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When Firefly returned from her script in Penacony, she returned in good health (relatively, of course), good spirits, and with a stack of bakery boxes and a shopping bag around her elbow. Silver Wolf watched the image projection the security cameras captured of Firefly’s entrance to the Stellaron Hunters’ current base with a roll of her eyes. It seemed like Firefly had not been joking about smuggling food out of the Asdana system.
Well, Silver Wolf wouldn’t complain about all the extra work needed to ensure Firefly remained off the radar as she explored Penacony if that meant that Firefly was in a sharing mood.
(And Silver Wolf certainly wouldn’t complain about wrangling that Fool into an agreement, because for all the headache of an uncontrollable variable, it had paid off.)
“Are you guys all here?” Firefly asked as Silver Wolf deigned to grace the kitchen with her presence. The question was mostly directed to Kafka, who sat at the bar as elegantly as ever with water in a wine glass, but Firefly’s gaze swung to Silver Wolf with her entrance.
“Just got back from my own script,” Kafka drawled coolly, as if she had not completed that script in record time to arrange for her and Firefly’s paths to converge here. Silver Wolf wouldn’t rat her out, though, because that would only implicate herself too. “Aw, are those for me?”
She pointed to the shopping bag, and Firefly nodded and deposited it on the counter next to her. “You said to look out for anything interesting. I’ll admit I’m still no good at fashion, but I happened to meet up with… a friend. Surprisingly, she had a lot of knowledge on the subject.”
Kafka raised a single brow as she pulled a container of make-up out of the bag. “A friend? My, how interesting. She has good taste.”
Silver Wolf also didn’t know shit about make-up, but she could certainly pry Kafka’s surprise from her tone, because she felt much the same way. Surely Firefly didn’t mean Stelle, right? Silver Wolf would eat her joysticks if a few months with the Nameless (and a bunch of deleted memories) suddenly made that gremlin knowledgeable enough at make-up and fashion to earn Kafka’s genuine approval. No… Silver Wolf couldn’t recall any footage of Firefly actually shopping, despite noting the charges to Kafka’s credit card, which meant… Ha! No way!
“Tall, edgy, and purple?” Silver Wolf guessed. Firefly’s fake-innocent smile was all the answer that Silver Wolf needed. Apparently, the Self-Annihilator dabbled in fashion. Who knew? More than that, though, Silver Wolf appreciated the ballsy move of befriending someone who could potentially side-step Elio’s scripts. While everyone here had enough in common to play Elio’s version of this game, Silver Wolf respected anyone smart enough to stash some extra items and cheat-codes up their sleeves.
“Is this your friend’s expertise, too?” Kafka continued, politely ignoring the Nihility-shaped elephant in the room. Either she knew about it (likely), or Kafka was pretending to know and planned to look into it later (also likely).
She pulled out some sort of shirt (as if Silver Wolf knew the names of clothing sub-types like that) that had a black and white spider-web motif. It didn’t really look like the fancy stuff that Kafka tended to wear, but design-wise, it was hilariously on-brand.
“I spotted that first, actually,” Firefly admitted. “Thought it was funny. Oh, but speaking of things I picked out…” She took the topmost bakery box and opened it. “These are called Oak Cake Rolls; they’re a local delicacy in Penacony.”
“And your breakfast everyday for the past few weeks, right?” Silver Wolf teased. Although with the way Firefly had talked about them during their call, she had imagined something… cuter. But no, it was just a plain brown cake. Underwhelming for Penacony, in Silver Wolf’s opinion, but she supposed there would be limits to the real-life variant.
“No comment,” Firefly remarked lightly. “Anyway, I have enough to share with you guys, since nobody else could come to the Land of Dreams.”
“So kind of you,” Kafka intoned, which might be Kafka for ‘you are currently my favorite child’ or ‘I’m going to play along because I’m in a good mood.’ As much as Silver Wolf considered herself highly proficient in Kafka-isms, that woman could still confound her sometimes. But whatever, in cases like these, it boiled down to more or less the same thing.
Since Kafka was already seated, Firefly cut her a slice first, depositing it on the plate previously pushed to the side. Firefly’s maintained enthusiasm was a little strange to see, but not a bad thing, in Silver Wolf’s opinion. Even if her Entropy Loss was far from cured, it seemed that all that death in the dreamscape gave her a boost, even when she was back in her body. Good for her.
Silver Wolf was halfway to helping herself to the dessert slice, more than willing to take advantage of Firefly’s good mood, when Kafka hummed, twirling her fork. “My, my,” she smiled calmly. “So… this is the flavor of dreams?”
“I guess so? I’ve never tasted anything like it elsewhere, at least,” Firefly replied. “But the real-world bakeries all carried it too.”
Kafka only hummed again, choosing to drink a sip of water instead of going for another bite.
Silver Wolf, in hindsight, should have noticed the warning signs.
But noooo, her curiosity got the best of her, and Silver Wolf mistakenly assumed Kafka was just being her usual languid self, especially since she had just finished a meal anyway. It meant, sadly, that Silver Wolf was successfully duped into taking a bite of that deceptively plain-looking cake.
And she promptly spit it out.
“BLEH,” she gagged. Oh Aeons, it stuck to her tongue like sand. That was not chocolate. “Firefly, what the hell is this?!”
Firefly had the audacity to blink innocently at Silver Wolf’s righteous rage. “Did… something happen to them?” she asked, her confusion completely genuine, and she looked between Kafka, who set her fork down after that single bite, and Silver Wolf, who was ready to scrape her tongue off. “I guess it is different from the dreamscape version…”
“I think that real-world bakery scammed you, fam,” Silver Wolf chided bitterly. UGH, the flavor persisted… It was as if Silver Wolf had inhaled a cloud of sawdust by mistake. The rolls better not have been literally poisoned, or anything… The fake firework death should have counted, and if it didn’t, then Silver Wolf was definitely not sharing in on some third, cake-related death with Firefly, no way.
With a serious expression, sliding a bit more towards the stoic Firefly that piloted SAM rather than the excitable one that persisted outside of it, Firefly broke a chunk of cake off, sniffed it, and then ate it. Her expression morphed back to confusion. “It… tastes exactly the same to me,” Firefly announced.
…Silver Wolf should have known.
Firefly didn’t have normal tastebuds. Not even in a dream, apparently.
“What’s wrong with it?” Firefly asked, when Silver Wolf and Kafka remained silent.
“It tastes like dirt,” Silver Wolf said plainly, because Kafka clearly wasn’t planning on saying anything at all, let alone anything honest. “I don’t know what that is, but it’s not a cake.” Was it some sort of Penacony prank that it existed at all? Maybe that dreamland was crazier than Silver Wolf gave it credit for…
“Oh,” was all Firefly had to say for herself. “Well, I like it. It’s got a strong flavor.”
Silver Wolf barked an incredulous laugh. “Strong flavor is right. What’s even in this stuff?” Maddened by its existence, Silver Wolf furiously looked up ‘oak cake roll’ on the intra-astral web while simultaneously stealing Kafka’s water in an attempt to wash away the flavor. Thankfully, Silver Wolf had been right about it being water, and not vodka or vinegar, despite Kafka allowing her to steal it without a fight. Though honestly, any of those options would be better than the taste of…
She nearly spat out the water too. “WOOD?!” Silver Wolf gasped. “It’s baked with fucking wood?!”
The people of Penacony must be certifiably insane.
“Huh?” Firefly blinked, blissfully ignorant of the food crimes that she participated in. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“Would I lie to you? Actually, ignore that.” Silver Wolf grabbed Firefly by the sleeve and shoved the search result in her face. Let her read it and weep. “It’s wood. Because someone thought it was a good idea to purposefully recreate peasant food and make it worse, to punish themselves, or whatever.”
“…flavor is subjective,” Firefly defended.
Sometimes, Silver Wolf thought she was the only sane person here, youngest or not.
“Hey Bladie,” Kafka greeted, alerting the room to the silent and brooding newcomer. That woman had already gotten rid of the evidence when Silver Wolf wasn’t looking, her slice of ‘cake’ now nowhere to be found. “Firefly’s back from Penacony.”
“I see that,” Blade groused, but overall, he was in a good mood, because he did actually use his words. “Welcome back.”
Silver Wolf, not one to suffer alone, saw her own opportunity to rid herself of the problem that Firefly so enthusiastically brought to her. “Firefly brought souvenirs,” she announced. “Here! This is for you.”
She shoved her plate, the missing bite thankfully not noticeable, at Blade, giving him no choice but to hold it, lest it fall on his shoes. The swordsman looked at it blankly and grunted in a vague noise of Blade-patented disapproval. “…dessert?”
“You don’t have to…” Firefly began, but Silver Wolf shut her up with another tug to her sleeve.
“Flavor is subjective,” she echoed. “Just try it. Firefly went through the trouble.”
As surly as Blade was, he was fairly easy to convince—if it was coming from one of them. Anything but learning to game, unfortunately, but he let Silver Wolf steal his phone for the extra storage, so Silver Wolf could deign to forgive him. He especially had a soft spot for Firefly, though—something about the mutuality of tragic killing machines, probably—and Silver Wolf planned on weaponizing it.
Sure enough, with another grunt—one of resignation, this time—he took a bite of that awful cake. His only reaction was a tilt of the head, a swallow, and… a second bite.
“…it’s not bad,” he shrugged, much to Firefly’s utter delight. She should have known that Blade also couldn’t be trusted to have good taste.
Yep. Silver Wolf was definitely the only sane person here.
(But she supposed she would keep sticking around anyway.)