Chapter 121: Heart and Beauty (part 2)
Later that evening, after the crowds had dispersed and the exhibition hall had emptied, Marron found herself back in the test kitchen. Alone this time, with just her thoughts and the lingering smell of the day’s cooking.
She stood at one of the polished counters, running her hand along its cool surface. Around her, the city glowed through the windows—neon and starlight mixing into something neither artificial nor natural, but somehow both.
Mokko appeared in the doorway, arms crossed. "Thought I’d find you here."
"Couldn’t sleep."
"Too excited or too scared?"
Marron smiled faintly. "Both." She turned to face him. "Mokko, do you think people can change? Really change?"
He considered the question with unusual seriousness. "Yeah. I think so. But not into someone new. Just into... more of who they already were. Under all the armor."
"Is that what I’m doing? Taking off armor?"
"Maybe. Or maybe you’re just remembering it’s okay to care about things again." He shrugged. "Either way, you seem less tired."
Marron thought about that. He was right. The exhaustion that had followed her for years—the bone-deep weariness of just getting through each day—had lifted slightly. Not gone, maybe never fully gone. But lighter.
"I think I want to try," she said quietly. "Really try. Not just to pass their tests, but to... to be good at this again. To love it again."
Mokko nodded. "Then try. What’s the worst that happens?"
"I fail. I get hurt. I end up right back where I started."
"Yeah. Or you don’t." He grinned. "That’s the fun part. You don’t know yet."
That night, Marron returned to her room and pulled out her notebook. But instead of sketching dishes, she started writing. Not recipes—memories.
Her mother’s hands kneading dough. The smell of coffee at dawn in the diner. The regular customers who came every Tuesday for the special. The way her mother used to hum while she cooked, like the work itself was a kind of song.
She wrote about the tavern too. The monotony, yes, but also the moments that had surprised her. The merchant who’d cried over her stew because it reminded him of his childhood. The kids who’d pressed their noses to the window, watching her work.
She’d told herself those moments didn’t matter. That caring about them was dangerous. But maybe they had mattered. Maybe every single one had been a thread connecting her to something larger than survival.
Maybe cooking had always been her way of saying: I see you. You matter. Here, let me show you.
And maybe it was time to say that to herself too.
Marron closed the notebook and looked out at Lumeria’s glowing skyline. Tomorrow would bring new challenges. The Final Trials, whatever those were. More judges, more expectations, more opportunities to fail.
But tonight, she let herself feel something she hadn’t felt in years: excited about cooking.
Not anxious. Not just competent. Actually, genuinely excited.
Lucy bubbled softly from her jar on the nightstand. "Marron? You’re smiling."
"Am I?"
"Yeah. It’s nice."
Marron touched her face, surprised to find it true. "Yeah," she said softly. "It is."
She settled into bed, the city’s hum a lullaby outside her window. For the first time in longer than she could remember, she fell asleep thinking about tomorrow not with dread, but with curiosity.
What would she make? What would she discover? What version of herself would she become?
The questions didn’t scare her anymore.
The week before the Final Trials passed in a blur of practice and discovery.
Marron threw herself into the work with an intensity that surprised even her. She arrived at the test kitchens before dawn and stayed until the enchanted lights dimmed for the night. She experimented with plating techniques, studied the way different bowls changed the perception of her food, learned which garnishes added meaning and which ones were just decoration.
Tessa became her constant companion and occasional conscience.
"That’s too much," they said one afternoon, watching Marron arrange seven different herbs on a single plate. "You’re overthinking it. Presentation should clarify, not complicate."
Marron stepped back, seeing what they meant. The plate looked busy, anxious. She removed five of the herbs, leaving only thyme and a single edible flower. Better. Cleaner.
"I’m not good at knowing when to stop," she admitted.
"Nobody is at first. It’s a muscle you build." Tessa tilted their head. "You know what your problem is? You spent so long doing the bare minimum that now you want to do everything at once. But good cooking is about knowing what to leave out as much as what to put in."
The observation stung because it was true. Marron had spent years in survival mode, and now that she’d given herself permission to care, she was almost frantic with it. Like she had to make up for lost time.
"So how do I find the balance?"
Tessa smiled. "You keep practicing. And you remember that every dish is trying to say something. If you’re saying too many things at once, nobody hears any of them."
On the third day, Marron attempted a dish she’d been thinking about since the pair challenge: a reinterpretation of her mother’s chicken stew. Not a fancy bisque or a theatrical presentation—just the stew, but elevated.
She started with the fundamentals: chicken thighs braised until they fell off the bone, root vegetables caramelized to bring out their sweetness, a broth rich with herbs and time. The same recipe her mother had made every Sunday.
But then she thought about presentation. About story.
She plated it in a wide, shallow bowl—cream-colored with a rough texture that suggested handmade pottery. The chicken went in first, the meat pulled apart to show its tenderness. The vegetables she arranged carefully: carrots in a fan, potatoes nested together, everything placed with intention.
The broth she poured tableside in her mind—imagining how the steam would rise, how the smell would hit just as the diner lifted their spoon.
Finally, she took a single sage leaf, fried it until crispy, and placed it on top. One garnish. Simple. Purposeful.
When she stepped back to look at it, her chest tightened. It looked like home. But it also looked like something worth celebrating.
Tessa appeared at her elbow, studying the dish. "That," they said quietly, "is what I’ve been trying to teach you. It’s beautiful because it’s true. Not the other way around."
Marron felt tears prick her eyes and blinked them away quickly. "It’s my mom’s recipe."
"Then she’d be proud."
Would she? Marron wasn’t sure. Her mother had never cared about presentation, had actively scorned it as pretentious. But she’d also told Marron to let people see the care you put in. Maybe this was just another way of doing that.
"I hope so," Marron said softly.
That night, she found herself in the Guild’s library—a vast room with vaulted ceilings and shelves that stretched up into shadow. Books on technique, histories of famous chefs, regional cookbooks from every corner of the world.
She pulled down a volume on Lumerian culinary philosophy and settled into a deep armchair by one of the enchanted reading lamps.
The book talked about "edible art" and "the poetry of the plate." Some of it made her roll her eyes—passages that seemed to value aesthetics over everything else. But other sections resonated.
"The first bite happens with the eyes," one Chapter began. "Before a diner tastes your food, they have already begun forming their opinion based on what they see. This is not shallowness—it is human nature. We are visual creatures. The question is not whether appearance matters, but whether we use appearance to reveal truth or to obscure it."
Marron read the passage three times, letting it sink in. She’d been so defensive about presentation because she’d seen it as fake. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was just another language—one she’d never learned to speak?