Gordon was catching his breath on the deck, breathing heavily and deeply as his chest rose and fell. He had been searching for the thief for half an hour. Running up and down on the ship. And still he hadn't managed to find the assailant.
He had asked everyone and he had gotten zero hint about who the assailant was. He had even gone to Flora and questioned her if she knew anything about it. He might as well start question himself at this point.
Begrudgingly he rose and then started to head back down to his precious galley below the deck. Even if the fish was stolen, he couldn't hunt for the assailant all day, he still had breakfast to prepare for everyone.
He picked out a few more fish from the cold box, filled with ice, and placed a few fishes onto the cutting board. The fishes weren't exactly anything too fancy, just some local common fish he had bought from the market in Purrt Royal called knifefish. Thanks to their peculiar nature of having a 'very' sharp fin. Well… turns out it isn't quite sharp enough to cut through slightly better fishing nets which pretty much means knifefish are pretty much just free estate for the fishers to snatch.
In fact, recently the amount of them caught has been so large, that some are starting to think they might vanish before long at this rate. Even Purrt Royal has limited the amount of knifefish one can sell on the market in hopes of preserving their population amount. Not that Gordon cared, God no, he was a cook on a pirate ship, not a fisher nor a politician.
Gordon took his knife, sharpened last evening so he could get straight to work in the morning with no need to put time aside for sharpening. The fishes were already prepared when he bought then, and he only needed to cut the skin off them and then chop them up into small cubes and then they were pretty much ready to be made into a soup.
Put first he needed to make the actual stock for the broth. Gordon grabbed a good chunk of butter and threw it into the pot and then sautéed the leeks in a saucepan.
After that he cut off the skin from the fish and took out another saucepan. Into which he poured a few cups of water and threw the fish skin to.
Then he cut up potatoes and carrots and dilly-dallied for a while before throwing them into the saucepan with the leeks after removing the fish skin from the other saucepan and pouring the water, now turned into fish stock into the other saucepan.
Gordon seasoned the soup with a conservative amount of salt and pepper. After letting it simmer for a quarter hour, he added the knifefish cubes he had cut up and then some cream. He let it cook on the stove for a while longer before. putting it on another stove that was slightly hot from having boiled the fish skin earlier on it.
"'n dat ladies 'n gentlemen was hell o' a tasty knifefish soup prepared."
Gordon can't help but say to himself as he looked at his pot of creation with proud eyes, like a father would look at his son.
- - -
Diane was laying in the back of the dark and damp cargo room. On her side, eyes closed and breathing a little heavy as she rested. Being on the sea, especially as a stowaway, really didn't live up to what some claimed back in Purrt Royal. Some fish skin with remaining bits of meat laid in front of her, gnawed till it took more energy to get any nutrients from it.
She'd been able to stay hidden from the crew of the ship for now by hiding in the back of the storage room and sneaking around the dark corners and small holes she managed to find on the ship.
Most of the food she got was from the crews' quarters, getting some little snacks they left out in the open during the night or day. Since they had almost all bought something little to eat in addition to Gordon's food. But today she had happened to be passing through the kitchen when she noticed the fish on the table.
And who could blame her for taking a little fish? She was a damsel in distress. That she was, stranded on a foreign ship on the open sea, faraway from the familiar streets and alleys of Purrt Royal.
Diane's thought was cut off by the sound of a door opening into the cargo as she practically jumped up onto all fours and dashed into a dark corner behind a big wooden shelf hosting some ridiculous looking junk.
Daring to sneak a peek from behind the shelf. Diane saw a tall and burly human man entering the cargo. Parading around in some silly looking big white hat, the kind that looked like mushroom, a bolete to be precise.
What's up with humans and their weird antics in dressing up the weirdest of clothes, probably symbolizing or asserting something stupid.
The burly man walked to the other side of the cargo room from where Diane was, he bent over and opened one of the crates stored in here. Leaned down and picked some large packet from it, then stood up. He put the lid back on the crate and turned to leave.
But he froze. On the floor there, exactly where he happened to look at. Was a fish skin, gnawed till practically no meat remained on it.
"So, the wee pilfer has been sneakin' around in the cargo?"
Gordon said as he leaned down and picked up the fish skin. He had just come here to fetch some more sugar for later as he had run out yesterday. Who would've guessed he'd run into evidence of the most heinous of crimes.
Gordon brought the fish skin closer to his face to examine it. There was so little meat left that there weren't even any teeth marks left, someone of the crew must have been really starving for a raw fish to end up like this—
Wait… what if it wasn't someone from the crew? Gordon makes very fulfilling and healthy meals. Nobody should be hungry enough to gnaw a raw fish to the skin.