%title Tocană

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INT. LIVING ROOM

A painfully modern house. We're talking concrete walls, floors of some pale wood --- pine, perhaps --- floor-to-ceiling windows, furniture that uses a lot of right angles, or perhaps Eames is involved somehow. On the couch sits DEAR, and anthropomorphic fox with bright white fur. Or, what used to be bright white. It's been stained red in spots, and it whimpers, holding one of its paws and staring down at the pads. It is wearing a poet shirt with a waistcoat over it. Both look like they've recently encountered so horrifically traumatic event. Beside it sits CODRIN, a human of Eastern European descent, appearing to be in eir mid-twenties. Ey looks equally bedraggled, though rather than an expression of pain, eirs is one of frustration. Eir white linen tunic has also been stained red in places, and the tan sarong ey wears around eir waist has picked up some unidentifiable stain down along one thigh.

Sitting on a dining chair before them, THEIR PARTNER rubs their face with their hands, masters some complex emotion containing both frustration and amusement.

Their partner
:   Okay. I'm going to need you to start at the top.

Dear
:   I would like it understood just how bullshit this is. It is in no way my fault, and the blame lies squarely on Codrin's shoulders.

CODRIN rolls eir eyes.

Codrin
:   You had one job, Dear.

Their partner
:   This isn't the top. Try again.

Silence.

Their partner
:   O-kaaay, well, first: Dear, why the fuck are you covered in paprika?

Dear
:   Okay, that one *is* my fault.

Codrin
:   (triumphant) Ah-HA.

Their partner
:   Neither of those statements are answers.

Dear
:   Okay, you would like the events from the top? Fine. Codrin said that it was getting on Christmas, and that Christmas means tocană...

Fade to INT. KITCHEN

Prior to kitchen trauma, DEAR looks quite prim and proper. Calm. Confident. Its fur is clean and white, its clothes are un-mussed. CODRIN looks equally clean, though eir expression is quite harried. DEAR stands before a counter, chopping onions and mincing garlic with practiced ease. A bit *too* practiced, perhaps, to the point where it's clear that this is from its memory. CODRIN, meanwhile, is desperately trying to fry cubes of pork without setting a smoke alarm off.

...

Fade to INT. KITCHEN

We're back in a flashback, though this time it's clearly from CODRIN'S point of view: ey's looking exasperated, frowning over at Dear as ey tosses the cubed meat easily in a cast-iron pan. DEAR, meanwhile, is working on its second clove of garlic, trying desperately to get the peel off with dull claws. It's at least gotten one clove coarsely minced, but the onion still sits, unpeeled, beside the cutting board.

Codrin
:   You know I'm going to need the onion first, right? Like, that's why I told you to chop the onion.

Dear
:   Well, I know that *now,* my dear, but you said "chop the onion and mince the garlic", so it seemed sensible to do the hard part first so that I could breeze through the onion.

Codrin
:   That doesn't change the fact that I need the onion, Dear. And in the next thirty seconds, preferably.

Dear
:   But the garlic--

Codrin
:   Can wait until after you get the onion done.

DEAR sighs --- it's a very dramatic one, too --- and sets the half-peeled garlic aside and sullenly starts to peel the onion instead. CODRIN, meanwhile, finishes searing the pork and scrapes it out of the pan with eir wooden spatula onto a plate before returning the pan to the stove, just off the heat.

Codrin
:   Well, alright, how about I just cut the onion and you find the paprika. We'll also need flour.


