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Tetia would ask the question, “what more could go wrong?!” but that’s just begging for the universe to prove to her that there’s much more that can, indeed, go wrong; and Tetia isn’t sure if she’s brave enough for that! Not when it comes to being the self-designated leader of Operation Make-their-Professors-Breakfast, which is highly important and highly at risk of ruin!
So far, there have been a total of five spills, three shattered eggshells, two close calls with a knife, one hem that’s caught fire, twenty-three chocolate chips eaten, and millions of particles of flour thrown onto every surface and piece of clothing in the kitchen. Tetia doesn’t even know how! They’ve only been here for ten minutes!!
Normally, Tetia loves playing teacher. She enjoys telling Coco about magic and witch culture, she loves helping Riche with their glyphs, and she likes listening and providing feedback on Agott’s wild ideas. Those are all really, really fun for Tetia!
But this. This excursion in the kitchen, however, is a completely different story.
Riche sits atop the counter with swinging legs. They pop some chocolate chips into their mouth (twenty-four) , clearly fighting back a smile as they say, “Put them in the pyreball seal so they’ll cook faster.”
The victim of Riche’s constant churning of horrible, god-please-don’t-do-that! ideas, Agott, frowns. She stares at the pile of goop she’d tried to shape into circles to no avail. “I don’t think this pan will fit?”
“Try it anyway.”
Much to Tetia’s horror, Agott considers this, so she steps in for the fifth time that morning. “No,” she says, strict as she waves a wooden spoon at them. “That’s not how it works!”
“Yes it is,” Riche insists.
“Why not?” Agott asks, brows knitted tightly. Oh, Tetia wants to strangle whatever pro-witch-chef the Arkromes hired that forbid Agott from the kitchen. “Doesn’t the heat make them rise? I don’t want them to be flat.”
Riche, that little demon, presses their lips together to keep from chuckling. “No, not all the time.”
“The pyreball will just burn it,” Tetia states.
Agott directs a glare at Riche. “Why would you tell me to do that then?!”
A shrug and slight chuckle. “Riche wanted to see what would happen.”
Tetia rolls her eyes and returns to her task (mixing up a proper waffle batter that hasn’t fallen into the hands of kitchen-disasters). Riche isn’t mean-spirited in the slightest but sometimes, every so often, there’s a streak of mischief that weaves its way into their personality. Maybe it’s because Riche is becoming more comfortable, maybe it’s because they like to see Agott flustered, Tetia isn’t entirely sure and she normally would find it endearing! Except now she’s trying to ensure that breakfast turns out wonderfully for their professors and Riche is being…unhelpful, to say the least.
Not that Agott is helping too much either, which leaves her with one last person to depend on.
“Coco, could you please hand me the—” Tetia attempts to ask but the second she lays eyes on Coco, she knows that it’s pointless.
Coco is far too focused on the mechanics of the oven door, gaze never once leaving it as she pokes and prods and almost completely forgets about the pan of Breakfast Cookies perched precariously in her hands. She’s thinking quite hard about it and seems to be enjoying herself with all the happy mutters that reach Tetia. She’s done this with almost every magical cooking utensil handed to her.
Tetia shakes her head, setting the bowl down to rummage around for the waffle contraption one of their professors had brought back from a festival a few months back. She’ll just use it herself until she catches Coco’s attention then she’ll take the time to explain and show her how it works.
“Are you going to put chocolate in the waffles?” Riche asks.
Agott frowns yet again. “I thought we were making cookies?”
“Both,” Tetia sing-songs as she plops the iron onto the counter.
“We should have gone with Riche’s idea and tried to make Cookie Waffles…or Waffle Cookies…” Riche trails off, deep into a self-debate on what their amalgamate dish would potentially be called.
Tetia laughs. “We can hardly make them individually, let alone try to combine them.”
“Aren’t cookies meant for dessert?” Agott asks the question like it just occurred to her what they were making (it probably did). “Why are we making them now? Shouldn’t we be having breakfast food?”
Riche shoves the nearest piece of fruit—a strawberry—in their mouth and answers while chewing. “Chocolate goes in breakfast food all the time,” they counter.
“Doesn’t mean that it should,” Agott retorts right back. Riche is not phased, merely looking Agott in the eye and shoveling more chocolate chips.
Tetia snickers and attempts to retort but—
“Do I even want to know?”
All of the girls shriek at varying volumes—Riche goes so far as to grab the nearest object (a rolling pin) near them and try to wield it as a weapon. Professor Olruggio leans against the doorframe, hip cocked and a single eyebrow raised as he awaits one of them to answer.
“Well—” Tetia starts, fully prepared to launch into a rambled explanation (while glossing over the worse details) until she’s interrupted.
“Agott doesn’t know how to cook,” Riche says all matter-of-fact.
The squawk Agott lets out is much too loud for the quiet and much too offended for someone who’s never really cooked much. Coco cups a hand over the giggles escaping her and that only succeeds in making Agott turn redder.
“At least I’m trying to help! You haven’t done anything but sit there!” Agott protests.
Riche fires right back, “Taste testing ingredients is an important job.”
Coco hops into the conversation (a relief, because otherwise Tetia wouldn’t know how to break her from the focused trance). “Professor, we were trying to make you and Professor Qifrey some breakfast!”
Professor Olruggio hums as he skims over the state of the kitchen. Tetia knows it must look like the worst disaster but their professor doesn’t so much as wince. Of course, there’s still the beginnings of a frown on his lips that’s equal parts unsurprised and exasperated. He gives this look to their other professor a lot.
“Why are you up at this hour?”
In all honesty, it’s not an easy answer. She doesn’t know who woke up first or even how they all ended up awake after that person awakened. All she knows is that they were up before their professors, an impressive feat, and then Tetia had the idea to show their love to the professors by making them breakfast! Then they couldn’t decide and…
“Why are you up, Professor Oru?” Coco asks. Tetia can tell she’s genuinely curious but there’s also a slight tease to her voice. Her grin widens when Professor Olruggio snorts.
“Probably some really important project,” Tetia interjects with an over-dramaticized sigh. “One that requires all his time and energy! And even though our other professor will be upset to know that he’s still awake at such an hour, he still happens to be here…”
Professor gives a slow blink, not responding for a moment as he levels her with an unamused stare. “You’re around your professor too much. You act exactly like him.”
“Help us out and we won’t tell him you pulled your fifth all-nighter this week.” Tetia points a finger at him, laying the ultimatum down at his feet.
Professor Olruggio sighs. “Troublesome. All of you.” He ties up his sleeves as he walks over to them. “Please step away from the hot objects.”
Tetia does so with a satisfied quirk to her lips. She turns and throws a wink at her fellow students. “We’re making waffles.”
“With chocolate chips?”
Riche scoots a little closer to him on the counter. He, in turn, pushes her away when she gets slightly too close. “Riche wants something sweet.”
Their professor hums again, taking the bowl of batter away from Tetia to inspect it.
Coco says, “We tried to make cookies too.”
His eyes flicker to the dejected pan in Agott’s hands and the slightly-better version in Coco’s. “Ah…why don’t we save the cookie making for lunch? You know Qifrey loves to bake with you all.”
“And you too!” Tetia insists. They’re all a part of the atelier.
Professor Olruggio grunts and sniffs the batter, then dips his finger in it to taste. His mouth thins into a line. He turns to his left, where Tetia and Coco have both crowded in to watch him and motions for them to try it also. Then does the same for Riche and Agott on his right side.
Immediately all of their faces scrunched up. “How?! I followed the recipe!”
“Wait!” Coco rushes over to their pile of ingredients. She scans through them until she gets to a larger jar. “Um…I think we used salt instead of sugar?”
“There ya go,” Olruggio mutters as he goes to clean out the bowl.
“But! But! How…” Tetia trails off, the dots connecting in her head. She gasps and her jaw drops. “Riche!”
“Pff.”
Tetia marches over and snatches the rolling pin from Riche’s lap. “Hilarious! So funny!”
Riche insists, “Wasn’t on purpose…at first.”
Tetia doesn’t quite know what to do with her hands now that she has the rolling pin so she goes with her first instinct. She places the rolling pin on Riche’s head and begins rolling it back and forth softly, careful not to press too hard or catch their hair.. “I’ll squish you! Slowly but surely I’ll roll you flat!”
“Ah, help,” Riche says flatly but then starts to laugh. Actually laugh. Full on grin splitting her face, almost doubled over kind of laugh. The change strikes Tetia so much that she has to pause for a moment.
Tetia doesn’t realize until it was too late that she left herself wide open. Fingers poke gently into her sides and she squeals in surprise and laughter. She turns to see Coco with face flushed red and sheepish grin.
“Noooo, not you too, Coco!” Tetia laments.
“I’m sorry! We need our taste tester!” Coco’s chuckles start to spur more from Riche and Tetia.
A puff of flour rains down from nowhere and Agott joins the fray with powder-covered hands. She’s nose to nose with Tetia now, eyes bright and determined. Tetia just knows that Agott is fighting off her own laughter with a wavering scowl. “No we don’t!”
Agott flicks more flour in Coco’s direction to distract her and wraps her arms around a still-cackling Riche to lift them from the counter.
“Could you do this elsewhere?” Olruggio says calmly.
“Nope!” Tetia answers, sweet and innocent as she rolls the pin over Riche’s shoulders. “Not until they yield.”
“I won’t.” Riche squirms but so long as that smile is on their face, Tetia figures they’re okay with it.
Then they all launch into another round of playful fighting. Coco changes tactics and tickles Agott, Agott yelps and would have dropped Riche completely if Tetia hadn’t been there to catch them. Riche gets two handfuls, one of fruit and the other of flour left out by Agott and rubs Tetia’s cheeks with the flour while throwing the strawberries at Coco.
“Could you hand me the sugar from down there please?” Professor Olruggio says, intently measuring out the other ingredients.
They all pause for a moment and Agott delivers the sugar to him safe and sound. “Thanks,” he mutters but it’s lost to the shrill and happy laughter of all the girls.
It’s that same laughter that wakes up their other professor, who watches from the doorway for who-knows-how long before interrupting. Thankfully, all of them had the chance to help with what was left of the waffles and Riche even manages to sneak some chocolate chips in.
Their professor smiles at them and gives each a head pat and hair ruffle. “My silly girls. Thank you. There’s nothing quite like waking up to happy students.”
Tetia puffs up in a swell of pride. They’d needed some help from the professors in the end, but Tetia couldn’t be happier about the end product. Much better than salty waffles and charred cookies—though, Tetia gets the feeling that they would’ve ended up just as happy regardless.