© 2025 Joelle R.
A bell tolled midnight somewhere in the vast manor. Marcelienne de Durendaire hurried to the scullery where she would meet her lover. Her loins ached in anticipation. She opened the door to see her maid Viviette already waiting for her. She was quivering, both for nervousness of being caught and in anticipation of another tryst. With the door closed behind them, the two immediately threw themselves at each other, kissing deeply, but Viviette soon parted to speak.
“We cannot keep meeting like this, milady,” she said, her nervous tone betrayed by lusty tinges. “You, a trueborn daughter of House Durendaire, and I, a lowly scullery maid from the Brume…”
Marcelienne embraced her lover tightly. “Damn the House de Durendaire!” she said forcefully. “I would renounce it all to be by your side for the rest of our days.”
Viviette’s eyes widened. “By the Fury, milady, you cannot mean —”
“But I do. Say the word and we will leave this wretched city and go wherever you please.”
“Oh milady…I mean, Marcelienne…” and threw herself at her lover once more. Their kisses grew more and more passionate as they both felt the heat rising from their loins. With one hand, Marcelienne feverishly grasped at her lover’s bosom while her other began to unlace Viviette’s corset—”
“Hope I didn't keep you waiting long, dear.” Aemilia started at Naago’s voice as she looked up from her book. She was back in Rhalgr’s Reach, sitting on one of the many fallen sandstone columns that littered the area. The viera’s face was flushed.
“N-no, of course not. Was just catching up on some reading while you were finishing up.” Aemilia said, perhaps a bit too lightly. “But here,” she said, closing her book. “Six Velodyna salmon, as requested.” She pointed to the bucket of salmon chilled by ice crystals that sat next to her on the ground.
“Thanks, my love,” Naago said, beaming. “I know these will be good, but you know…I need to make it official. Regulations and all that.” She winked conspiratorially. “Ahem…” she looked at the salmon closely and said with the air of being extremely rehersed, "Seems like you’ve got a good catch there! A skilled chef could cook it à la meunière…but me? Well, I suppose I could blacken it over coals or a cookfire. Edible, sure, but I can’t vouch for the taste…”
Aemilia smiled and tilted her head. “Would you like that? Salmon meunière, I mean.”
Naago looked up from her inspection. “What’s that? Oh…aye. Of course. But you know, it’s not like we have the Bismarck out here. We need to continue to get the roads safer before we can worry about the fine dining,” she said, almost wistfully. “Now then, on closer inspection…better than many such items that've passed through my hands. Even someone with my limited experience can tell the difference. Well done, my love.” she came over to the viera and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “Unfortunately, I have the usual meeting with our patrols coming up, so I can’t dote on you as much as I would like. I’ll see you around this evening?”
“Aye. See you around, Naago,” she said as the miqo’te hurried off up the hill with her bucket of salmon.
Meunière… Aemilia thought back to her time as the fishmonger’s assistant at the Bismarck. She didn’t have any formal training in the culinary arts, since her job entirely involved gutting and scaling fish to make ends meet as a fresh adventurer in Limsa Lominsa. She picked up things here and there, and ended up being a deft hand at baking for staff meals, but she was only passingly familiar with the dish. She sighed, filing away her idea for surprising Naago with a salmon dinner away for the time being.
A few suns later…
“GET YER SPICES ‘ERE! FRESH FROM ACROSS THE SEA O’ JADE TO YER LARDER!" Despite the bustle, a Limsan trader could be heard over the din of the market this afternoon.
Hells, Ala Ghiri sure is lively since last I visited…What a difference the years make. What was once a trading hub from the east turned Imperial logistics center had once again been making strides towards its glory days before the occupation. Aemilia had come to the market to resupply before setting out to pursue hunt marks on the morrow. As she looked around the throng of Ala Mhigans perusing wares, she saw an unusual sight for these parts: a dark-scaled au ra woman in a dark blue and black leather coat and a smart black leather hat on her head, haggling animatedly and loudly with an Ananta merchant, who looked somewhat irritated.
“You don’t understand…it’s for my wife! And she’ll kill me if I spend that much on a bracelet…” the au ra loudly despaired. “Surely you could do forty thousand gil…”
“It’sss fifty thousssand, ssstrider. If you don’t like it, then move on.”
Aemilia found herself staring at the scene, despite herself.
The au ra looked as though she were deflated. “Very well…the wife wanted something nice from Ala Mhigo, so that’s what she’s getting.” As she handed over a coinpurse to the ananta and took her purchase, she turned to see the viera agog. She looked at her irritatedly.
“This isn’t a bloody show! Move along, rabbit!” she growled. She tilted her head as she took Aemilia in. “Wait…I know you, though, don’t I?” she said with a frown and a squint.
Aemilia, feeling whiplash from the au ra’s gamut of emotions the past minute, stammered, “D-do you?”
“Yeah…” the smaller woman squinted further, as if racking deep into her memory. Then, going into yet another emotion, she said excitedly, “Yeah! You were working at the Bismarck a few years ago. No way I could forget you.” She's…blushing? Oh no.
“O-oh! Yeah, I remember,” Aemilia said quickly, hoping to stave off potential mawkishness. “You were training as a culinarian at the time, aye? I was just the fishmonger’s assistant…never had proper training. Aemilia, by the way. Apologies for staring.”
“Uyanga, and it’s okay…I just really didn’t want to spend that kind of money today. But Senna will understand. I think. Most likely,” she said with a grin. “I’m a sort of travelling culinarian nowadays and this is my first time in Ala Mhigo. Are you from around here?”
“Aye, proudly so.” Aemilia was struck by a sudden flash of inspiration after hearing what the au ra did for a living. “Forgive me for being so bold out of the blue, I don’t suppose you know how to make salmon à la meunière, could you?”
Uyanga looked like she had seen a ghost. “Salmon meunière…I think I could make it in my sleep. I had burned it one time during dinner service and Chef Lyngsath took me off the line and wouldn’t let me back ‘til I made one that he said was acceptable. It took bells,” she shuddered. “But yeah, you could say I know how to make it. It’s a rustic but delicious Keeper dish. Why do you ask?”
“Well, uh…don’t laugh, but I was hoping you could show me how to cook it for my partner. She —”
“She?” Uyanga’s eyes widened excitedly. She looked as though she had won the Jumbo Cactpot. “Hells yes, I’ll help you. In exchange, you can give me a little tour of the area. Deal?”
That was…far too easy, Aemilia thought. But I’m not going to look a gift chocobo in the mouth. “Deal. Shall we look for ingredients in the market together?”
The fast friends talked animatedly as they walked up a hill and arrived at a handsome house in the newly built residential district of Ala Mhigo. Aemilia grabbed the key from under a false rock near the door to let themselves in. They flicked on the lights and found their way through the handsomely apportioned living and dining rooms into a well-equipped kitchen. Uyanga gave a low whistle. “Dusk Mother’s tits, this’s quite a kitchen. How’d you get to use it?”
“Called my friend Lyse on her linkpearl. She and her wife are off doing…something. Who knows. Saving the star, probably.” Uyanga laughed but quickly stopped when she saw that Aemilia was extremely serious. “But we're free to use the kitchen to practice and doze in the guest room tonight.
“Well, let’s get started,” Uyanga rolled up her sleeves. “Girlfriend meal isn’t going to cook itself. We’re going to make the Ishgardian High House version of this dish…you’ll see what I mean about that.”
They laid out their fresh ingredients out on the counter: fine Gyr Abanian flour and rock salt, Velodyna salmon (Not caught by me, Aemilia noted sadly. But I'll rectify that on the morrow.), gazelle butter, sunflower oil, Highland parsley, and sun lemons. As Uyanga had promised, a deceptively simple dish.
She watched intently as Uyanga readied her mise en place. She carefully filleted the salmon with a fine knife, sprinkled them with the rock salt, and set them to rest. She then coated a measure of sunflower oil in the pan and began to bring it to heat on the ceruleum burner stove. As the pan was brought to temperature, she measured out the wheat flour into a dish and finely chopped the parsley. She started to rummage through drawers in a whirlwind.
“What are the odds they actually have a cannelé…?” she grumbled. “…bugger me sideways, they do.” She held up a knife with a rounded edge and a small V-shape on the inside. She began to peel strips off of the lemon with the device, then halved it with a chef’s knife and finely sliced one of the halves.
“Sous chef, wash the salt off of that fish, pat dry it, then dredge both sides of those fillets with that flour.” Uyanga barked suddenly.
“Oh, okay.” Aemilia said tentatively.
“When I ask you to do something in the kitchen, the correct response is, ‘Yes, chef.’ Try again.”
“Y-yes, chef?”
“With feeling.” she demanded.
“Yes, chef!” Aemilia did as she was told as Uyanga melted gazelle butter in the pan.
“Good. Now…” she looked at the floured filets. “When you dredge fish like this, you want to give it some pats on each side to remove any excess flour. High House chefs call this tapotage.” She demonstrated on the fillets Aemilia had floured. “I’m not sure why they felt the need to invent a word for this…that’s High House cuisine for you.” She sighed as she made sure the last of the butter was melted down. “Let’s fry these up, yeah?” She took two fillets and put them into the pan, which gave an extremely satisfying sizzle.
“You’ll want to cook one side for about two minutes. Now, again, this is the High House version of this dish so we’ll need to add yet more butter…sous chef, if you’d be so kind.”
“Yes, chef!” Uyanga looked at her proudly while Aemilia sliced off some more gazelle butter from the slab and slid it over on the counter, which Uyanga promptly put in the pan. It quickly melted, and Uyanga turned the fish, tipping it to the other side with a spoon. The first side revealed a lovely golden-brown colour.
“Now, for a really good meunière, you’ll want to continuously spoon the melted butter over it while frying the other side…like so.” She demonstrated her technique for Aemilia. “Now we’ll do this for another two minutes…” she continously spooned butter over this period. “Et voilà. As they say in Ishgard.” She took the fish off of the heat to rest on a plate. “Now to finish the sauce…” She sprinkled a handful of parsley into the lovely pool of melted butter they now had, cracked some black pepper from a grinder, followed by a deft squeeze of the unsliced half of the sun lemon. That smells divine, Aemilia thought as the lemon juice sizzled in the pan. As it reduced, Uyanga artfully arranged the thinly cut lemon slices onto the plate and placed the salmon on top of them. After another couple of minutes, she seemed satisfied with the consistency of the sauce and spooned it on the salmon.
“There we are…salmon meunière. I’ll write this down for you, but we do have extra if you want to practice yourself tonight. You’ll want to have a side dish tomorrow, I imagine…I’ll forage some popotoes for you to boil up and finish with more butter and leftover parsley. I obviously would usually prefer steppe dzo butter or even a more neutral-tasting buffalo milk butter for this dish…but this gazelle butter has an interesting tang to it that I think will lend itself nicely to the salmon. Actually, for the popotoes, tomorrow I might see if any of the vendors have some fermented butter. I just think —”
“Uyanga…?” Aemilia asked tentatively. Don’t you think we should try the food?”
“The what…? OH. Right, let’s dig in.” They both dug out forks from a drawer and tucked into the dish. “It’s delicious despite the simplicity of the ingredients, right? If there’s one thing that High House cuisine gets right, it’s adding butter in excess to everything makes it better. Have you ever had a croissant? Lovely Isgardian pastry. Lots of butter. It goes great with a nice, fresh cup of coffee. You do like coffee, right?” she asked with an air of there being an extremely incorrect answer to this question.
"I love coffee.”
Uyanga looked extremely pleased with this response. She peppered Aemilia with questions about the various coffees she had had on her adventures as the pair talked into the night, well after the salmon had been polished off.
The next morning…
“Aye, Lyse’s house. 8 p.m. I — oh!” Aemilia’s line gave a tug. “I have a surprise for you. Aye.” She was knees deep in the Velodyna River as Uyanga watched from the safety of the nearby eyot. Aemilia began to reel in the salmon while talking to Naago on their private linkpearl line. Uyanga’s eyes widened at the sheer heft at the salmon her companion was reeling in. “Well, I can’t tell you, that would ruin the surprise. Just be there and save your appetite. Aye. Oh gods, good luck with that. Love you too.” Uyanga giggled like a schoolgirl at that. “Oh, hush, you,” Aemilia said, grinning.
“What?” she kept giggling. “You two are so cute. I wish I could see her face when you surprise her with dinner…”
“I’ll describe everything in excruciating detail to you on the morrow. Deal?” Aemilia said as she put the thrashing salmon into her specially enchanted fish cooler, where it began to settle.
“Deal. Now let’s forage you some nice popotoes.”
Later that day…
Winters in Gyr Abania were very mild compared the the Gridanian or Coerthan ones she spent much of her life experiencing, but Aemilia still felt the chill biting into her cloak. She waited in the glow of a streetlamp near Lyse’s house, too excited to wait for Naago inside. Her mind wandered with thoughts of fishing excursions…she wondered if she could drag Uyanga to her favorite spots in The Peaks while she was still in the area…Heather Falls was lovely any time of the year…
“Oy! Evening, lover,” Naago called out as she made the climb up the hill. She ran up to Aemilia, who lifted her off the ground in a big hug. After being set down back onto the star, Naago looked up at the house behind them. “You know, I haven't been here since they built this house. It's beautiful, isn't it?”
“Oh, aye. Quite a show of craftsmanship,” joining Naago in looking up at the handsome sandstone brick house.
“Maybe one day…oh, never mind,” she said a little sadly. Aemilia looked at her quizzically but didn't press her. “Come on then, show me the surprise.”
Aemilia led her through to the kitchen and with airs of an illusionist revealing a trick said, “And now, milady…I will cook you salmon meunière like they do in the kitchens of the High Houses of Ishgard, with a side of boiled wild foraged popotoes in fermented butter.”
Naago looked genuinely surprised. “Rhalgr's beard, Aemilia Grenat. I say one thing off-hand and you go through all this trouble for me…you're an incredibly thoughtful woman.”
“Oh, I had plenty of help,” she said with a grin as she began her mise en place. Let me tell you about a new friend I made…”
The pair were cuddling in their smallclothes after they retired to the guest bedroom for the night. Naago looked into Aemilia's eyes and said quietly, “My moons…thank you again for the delicious meal and the lovely company. I do so love when you're back home.” She took Aemilia's hand in hers and held it against her chest. “What I was going to say earlier…I hope one day, when Ala Mhigo is properly rebuilt, and the roads are safe, and the standing army is trained and…augh, bugger me,” she said ruefully, tears filling her eyes. “I'm no good at this.” She tried again. “When things are settled, I hope we can have a house of our own…here, in Ala Mhigo…to live out our days together.” she finished, tears properly flowing now.
“Oh, Naago…love of my life.” Aemilia held her lover tightly and stroked her hair. “I would like that very, very much.” The two briefly became one, and after a few minutes, Aemilia released her from the tight embrace. She looked Naago in the eyes once again. She was no longer crying, but her golden eyes looked unusually bright. “Should we buy one of the nearby houses? Do you think Lyse would tolerate us as neighbors?” she said with a smile.
Naago sniffed and offered a faint smile in return. “Lyse? Aye, Lyse would love it. I think her wife might object, if only because Lyse would have backup for her teasing,” she said, with a chaotic edge to her tone.
“Oh, aye. We should definitely do it then.”
The two continued to hold each other close, punctuated by occasional bouts of kissing, as their breathing grew heavy and they fell asleep in each other's arms.