- Spoiler: show
Most people hated being assigned chores in the kitchens, because it was hot and stuffy and full of strong, raw smells from the freshly baked bread, simmering soups, platters of cheese, dishwashing soap, overripe fruit, composting scraps, and a persistent underlying waft of smoke from the fires that clung to hair and clothing. They also hated it, because the work was hard and unforgiving, full of sharp objects and fires and repetitive motions and plain manual labor.
But Jun loved it. He didn’t mind scrubbing pots and pans, hands raw and shoulders sore, if it meant that he could sneak bites of sweets or taste-test the cook’s newest concoction. He didn't mind peeling a thousand and one potatoes while listening to the gossip that traveled throughout the kitchens faster than lightning. And he loved seeing the process of transforming raw ingredients into delicious, hearty meals that would feed the entire Tower.
If the head of the Tower were the Triumvirate, Jun thought that the heart would be in the kitchens.
And Jun loved the people in the kitchens. The easy camaraderie, the controlled chaos as people performed their individual tasks yet worked together as a whole, a part of something greater than themselves. From the quietest maid to the boisterous prep cooks, Jun loved them all, even the squat, intimidating woman who held the title of the Mistress of Kitchens. She wielded her spoon like a warhammer and wasn’t shy about smacking idle students, but she was also warm and funny and kind.
Sometimes Jun felt that the Tower could use a few more warm, funny, and kind people. Everyone walked around looking so serious all the time, the Warders gliding cat-like through the halls, their hands never straying far from their weapons, the Aes Sedai and Asha’man gathered in clumps, always seemingly embroiled in some plot. And as a student, Light forbid you caught the attention of any higher-ranks. One wrong move, one wrong word, and you were sent packing to whoever directed your learning for a firm scolding if you were lucky and a close acquaintance with the paddle if you weren’t.
And so, because Jun loved working in the kitchens, he often traded with other learning ranks for their shifts. He didn’t understand why people would rather pull weeds in the gardens - solitary and boring, in his opinion - or re-arrange books in the library with stodgy Browns, but hey, he wasn’t going to complain.
The kitchens was a welcome escape from everything else. Being a learning rank required so much studying. Not that Jun disliked books, but there was just so much to learn that Jun’s head sometimes felt like a clay pot overstuffed with fermented vegetables. The pot would seem able to hold everything in the beginning, but after it was packed tight and closed and a little bit of time passed, the fermentation would cause bubbles to fizz and the air would expand. If there was not enough room at the top then the clay pot would explode. Jun wasn’t about to explode - not yet - but he could feel the pressure.
Altogether, for many, many reasons, Jun spent a lot of time in the kitchens.
Each morning, the Tower kitchens received shipments of fresh produce and meats. Jun was helping carry in the last of the crates when behind him, he heard the cart driver curse.
“Ya! Bloody stupid cat!”
Jun looked back and saw a cat jump off the cart wagon. It landed gracefully on all fours, and then turned to hiss at the cart driver. It was large, with patches of white, orange and black. Jun set down his crate and squatted to offer a hand to the cat. It simply sat and watched him with pale, green-gold eyes.
“Hello there,” he murmured.
The cart driver sighed. “You want her, kid?”
A few seconds passed until Jun realized that the man was speaking to him. “Um,” he said eloquently, and blinked.
“She’s a stray. Been tryin’ to get rid of her. She keeps coming back ‘cause the wife feeds her,” the man explained. “But I don’t want my property swarming with kittens. She’s pregnant, see. So I gotta find someone to keep her. What do you think?”
Jun realized that’s why the cat looked so large. Her belly was swollen and hanging low.
“I-I don’t know,” he stammered. “Don’t know if I’m allowed t-to, should p-probably ask the Mistress of Kitchens -”
Then he felt something soft and warm tickle his fingers and looked down to see that the cat had approached him and was licking tentatively at his hand. It was probably because he had helped throw out some fish guts for the cooks that morning, but it was so cute that Jun’s heart clenched and he knew that he couldn’t say no.
He ended up sneaking her into an empty crate in the kitchens and feeding her scraps, and when the Mistress of Kitchens demanded to know why he was skulking around, he told her everything. As he spoke, he widened his eyes and pouted his lips and gave her the most innocent, puppy-like look that he could muster. And though the cook knocked him on the head with her spoon and complained - (“Don’t be pulling those eyes on me, boy!”) - he heard the warmth and forgiveness in her tone and knew that the cat could stay.
And so Jun found another reason for his list of why he loved the Tower kitchens.
But a few weeks later, Jun also found out something else. Taking care of a single pregnant cat was very, very different from taking care of a cat and her eight squirming kittens. What under the Light was he supposed to do with them? When he approached the Mistress of Kitchens, she only laughed.
“Now you realize the problems of responsibility,” she said. “You can’t feed ‘em, or keep ‘em, or leave ‘em. Well, I ain’t got an answer for you. Quit dawdling and get those pots washed, we don’t got all day!”
As he scrubbed away, elbow-deep in soapy water, he thought: There are hundreds of people in the Grey Tower. There’s got to be somebody who’ll know what to do with these kittens!
So he put a paper on the bulletin.
“Sweet kittens looking for a home,” it read. “Please find me if interested. Jun Valdera, soldier.”
And then Jun waited.