Aurion didn't really like Alma's answer. 'Food that won't rot your insides?' He thought about that, as he looked at the pork and chicken and steak on the plate. Each time he said those words to himself he said it with more scorn. He started to think she had something against meat. So he said so. "You no like meat. That what you mean? It no rot insides." And to prove his point he snatched up something from the plate and without looking took several bites of the raw meat, swallowing each hunk almost as soon as he had taken the bite. It was done quite fast and he put each finger in his mouth and sucked off the juices from them. "What more healthy than meat?"

Aurion didn't just eat meat, but it was the main part of his diet. He tried to avoid anything he actually had to chew, since that action was actually a hell of a chore for the lizard man. His teeth were not designed for chewing. It had been hard to get use to years before, but being unable to perform the action forced him to get rid of that habit quickly. Every so often he tried it. Constantly he had to tilt his head to get the food to stay in one area of his mouth, open and close his jaw, usually slowly, and try to hold the food in place with his tongue while making sure not to bite a little bit of it off. It was one thing he did not miss about being human.

Except he missed sunflowers and the occasional peanut, but mostly sunflowers. There really was something surreal about relaxing, cracking open sunflower seeds with your teeth, then spitting the shells out and away from you. Unless you're that extremely strange person who ate them shell and all. He had never understood that and even as an adult he didn't get it. His throat itched at the thought. He had tried it when he was younger and a piece of the shell had stabbed his throat, making him hack and cough and tear up. Never again did he try to eat the shell.

Watching Miles stumble and look awkward in a kitchen made Aurion glad it wasn't him and appreciate that he didn't need to cook food. Finding that tidbit out was...interesting. It hadn't been long after he had killed his parents and ran away, but he hadn't yet gotten the hang of stealing the food he needed. Hunger and the need to eat was odd for Aurion. Sometimes, if he's been active often or plans to be, he needs to eat often or eat very large meals. If he's been lazy or had no reason to move, thus not use much energy, he could go quite a while between meals. So figuring out how long he had gone without eating was difficult, though guestimate put it at a week, but less than three weeks.

He hadn't yet reached starving, probably, but for a kid, especially a teen, any time you go hungry for a period of time, you feel like you're starving and going to die. Becoming desperate he had chased down a stray dog and fell upon it in a frenzy. Even then he knew, somehow, you don't eat certain parts of the thing. Not being able to use matches or lighters, and not having the skill, at the time, to make a fire, he hadn't even tried to cook it. He knew you weren't suppose to eat raw meat, every kid knows that. But nothing happened. Didn't get sick. Didn't die. In fact he had felt perfectly fine, better than he had in days. After that he ate everything raw. At least until he was older, then he did figure out how to make a fire, and use lighters. Charcoal fuel came in really handy. Still, that was just to make the stuff hot, not to cook it.

Remembering that Aurion chuckled just slightly. Though it did seem to time perfectly with Miles finding the 'spatula'. For all Aurion knew it could have been a spatula, he hadn't been old enough to try cooking before his mutation happened. So he kept his mouth shut as Alma went to help. She called it a 'slotted spoon', he had to admit it did look like a spoon, so that made sense. And if that was a slotted spoon, what was a...Oh, that thing.

He knew what that was! A food flipper. Yes, that is what Aurion knew it as. It was childish, but he was a child when he had see them. He had probably heard or been told what it had been but as a kid, you don't care about that sort of thing. Yup, he was glad it wasn't him, he already had enough people thinking he was stupid because of his speech. So he watched and listened while trying to seem only mildly involved and interested, which really wasn't hard, for him. Inhuman facial features did help sometimes.

"Uhh..." He had not expected Alma's question so he didn't have an answer handy. That wasn't completely true. He had never thought about it. "I not sure." It was the truth. Shrugging, "Changes. Sometime lots, few times day, sometimes once day, big meal." Tail slipping through the large handle of the fridge, he pulled it open and peered inside. The meat on the plate was going to be gone soon, so he would get more. He pulled out a carton of eggs. After shutting the fridge he grabbed a bowl from the shelf.

You would think eggs would be horrendously difficult for Aurion to pick up without breaking, it had been. Just like it had been terribly annoying to figure out how to hold them without dropping them. Then figuring out how to crack them open without crushing the shell. Yeah, the whole thing was terrible. But he did it. And he had gotten pretty good at it, he still broke a few badly or crushed the shells at times. Aurion proceeded to crack the eggs with his claws and drop the contents into the bowl. "Like eggs?" He asked the woman before he looked to Miles, "Want some?" If they did he'd only crack open six of the eggs.

Oh, she was getting closer, shewasgettingcloser!

She took the... slotted spoon (¿?) from his hand and replaced it with... was THAT a spatula!? How was he supposed to know that? He remembered his mother using it but it looked like a fly swatter with holes too big to be of any use and the name didn't even make any sense.

Oh well, no need to look all stupid now.

"I knew that, I was just testing you..." he said with a smile as he placed the spoon on the table and accepted the spatula from Alma's hand. "Now, to turn this thing on..."

Where's the on/off switch? Does it even have one? He remembered his mother turning the knobs around but did this thing have an on/off switch? Miles tried to spin one of the dials but it wouldn't budge. He tried it the other way around and nada. He pressed it and the dial clicked, allowing the boy to spin it around. He did so and noticed how one of the burners started to turn red hot.

"HAH! I've discovered FIRE!" he said.

Alma and Aurion started to talk about food and what each other liked to eat and how much and... whatever, it was just making Miles hungrier (Aurion looked like he ate trucks for breakfast and Alma was probably a veggie). He placed the pan over the burner and waved the spatula around like a magic wand, pointing at the pan.

"Abracadabra, now cook me a meal!" he joked, hoping for Alma to start giving away more pointers. He really didn't know what the next step was. Did he just dump the meat in the pan and waited? Did he need to add stuff to it first? He was kidding mostly so he wouldn't look too nervous, since this was, like... the closest he had ever been to a real woman while they were both in their underwear.

Aurion offered eggs and the boy grinned. "Yes, please" he said. "But don't tell me you eat those raw as well? Wouldn't you like to try the difference between a cooked meal and a raw one?"

>> “You no like meat. That what you mean? It no rot insides. What more healthy than meat?"

“That’s not what I mean… well, not entirely,” Alma murmured, “I just like… clean food. Some meat is cleaner than others. I like clean food. Natural food. I don't know the word for it...”

Alma winced as Aurion scarfed down a piece of uncooked meat, directing her attention back towards Miles. Maybe he knew the word for it?

>> "Uhh… Changes. Sometime lots, few times day, sometimes once day, big meal… Like eggs? Want some?"

“No thank you,” Alma said politely. As she passed the spatula off to Miles, the boy attempted to play it cool.

>> "I knew that, I was just testing you..."

“Sure you were,” Alma said with a faint laugh, “Reverse psychology, yes?”

Miles went about trying to turn it on, and Alma watched quietly. He seemed to be getting it! Well, this probably wasn’t as bad as she thought it’d be. At least he was able to turn an oven on. Miles tried to enchant the pan into cooking the meat on its own, and the young woman let out a slightly less-subdued laugh… she still kept quiet lest the other residents were trying to sleep, however.

“Very good,” the young woman complimented him, “Now, we wait for the pan to heat up—which shouldn’t be too long—and then we cook the meat, and ta-da! Food.”

“Soon, you will be frying meat for all of your lady-friends,” Alma said reassuringly. Because obviously, a cute boy like him had lots of girls lining-up to eat fried meat with him. An idea occurred to Alma, and she snapped her fingers, “We could make a scramble! Eggs, meat… they probably have onion around here somewhere. That’d be good.”

It was, of course, a suggestion, so the young woman looked to Miles for his ruling, “It would be really easy. All in a frying pan.”