The cooking lesson...(Open)

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali Danner sat at the desk in her quarters, looking out the large window at the air traffic outside.

Her roommate, Mylia had left much earlier that morning to attend a study session with their master; Dasquian Belargic.

He had given her some time off that morning for some of her own quiet study, which she just finished and now found herself...well rather bored.

Jacali could have gone to Yog's, but didn't really feel like it very much. She went there quite often with Mylia.

Her stomach rumbled and she glanced at the chronometer, it was nearly lunchtime. She turned off the datapad in front of her and stood. Walking into the kitchen, she went to the freezer unit and opened it.

More frozen pizza....yuck... She closed the door and opened the frig. It was stocked very well now, since Mylia had moved in. She was a good cook, where as Jacali really...couldn't boil water.

Then, the idea struck her, Dasquian wanted her to study so....perhaps it was time to teach herself how to cook. It wasn't like she didn't have the time...so why not?

Perhaps, she could surprise her roommate with some concoction out of one of those cookbooks that Mylia had been collecting.

Jacali grabbed one and began flipping through the pages.

Mylia didn't like meat, so...to the veggies Jacali went.

She skimmed through the pages and stopped at a interesting dish...Grilled Vegetable Medley. Didn't sound too hard.

Jacali read the ingredients: lemon juice, olive oil, four cloves of garlic; crushed; Spike seasoning and veggies.

Spike seasoning??? What is that?? Jacali wondered as she began opening up cabinets to gather the needed items.

She smiled to herself, thinking that Mylia was in for quite a yummy surprise...

Jacali laid everything out on the table, but she still didn't know what spike seasoning was. Spiked, in bar terms meant alcohol.

"Cooking wine!!" she exclaimed and went looking. Nothing. With a deep sigh, she rummaged through the cabinets again. The only item that she thought came close was...cidar vinegar.

"Hmmm," Jacali said as she looked at the bottle. Cider, was an alcoholic beverage she had heard of in Yog's. So...it could be referred to as a spiked seasoning....yeah.

She grabbed it and read the directions, she was good at reading directions and soon had all the veggies chopped as she was supposed to.

"Ok, combine lemon juice, olive oil and seasoning." She read, simple enough. She did. It didn't smell the greatest, but then again it was a marinade and marinades never did smell good anyway! At least, not to Jacali.

"Pour over veggies," she continued and did the small feat. "Okay, let marinade for at least an hour. An hour?" Jacali questioned, she didn't have an hour. If any luck she had about half that time before Mylia returned.

She read on. "Cook over hot coals...grill?" That wasn't good either, they didn't have a grill. All they had besides their Focus cooker was the Gamma Flux Broiler. (Oven)

Jacali frowned, she had never messed with it before. How hard can it be? She walked over and looked at the dial.
Broil, bake, clean...temperatures...

With a shrug she put it on Broil and punched in four-hundred for the temp.

"Okay, back on track." Now, she continued to read. "Serve over hot brown rice and pour remaining marinade over all."

They had rice, she knew they did and rummaged through the cabinets again. "Ah, found it!" As she pulled out the box.
Jacali grabbed a large baking dish from a cabinet below. "Okay, pour in rice." She dumped in half the box, but that didn't look like nearly enough, so she dumped in the rest of the box.

Next, Jacali placed the chopped veggies in and poured the marinade over it all. It still smelled bad, but what the heck?

Mylia is going to love this!! She felt so proud of herself as she quickly put her Vegetable Medley into the Gamma Flux Broiler and closed the door.

She then quickly cleaned up the mess and set the table and decided she needed a shower.

With a quick check on her new concoction, she headed towards her room.

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Twenty minutes later...

Jacali was just finishing up drying her hair, when she smelled something. Something bad...and she heard something.

What the?? She thought and came out of her 'fresher.

Smoke!!! Fire alarm!!!!

"Ugh!!" She exclaimed and ran towards the kitchen.

The Gamma flux broiler was smoking pretty badly and the alarm was more than annoying.

Quickly, she turned off the broiler and then turned towards the alarm at which she beat off the wall with a broom.

Smoke billowed out of the broiler as she returned to it and opened it up, she couldn't even see her food!

Coughing badly, she went for the door and opened it to get some fresh air. She more or less fell out the door onto the floor as the smoke billowed now out into the corridor.

Oh, this is not good!! She thought wildly as she still coughed uncontrollably.

[Hayes Muirso]

Another cough joined Jacali’s, as Hayes walked around the corner right into the smog. Wheezing as he felt about at the air, trying to feel where he was, he caught vague sight over another person. His eyes were watering, but with squinting he could tell someone was definitely there. Luckily enough the complex had its great doors wide open and the breeze from outside was drawing the thick grey cloud outside, albeit slowly.

“What happened? Is something on fire?” the Padawan stammered through occasional coughs.

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali fought to take in a couple of deep breaths as she looked up and saw a dark-headed guy standing there.

"Not now," she coughed, still trying to clear her lungs. "Just my dinner." She finally answered without coughing.

"Oh, man. What a disaster." She sighed as sat there and pushed her long locks of red hair out of her face.

[Hayes Muirso]

Trying not to laugh, but failing – although the laugh sounded more like an enthusiastic cough – Hayes waved his arms about in front of himself, trying to clear some of the smoke.

“Let’s get this sorted,” Hayes, self-proclaimed fireman, called out as he fumbled his way into Jacali’s roomed uninvited, knocking the double windows open – providing much needed help at clearing the mess.

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali studied the stranger as he helped himself into her quarters.

"It nothing, really." She told him as she got to her feet and walked back in. It smelled worse in there than it did in the corridor.

"Good idea keep the window open." She told him as she glanced towards the kitchen. She didn't even want to go in there.

"Great," she grumbled. "Mylia's going to kill me."

[Hayes Muirso]

“Just a mistake, anyone could have made it,”

Hayes took a peek towards the kitchen. It looked like it had been completely swallowed by the smoke.

“What were you making? It smells like burning tar in here,” he laughed as he retreated to the window and the welcome smell of fresh air.

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali stifled a laugh herself. "some kind of veggie medley." She told him. "But, you're right. It smells really bad, but then again it didn't smell the greatest before I put it in there." She suddenly remembered her manners.

"Oh, by the way...I'm Jacali. Jacali Danner and you are...?"

[Hayes Muirso]

“Hayes,”

He smiled through the thinning smoke.

“I usually wait to introduce myself before I barge into peoples rooms to deal with their domestic situations, but this time seemed like it deserve to be an exception.”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

"Well, in this case. I'm glad you did, I just hope I didn't diease your lungs in the process."

She sighed deeply as she walked over and cautiously opened the broiler.

"Ugh...yuck!" she groaned as she saw rice, or at least she thought it was rice.

Looked more like burnt maggots.

It was everywhere and the veggies were burnt so bad she couldn't even tell what was what.

[Hayes Muirso]

Looking into the belly of the beast, Hayes grimaced.

“Ouch. That’s going to need some cleaning.”

Hands on his hips, he edged towards the kitchen, sighing beneath his breath.

“What a terrible mess… you want a hand cleaning it all up?”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali was never one to turn down an offer of help. "You'd really help me clean this up?" She had to ask just to be sure.

It was pretty bad.

[Hayes Muirso]

A warm smile was still covering Hayes expression.

“Why not?”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali shrugged, "just making sure. Ok, cleaning stuff...this kitchen isn't usually my department, if you couldn't tell. My roomie usually cooks and she's much better at it." She looked under the sink and grabbed some towels, cleaners and anything else she could find.

"My cooking is frozen pizza's in the Focus cooker. But, today I decided on making something...sure I made something." Jacali said as she looked at the broiler. "A big mess."

[Hayes Muirso]

“My repertoire extends as far as pancakes, after that I’m pretty much lost,”

Handed some cleaning kit by Jacali, Hayes ambled into the kitchen – now almost clear of most, thanks to the open windows. He knelt down by the cooker, which hung open. There was a big burnt something in the center and some charring around the grill itself, but otherwise it was all mostly minor things.

“You know I don’t think this will take too long, actually.”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali knelt down beside him and wrinkled her nose at the mess. "I think from now on I'll keep the cooking to the 'real' chef's. Mylia or Yog's." She started by first scraping some of the burnt concoction out with a knife.

To pass the time, She asked him. "So, how long ya been here?"

[Hayes Muirso]

“Couple of months,” he replied as he extracted some odd looking gunk, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“What about you?” he got to his feet, taking his handful of burnt something or other to the bin.

[imported_Jacali Danner]

"A few weeks," she told him as she scraped up a large pile and brushed half of it into her hand and joined him at the bin.

"So far, I've begun my training and enjoying myself here at the GJO. With the exception of today's escapade." She smiled as she brushed her hands off.

[Hayes Muirso]

Dumping what he had, Hayes chuckled a little.

“I see… and what did you do before you came here?”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

"I'm from Corellia originally. I was living with my parents and my older sister and planning on attending college like everyone else. But, the plans got changed..." She paused for a few moments and tried not to recap her past. "So, here I am."

[Hayes Muirso]

“I see. I was in college too,” Hayes replied, quickly correcting himself,

“Not as a student of course, I’m too old for that. I taught a few lessons here and there, history, literature, psychology,” the last of the three made him smile to himself.

“Interesting stuff really. It’s a shame you didn’t get to go to college.”

Hayes knelt down by the cooker, inspecting it once more, his voice echoing off of the inside.

“You know Coruscant as a good college which I hear some of the students here attend in their spare time?”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali raised her eyebrow at the thought. "Hmm. never thought of it I guess now, that I'm here. I figured, I'm here to be a Jedi and that was it. But, I did want to attend college to become a psychiatrist."

[Hayes Muirso]

“You could still do that, probably… I mean it seems like a lot of the Jedi have these unique abilities… maybe you could, wriggle the Force into psychiatry some how. Become able to read peoples thoughts and solve them for them,”

Hayes waved about a spatula, trying to think of something.

“Or maybe that isn’t such a good idea?” he came up with eventually, laughing a bit.

[imported_Jacali Danner]

She laughed at him. He was funny.

"I don't think that my psychiatry skills would turn out like my...cooking." She stopped for a moment and then looked at him seriously.

"I have a different kind of aura when it comes to people. Especially, if they have a problem and need to talk about something. It's something that I've always had and when I was in school all my friends came to me to pour their hearts out."

She looked away, smiling slightly and shook her head. "Eventually, even people I didn't know. But, listening came so easy for me and I'd try and help them and that's when I realized what my purpose in life was."

Jacali glanced back in Hayes direction. "And I would have done it, had I not started having...those terrible dreams."

[Hayes Muirso]

“Terrible dreams?”

Oh that was never a good sign, Hayes silently mused, frowning a bit.

“Want to share? I can play shrink.”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali looked at him, noticing the frown. "Oh, perhaps, I should have never said anything about that. You're going to think I'm insane." She crossed her arms over her chest and walked over to the open window. She was silent while she just gazed out at the traffic.

She felt the need to be guarded.

[Hayes Muirso]

Hayes pushed the spatula down onto the oven top and followed over to the window, just taking the view in for a moment before looking over at Jacali. By no means did he think anyone here was insane – and he’d seen some odd people. In fact sometimes he had to question his own sanity, with people disappearing or changing into wolves at the drop of a hat.

“Well just so you know,”

He turned from the view and paced back to finish off his cleaning job.

“If you ever need someone to talk to.”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali felt bad, she hadn't meant to sound rude, so she followed him.

She was trying to think of a good way to put what she was about to say.

Oh, heck... The Padawan thought, she'd helped many people in her schooling days, perhaps now it was her turn.

"They're not really dreams....I have visions, some pretty bad ones."

[Hayes Muirso]

“Visions? Like of the future?”

Hayes squinted a little. Everyone here did have some odd special power, it seemed.

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali nodded with a rather sad sigh. "Yeah, some that I wish I never had."

[Hayes Muirso]

“Wouldn’t they be helpful?” Hayes remarked as he leant back against one of the cabinets in the kitchen, watching Jacali.

“I mean you could stop things happening before they did... bad things.”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

The Padawan nodded. "Yeah, but I didn't realize that that was what they were until it was too late." The conversation had brought tears to her eyes as she quickly looked away.

I will not cry in front of a total stranger!

[Hayes Muirso]

“Oh I see…I’m sorry.”

Hayes caught on quickly and removed his spectacles, beginning to inspect them.

“I guess there is some small consolation that the Jedi will help you become more able to act on these visions before they carry out their course.”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

"Yeah, I guess so," Jacali nodded as a tear streaked down her face. She quickly wiped it away, slightly embarrassed.

Off-handedly, she remarked. "Doesn't take away the pain though." She wasn't even thinking about who she was talking to, she was just talking.

[Hayes Muirso]

Jacali felt a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder as Hayes stood at her side, sighing a little. It was awful to have to watch someone so upset.

“Time will heal it…”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali tried to suppress the sadness that she suddenly felt, but wasn't having much luck.

"Some days I wonder about that." She admitted openly.

[Hayes Muirso]

Hand falling back down to his side, Hayes shook his head.

“I guess all you can do is sit it out and hope for the best. Time may not heal everything, but at least you can learn from what happened and try to better yourself and the world around you… I mean that’s why we’re Jedi isn’t it.”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

Jacali agreed with a nod. "Yeah, that's why I'm here. I want to get a hold on these visions I have and do something about them. Learn from them and hopefully stop whatever is going to happen."

"Luckily, I've not had any for a while." She remarked, unknowingly that her luck would soon change.

[Hayes Muirso]

His curiosity getting the better of him, Hayes asked:

“Does it hurt when you have the visions? … I mean do you get any forewarning, like pain or whatever?”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

"No," she told him. "It doesn't hurt. It just happens and usually I wake up screaming and there has been a time or two that I didn't know why. I couldn't remember it."

[Hayes Muirso]

Hayes brushed his hand against the back of his neck. He was so thankful he’d not been born with any odd abilities or powers. They seemed to get in the way of a lot of things.

“So they’re always when you’re asleep?”

[imported_Jacali Danner]

The young Padawan crossed her arms casually across her chest and leaned against the nearest cabinet. 'Usually, but there has been a time or two that it happened when I'm not asleep and that is really wierd. I guess, when that happens it means whatever I see is really going down...so to say."