How Green Becomes Wood

Soon enough, Dark, Daizi, and Ivy came back downstairs, very ready to eat. Dark stopped briefly in the kitchen to bring flatbread out while Daizi put Ivy in her high chair, saying, "Dinner smells really lovely."

"As I was telling you," Dark said entering the dining room, "Alec helped with it."
 
"Do not sell yourself short, you also sizzled the peppers," Dark said, "and you helped assemble it... and technically you did slicing, not chopping."

"You are so pedantic, my love," Daizi chuckled. "Are you feeling any better or worse, Xander?"
 
"Slicing is harder than chopping. It takes a lot more concentration," Alec agreed.

"I guess about the same," Xander said. In truth, he was struggling to tell, but he thought it might have gotten worse. Not by a lot, though, just a little. Maybe. Mostly, it just ached. Sometimes, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain, especially when he tried to so much as twitch his foot. He's strained and sprained his ankles before, but this felt worse than usual. Maybe he was just overreacting.
 
"And that is why I must correct you," Dark nodded, "You deserve the credit."

Daizi frowned slightly, shifting her food around with her fork, "Well, if it does get worse, you need to tell us. I'll be cross if I find out you are downplaying anything in a misguided attempt to spare our feelings."
 
"I'm sure it'll be better by tomorrow, and if it's not, I'll tell you," Xander promised, and he meant it. He really did think it'd be better, but if it wasn't, he didn't want to deal with it any longer than he had to.
 
"Good," Daizi nodded, supposing she was satisfied with that.

Dark looked over at Ivy, who was happily eating her dinner, and said, "There are many parents at her playgroup who are stunned to learn she does not argue against these foods."
 
"We both are," Dark said, giving some due to his wife.

"I've met a lot of parents who will make one meal for the adults and a seperate, safer meal for their children," Daizi said, clarifying Dark's point for him, "and obviously there are some kids who are just naturally picky eaters and sometimes we've had to give up and feed Ivy something simple and palatable, but some of them have told us that since their older kid was picky, they don't even try to feed their younger kid 'adult' foods."
 
"That has to be so rough on everyone, and it would be so sad to miss out on trying new things," Alec said sadly. "I'm sorry for them, but glad for Ivy."

"Food is food," Xander said as if he hadn't just a few days ago spent hours trying to get a new cake recipe just right.
 
"If Ivy does not grow up to be an experimental eater, I will feel as though I failed a little bit," Dark admitted, using a napkin to wipe some of the food off of his daughter's face.

"I'm just really glad she's our last, because I don't imagine we could have an easier baby," Daizi admitted, "If we decided to have just one more, it's inevitable that one would be incorrigible."
 
Dark and Daizi paused to consider this, "You rank lower than Xander, but higher than you used to."

"Presuming a higher rank means you're easier to feed and a lower rank is more difficult," Daizi nodded in agreement, "Both of you learning to handle flavourful food increased your standing. You're both still lower than your father."
 
"How can we possibly rank lower than him? I'm pretty sure we accept a wider range of foods," Alec complained.

"We have a lower spice tolerance, but we do eat more," Xander agreed.
 
Dark looked at them both over his glass of wine, "You certainly do not eat more than I do."

"He can whine about some things," Daizi freely admitted to them, "but once you have gone to an all-you-can-eat buffet with him... you will understand he is not difficult to feed."
 
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"More as in more types," Xander said dryly. "I don't think the two of us together eat as much as you do."

"Not difficult until it comes to American food or sweets," Alec teased.
 
"He complains, but he and Cooger were once politely asked to leave a Golden Corral, so I don't think his distaste for American cuisine runs as deeply as he sometimes pretends it does," Daizi said with a little laugh.

"I do not like grease, and I was very high when they asked us to leave," He replied blandly, "I do think, though, Xander, that I probably have tried a greater array of cuisines than you have, because I have travelled more than you have."

"He did once eat fish eyes," Daizi nodded.
 
"I ate the rest of the fish too," Dark told them, unsure if he should feel annoyed or amused, "I had ordered fish at a restaurant, it did not come as a fillet, but as the whole fish: head, fins, bones and all. I am used to that, and generally think anyone who avoids eating the fish cheeks and head is foolish, but I had heard in China, and some other countries, eating the eyeballs is viewed similarly to eating the fish cheeks, so I used my fork, plucked one out, and tried it. I do not find them superior to fish cheeks, but they were nice enough."

Daizi swirled her wine around in the glass and said, "I can only say I did not try the second."
 
"I'm willing to try a lot of stuff at least once, but I'm going to have to draw the line at eyeballs," Alec said, shaking his head. "And fish cheeks? Do fish even have cheeks?"

"How come we don't travel?" Xander asked instead. "I mean, to the beach, which is awesome and I want to go again, but nowhere where we'll be eating fish cheeks or... tiger tails or whatever."
 
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