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It’s an unusual day down in cat cake village. Lunch time has been called but all of the creations are more occupied with the couple of puppets walking around with cake dishes. Whatever. Hertuh doesn’t care about them anyway, she just wants to find Ruan Meow. But before she can go on with her missions she catches a horrid smell like no other. And like the genius among cat cakes that she is, she starts hopping towards the source of the smell, needing to investigate whatever befoulment is happening.
Heading towards the food dispenser, or ‘matter manipulator’ as Ruan Meow insists on calling it, Hertuh soon finds said cake next to a very appealing but foul smelling thing.
“Ruan Meow, why are you standing next to this horrible stench?”
As she speaks Hertuh notices that a bite was taken out of the failed food item, and soon after she’s done Ruan Meow barfs up the missing piece that she clearly tried to chew on.
“Ruan Meow! Are you okay!?”
Hertuh jumps next to her and beats on the back of her shell to help Ruan Meow get out the last few pieces.
“I’m fine… it is merely another failed experiment.”
Hertuh wants to berate Ruan Meow more but it’s clear that the cat cake is still recovering from eating the disgusting concoction from her breathy and light voice.
“Why did you eat that thing? It smelled so bad!”
Hertuh can’t help but let her frustration out, not upset at Ruan Meow, but that she would let herself be uncomfortable and possibly harmed like this.
“Well, I only knew the smell was bad, I had to test the flavor too.”
“But flavor is 80% smell! You know this Ruan Meow.”
“Even if the whole was still unpalatable, any sign of a desirable flavor would be an interesting thing to isolate from this mess.”
Hertuh sighed, exasperated but also adored with her devotedly scientific friend. She wants to admonish her, soft and kind but still stern, but Ruan Meow's tummy rumble interrupts her.
“Didn’t you eat lunch?”
“I used my lunch as the ingredients…”
“Ruan Meow!”
Hertuh huffs indignantly and starts hopping back the way she came. Ruan Meow watches for a second before catching on that’s meant to follow when Hertuh looks back for a second. When the two of them arrive at Hertuh’s spot she sees her lunch still there, untouched.
“Since you were so foolish you can have my lunch. And don’t even think I won’t make you pay back later!”
Ruan Meow eyes the food and then Hertuh.
“But you haven’t eaten anything, you’ll go hungry.”
“A beautiful cake like me doesn’t need that to stay pretty. Besides, I couldn’t eat all that even if I tried, these portion sizes were made by gluttons!”
“Then we can share,” Ruan Meow jumps over to the food, and with a precise whip of her tail chops the rice ball cleanly in two, “you really need to eat something Hertuh.”
Hertuh looks at the half rice ball Ruan Meow is now holding up to her and at those softly pleading eyes and gives in with a sigh.
“Fine. But only because you told me to. And that will be another favor.”
Ruan Meow nods along as she’s eating her half of the rice ball.
“You’ll be the first person I’ll tell when I find a new recipe.”
“You tell other people!?”
“Well, no. I suppose you’ll be the only person.”
Hertuh huffs a bit but she seems to be satisfied by that promise, looking around a bit sheepishly. With both of them finished with the rice ball Ruan Meow feels the need to explain herself a bit more.
“I want to explore the matter manipulator more, understand the essence of how it combines things and what possibilities that opens.”
Hertuh listens intently, nodding along, but seizes the opportunity when Ruan Meow leaves an extended silence.
“And producing tasty pastries is just a side effect?”
“Not an unwelcome one, I’m sure you would agree.”
Hertuh looks around sheepishly again and then jumps into the corner, rummaging around to produce a plum pastry hidden there. She holds it up triumphantly and hops back to Ruan Meow, placing it between them and showing that it’s already cut in two pieces.
“I happened to have the ingredients lying around… and, well, I know how much you like pastries, especially plum flavor, so… I, the great Hertuh, wanted to share a piece with you.”
Ruan Meow smiles at her and Hertuh watches with anticipation as Ruan Meow hops closer and takes the first bite, relief washing over her when Ruan Meow lets out a delighted hum. She digs into her own pastry too and shares in Ruan Meow’s joy as the fruity and sweet flavors mix with the buttery dough in her mouth. With their moods lifted, Ruan Meow boldly declares:
“I want to ask Creator about the matter manipulator. My trial and error experimentation is costly and time consuming, I want to go to the source for answers.”
Hertuh laughs at first, but when she sees Ruan Meow’s determined expression she stops.
“Are you serious Ruan Meow? You know Creator rarely ever visits us, much less does anything for us. Even her companion only sneaks us a little more food, I doubt she’d have the knowledge you’re seeking-“
“Hertuh, look behind you.”
“Don’t interrupt me Ruan Meow! What could possibly be so important as to-“ As Hertuh glances behind her, Creator and her companion walk right past them.
“You’re telling me how you knew she was gonna be here later. Come now, let’s take this opportunity to get our answers.”
Ruan Mei walks determinedly towards the small tea table, her eyes already set on the assortment of cakes arrayed on it, but she stops when she feels Herta no longer walking beside her. She looks back to see that her fellow genius has stopped up, and moving her eyes down reveals the reason why. Two catcakes stacked upon each other, wisteria below and lambda’s friend on top, both of them imploring her with pleading eyes and pitiful meows. Ruan Mei meets Herta’s gaze with a questioning look but she deflects down to the catcakes.
“It’s been so long since you did anything for them, they miss you.”
Ruan Mei sighs. For some reason Herta has become emotionally attached to these catcakes in particular and goes out of her way to spoil them despite Ruan Mei telling her they need to learn to be apart.
“I didn’t expect sentient pastries to topple the great Herta’s heart.”
“And regular pastries rule over yours. Just do something for them Ruan Mei, I’m sure they’ll stop pestering you after that, they aren’t dumb.”
Ruan Mei looks one last time into their cartoonishly large eyes before going over and picking up the stack. The wisteria catcake nuzzles into her arm affectionately, but Ruan Mei ignores it, more occupied with the way lambda’s friend is pointing its tail towards the feed dispenser. Ruan Mei follows the direction and drops the catcake stack in front of the dispenser.
“That’s it? You have to do more than that.”
Ruan Mei just tunes out Herta’s rambling and looks at how lambda’s friend meows at her and keeps pointing at the dispenser with its tail. After a bit of thinking she gets an idea, walking away from the dispenser leaving Herta and the catcakes behind.
“Hey Ruan Mei! Where do you think you’re going!?”
After a bit of digging through the shelves Ruan Mei finds the schematics she has been looking for, rolling them up in her arm and returning to the curious catcakes and grumbling Herta. She drops the blueprints down next to the catcakes and Herta looks at her in disbelief.
“Really? Some boring schematics-“
Before she can continue, Ruan Mei nods her head towards the catcakes and Herta looks down to see the two creations already absorbed with reading and deciphering the technical document. The disapproving awe turns into pure surprise in Herta’s eyes, jumping between the catcakes and Ruan Mei who is already making her way to the tea table. After finally snapping out of it she rushes - not enough to compromise her beauty - to join Ruan Mei at the table.
When Herta sits down Ruan Mei is already carefully scrutinising each cake under her gaze, probably assessing which will be the most delicious and what order to eat them in. Herta just digs into the first cake in reach, happy with the tastefulness of the puppets' decoration, not that she would reward them, perfection is merely the expectation.
While Ruan Mei is giving her detailed feedback on each cake she has eaten, analysing the detailed interplay between myriad complex flavors, a thumping sound is heard. When Herta looks to her left she sees the wisteria cake and lambda’s friend stacked on top of each other, looking like two kids showing their best behaviour while they beg for treats. She lets out a little chuckle at the sight which is enough to make Ruan Mei look over and see the pleading case made by the two catcakes. With the attention of both geniuses the wisteria catcake meows softly and cutely, doing its best to tuck on their heartstrings, and succeeding at least in Herta’s case. Ruan Mei is wary of the way they’re eyeing the two pieces of cake she has yet to taste and pulls the plates closer to herself.
“Haven’t you eaten enough cake, Ruan Mei?”
That ticks her off.
“I haven’t tasted these yet.”
“Well you don’t need the whole slice to just ‘taste’ it.”
“Why don’t you offer yours then? You have tasted them all haven’t you?”
“I think I will.”
“Don’t blame me when they all come begging for more cake then.”
Herta just starts cutting her remaining cake into pieces, not trying to say anything more against Ruan Mei’s prickly attitude. The wisteria cake carefully dismounts and the two hop closer when Herta pushes her plates towards them. Lambda’s friend leads the first tentative lick, looking at Herta and Ruan Mei each before diving fully into the cake. Wisteria cake right beside her joins in and soon the catcakes are cleaning off the first of the plates. Herta smiles at the sight but Ruan Mei is observing them carefully, making note of the little sounds of joy in between them scarfing the cake down and how their eyes light up. Particularly the expressions of lambda’s friend catches Ruan Mei’s attention, the eerie familiarity of it captivating her. She looks down at the two pieces that she has now tasted, not really invested in enjoying the last of them anymore. So she grabs her fork and starts dividing them into small pieces, noticing how the catcakes lick and nip at Herta’s cake until the pieces are small enough to comfortably fit into their mouths. Only after evenly dividing the slices into measured bits does she look up to see the catcakes and Herta staring at her, an annoying smirk plastered on Herta’s face. She ignores it and pushes the plates towards the catcakes. They seem even more reluctant to eat hers than Herta’s, checking her carefully with their large round eyes before even hopping closer. Maybe Ruan Mei’s intense stare back at them isn’t helping, but she can’t pull her gaze from them. After they slowly start eating their purrs of happiness sound out again and Ruan Mei’s steely expression melts into something fond. Herta is still observing the whole ordeal with a curious smirk, not at all dissatisfied with this development. When Ruan Mei’s plates are cleaned up too the catcakes give them a grateful look - and lambda’s friend hiccups a little to giggles from the both of them - before jumping their way off the table.
After the catcakes' antics are over Herta and Ruan Mei take a quiet moment to sip their tea. It’s of the black variety, not Herta’s favorite, way too bitter, but she knows Ruan Mei adores it. While Herta is absorbed in the bitterness of her tea however, Ruan Mei surprises her with a question.
“So will you tell me about the amazing advancements that prompted this meeting?”
Herta groans, knowing Ruan Mei is hiding a smug smile underneath the tea cup she conveniently lifted up to sip from.
“You know all of that was just an excuse to meet with you.”
“And you know you don’t need flimsy excuses like that if you want to hold a tea party and chat.”
Herta sighs in defeat and forces her mind to switch track from Ruan Mei to the frankly banal discoveries she had foolishly used as bait to lure Ruan Mei out.
“I’m just going to warn you, it’s nothing special, quite boring really, like the kind of thing you’d do only because you’re bored and don’t feel like you have anything more interesting to do.” Ruan Mei just nods and Herta begrudgingly continues. “So I walked by some researchers gossiping about how the department of insight was getting all the funds for their antimatter research but weren’t producing any result and yadda, yadda, you know how these people thought. Anyway, I thought I would do a little act of benevolence and save everyone from this inane drama and went to the department of insight myself to take a look at their research. And, I mean, those gossipmongers weren’t wrong, it was absolutely useless, could barely be called a proof of concept with how inefficient it was. So I took to improving it myself, well I call it improving but I scrapped all their ideas and came up with my own, and ended up making a couple of things. Made an antimatter harvester that was actually economical and scalable, designed an antimatter drive that could easily outcompete whatever junk is on the market and made some modular anti-gravity wells. Nothing revolutionary really, just a bit of refinement.”
Ruan Mei hums thoughtfully, draining the last of her tea before speaking.
“I am interested in these anti-gravity wells, could you provide me with the schematics?”
Herta raises a brow at that. It takes a lot to inspire a genius like Ruan Mei, so surely she thought of something novel to do with a mundane technology like the anti-gravity well, something that Herta has to hear about.
“And what are you planning to do with that?”
“Just an idea I have… though it is not very developed.
“You could still tell me.”
“Why not have it be an occasion for next time we meet.”
Herta grumbles at the remark, slowly coming to the realisation that there’s nothing she can do against a determined Ruan Mei, one she has had to face many times before. Letting out a sigh she motions for Ruan Mei to follow her and they begin their walk out of the exclusion zone while the catcakes meow for them longingly and a few puppets clean up after their tea party.
“Does that mean you’re not staying the night?”
Despite her irritated mood Herta still wants to spend the precious time she has with Ruan Mei talking, even if it is just trivial small talk.
“I never said that.”
Herta just hums, but the relief creeping up to her lips undermines her nonchalance.
As Herta’s dutiful puppets finish preparing her for bed she looks one last time into the mirror. Her pink pyjama set isn’t the most elaborate, yet she still thinks there is beauty in the simplicity, after all, beauty never sleeps.
When she enters a room a baffling sight awaits her however.
“Hello Herta.”
“Ruan Mei, why are you floating around on my ceiling !? "
Ruan Mei is indeed floating around in Herta’s room, moving like she’s completely weightless.
“I made anti-gravity jelly.”
“And you ate it ?”
“Yes. I had to test the flavour.”
“What am I going to do with you?” Herta mumbles under her breath, too taken aback to even bother looking at the genius who is currently quite literally bouncing off her walls. Most egregious of all is that Ruan Mei’s impassive expression remains even in this ridiculous situation, a calm and composed smile like she isn’t floating around in Herta’s bedroom.
After a bit Ruan Mei sheepishly asks a question.
“Can you help me get down?”
“Sure,” Herta is already reaching out as she speaks, “how long is that even gonna last?”
Pulling down the weightless Ruan Mei is a strange feeling. She can feel her body clothes quite clear, but all sense of weight to them is gone, like pulling around a balloon.
“You don’t know!?”
Herta can already feel her exasperation boil over again while Ruan Mei just keeps on that smile like a child who knows they did something naughty.
“That’s why… I was thinking you could cuddle and hold me tonight. To hold me down.”
Herta doesn’t believe what she’s hearing until she sees the faint blush painting Ruan Mei’s ears, after which she eagerly nods and pulls the weightless genius against her.
“That’s a deal. No going back on that, I’ll keep you on that promise.”
After helping Ruan Mei undress from her way too elaborate outfit into just her underwear - a preference Herta will never understand compared to the superior feeling of pyjamas - they get into bed, Herta tethering Ruan Mei to her at all times. Herta snuggles them properly together to sleep and Ruan Mei pulls the covers over the both of them, leaning in for a small peck on the lips, making the two of them giggle.
“Goodnight, Herta.”
“Goodnight, Ruan Mei.”
At the same time, in a certain room in the forbidden zone, lambda’s friend and wisteria cake are sleeping soundly, the former on top of the latter. Dreaming sweet dreams about pastries and science and a certain creator and her companion.