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Sandra Lynn’s yawn was cut off by surprise when she entered the kitchen, despite being awoken by a cacophony of clattering and yelled curses, she really had not expected to see what she was faced with when she swung the door open,
“What are you doing?”
Fig turned, looking almost like a ghost with the truly insane amount of flour she was covered in,
“...nothing…?” The awkward silence was punctuated by the wet splat of some kind of mix dripping from her messy hands down to the baked warzone which had, a few hours ago, been a kitchen floor.
“Nothing?” Sandra Lynn nudged a baking tray covered in what looked like coal with her foot, “I have never seen ‘nothing’ be this messy,”
“Yeah, I’m pretty great.” raising her eyebrow at her daughter’s forced expression of pride Sandra Lynn just sighed.
“Fig,”
“Ok, so, not nothing,” admitted the flour covered girl, rubbing her hands on her skirt to get the mix off them, only serving to further ruin her clothes.
“So what’re you doing?”
“I’m…” Fig gestured around the room as if it should be obvious, “baking…”
“You don’t bake,”
“I have baked!”
“Fine, you rarely bake, and when you do it’s a disaster,”
Fig looked ready to argue but then her shoulders sank in defeat as she looked around the ruined kitchen, “Ok, yeah, that’s fair,” Then, pointing at a tray on the floor as if it proved something she added, “But I’m trying, ok?”
Sandra Lynn opened her mouth, then closed it a few times as she decided what part to question first, “Why?”
“Can’t get better if I don’t,” shrugged Fig, dislodging a clump of flour from behind her horn which exploded into a cloud of white dust on her shoulder.
“Fig, it’s…” yawning, Sandra Lynn looked over to the clock on the oven and groaned, “four o’clock, can you please just tell me what this is really about?”
Fig shuffled her feet awkwardly before responding.
“You know Adaine?”
“The wizard in your party?”
Even though she was fighting the urge to fall asleep on her feet Sandra Lynn didn’t miss the slight blush which tinged her daughter’s cheeks, almost hidden by the thick layer of flour.
“Yeah; well she um… her home life isn’t great,”
“I kinda guessed that from the whole, fake school uniform schtick,”
“Yeah, exactly and, her parents don’t let her do or try anything, and like, she had her first milkshake like a month ago and-” Fig was becoming more animated and Sandra Lynn decided to cut her off before she spiralled into a whole rant.
“What does that have to do with you destroying the kitchen?”
“Well I kinda wanted her to experience something new and I can’t make ice cream or pizza or anything like that so I figured I’d try baking her something,”
“You can’t bake either,”
“Well clearly,” Snorted Fig, “I thought I’d practise and maybe the cookies I’d end up with would be passable,”
“Somewhat sensible, doesn’t explain why you’re practising in the middle of the night though,”
This time the blush was even more prominent and Sandra Lynn narrowed her eyes.
“...”
“Fig?”
“I only thought of the plan today…” Fig looked over at the clock as well and cringed, “yesterday? Whatever…”
“And you had to do it immediately? You couldn’t wait until a sensible time? Or the weekend or something?”
“I don’t have a lot of time… kinda… working on a deadline…” Fig hadn’t turned back from the clock and was fiddling with some trays which had apparently survived her violent purge of them.
“What, why? Someone else is going to bake her something?”
“Well, they’re supposed to be… y’know… for today…”
“Today?”
“ Actually today, like not yesterday, today, the… fourteenth…”
“Wh-” It took her sleep deprived mind a couple seconds to catch up but when it did Sandra Lynn smiled in realisation, “Oh…”
“Yeah,” Fig groaned in defeat, “I know, doesn’t really matter now though, kinda out of time… and ingredients… and any lingering semblance of sanity,”
“How many have you tried to do?”
“That was my fourth batch,” Fig pointed at the blackened cookies on the floor in front of Sandra Lynn “And they’re somehow both burned and raw in the middle, and she would be nice and try to eat them even though they’re burned and then get salmonella and then I’d have killed the girl I have a crush on with my awful baking,”
“What happened with the other batches?”
“The first one just…” miming a collapse and making a loud deflating noise, Fig nodded at the overflowing bin next to her mom “melted and was a sheet of really thin cookie,”
“I’m guessing that’s when you threw the plain flour across the kitchen?” Sandra Lynn asked, bending down to scoop up the nearly full bag of flour,
“Yeah! It’s useless!”
“For making things like cookies maybe,” the ranger rolled her eyes affectionately as she placed the bag on the counter.
“And then I think I forgot to add eggs to the second one or something, and they all just kinda collapsed, then the third one I didn’t grease the pan and they got stuck and I had a bit of a breakdown trying to get them out,”
“And that was the cause of the shouting and the clattering and everything?”
“Yeah…”
Gingerly stepping around discarded eggshells and abandoned bowls Sandra Lynn placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder,
“Fig,”
“I know, ok?” Fig snapped, slamming a try down on the counter, “I know it’s really fucking dumb, and that it’s just another way of me avoiding talking about my feelings and doing something to hide them by doing a stupid deflection… thing, and that I should just toughen up and tell her how I feel but I can’t alright? She’s this brilliant, amazing, perfect wizard and I’m a random fuck up bard who’s never gone to bard class and can’t even bake her some stupid cookies,”
“I was going to say pass me an apron, we’ll have another go at it,”
“What?” Fig looked back at her mom with a confused expression.
“I think it’s a nice thing you’re doing, it’s very cute seeing you with a crush,” Sandra Lynn ruffled Fig’s hair affectionately.
“Mommmmm!!” protested Fig, ducking away but laughing anyway, reaching over to a chair and pulling an apron off the back and passing it,
“Thanks,” tying up her apron, Sandra Lynn nudged Fig with her shoulder, “and you’re not a fuckup Sweetie, I’ve got a fair amount of experience with being one so I would know,”
“...thanks mom,”
“Now, I may not be the best cook in the world, but I do know how to make some passable cookies,”
“Good, cause I was kinda running out of hope there,”
“Well, find hope for one more batch ok?”
Fig laughed but then her face fell.
“Crap, we’re out of flour!” she gestured forlornly at the empty bag of flour she had thrown partially across the room.
“Out of self raising flour, there’s still plenty of plain flour,”
“But that doesn’t do anything!”
Sighing, Sandra Lynn picked up the flour and started pouring it onto the scales.
“Left cupboard, there’s a pot of baking powder, get that out would you?”
With the state of the kitchen and the lack of sleep it took a lot longer than it should have to produce a palatable set of cookies, about half of them needing to be discarded, and a few more needing to be eaten as “taste tests”, but somehow Fig was able to catch the bus to school with a badly wrapped plastic box and only slightly late.
Seeing Adaine’s face light up as Fig handed her a box of, only slightly singed, heart-ish-shaped cookies was well worth the sleepless night and the several burns Fig had collected.