Harper things (for Melo)

[Thaliawen]

Oh! Poor guy. He really didn’t know the first thing about cooking. Leiya couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her, and she handed him a towel. “Just two,” she said. She took an egg and moved to crack it gently before offering it to him. “Finish this one,” she said.

“The eggs get mixed with wet ingredients—“ she began adding ingredients as the recipe called for them. She offered him the bowl and took out another, in which she sifted flour.  

[Melomar]

31

T'eir's eyes widened briefly when he heard her laugh. It was probably the first time he had ever seen or heard her do so. He took the towel gratefully and wiped his hands, the bowl, and the countertop with it. Then he took the egg she had started for him, dubiously. This one could not possibly crack cleanly. He tried pulling it apart and it did, yolk and albumen falling into the bowl. "Thank you," he chuckled.

When she handed him the bowl to stir the ingredients he took it and wondered how to stir the eggs. They were plainly made from two different substances of different consistency. He tried poking the yolk with the spoon. It scooted away. He tried again, from straight above, and it scooted yet again. But he noticed it give, so he tried it more slowly. The yolk popped and he started to stir. The other egg, incidentally, had been completely mangled and so did not need to be popped.  

[Thaliawen]

He wasn’t an experienced baker, but Leiya had seen worse. He at least seemed to know how to stir. She mixed the dry ingredients, being generous with the sugar. “Now we combine these two. Do you want to mix them?”

A harper that could cook. Was she creating a monster?  

[Melomar]

32

Everyone knows how to stir, right? Yes, he could stir. He realized that this was a bit different from stew or klah but it took little time to catch on. "Sure, I can mix them." What could go wrong? A poof of powdery flour? Who, him? Yes indeed.  

[Thaliawen]

She handed him the dry-ingredients bowl without warning him about possible flour poofs. She was watching him, definitely amused. “You’re doing fine,” she added, offering him a smile.

She hadn’t smiled this much since they’d left. Had baking been what she’d been missing?  

[Melomar]

33

Consolidating two bowls into one like this presented a puzzle to the harper. How to stir them together? But he was good at figuring things out. He set the dry bowl down on the counter and started scraping wet-ingredients down into the dry. They made poofs, but they were tiny, and did not warn him of what was to come. Once the ingredients were together, he started mixing, and that's when flour flew out of the bowl. "Oops. Uh." Okay, try that again, more slowly. That seemed to work. But that didn't mean Leiya had escaped unscathed. He peeked over the bowl to see if she had any flour on her top.  

[Thaliawen]

Oh! The poof that came from the mixture had been unexpected, but hilarious! Leiya had flour on her shirt and arms. She laughed.

“You got me,” she said, holding a hand over her heart dramatically. She brushed off the flour before reaching to help him do the same.  

[Melomar]

Much more than he had anticipated hit Leiya. "Oh, I'm sorry!" he exclaimed, but she was laughing. Her laughter was infectious, especially when she said, "You got me." Her hand was over her heart. "My aim was true!" he joked. He wasn't really thinking of any consequence to that exchange. It just seemed right to say.

She started brushing flour off his shirt. "Oh you missed a spot," he muttered and brushed at her arm. But flour doesn't come off entirely and ghostly smudges remained on their clothing.  

[Thaliawen]

“It was,” Leiya laughed. This was fun. She hadn’t thought anything would be fun again, but this. This was. “I did?” She looked at her arm. Ghostly flour stains remained, but she didn’t care.

“So did you,” she said, booping his nose with a finger. She left a spot of flour there.  

[Melomar]

35

"I did? So I did," he added when she booped his nose. He was unaware of the spot she had left there. Chuckling, he shook his head. "I guess flour only comes out in the wash?" he ventured.

He tried his hand at stirring once again, slower this time. He managed to keep most of the flour in the bowl, and as he discovered, the two types of ingredients came together into a ball of dough. "Is this the right consistency?"  

[Thaliawen]

“It comes out quickly with water,” she said. “The wash will take it right out.” What a sight they would look once they left the kitchens! Someone would spot them, certainly.

She looked into the bowl to study his work. “Yes, that’s perfect. Now we spoon it out onto this tray. Er, try to make them the same size or they won’t bake at the same time. I made that mistake a lot when I was first starting.”  

[Melomar]

36

"That's good. I wouldn't want your clothing to be stained or ruined." Normally he would be worried about his own clothes and how he looked to others. But he wasn't really thinking about it. Just that he was learning to bake cookies and having a grand time with Leiya. "Same size. Got it." Except he was not too sure what size to make them. So he took the spoon as a gauge and heaped it. "How's this?" That was about the size of a cookie, right?  

[Thaliawen]

“Or yours. I don’t want our group calling you a sloppy harper,” she teased. “That won’t do.” He’d looked fine before they’d started.

“Looks fine to me,” she said. Clever of him, to use the spoon as a gauge!  

[Melomar]

37

"Oh, I guess I hadn't..." Flustered, he focused on spooning out the cookie dough. The way he had measured them came out to a funny number for what they were making. "Well it only made thirteen. I guess we'll have to try and make it stretch to 15?" Then, was there more to it? Or were they almost ready to bake? So he hoped.  

[Thaliawen]

“Or we could make more dough so we have twenty six,” she offered. “The recipes never give as many cookies as you’d like them to. We can always make more.”

She paused and looked thoughtful. “These are ready to go in the oven and I’ll start the next batch while they’re baking.”