Audio - UN: LaFleurDeParis

[repaintress]

[The voice that comes through on the network is elegant and precise - every word is weighed and considered before being spoken. ]

I am told this is a forum where one may solicit public opinion.

If there is one experience you could have again, what would it be?

What from your home do you find yourself missing the most?

Comments

[borrowers]

She made the best soups, and she's always been very skilled with where to use flavors and spices for a perfect meal. I used to collect leaves for her to season her food with; she's taught me a lot about the uses of plants around the yard. A warm bowl with some of her baked bread on a cold day... that's impossible to replicate.

[repaintress]

What type of bread did she make?

[ The taste could be replicated, but the love the girl on the other side of the strange phone could not. So she is correct, as it is the love she is missing. ]

[borrowers]

Mostly just regular wheat bread [... and she neglects to mention that it's because they don't borrow things that are too complicated to bake...] but she always has a way of making it so buttery and sweet! There was a time she made us sourdough, though! Have you ever had it? It was delicious, and even more delicious later when we sprinkled the crumbs into salads!

[repaintress]

I enjoy sourdough; it is a bread most suitable for a croque monsieur. It crisps quite well.

[ Now Clea finds herself desiring such a sandwich. ]

What would you say is the best meal you've ever eaten?

[borrowers]

I think... maybe a meal I've had after I was sick. There's something really wonderful about eating something and feeling good afterward. My mom would always make a wonderful porridge that sits easily on your stomach.

[Not that a normal human bean would be fulfilled by a borrower's small pot of food.

Still.]

I have to admit, I'm really interested in the food here. I've never been anywhere but home to eat. What sort of things do they offer in a place like a 'diner'?

[repaintress]

That is true - a most pleasant feeling indeed. I believe its cousins would be breathing deeply after congestion and the coolness one feels waking up after a fever has broken.

[ Although to love porridge in such a way sounds rather horrid. Imagine subsisting on such a bland substance. ]

I would not know. I have not eaten in one - we don't have them where I am from in my world. I find the cafes to my taste.

[ If she wasn't to live on coffee, it wouldn't be available for free at all hours of the day and night. ]

[borrowers]

Oh, I see. Then... then maybe we should visit this 'diner' together.

If you don't mind the company. I don't take up very much space.

[She's been told that isolating herself is... a bad idea, in a place like this. She takes it to heart, and figures she's been practicing bravery for this very moment in her young life.]

[repaintress]

If you wish.

[ Ordinarily, Clea isn't one for company, but this girl must be truly alone to ask a stranger. She sounds young. Perhaps not of an age where she should wander alone. ]

There is nothing wrong with taking up space. You should always take up the space you need without shame.

[ As Clea has no idea Arrietty is speaking literally. ]