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It had been a quiet afternoon. Internal clock settled on precisely 17;57 PM when the kitchen started to grow warm, with a lingering scent of sugar and butter, volatile organic compounds and airborne chemicals filtering through her digital scent signatures.
A freshly baked cake sat cooling on the counter, pristine and inviting. Aino was nowhere to be found, most likely parading and running around the outskirts of Clink-Clank Krumkake Craftshop searching for pieces, searching for all the obsolete and worn out pieces from the fatuus mass production left behind after their latest skirmish further from Lempo Isle, all for her newest idea she chirped with excitement after just waking up early this morning.
It was because of said idea that Jahoda, choosing her timing well as always, decided to take it upon herself to fall along their home to help, yes, but to ruminate around Ineffa’s pastries and sweets.
Jahoda helped herself without ceremony to the dishes laid in front of her, and with her mouth still full of cream and flaky bits, turned her attention to Ineffa.
“Well,” she said, smacking her lips together. “The texture 's alright. Looks good too. Sweetness is just right.” And after a couple of quick seconds scowled. “But it’s got no soul!”
Ineffa lifted the cake tray with precise and medical care, accomapied by the sound of flat steel cracking. Her face remained perfectly neutral but with her eyes fixated on Jahoda’s star-like pupils. “Food is not designed to possess a soul. You must be mistaken”
Jahoda nearly choke out. “It’s a metaphor, y’dumb ironskull! A meta—a—phor!” She said, emphasizing each syllable.
Just as a common prompt would be employed to trigger Ineffa’s speech and language processing, it seemed to work the same for Jahoda. “Soul” makes Jahoda leap to pour each and every word she could think off like steam from a kettle left for far too long in a fire. Passionate and perhaps less than coherent rambling filtering through Ineffa’s white noise synthesizer not without fragments slipping throughout, breaking her strict and rigid composure and headspace.
“A dessert without a soul is nothing more than sugar and shape,” Jahoda said.
“And a chef without one? Just a pair of hands obeying instructions.”
Her voice rolled on, less an argument now and more aligned to the preaching one might here in Nasha Town from time to time. “You measure every ingredient so carefully, so afraid of tipping the balance. Your program won’t let you risk too much sweetness, too much spice, won’t let you fail. And maybe that makes the food pleasant. Maybe it makes it safe.”
She shook her head. “But safe is average. Anyone can follow a recipe. Anyone can repeat what’s already been done.”
Most of it dissolved into static. One line, however, pierced cleanly through: “If all you ever do is follow procedures,” Jahoda said quietly, “you’ll never make anything better.”
That gave Ineffa pause.
Her sensors were calibrated for balance, not delight. For consistency, not indulgence. They had never been meant to answer something as slippery and human as tasty.
After a brief internal recalibration, she said, “My sensors are not a “super-scale” as it functions based on prompts a—”
“Do NOT give me that answer, Ineffa,”
She concluded. “I utilize data from Aino’s feedback to model human taste preferences.”
Jahoda’s grin spread wide, victorious, like a gambler laying down the final card. “Yeah? But you don’t let her eat sweets very often, do ya? Which means that feedback’s gotta be pretty thin.”
Ineffa hesitated, just long enough.
Jahoda leaned in, standing on her tippy toes, voice lowering as if anyone else would be there to listen in between the two. “Don’t you wanna give her a biig surprise? A real good one?”
She then waved her hand dismissively. “Hmph. Well I suppose I could serve as… an external sensor for you, just for this one time.” She offered. Much more for her than anyone else, with little attempt shown to hide it. “That’s what a great friend would do, of course.”
Ineffa stood motionless as she processed the offer quietly. Somewhere deep within her logic core, a new variable flickered to life.
“Soul,” Ineffa said at last. “Please define the term as it applies to food.”
Jahoda blinked, then huffed out a short laugh. “Of course you’d ask it like that.” She leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. “It’s… intention. Feeling. The stuff you can’t measure.” She gestured vaguely at the cake. “When you cook somethin’ ‘cause you want to, not ‘cause you’re followin’ instructions.”
“Desire is too much of an unspecific term to use here, as for I, like you, formulate ours based on thoughts and beliefs rather than just emotional responses,” Ineffa replied. “And still, the end result is functionally identical.”
“Is it?” Jahoda shot back. “You ever notice how the same recipe tastes different depending on who made it?” She tapped the counter with one finger, from her mechanical arm. “That’s the soul part. You leave a bit of yourself behind.”
Ineffa considered this in silence. “If food contains an imprint of its creator,” she said slowly, “then a lack of deviation would imply an absence of personal imprint.”
Jahoda’s grin returned, softer this time. “Now you’re gettin’ it.”
They drifted from there into smaller things. How too much sugar dulled the tongue, how bitterness had its place, how mistakes sometimes made a dish better. Ineffa listened closely, filing each inconsistency away, noting how often Jahoda contradicted herself and yet sounded completely certain all the same.
Eventually, the conversation wandered somewhere else entirely and Ineffa’s gaze fell onto Jahoda’s arm.
The mechanical limb rested easily at her side now, its movements smoother than any natural hand could manage. But there was a time, months ago when it had been absent, and the now cheerful and hyperactive thief acted more like a scared cat, bitter and tense at every of Ineffa’s movements, only eased by Aino’s words.
“You value the concept of a ‘soul’ highly,” Ineffa said. “Is this connected to your resistance to replacement?”
“Yeesh,” Jahoda let out a low breath. “Heh. You really have no tact, do you? Figured you’d link those two.” She rubbed the back of her neck, her eyes drifting away from Ineffa’s. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“When I lost my arm,” Jahoda began, “everyone had an idea about what I should do next. How I should fix it. Like the problem was just… missing parts.” Her jaw tightened. “Aino was the same, even if she meant well.”
“She proposed optimization,” Ineffa said.
“Optimization,” Jahoda repeated bitterly, lifting her mechanical hand, rotating the wrist. “That word always rubbed me the wrong way, she wanted to give me a sweep!” She exclaimed, ignoring as Ineffa softly reminded she received a sweeping device from Aino as well, “Or–or rocket fingers, whatever that means! What would I even do with those, huh?!”
“You declined.”
“Not right away.” Jahoda shook her head. “I hesitated. And that’s the part that still bugs me.”
Ineffa tilted her head slightly. “Explain.”
“I kept thinkin’, maybe she’s right. Maybe I should just let it go.” Jahoda’s fingers curled slowly into a fist. “But every time I pictured it, it felt like I was agreeing that my old hand didn’t matter. Like it was disposable.”
Her voice dropped. “Like I was.”
Ineffa processed this statement with unusual care. “Your hand contributed to your self-identity.”
“Yeah. And more than that—it held my history.” Jahoda laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Burns, cuts, calluses. Every dumb mistake and every hard-earned win. And you don’t get those from a factory.”
She paused, eyes narrowing. “Even after it was gone, I could still feel it. Reaching for things. Clenching when I got angry. I’d wake up at night swearin’ it was still there.”
“Phantom limb sensation,” Ineffa said.
“That’s the clinical term.” Jahoda glanced at her. “But nobody talks about how personal it feels. Like your body’s arguin’ with reality.”
Silence stretched between them again.
“So when Aino showed me those designs,” Jahoda continued, “all I could think was, That ain’t my hand. Didn’t matter how good it was. It didn’t know me.”
Ineffa’s voice was quiet. “You feared erasure.”
Jahoda looked surprised, then slowly nodded. “Yeah. That’s a good word for it.”
She flexed the mechanical fingers again. “I told her if she was gonna build me somethin’, it had to remember who I was. Had to move wrong sometimes. Had to feel like it belonged.”
“And now?” Ineffa asked.
Jahoda hesitated. “Now… it’s close. Close enough.” She shrugged. “Still doesn’t feel the same. Maybe it never will.”
Ineffa considered this. “Does this dissatisfaction trouble you?”
“Nah.” Jahoda smiled faintly. “It reminds me I’m still me. That somethin’ changed and I lived through it, with time it earned its bumps, scratches and even a bit of rust.”
Her gaze dropped to the faint seams where metal met skin. “Scars get a bad rep. Folks think they’re just ugly reminders of what went wrong.”
Ineffa had always categorized scars as cosmetic damage. Both undesirable and correctable.
“But for me,” Jahoda went on, “they’re proof I made choices. That I paid the price and kept walkin’.”
“…Still you.”
Jahoda blinked. “Huh?”
Ineffa stood very still, gaze unfocused, as though looking inward rather than at the room before her. “I was ruminating,” she said at last. “It appears the words you spoke have affected my inner core’s functioning.”
Jahoda stiffened. “W–what? Affected how? Like—bad affected?” She waved her hands frantically. “You’re not gonna explode or something, right?”
“No,” Ineffa replied evenly. “I am not going to explode. And bad is an arbitrary qualifier.”
Jahoda exhaled, rubbing her arms. “Well, if that’s the case, I guess even a malfunctioning core won’t stop you from correcting me.”
“There is more,” Ineffa continued. “During my analysis, an image surfaced—flowers reflected in water. Following your proposal that ‘soul’ in baking is a piece of the self, I believe these flowers may serve as a testing ground.”
Jahoda stared at her. “Wait. Really?” Her confusion quickly turned to excitement. “What kind of flowers? Should I go look for them?”
“I could provide a detailed description,” Ineffa said, “but I am uncertain whether you could locate them within an appropriate timeframe.”
Jahoda straightened at once. “Hey—of course I can! I’m the greatest bounty hunter across the land! If there’s a will, there’s a way.” She grinned. “And even if they ain’t on Nod-Krai, Boss Nefer’s seen half the world. I’ll track ‘em down.”
“Understood,” Ineffa said after a pause. “I will initiate a system reboot. The experiment may remain on hold until further notice.”
“Works for me.” Jahoda slung her pack over her shoulder. “I promise I’ll find ‘em. Won’t come back till I do.”
A couple of days went in and out. Ineffa’s system completed its reboot late one night, after she had fed Aino and ensured she slept peacefully. In the end, Jahoda did come back, but no set of flowers in her hands.
She stood on Ineffa’s doorstep beneath a sky heavy with clouds, rain beginning to fall in earnest. Her clothes were damp, her shoulders slumped, exhaustion etched into every line of her posture.
The description given of said flowers were one of an orchid crop, growing on the shady deaths of the forests with slender stems and weak roots, clinging to the trunks of any trees they could find like vibes and pitifully attempting to catch the scattered rays of sunlight covered from the thick leaves from the trees up high. Used as seasoning and medicaments. Its flower is greenish-yellow with only a faint scent.
Weak and desperate as humanity. Vanilla Planifolia. And it had been extinct, long withered in the last of Natlan’s grounds.
Ineffa could almost feel a prick in her joints, almost as if something was etching in between her components as she contemplated the so-called greatest treasure hunter pouring her heart out in front of her doorstep just as the sky was starting to pour rain down as well.
It wasn’t too late, mid afternoon but it was cloudy and grey, fitting Jahoda’s mood and worsening her body temperature. Ineffa watched as the heat fled from her arm through Ineffa’s eye receptors. “You should come inside,” She said gently. “You are likely to catch a cold.”
Jahoda laughed weakly. “I’m sorry, Ineffa. I really thought there’d be at least one left. Not even a single one, huh?”
“It was a possibility,” Ineffa replied. “I failed to adequately discuss the probabilities before sending you. For that, I apologize.”
Ineffa handed her a cloth. Jahoda took it, shaking her head. “Ugh– Don’t say that. This one’s on me.” She sighed. “Still… I didn’t come back empty-handed.”
She laid the basket down across the tabletop, its contents clinking softly.
“Couldn’t find those flowers,” Jahoda said, “but I picked up anything that looked like it still had life in it. Maybe something here's useful.”
Ineffa leaned closer, scanning the contents. Frostlamp flowers and Lakkaberries still fresh and wet, recently cut Ineffa assumed, its water dropplets pouring onto the rest of the basket. Sweet flowers and Mint. Sumeru roses and Zaytun peaches most likely a request from Jahoda to the Curatorium of Secret commerce, accompanied by a couple of Marcottes and even a small blue linnen bag of Chenyu Adeptea. Even she had managed to get her hands on three crops of Cacahuatl.
Yet only one drew her attention.
“Jahoda,” Ineffa said, “how did you acquire these? It is not harvest season. They should have decayed.”
Jahoda scratched her cheek. “Uh… not sure. I was rushin’ an errand near Amsvartnir Lake. Slipped, fell flat on my face.” She chuckled faintly. “When I looked up, there was a bush—most of it rotten, but a couple berries were still… fine.
“I do not understand,” Ineffa said. “Were they sheltered from the cold?”
“I don’t know,” Jahoda admitted. “I just saw ‘em and grabbed ‘em. Weird, huh? But I figured… why question a bit of luck?
They worked side by side in the kitchen, the quiet broken only by the soft rhythm of preparation. Eggs were separated, sugar measured, flour sifted. Ineffa moved with careful precision as she sliced strawberries, their scent bright and almost defiant for fruit harvested so far out of season.
As the knife rose and fell, something unusual stirred within her system. Fragments of sound: voice recordings, partial text logs, began to download unprompted, slipping past her usual filters. They were faint, indistinct, threaded with warmth and memory.
Across the counter, Jahoda stirred the custard, muttering under her breath as if speaking to herself rather than to the room.
“You still appear distressed,” Ineffa said quietly. “What is troubling you?”
Jahoda paused, spoon hovering over the pot. “Well…” She sighed. “I got lucky with those berries, sure. But you never got the flower you wanted. Kinda feels like I came back empty-handed anyway.”
“That is acceptable,” Ineffa replied. “The idea originated from memory alone. It was one possibility, not a requirement.”
She arranged the strawberries neatly, their red standing out against the pale cutting board. “Using strawberries outside their expected season is itself an irregularity. An exception. By your definition, that qualifies as unique.” She hesitated, then added, “As well as mine.”
Jahoda glanced at her, unconvinced. “If you say so, Ineffa…”
Ineffa sensed the lingering heaviness in her voice. “Since you remain unsettled,” she said, “I would like to share a story.”
Jahoda groaned immediately. “Oh, gods, no. Please don’t. I’m still recovering from your awful jokes.” She waved a hand dismissively. “I already told Aino to recalibrate you, you know.”
“This is not a joke,” Ineffa said, her tone steady. “Please take a seat. I will not proceed with the baking process until I have finished.”
Jahoda stared at her for a long moment, then relented with a dramatic sigh. “Ugh… fine. Alright, alright.”
She set the spoon down and pulled out a chair, sitting heavily as Ineffa turned away from the strawberries.
“Once, there was a woman who walked alone along a forest path, moving forward though her heart remained behind. She had been separated from her husband by a force outside of her own control, and while her feet carried her onward, her thoughts felt scattered and confusing, perhaps a consequence of the shackles decorating her head with pearls and sturdy gold, forcing her eyes to remain low and fixed on the path laid in front of her. Still she returned again and again to what she had lost.
████ watched her and wished to secure her resolve and put her mind to test. Along the path, they caused a patch of huckleberries to rise from the earth: dark, ripe, and plentiful, the finest the forest could offer. The woman passed them by without slowing her step. Farther on, they placed a thicket of blackberries, heavy with sweetness, their branches bowed beneath their own abundance. Still, she did not stop.
Again and again they tried to turn her. One fruit appeared, then another, then many more. Each more tempting than the last. Service berries bloomed beside the path, their red skins bright and beautiful, shining in the filtered light beneath the trees. Yet the woman walked on, her gaze fixed ahead, her path unshaken.
At last,the Winged One shaped something entirely new. They caused a patch of large, ripe strawberries to appear upon the forest floor, glowing like embers against the dark soil, the first of their kind, unknown to the world.
The woman finally stopped. She knelt and gathered a few, tasting them. And as she did, she turned her face toward the west. In that instant, the memory of her husband returned to her with such force that she could not rise again. She sat upon the ground, the sweetness lingering on her tongue, and felt her desire for him grow stronger with every passing moment.
She waited, but the longing only deepened. Finally, she gathered the finest strawberries she could find, holding them carefully, and turned back along the path she had traveled.
When she met her husband, he welcomed her without anger or reproach. She offered him the strawberries, and together they returned home, their path no longer divided.”
Ineffa fell silent.
Jahoda was the first to speak.
“…Why’d they try so hard to stop her?” she asked. “All those fruits along the way—what was the point, if she was meant to go back to her husband anyway?”
Ineffa considered this, her gaze drifting toward the strawberries resting on the board.
“Some surviving records interpret the obstacles as a punishment she was meant to endure, and her return as an act of defiance. Others suggest the opposite—that the trials existed to guide her back, not to bar her path. There are even versions where they are omitted entirely.”
Jahoda frowned. “That’s… messy.”
Jahoda hummed. “Guess stories don’t like staying still.”
“That appears to be the case,” Ineffa replied. “One could also interpret the figure as representing uncertainty—moments that cause hesitation, but not necessarily harm.”
Jahoda smiled at that. “Then why’d you keep him in?”
Ineffa paused, then answered more readily than before. “Because stories change depending on who tells them. I wished to explore what would happen if the obstacles did not exist to stop her—but to help her realize where she belonged.”
Jahoda’s eyes lit up. “So you tweaked it.”
“Yes.”
“That means you made it your own.” Jahoda’s grin was bright and unmistakable.
Ineffa met it without looking away. “That is correct.”
Jahoda laughed, warm and approving. “Well? You happy with it?”
Ineffa glanced once more at the strawberries—rare, imperfect, and chosen with care.
“…Yes,” she said, and this time the word sounded certain.
The rain had thinned to a gentle patter by the time they turned back to the counter, the kitchen brightening as though it, too, had been listening.
Jahoda clapped her hands together. “Alright! Ancient myths, tragic longing, emotional revelations—check. Now let’s make the best bløtkake this place has ever seen.”
Ineffa inclined her head, and for once there was a subtle quickness to the movement. They worked in close rhythm. The strawberries were folded into the cream, their color blooming through it like a promise. Jahoda tasted, laughed, and added sugar by instinct rather than measure.
“Hey—no recalibrating that,” she said, grinning.
“I am not recalibrating,” Ineffa replied. “I am observing.”
Then, after a pause, “And adapting.”
The cake came together layer by layer, uneven in places, bold in others. Cream spilled where it pleased. Strawberries showed through like they had chosen their own resting spots. Ineffa adjusted, not to correct, but to accommodate, letting the process breathe.
When they finally stepped back, Jahoda let out a low whistle. “Look at that. It’s a mess.”
“It is structurally sound,” Ineffa said. “And visually expressive.”
Jahoda laughed. “That’s your way of sayin’ it’s got soul, right?”
Ineffa looked at the cake—at the out-of-season fruit, the unmeasured choices, the story woven quietly into its making.
“Yes,” she said, and this time there was no hesitation. “It does.”
Jahoda beamed. “Then Aino’s in for one hell of a surprise.”