her stomach is really hoping it's a yes.

"Oh! Yes, please!" She steps out of the way, gesturing for Ruby to take however much she wants.

"You must tell me what you think, but you must also be kind," she laughs.

It's a bit of an inevitability that making a fresh, warm meal with actual spices draws in the occasional stray. This time it's a young man with a mutt at his heel, both bundled in extra layers of scavenged clothing, who pauses in the doorway to take in the scene for a moment before he says anything.

"Woah, what's cooking?"

There's a part of him that scolds himself for sounding so easily impressed, but it comes with the territory; most of his meals lately have been whatever cooks quickly and conveniently on a campfire, and even that's a step up from 200 year old prepackaged food.

"It is - it's borscht," she says, rocking up on her heels like an excited schoolgirl showing off her science fair project. The stew was a bit like a science project, if she's being completely honest with herself.

That's a comparison he understands completely, even if it never manifests in his mind in so many words. Borscht, though, that word isn't ringing any bells.

"I don't think I've ever heard of it," he'll admit as he shrugs the bag off his shoulder and moves forward to investigate.

His accent sounds American in a way that some of the people here might charitably consider dated, if that might contribute to an overall sense of a culturally sheltered upbringing, but he's quick to move past the unfamiliarity.

"Is it a secret family recipe, or do I get to ask how you made it?"

Playfully, as if those are the only two options.

Her own accent is heavily Russian, and she can't tell one American accent from another, so she's missing a great bit of context here, but it doesn't stop her from smiling as she takes out a bowl. She's carefully wiped the dust from it and pours a bit into it for him.

"Ah, it was made with canned vegetables and some spices I've been collecting since I've arrived. I think my grandmother would be very upset if I called this borscht, but she isn't here."

"I won't tattle if she shows up."

There's an almost comical immediacy to the way his entire demeanor perks up when she grabs the bowl, straightening out of the slight slouch in his posture with all the attentiveness of a sighthound. Not that he's necessarily expecting her to offer it to him, but a guy can clearly hope.

In the meantime he drops his bag aside and makes his hands busy pulling off the scarf he's been using to shield himself from the cold and the fog, lately. Some still-healing burns mar the skin of his face, but he's managed them well enough that he hardly thinks about that.

If Svetlana looks down to the dog beside him, she might notice traces of similar burns on its exposed muzzle — a few days old, at least, and not untreated.

The bowl is indeed for him and she holds it out to him along with a spoon that she actually scrubbed a little clean.

"Does he bite?" she wonders, cautious of the dog but only because wild dogs are generally not the sort to approach. And out here, it can be anything.

He accepts them both with a flash of a broad grin before he answers easily, "Only if you're gonna try and kill me. He's sweet as pie otherwise."

Something in that comparison has the sound of a phrase picked up from someone else, a not-quite-natural way of rolling off his tongue that nonetheless doesn't seem disingenuous. The dog watches the exchange with keen eyes, but everything in its posture is relaxed and content.

"I can't promise he won't try to lick your hand if you pet him, though. I'm not the one that raised him."

Like that completely absolves him of any responsibility for the dog's behavior.

IV. Community Soup in Lakeside! - Fraser + OTA

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GOD I'm sorry we can start fresh with something new if you want or pick this back up

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free food? ideal opportunity to add another russian to tobi's friends list

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