I let the tears fall. Movement is better than stifling.
And these, I will let power me.
Clarity, and a touch of focused Wrath:
I will not let all these sages’ efforts be in vain.
I leave the tome open on the table and grab the ice cream maker, adding the ice to the outer compartment.
Then I attend to the recipe.
It’s past time to make this life my own.
Zanhelpsmemeasureand cook the blackberries in sugar, then cook milk and cream and more sugar together, and then combine the two.
The recipe also calls for lemon juice and vanilla, and to my wonder we have both—both arestandardcooking ingredients in this era.
We strain the blackberries and mix their sweet juice with the cream until it turns a bright, delicious purple.
And then I personally escort it to the ice house and wait impatiently as it chills, doing my katas and poking it to see if it’s cold yet how-about-now while Zan does the dishes.
Then it’s time.
The ice cream mixture goes in the inner bucket, the ice, with salt added—to suck the heat out of the cream, or something? I don’t understand the recipe’s explanation, but apparently it’s necessary—in the outer bucket, and then I work the crank.
It’s... super easy?
I look at Zan skeptically, unsure if this is working, but he can only shrug—he’s never made ice cream before either.
“Sometimes it takes a while for a sauce to thicken, and nothing seems to be happening and then it happens all at once,” he says as doubtfully as I feel. “Maybe it’s like that?”
Well, I’m not going to give up yet.
I was powering up my katas for a reason, after all, and I’m taking my built-up power out on this ice cream.
I churn the handle as fast as I can.
After a few minutes, it starts getting harder.
My body didn’t atrophy in stasis, so at first I’m surprised I’m tiring so easily. Then I realize— “Is it actually thicker now? Is it just me?”
“Let me try,” Zan offers.
I shift over to make room for him.
Side by side, we peer intently into the bucket.
“Definitely thicker,” he announces, then shoots me an amused look.
Ohh, that’s innuendo too, isn’t it?
Then he says, “It’s becoming solid. So you’re doing it right, but I think that means it’s going to keep getting harder to turn.”
I narrow my eyes, my wrath kindling. “Move over. I will not be defeated by ice cream.”
Zan’s eyebrows shoot up as he duly makes room. But he clearly recognizes the look in my eyes because he says, “Yora, maybe don’t determine your self-worth on the first thing you are trying, for fun—”
“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t care about either,” I remind him.
