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Miss Sylvia, who is not classified as a mother to Lily but is more like an aunt, is helping bake a cake. Lily has never had a birthday cake for herself before, since usually her mom was too busy or forgetful of who Lily was. The fact that it’s Miss Sylvia is a little bit worrisome. Keeper has mentioned something about ‘Sylvia’s lamprey tea’ with a grimace, and Miss Sylvia has talked a few times about new recipes involving things like ‘wormwood cookies’ or ‘leeched lemonade’ that Lily (with all due respect to a very nice and certainly quite professional doctor!) thinks she would prefer not to try.
As little as she knows about birthday cakes for Lilies, specifically, she does think she’d prefer them without whatever a lamprey is added in. Chocolate is fine. She knows she likes that. This is part of why she watches, so that if Miss Sylvia decides to get creative, Lily can at least sniff whatever it is she’s putting in there. The recipe was apparently sent over by Miss Nymphaea, who Lily doesn’t think she’s ever seen cook. She’s said she couldn’t, before, so Lily assumes that’s why only the recipe was sent.
It’s very nice of her, though. That was her birthday gift from Nymphaea! Her help with a cake. (She also sent a nice summer dress that Lily enjoys swishing around her legs.) “Lily,” Miss Sylvia asks as she waits for the oven timer to go off. (Lily has been watching the timer like a hawk, waiting for it to click down to zero. It’s quite far from that.) “Would you like to see if Aurita and Jenkin want to decorate your cake with you?”
Lily’s eyes go wide and sparkly as she hops in place. “Yes, please!” She didn’t know that was an option. “Lily wants friends to help!”
Miss Sylvia smiles (she is most always smiling) and nods. “Of course, dear. Let me give them a message. You watch the cake and make sure it doesn’t get into trouble.”
Lily nods seriously and resumes her vigil in front of the oven. It’s important to have a job. She’s focused, even more so now as she summons a pustule with a large eyeball instead of a toothy maw like usual to join her. Naught shall go awry under her management. Sylvia laughs a little, endeared and unnoticed, as she goes to let Lily’s friends know to come over soon.
A few minutes before the timer goes off, there’s a series of rapid banging on the kitchen door. Lily bounces up, then immediately remembers her job is to watch the cake, turns instantly back to the oven with self-consciousness. She hops from foot to foot, clearly very badly wanting to answer the door, but also not abandon her assigned task. “Hi Lily! Lily, Aurita’s here!”
“And me! I’m here! Brown is too!”
“Miss Sylvia, they’re at the door!”
All three voices ring out at the same time, even as Miss Sylvia is going to open the door. Yes, you’re all very excited, she noticed. Aurita near about falls facefirst onto the ground with her enthusiasm to force her way in, making Jenkin nearly trip over her, but fortunately Jenkin is quite acrobatic. Jenkin hops around Lily while Aurita tackles her into a hug. “So, c’mon, what flavour of cake are you getting? Out with it!” Jenkin demands.
“Chocolate!”
A sage nod from a teenager mimicking adults she’s seen before. “Good choice.”
“It’s Lily’s favourite,” Lily helpfully adds.
“Remember, Brown shouldn’t have any chocolate,” Miss Sylvia says. She’s immediately greeted with loud squeaked objections from the vicinity of Jenkin’s hood. Too bad, Brown. “I’ll give him sweet cracker instead.” The squeaking quiets for a moment, then lets out what she takes as resigned agreement.
The timer dings and the kitchen erupts into noise, children chiming that it’s ready, that Jenkin can help, Miss Sylvia shooing Aurita from the oven as she seems to be forgetting that it’s hot, and Lily dragging her pustule watcher and Aurita alike away with quiet apologies. It’s an effort not to trip over anyone, but Miss Sylvia at least manages to bring the cake over to the table without any tragedies. “There we go. Now, it’s too hot to put frosting on just yet, but we can make colours for the frosting. All of you, come sit for a moment.”
They do, though with obvious reluctance to hold still from Aurita. She wriggles in her chair as Sylvia places bowls in front of each and doles out a scoop of white frosting and a spoon. “You can mix it yourselves, won’t that be fun? I know you like art, so I’ll teach you how to pipe frosting. What colour would you like to draw in?”
She should have expected all the answers to come at once in a rush and with some level of indecisiveness. Lily thinks very hard about her answer, while Aurita blurts “blue” instantly, and Jenkin waffles a bit. They end up with blue, green, and pink, which Lily finds quite respectable, and there is at least a lack of fuss as the group mixes drops of food dye into icing. Aurita manages to get some on her face through mechanisms no one knows, and Lily helps pass Brown along to lick it from her cheeks as she giggles wildly.
Once the cake is cooled enough to ice with a layer of white frosting, Miss Sylvia teaches them the mechanics of putting frosting in a piping bag and drawing with it. She writes a very lovely ‘Happy Birthday, Lily!’ in the center, and reminds the kids to express a little bit of restraint.
Lily does whisper that in reminder to Aurita, who instantly sets about drawing very wiggly fish. Or blobs. It’s difficult to draw both with frosting and without fingers, but she tells Lily she’s adding extra friends to the cake, so Lily takes it as such. “Ooh, I’ll help with that. See, look, it’s gonna be one of your little mouth guys.” Jenkin makes a growling noise for effect as she starts piping out a zigzag of teeth chewing on the top of the H in Happy.
“Oh, be careful of Miss Sylvia’s work, though!” Lily admonishes, ever responsible despite being trapped much younger. For her part, she delicately attempts a row of flowers along the bottom. They’re also wiggly and inelegant, but she does it with intent focus as Aurita fills a corner with what Lily supposes are probably jellyfish.
“Aurita, you’re coming over in my zone.”
“Aurita’s helping.”
“Nuh-uh you’re not. Take this.”
“Don’t put icing on Aurita!”
“Why not? Jealous? I’ll put it on you, too. Hiyah!”
“Jenkin!”
“Aurita returns fire!”
“Aurita!”
Miss Sylvia squints her eyes. If she pretends she isn’t seeing children smear a fingerful of icing on each others’ noses, she can pretend she has no obligation to stop them and hose them down. So long as it’s just a little bit, it’s important to let kids get their energy out.
However, when Jenkin holds up her tube of icing like a gun and aims at Aurita across from her with an evil grin, Miss Sylvia is forced to intercede (for the sake of the cake between them not catching crossfire, if anything else). “Alright, girls, food is not for playing. Are you done decorating?”
“I wanna add another flower,” Lily pipes up. “Jenkin’s got green.” She looks over at her companion. “Can you add the stems?”
“Sure, sure. Got a right ol’ bouquet here,” Jenkin says as Miss Sylvia relinquishes the piping bag back unto her. She only smudges Lily’s arm a little bit as she adds the requested stems. Lily finishes and sits back with an obviously proud, wide grin.
“Done! Did we do a good job?” she asks, looking hopefully up at Miss Sylvia.
The cake is a bit of a mess, a few splatters of coloured icing where there was no safety from crossfire, and all decorating but the words being an uneven learning attempt by two people who aren’t entirely there with fine motor control and one person who just wanted to draw a monster. However, it does look very much like a thing by and for Lily, and she’s got a smile bright enough to power a lightbulb that her friends mimic from next to her. “You did wonderfully, all of you. Now, if you wash up, we can take this out to the conference room where Keeper and your other friends can share it with you.”
Lily bounds off with Aurita short behind her, and Jenkin in hot pursuit. “I’ll take ‘em to the party! And don’t forget cookies for Brown!” Jenkin yells. Miss Sylvia waves at her with a nod. Yes, yes, she did promise.