Xiao Chen
Xiao Lei



Xiao Chen always cooked her own meals when she wandered around like a hunter. But when she was put into the kitchen, she really could only cook things she couldn't while out there in the wilderness.

Potstickers. Pork buns. Steam rice. Mmm.

After already making SO much of it in their Louyang home, Xiao Chen pretended that the items were like the challengers in the tournament and quickly threw the plates of food on the tables. "Yeah!!!! You're going dooowwwn!" She hopped around the kitchen and table.

"Lei-Leeeeiiiiiiiii, where are youuu!!"

Who was going down, Lei wondered as she hurried into the house, practically ripping her shoes off of her feet at the door. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!!” Lei shouted back, casting a narrowed eye around the corner for her parents before skidding down the hallway. “Potstickers ready yet? You make ‘em or did mom?” She couldn’t fault her sister’s cooking, it was a whole lot better than anything she could make, but mom’s meals? Heaven.

"Me, 'cause I dunno where Mom went. But you know, this instant crud isn't too bad. The dumplings, anyway. Had to make the pork buns from scratch, sorry they're not like Mommy's or whatever." She practically threw each chopstick at the table like arrows and they landed perfectly. "So what if the food doesn't taste good, at least it looks awesome when I set the table." She grinned. Chen spoke in Louyang the whole time. "Kinda neat to be home, yeah? Eat up! Anything we don't finish, I'm takin' it outside and sharing the wealth."

“Neat to be home? Neat for you, maybe. Me? I’m always home,” Lei sighed, flopping down at the table and taking in the setup before her. Not too shabby. “Looks good to me, Chen-Chen. Besides, I’m sort of in the process of avoiding Mom and Dad.” She arranged the chopsticks in her hand and debated with herself whether to wait for her sister to sit or to just start wolfing down her lunch. Tough choice. “Just make sure to save something for Yi-Yi.”

After Chen set the rest of the items she used on the table next to the sink, she hopped to the table and sat down. "Let's goooo!!!!" She slid the soy sauce over to Lei-Lei without saying that it was coming.

"I gotta save some for our other sistahs!!!" Chen gave a huge smile and started chomping down on the food. "YEAHHH POTSTICKERS," she said with her mouth full of it.

Lei grinned at Chen before stopping the soy sauce without even looking at it. “These are instant?” she asked with half a potsticker in her mouth, though she covered it with her hand. Her table manners weren’t the greatest, but Lei did know what kind of wars could be started by showing your sister a mouthful of half-chewed food. “They’re fucking good! Haha, I’ll have to go buy a bunch of these for late-night snacks.”

"As instant as your punches!!"

Chen noticed how Lei really loved it!! She grinned bigger, and ate as fast as she could. Afterall, talking meant eating too slow, and eating too slow meant you got full earlier, and that meant less potstickers in your stomach!!!!!!

The potstickers were gone in a matter of minutes. The pork buns followed soon after. Lei could almost feel the tears welling in her eyes from having consumed such a meal. Usually she tried not to eat too much (it was no good being a fat fighter, after all), but now she was resolute in eating until she could eat no more! All those calories burned in the tournament had to be replaced somehow.

The rice was a nice cool-down dish. So clean and fresh! “You know it, Chen-Chen,” she answered finally. “You should compete in an instant lunch tournament, too.”

"Bah, no one'd win 'cause we'd all be using this instant shit." She leaned back in her chair. "AAAHH, I'm stuffed. I gotta make more later for the other sisters." Oh boy, did that feel so totally good! She patted her stomach.

“Hmm? Maybe I can help,” Lei suggested, leaning back herself. “Go out and get some rice cakes for dessert? With red bean in them, maybe?” That sounded so good! She knew she needed to get back on track with her training but… she’d start tomorrow!

"Yeah. That's good. Dessert. Oh, that's what I missed. Boo. Whatever, I'll try and save some for myself tomorrow." She moved some of the empty plates out of the way.

"Hmm, don't think Mommy or Daddy will come back any time soon. Wherever they are. So tell me, what's this crud they've been telling you?" Chen looked around to see if any of the other sisters (namely Yi-Yi-- Mei wasn't around!) or any one else was around.

Lei watched as her sister cleaned the plates, frowning for a second before finally getting up to help her out. It would’ve been nice to just sit for a while, but she had enough of a conscience to not eat her sister’s food then lounge around while she cleaned. With a few dishes in her arms, Lei shrugged. “I get the feeling they’re trying to back off a bit, but I know they aren’t happy about me only getting second and third. I mean, they can’t out and out yell at me for not getting a title, how psycho would that be, but… I let them down. Guess I made it seem like a bigger deal over the journals.” Lei wasn’t the most articulate of people, nor did she have the best grasp of reality. Right after the tournament, she had been so certain that her parents were going to lecture her that she’d only come home after they were asleep. Really, she’d only been in their presence for meals, but… she knew how they thought.

"They should watch the shit they say, Lei-Lei. Oohh, hey, give it a rest. Sit down or somethin', I'm talking to you. Take a break, 'cause you need it more than me right now." She continued to tend to the plates and other things. "See, the deal is..."

Chen grew a little silent. "I guess you kinda know why I left home. Not just 'cause Kung Fu wasn't my style and crud."

Lei nodded, though she set the remaining dishes beside the sink anyway. “Yeah, I get it.” She’d always wished that Chen would give up Tae Kwon Do but she wasn’t going to change the way she felt about her sister because of it. Maybe she’d tease her from time to time, but it wasn’t a huge deal. “I think about leaving sometimes, too, taking Yi-Yi with me. It wouldn’t be fair to leave her alone with them, after all. Sure, she’d get lots of attention and love and all that but… I’m not sure it would be worth it, you know? Having to take all that pressure by yourself? And maybe Mom and Dad would cool off a bit if we weren’t around all the time.” Lei doubted the last point; if anything it would make them worse but she had a right to wishful thinking every now and then.

“How do you and Mei-Mei like Geffen? It seems like kind of a weird place to me.”

"Guess it's hard to say, I mean, we never see Mommy and Daddy fighting in the tourney themselves. I guess, uh..." Chen wanted to say something else, but decided it wasn't a good time now. "I'm sure you'd give Yi-Yi the love and attention she'd need. You've been doing it, haven't you? I must be a bad sister to not come home as often as you'd all like. Louyang and Rune-Midgard's a bit of ways."

Chen chuckled. "Geffen's got lots of magic types! I actually don't stay there too much and travel a whole lot. Doing random odd jobs. Told a guy once that I was like a hunter; makes sense, huh?" She laughed some more. "Livin' off the world. But I think Mei-Mei really fits that."

She moved another dish. "Just like Kung Fu wasn't my style, I found something that made me happier. Mei's got her magic stuffs. As long as she's happy, I think that's what I'd like my kids to be like if I were ever a parent."

“Yeah, I try,” Lei sighed, though she knew she wasn’t around for Yi-Yi enough. As much as she hated to admit it, she now did always put herself first, even when Yi was sick. With Li-Li gone, she supposed that her younger sister should’ve become her top priority but something had changed in Lei to keep her from following through. She just wasn’t up to being the responsible older sister, she supposed. “But you’re not a bad sister. We all love you Chen-Chen, even Mei-Mei. You do what you feel and I guess… I guess I look up to you for that.”

As for Mei, she knew that she wasn’t a magic type just because it suited her. Mei had always been the one with a flair for the dramatic, the one that had to be different and get all the attention. She liked making her life difficult and going against the family, Lei told herself, so she deserved everything she got. “What other cities are nice in Rune-Midgard? It sounds like you’ve seen a bunch of them.”

"Haha, look up to me? But I'm younger, you gotta look down, or something." She chuckled while juggling some cups.

"Yep. You know, this Payon place where I studed at the dojo was a neat place. Met some neat people. Moved on to Prontera. Got potstickers there, amazing crud they've got there from even the Islands. Alberta's the same deal. And uh, Morroc kind of sucked but I kicked a lot of people's asses on the streets 'cause they were stealing my crud, even though all they stole were my chopsticks. But hey, you know, those are my weapons for tackling food. Haha!!" She caught all the cups and set them on the counter. "Lots more where that came from, but you know. I ended up working random dishwashing jobs, taught this kid a bit of Louyang, and helped out an old lady for two weeks doing her little gardening thing. A little money comes a long way when you don't mind finding most of the food outside."

“I can do both!” Lei replied with a wink and a grin.

Even though some of it sounded really strange to Lei (why would foreigners steal her chopsticks? Did they not know what they were or something?), most of it just seemed plain exciting. It’d be fun to go on adventures in some backwards country. Yi-Yi would get to learn a lot about the world that way, too. She wasn’t sure if she’d have the courage to go through with it but moving to the mainland was starting to look pretty good to Lei. “Which is the biggest city? The most exciting one of all of ‘em?”

"Biggest? Exciting? Uhhh... hm. Prontera was like, ass huge. I guess that'll be the biggest. The exciting one might have been the Morroc place 'cause I had to fend for myself, and you know, getting into good fight is awesome. Street fighting's a great thing! Gets you with a ton of uh, I guess I could call 'em freestylists 'cause they're all self-taught cronies." She gave off a huge smile. "You gotta get around, Lei-Lei, the more you travel, the more variation in fighters you come across, and the stronger you can get 'cause you learn from many of them."

“Hmm, awesome. But I don’t know, it sounds like they were trying to mug you in… uh… More Rock. They might pull a knife on me and then things could get pretty hairy, you know? Man, a quick hit to the side with a knife and I could be out of commission for weeks.” That sounded scary, actually. She wasn’t so sure she’d want to take Yi to a place like that, not that they were going or anything, it was just a thought. Prontera seemed like a better place to settle down in if one was going to leave home, which one wasn’t. Maybe. Lei didn’t know yet.

"Well, like, you'd like Izlude if Yi-Yi's ever around with you when you travel, 'cause it's near Prontera, crime rate seems low, and it's a quiet neat little town. Na-Na lives there and she says it's too quiet, but whenever she's bored I think she goes to Prontera to get passion fruit juice or somethin'... oh, you know Na-Na? I met her through Mei-Mei, I think. It's kind of hard to remember, 'cause I also met Shiori or Wen-Wen through Mei-Mei, too. It's kinda neat, maybe you could ask Na-Na more info about stuffs in Izlude? She's also on the journals!" She scratched the back of her head and realized she got water and soap on her hair. "Doh."

“Yeah?” She’d have to remember all those names. Na-Na, Wen-Wen, Izlude… Lei decided to talk to Yi-Yi soon to see what she thought about the idea. It’d probably take them a while to convince their parents and get everything together, but… It sounded like it would be worth the trouble. “Thanks, Chen-Chen,” Lei said with a smile, “I’ll think about it.”

"I think you'd like travelling around. I know I sure did. How about we make more of this crud for everyone else, and head outside and celebrate like no tomorrow?" Chen picked up a plate and threw it toward Lei.

Catching the plate with a laugh, Lei nodded and got up to join her sister. “You’re on! But we can just not mention that most of it’s instant, okay?”

"Hahah, let them guess, right, let them pretend it's restaurant quality or whatever." She gave another huge grin, bringing her arm up with a fist into the air. "Come on, guts up! Let's get to work!!"