Nyrandisa had gotten everything fully prepared. She was about to take on an enourmous undertaking...
baking a cake the Jeran way.
Yes. The daunting task was making a cake. She had the eggs, milk, butters, sugars, flour, naturally sweet plants, mint, vanilla, cocoa, and everything to make it with ready. She first had everything laid out and started with making the sweet sweet icing by mixing sugar, milk, softened butter, and having seperate batches for the mint, vanilla, and chocolate icings. She had to make sure the consistency was right. It had to be thick with sugar. After the mixing of icing was done? Making everything else for the cake's fluffy base. If only she had some help...
(Open Prompt)
September 11, 2018
LadyDeme:
Seed entered the mess tent, which, given that The Pack was rather disorganized to begin with, meant entering a space full of half-a-dozen different cooking styles, techniques, tools, and ingredients, which no one actually took care of earlier. He'd been considering exactly what to do with the fruit ripening on his branches -- slightly purple and visible among the green now -- and lifted the tent flap to see what they actually had to work with. The air was smoky -- the downsides of trying to protect the supplies and fire by enclosing it -- but that was not what made the atmosphere thicken as he stepped in.
It was the awkward silence as he debated just running for the hills, fleeing to a safe distance, and most importantly, just leaving Nyra alone. It had been a while since their talk, and they'd mostly been dancing around each other. He didn't, though. He let his arm drop, and the tent close itself off behind him.
"Ah. Good afternoon. It looks like you're ready to bake something big."
NethaEmerald:
She wasn't too far along with the icing before someone stepped into the tent to see what she was doing. Upon hearing the voice, she knew who it was. Without looking up right away, she responded to Seed with
"Indeed. Looking to bake a cake the Jeran way. Still working on icing here. Haven't started on the cale better yet."
She eventually looked up to Seed from the mixing bowl for vanilla icing and asked
"Think you could give me a small hand?"
LadyDeme:
"Of course," said Seed, walking over to her and eyeing the supplies laid out. Quite a busy set of flavors, it seemed, the scent of mint and chocolate -- taking advantage of their locale -- were punchy notes in the air, stronger than even the trapped, confined burning of the well-lit firepit; bright, really, and lightening, and just a little bit cooler.
"What do you need?"
NethaEmerald:
When Seed offered to help, the Jera let out a relieved sigh.
"If you could start with stirring the chocolate and mint icing until it becomes thick, that would be nice. If it's not thick, add sugar."
Before Seed could even move, she fluttered over with precision to the materials to make the batter. Oddly enough, there wasn't any sugar with the batter, but extremely sweet plants laid out. She was planning to extract them for their very sweet innards.
"Everything should already be in the icing." She added on when she collected her thoughts before extracting the plant juices into some bowls.
"Blast... I might need more sugar here..." se mumbled to herself.
LadyDeme:
Seed politely did as instructed, though he did have to wonder if this wasn't going to lead to a bit of downtime when the cake was actually cooking. Nontheless, he held the icing bowl in place and began to methodically stir it around; at first, there was very little resistance, as the icing was still mostly liquid and lumps.
"What exactly, if I might ask, is the Jera way of baking?"
NethaEmerald:
"Lots of sugar and really sweet stuff." Nyrandisa was quick to respond with. "If it doesn't give a Beorc cavities by taking one bite it really isn't sweet enough to be desert."
She continued to make the batter, again, in three batches. One as vanilla, one as mint, and the last as chocolate.
LadyDeme:
"I see," said Seed, with some amusement. It was a shame the timing of this grand cake-baking expedition was off, or he'd offer up some fruit for it. Alas. The chocolate icing was beginning to thicken satisfactorily, though it wasn't there enough yet, just enough that he was beginning to put his shoulder into the motion.
"Will this be a layer cake, or three separate cakes? Chocolate and mint do go well together, after all."
NethaEmerald:
When asked what kind of cake it would be, Nyrandisa quickly responded with
"Layer cake. It's the only way to do something like this. I suppose I could have done a mixed/swirled cake, but having layers that can be savored individually sounded much better to me."
When she was done talking that, she had just finished the mint batter and started on the chocolate.
"Mint batter is done. Chocolate is coming next, then vanilla. After that, we'll get some downtime so I can watch the cake bake to make sure it doesn't burn. Unless you'd rather start on the vanilla batter and we finish off the rest of the icing while we wait for the cake to bake."
LadyDeme:
"I think it'd save us a bit of time that way," Seed answered, moving over to the supplies for the vanilla batter. While most of the icings were collected, leaving only the mixings, the batters weren't yet really assembled; only the supplies. Given that baking was rather precise, he wanted to be sure he was getting it right, and so looked over for anything to give him a suggestion of how to account for her ingredients.
"I know a recipe for cake, but do you have a list of the measurements you have in mind for this?"
NethaEmerald:
"Crap! I knew I forgot something. Come stir this one and i'll get the amounts ready for the vanilla in the meantime."
Without even waiting, she fluttered over to the vanilla one, along with the ingredients, and started to measure them out. The tricky part was extracting from some of the plants that were far sweeter than sugar. After a few moments, she had it ready and began to stir the vanilla one.
It was clear that, when in the kitchen, she's very commanding and totally different from her normal self. After all, she wanted her very best in everything she made.
September 12, 2018
LadyDeme:
Seed did as instructing, stirring the batter that he took from her as he worked on smoothing out the lumps of flour under the waves of wet ingredients. It was a fairly quiet process, one where he could spend a moment just observing the unusually intense bustle behind her behavior. A bemused smile bloomed. After a while, where the batter was growing more and more properly battery -- ah, there was the cake pan, very good, he asked,
"About how large an oven are we working with?"
NethaEmerald:
After a small bit, the Jera had everything ready for the vanilla and began to stir it all together. The tent was smelling like sugar, mint, vanilla, and chocolate now. As she stirred, she looked back to Seed and answered his question with
"Big. It's got to be used to feed multiple people many things. It will be big enough for all of the cakes."
As she continued to stir, she started to hum a melody. A melody she learned as a kid from her mother.
LadyDeme:
Seed nodded, clear on the order of events here -- it wasn't as if it would be impossible to bake them seperately, after all, just a matter of distinction. As the batter was truly mixed (he ran his spoon across it, once more, checking for if it encountered anything that would suggest the consistency was wrong. Nothing.), he poured it slowly, and as smoothly as possible, into the round cake pan.
And he listened quietly, trying to absorb the song that filled the air in much the matter as the sweet smell of the ingredients. His head tilted back for a time; was he looking for recognition of it? No, though he only realized that as he realized he didn't know it. Rather, he was trying to squirrel some part of it away; it was a good song for work like this.
"What song is that?" He asked.
NethaEmerald:
When Seed inquired about the song, she stopped humming it and turned to seed with a soft smile.
"Something my mother would sing to me before bed when I was young. Or when I was in a rough mood. I never did quite learn the name of it. I still remember the lyrics."
She had finished stirring her batter and got it into a pan. Once all three pans were in, she took a breath as her eyes looked like they were dreaming.
"Whenever I hum or sing it, I can hear my mother's voice alongside it."
September 13, 2018
LadyDeme:
Seed drifted on that thought for a while -- not pushing it along, not pushing it away, just letting it float there in his mind, swelling currents he wanted to sort through. It was a little stab of a feeling, buried deep in him. It was a relaxing feeling he could sink into. It made him want to own something, anything, just reach out and take something he found there. The current tugged him around like that, all in opposite directions. So he just smiled, packing into it a far-off wistfulness.
"...I don't exactly have anything like that, so I think it's a wonderful thing to have... Were you two close?" He asked. There was a hesitation in the question, since he knew that, whatever it was -- it didn't end happily. Close, or distant, Nyra had lived without much chance of going home to it, if it still existed. Still, he kind of wanted to know. The closest thing he had to that song, he mused as he smoothed out the batter's surface across the pan in wide, wide strokes -- almost like an inkbrush -- with the back of his spoon, was a few hymns Father Cornelius sometimes sang when he was fully preoccupied. Working songs, of a sort, containing quite a bit of glory and mercy.
NethaEmerald:
She thought on the question of how close she was to her mother.
"She was away on a frequent basis because she loved to communicate with non-Jera. The times she were home, she was a good mother. However... she was gone when I left home. My father was upset with me. I have no idea if my mother is upset with me too."
She took a break from the stirring if her icing to collect herself a little.
"Regardess of what happens, I have nothing but sweet memories of my mother. I just hope that when we go back there, if I'm still shunned, she isn't there to witness it, unlike my father. "
LadyDeme:
"I'll hope so as well, then," Seed said. And then he paused. And then he considered just how many pieces of this story he'd collected, getting tiny senses of something very concerning at play. He opened his mouth, and... Then walked back over to where they'd put down the last icing to be mixed. Sugar scraped along the bottom of the bowl. And instead he asked,
"I can tell you're a little uneasy about it, but are you nervous? About seeing Neraeda again?"
NethaEmerald:
Nyra didn't take long to respond Seed. Despite their rocky road, he was still the one she trusted and still felt for the most.
"Honestly? Very. I don't know if I've reformed enough for them to reconsider my circumstances. I don't know if the just gave me false hope. How will they react when I do go back as part of The Pack? Just so many uncertainties. The only certainty is that The Pack might need my help to navigate us through the cursed woods that protect Neraida."
She went back to focus on the batch of icing she was working on, with it almost done.
"But if I've learned anything since aiding the investigation, it's that I can't keep living in the past. I'm much more prepared than I was a few months ago to cope with the fact I might not be allowed home. I have come to accept I have to look towards the future and what I can do. Those things are either being an alchemist, a healer, or a cook/baker if all else fails."
LadyDeme:
His spoon left behind a wake in the thickening icing -- it wasn't quite fluid enough to quickly fall back into place. Seed's stirring slowed -- not halted, because that would be a problem, but his attention was more on her than on the icing. She seemed sincere about that, which was a relief. More pieces to that puzzle -- well, without getting into the details, he understood the rough shape. And that it was a shape receding.
"...I see. I doubt I'll be much help, but I'll do what I can to support you, whatever happens." He said, with a nod. He could throw himself back into the stirring, a quiet smile on his face. To settle that gnawing bit of his mind, he added, "...If you ever find you need to talk about whatever it was, I'll listen, then, too... But that might not be something you need to do, either."
As if that would be a wound she's want to reopen. Or something she could trust him with. But... Him being himself, that was all he could think that he could be good for. That, and stirring.
"I think this is about ready."
NethaEmerald:
"My icing here is just about done too. All we can really do is wait for the cake to cook."
She had responded when she had stopped mixing hers. She took just a little of hers and tasted it.
"Yup. Exactly as I wanted it to be." She remarked on it. Moving away from the icing, she sighed a little.
"Well, depending on what does happen in Neraida, I might need tons of support. I am not as naive in expecting things to go my way, but if things do go bad... I still might react poorly. It's been something i've tried to work towards for a majority of my life... about 25 years or so... and... I just don't know how I will react, you know?"
September 14, 2018
LadyDeme:
"I do," he said, thinking back on -- well, so much of his own life, the moments he'd been sure he was ready for something, sure he had understood something...And how pathetic he was thrown back in his face. The last time had been just a few days ago, and so he kind of had to smile at that.
"You think you understand how you feel, but when the moment comes..." He shook his head. "You realize how much you've been ...Maybe protecting yourself from how you feel, from what you'll do, because of what you wanted to feel, wanted to do. You yearn to be better than you were, or are, and maybe, even, sometimes you are better... And sometimes, you couldn't predict yourself as well as you wanted to, steel yourself as well as you wanted to. So I understand..."
He relaxed a little, lifting his head back up so the fruit and leaves made a little clattering noise, and leaned against the worktable they'd been using. The fire crackled up around the form of the oven.
"It'd be a little mocking, in light of that, to say I'm sure I'll continue supporting you, but I can at least say this is what I wish, and what I'll try for."
NethaEmerald:
Nyra had understood and agreed with everything Seed just said. Just a few days ago events that she had anticipated, and maybe him too, did not play out nearly as planned or hoped for. And yet here they were; still on talking terms at least, and maybe with a little of one-way feelings.
"No: I understand. In fact, that's probably the best I can hope for. It's a little rude to expect everything to go my way. The world doesn't work like that. But what I can expect..."
She took a moment to check on the cakes after the flames shot up.
"Is that I will keep my eyes on this cake and make sure it comes out right."
LadyDeme:
"Ah, the things in life one can control. Cakes," He said, chuckling a little at the abrupt turn onto the cakes themselves. He paced around the fire at a safe distance for a while, checking it to make sure the heat it was producing was level. There was a little bit of a lull on one side, he thought, and reached for a poker to try and rev a bit of life into it.
"I've always found tea a bit random, but comfortingly so."
NethaEmerald:
As he chuckled at her obsession back at the cake, she remarked with a small blush
"I just want this cake to come out well."
When Seed tended to the fires, the Jera smiled back at him.
"Thanks for doing that. Well, it looks like the cake process should be fine from here. And finding something random to obsess over isn't bad. If you want to stay and wait, you can, but I won't force you. Watching cakes bake in the oven isn't terribly exciting, I know."
September 15, 2018
LadyDeme:
"Hmm... I have something I need to do, so I ought to do that," he said, his eyes falling over their supplies. Yes, he'd found what he was looking for, on reflection. There were supplies to make a jam or other preserves, which was a relief. He now could wait to ripen without too many other concerns impacting that.
"So I will hope that your cakes turn out well; I'm sure they'll be quite good."
Thus satisfied, he began to exit the tent.
NethaEmerald:
Nyrandisa waved him off before watching the cakes again.
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