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// 16. I Am Unknowingly Pursued. 
// Story: The Little Wooden God 
// by Apophis797 
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The first few days after the move have gone surprisingly smoothly. Obviously I'm not running the nicest place in the world but the stuff I sell is cheap and the nicer side of the city is absolutely full of tourists. They also seem to be gearing up for a small festival of some kind, although I couldn't say which one. My home town used to have a few every summer as a way to draw in extra tourists and with how well they work it's not hard to imagine the city doing the same, although I couldn't say what it was for. Still, if it means more people in the city buying little tchotchkes and souvenirs than it's a good thing in my book. I'm still selling the figures almost as fast as I can make them, even with the increased price, and for once I'm actually able to eat a proper meal every night instead of as a special occasion. Most of my favorite recipes are a bit much for my current situation but one that's surprisingly workable at the moment is teriyaki chicken. Well, honey-soy mystery bird but it's the spirit that counts. 

There are a lot of ways to go about something like this but my favorite, and one of the easiest, started out with cutting the birdmeats into more or less thumb-sized pieces. Then I made a batter by mixing some starch into some eggs with a fork and seasoning it with salt and pepper. I then mixed the cut up birdmeat into it and moved on to the sauce, the heart of any such dish. In this case it only had four ingredients, soy sauce, honey, vinegar, and a bit more starch, but you don't really need more than that. That's part of why it's so great for a situation like this where you don't have a properly stocked pantry yet. With them all mixed together it came to the main part of the preparation. Actually cooking it.

Normally cooking a dish like this would be extremely simple but not having good heat control complicates things and I didn't think re-inventing the gas stove would be a feasible short-term project. I'd made the fire smaller than normal but my main form of temperature control would still be taking the heavy-bottomed pan, the most expensive part of this endeavor, on and off the heat. The first part, though, was easier to handle. I let the pan heat up until a drop of water immediately sizzled and poured the birdmeat-batter mixture in so the batter formed a coating. Once every few minutes I broke it up and mixed it a bit until most pieces had formed a coating on most sides. For this sort of thing it didn't really matter if it was complete.

Once I felt it was ready I added the sauce and covered the top of the pan with a piece of sheet metal. That's when the real heat management fun began. I needed to keep it at a simmer long enough that all the pieces were completely cooked through but my makeshift stove didn't have a simmer setting so instead I had to pay close attention as I left it on the heat until I heard it begin to bubble, take it off the heat, and then wait long enough to let it cool a few degrees below boiling but not enough to actually cool. Realistically it was a couple minutes. From my very hungry perspective it felt like forever. Finally, though, my meal was done.

I've never been big on nostalgia but I'm honestly not sure how else to describe the flavor. It was a standard meal in my arsenal for a while, alongside various other asian forms of meat in sauce, and even with some holes in the ingredients it still hit all the major notes. Soup may be a more common comfort food but this was always my go-too, after mac and cheese of course, so having it, along with the knowledge that before long I'd be able to eat like this all the time, made it feel like everything would be okay.

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Twilight's eye twitched as she looked at the small wooden statue floating in front of her. It was a nice little statue, somewhat rough but well-made and carved from good pine with small amounts of paint used as accents. It would make a fine addition to any cluttered desk. It was, however, decidedly not a pony. It wasn't even from Equestria, the bipedal figure's thin limbs and elongated feet resembling a monkey more than any known sapient species. The only thing she had seen that looked the same as it, though, was the monster she had been pulling her hair out over for the last several weeks.

"Lyra... Where exactly did you get this?" Her voice was calm, measured, and far more unsettling than when she allowed herself to be audibly worried. A tone perfectly matched by her strained smile.

"Oh, it was just some little stand in the Canterlot markets. I could mark it on a map if you want." Lyra's tone, in contrast, was one of helpful confusion, unsure at what exactly she had done wrong but eager to solve this new problem.

"And the one that ran this little stand in the Canterlot markets. Did they, perhaps, happen to look something like this?" 
A scroll levitated next to the figure, surrounded by the same diffuse purple glow. On it was a different figure of the same species, although much more proportionate thanks to measurements she had taken before her guest had woken up.

"More or less. I think they had a beard though." She slowly backed away as her less than stable friend drew closer. "Oh, the clothes were the same! I remember because what sort of pony wears clothes in the summer? Especially since they were pretty torn up. Like, yeah, I'd get it if it were a fashion thing but they looked like they had been wearing them for weeks and I was getting hot just looking at them. Of course, I couldn't say it to their face since it might be something important but- Oh. Sorry. I was rambling again, wasn't I."

Twilight let out a slow sigh, her focus on the problem at hand momentarily broken. "That's alright Lyra. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a trip to plan."