2017-06-24: Two Tree Cakes
- Log: 2017-06-24 Two Tree Cakes
- Cast: Rose, Alisha Diphda
- Where: Adlehyde - Town Center
- Date: 2017-06-24
- Summary: Rose teaches Alisha how to make tree cake. Surprisingly, no one dies.
===========================<* Adlehyde - Town Center *>=========================== The centre of Adlehyde marks the intersection between the east-west and north-south roads that carve the city into near-quarters. The large shops packed around the city's main thoroughfares have largely been smashed down. Burnt, blackened shells mark where these great businesses used to say -- and few can say if all of them will ever reopen. The intersection between the two roads is actually a large circle nearly a quarter-mile across, allowing wagons and other traffic to move with a minimum of collisions and profanity both. This area used to be clogged with carts and stalls, but it is now clogged with tents and ramshackle construction to make up for the destruction of many homes throughout the city. Altruists of all stripes, including Althena's Guard, have set-up makeshift soup kitchens to feed the many newly homeless. The buildings throughout the rest of Adlehyde are built of stone and tile roofs, which are sometimes smashed and damaged, but still standing. Even now, repairs to broken roofs and walls are underway. As one moves away from the major routes toward the walls, however, they can see that the poorer and seedier enclaves have often been damaged far worse. Unsafe, unsound wooden buildings are a threat to their occupants and the street from collapse. The streets themselves are often lined with pockmarked burns and craters. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MQRL7xws7w
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
Weeks ago now Rose had promised Alisha to teach her how to cook a certain kind of cake. Tree cake. She had done so without even really having a mastery of it herself, and while Dezel would normally be assisting, the fact Alisha can see him means he isn't here right now. He's off brooding who knows where, probably on a rooftop, enjoying the fresh breeze blowing over Adlehyde as it, slowly but surely, rebuilds itself.
Rose, for her part, has taken Alisha to the edge of the city, where she's already prepared a large campfire, a table, and countless ingredients, mostly an assortment of fruits and batters, so that Alisha can flavor the cake to her liking. Also it makes Rose look like she's PREPARED.
Which she is absolutely not.
She messes up making tree cake every other time!
Coincidently it's always the times Dezel isn't around.
Go. Figure.
Over the campfire, roasting equipment has been installed. Enough room for two rods, and so hypothetically two separate roasts. Unusual equipment to make cake, you don't usually use a spit to bake.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
The idea that Rose doesn't know how to cook that well, of course, never even occurred to Alisha. Some of it is that simple, genuine trust she has in Rose -- trust that even survived learning her identity and the other side of her business -- and some of it is being a little gullible. Some of it an unfamiliarity with how commoners live; she simply assumes all of them know how to cook well, because they don't have cooks. Some of it is being a little gullible.
She came with her friend to the edge of the city and slows to a stop, as she spots the table and laid out ingredients. She beams -- and any illusions she might have are certainly not shattered.
She isn't quite sure what to make of the roasting equipment, though.
The princess claps her hands together, delighted, and then turns to look at Rose with a completely satisfied smile. "Oh, Rose, you did so much work to set this up!" she says. "This all looks wonderful. I can't wait to get started!"
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Hey, it's the least I can do! Besides, I'm working on a little secret something with Jacqueline, and all of this is surplus," she admits openly, though she does not explain what the secret is about. Because it's a secret. It must be food-related given the term surplus.
And to her credit, Rose knows how to cook.
Certain things.
Just never eat things she cooks for the first few times and you'll probably not die of black matter poisoning. Probably. Legally the Sparrowfeathers can't guarantee anything.
"So, you've never cooked at all? Not even as a hobby? Never snuck into the kitchens to see what your royal chefs were up to or demanded to at least lick the batter off the spoons?" It's best if they get situated first! ... also it buys Rose time to remember every step of this process. "Oh! Oh, oh! Here, we'll need these!" Off to the side, two aprons have been set aside. Odds are high they will be necessary. Rose grabs one and tosses it towards Alisha, before slipping the other on.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"A secret something?" Alisha asks, her head tilted to the side. "Oh... um. It is a secret, as you said!"
This sounds like a revelation to the princess. She is many things, but wily is not one of them. Alisha looks sideways at Rose, then she shakes her head. "No, I haven't. I've warmed food over a camp fire, in the field, but... I never learned to cook. The nobles in the castle felt it was beneath my station. I always thought that was foolish, but..."
But it was hard to find a teacher, when the royal family never wanted her to learn to cook in the first place.
She reddens, though. "And--and I would not lick a spoon!" She protests, perhaps, a little too quickly.
But, when Rose produces an apron, she catches it -- quick and easy -- and slips it on. That, at least, she is able to do quickly. "Oh, yes. I, ah, saw that cooks often wear these! Do you expect that it will get messy, Rose?"
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Not if we do it right!"
That's your first red flag.
Rose grabs the bags of flour and sets them on the table, next to two large, empty bowls. "Alright! Let's start from the bottom then, princess! We'll have you walking out of here able to make tree cake, or my name isn't Rose!" Note to self, buy large comical hat, fake mustache, and prepare to rename self.
"By the way, it's totally okay to catch a bite of the batter before we cook it. If you reeeeeally," she says, taking the free shot at Alisha, "never so much as snuck into the kitchen to do it, then let's get you caught up on a childhood memory everyone deserves!"
"You've got your own bowl, so follow along! First, we're going to mix eggs, sugar, milk together. About eight eggs'll do it, and just this much sugar and milk." She demonstrates what roughly comes down to a cup and a half of sugar and half a cup of milk. Very roughly. Don't measure it, just trust her. Then she starts beating it. As she does so, she converses.
"How big were your meals at the castle, anyway? Is it true the royal family just has this massive table full of way more food than you could possibly eat and the servants eat what's left?"
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha doesn't even spot the flag, much less think to check its color.
"Yes! I understand," she says. "I am sure we will be successful!" Though, she makes a bit of a face. "I--perhaps we will have a little," she allows, her cheeks turning red again. To say she is eager would be to give too much away. She takes her bowl, though, and makes a very serious face. And she watches, carefully, as Rose pours some milk and sugar.
She dimly recalls something about measurements being precise. "You... you have done this so much that you just know what goes into it!" she says, sounding impressed. She tries to get the same -- but, of course, she has about two cups of sugar and a quarter cup of milk.
They go into the bowl anyways, and she starts to stir.
"Well..." She hesitates, before she admits: "...Yes, but it isn't how it sounds. Father would often have half of the council, several local nobles, knights, guard commanders, merchants, and foreign dignitaries for dinner. Sometimes by surprise. The idea was to cook enough to feed everyone, and then the servants, too."
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Of course!" Alisha wasn't completely wrong, Rose has screwed up this recipe enough times to know more or less how much of everything to put in the bowls. She's at the stage of screwing up where it's the baking itself that goes wrong. Usually.
"Huh, I guess that makes sense. You know, the commonfolk think being royalty is really just sitting on a throne and shouting orders, I bet people'd stop trying to be royalty if they knew political dinners are common enough you make it a habit to cook for them. I don't get how you folks manage it!" She has difficulty seeing Alisha do boring political things, admittedly. Alisha was more of a knight princess, per her own words.
"Alright! So once we've got this whisked into shape, we're going to add in butter! Mixing in butter by hand is a huge pain, though, so we'll just melt it over the fire. This gets easier to beat when it's hot, too! But careful, we just want to heat it up, not cook it."
A whole stick of butter goes into the bowl, which Rose takes to the fire and holds in the heat, not so close she'll burn herself.
"Come to think of it, what's your dad like? We don't see him much these days." Well, trip to Filgaia aside. Alisha should know what Rose means. "He's obviously still the king, and I heard he was a pretty good one in the days, but that council of yours seems to be running the place."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha laughs at that, while she keeps stirring her bowl. "Yes, I think so," she says. "They were dreadful. I went, because I had to, of course. But I was younger then. Mostly... I was expected to sit in a dress and be quiet. It was a reminder that... ah... that my father had children. Of course, with my birth..."
She shakes her head. "...It wasn't likely that I would ever inherit."
She perks up, before she can feel bad about what was said. She nods, and then drops her own stick of butter into the bowl. She walks over, holding the bowl over the heat. She is careful, then, of course. She knows about fires, at least.
"Father?" she asks. "He... well, he was always kind to me. He was much older, though, than most fathers. He never had much time for me, but when he could, he liked to walk with me. When I was younger, he was more active. But, he grew ill, and then..."
And then the Council happened. She frowns, a moment, and she shakes her head. "He still loves to see me, when he can. He says I remind him of my mother."
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"I'll never get the obsession about keeping the royal bloodline pure, like kings or queens can't just be with whoever they want. When you think about it it must have been pretty sad for your father, but at least you were there to make up for it," Rose comments, as she recalls Alisha's brief accounting of her mother.
The subject changes for the better once the butter is molten, Rose withdrawing the bowl and resuming stirring (or violently beating, really) the mix into shape. "Alright, once this is nice and together, we're going to choose flavoring! There's a lot of fruits here, don't be afraid to mix! We're just going to be juicing them, though, don't go putting whole fruits into the mix!" She did that the first time. 'Incorporate flavoring' was, in her defense, vague instructions.
For her part, Rose seems to gravitate towards lemon, lime and orange, pressing them for juice in a smaller bowl. As she does so she resumes idle chatter.
"What's the first thing you'll do when we're back? Besides checking up on your country and the war, I mean. That one's pretty obvious!" Dutiful Alisha would never prioritize anything else, she wagers.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"It is an archaic practice," Alisha says. "I am glad that I was there for him, though... I wish things had been different for them both." She glances down. "...And I hope that I do not end up the same way, where I couldn't be with someone that I love."
It's a little franker than Alisha meant to share.
She looks up, and then nods at Rose. She puts her bowl down, grabs an orange between her hands, and proves her prodigious strength -- she squeezes it, the skin rupturing, and juice flowing down into the bowl directly. She smiles, when she does.
She always thought smashing things was stress relief.
"When I get back? Well... I would need to look into Ladylake. And my soldiers! They must be so worried. And--and you said besides that," she says. "I suppose... I would want to see my father. And some of the country. Maybe relax in the hot springs... What about you, Rose?"
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Hey, when you're queen you can just change the rules. Besides, I'd feel sorry for anyone who walks up to you and tries to tell you how to be queen." What is THAT supposed to mean? Probably that Alisha likes to smash things a lot. Her affinity for destroying fruit certainly makes Rose stare. Well, as long as they're juice!
"Me?" Rose ponders, as she mixes her citrus juices into the rest of the mix. "Well, I'm going to have to make the rounds and reassure people the Sparrowfeathers aren't dead. Make a lot of apologies. Reinburse some folks. I'm hoping when we get back to Lunar I'll have full caravans of Filgaian wares to make up for everything we had to sell when we got here."
That's strictly business, really.
"Once you've got as much flavor in there as you want, put in about this much flour! Then mix again! Once it's all together, put in the same amount of flour again and beat it into a nice batter!" Rose indicates, roughly, half a cup of flour, so that's a cup in total. More or less.
"We're almost at the cooking part!"
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"When I'm queen... if I ever am. There are--there are obstacles, to my inheriting. And I don't know that it would be the best thing for Hyland," she says, quietly.
And she keeps crushing fruit, while she listens to Rose's explanations -- and reflects on the fact that it is strictly business. For all that they seem different, are they truly? They both are focused on their duties, in their own ways.
"That sounds like a lot of work," she says. "But... it's good that you work so hard as a merchant! And you can bring a lot of valuables back to Lunar. People there would love to see the things here."
She nods, and then she watches as the flour -- roughly measured -- goes in. She starts to pour hers in, though the amount isn't quite the same. The stirring is easier, though. She has some muscle in her arm, after all.
"How will we bake it?" she asks. She doesn't see an oven.
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"With that attitude you'll never be queen, that's right! You know, the Trial Knight might be harsh in his lessons but he had a point... roundabout as it was. You gotta want it. You gotta reach for it. You gotta do what it takes to make it happen, knowing it's the right thing to do." The point of his sword was, on the other hand, not all that roundabout. Rose winces, recalling that sting.
Then she looks at the fire. Back at Alisha. She feigns panic. "Oh no! I forgot we need an oven!" Rose flails, but eventually calms down and grin. "Just kidding! See, this is the most interesting part about tree cake! Come on over, closer to he fire! And grab that brush on the table!"
There's two baker's brushes, right there. You'd be forgiven for mistaking them for regular, large paintbrushes.
"So this is where it gets hard and tricky. Now that our mix is ready, we're going to start putting it on the spits. Once the first layer hardens, we'll put another on - and another, and another, until we have a cake as thick as we want it! It's very important to rotate the spit the entire time so none of it burns, and to apply new layers fast and evenly."
It probably sounds easier than it is. Or harder?
"It creates this really nice cake with up to a hundred flaky layers. If we wanted to be REALLY wild we could mix up the flavor between layers, but, aheh... I'm not... THAT good at it."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"I... that is true, but..." The disquieting thing about the Trial Knight wasn't that they were wrong. It was that they knew what Alisha wanted -- and voiced it, when she never dared to. After all, to say she wanted to be queen might be tantamount to treason. The council would never tolerate such a thing.
And yet, if she was being honest with herself, she did want that. She wanted the best for the people of Hyland, and that didn't mean just stepping aside.
She looks up, though, and her eyes widen. Did... did Rose really forget the oven? Oh. No, she was teasing her. Alisha makes a face at her -- and then she looks down at the spits with wide eyes. "We have to... paint them on?" she asks, as she puts her bowl down, and she stares at them. "I--I see why it is called tree cake! I thought--I thought, perhaps, it was because they are... er... made near trees?"
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"I'm sure there has to be some people out there who make cakes out of trees. I think I'll skip on that exotic delicacy and stick with regular people cake!" Rose hasn't ever tried eating wood and isn't about to either. All kinds of weird tastes out there though!
And monsters. And monster-people. And Metal Demons. And Seraphim. Rose pauses, glancing down at her bowl.
"... what DO Seraphim eat anyway? I know some of them were eating cake that night Sorey did his little exposition speech thing, do they just eat normal people food all the time?" That'd be weird. And scary. Wouldn't more people notice Seraphim if they always ate normal people food?
A glance back towards the spits, resting over the flames. "Ah, yeah, we'll paint the layers on! But! The layers have to be kind of thick, at least as thick as your average sword blade. So be generous with that brush, and don't make a long and wide cake, you won't be able to keep up!" That's experience talking.
With that, Rose starts by - stuffing the brush in her mouth after putting it in the batter. She noms on it appreciatively, talking with her mouth full. "FIRSH THOUGH YOUV GOTTA TASHE TESH." It's part of the process. Or so Rose claims. Guilt-free lick of the spoon, Alisha?
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"I... I don't think cake made out of tree would taste very good, either, unfortunately," Alisha admits. Unless it was a maple cake. But maple flavoring made everything better, as far as she was concerned.
She looks up, though, at the question. "They--oh, they eat the same thing we do! Lady Lailah makes the most wonderful sweets. And Lord Mikleo can make ice cream! It is quite delicious. If... surprising, the first time you see food simply cooking itself."
Whether they have to eat, though, is a separate question.
She nods to the explanation. She dips her brush in, getting a generous amout ready -- and she is about to paint it on the spit, when she spots Rose with the brush...
...in her mouth.
Alisha stares at her for a long moment. Her brush drips a few droplets of batter onto the ground. Then, the princess bites her lip, and starts giggling uncontrollably at the sight.
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Mmph?" Rose stares back, confused.
Eventually she stops chewing on the brush and swallows, pulling the instrument out of her mouth and grabbing a new one. "Hey, what's so funny? If you don't taste it you'll never know if you got it right! Come on, princess, open wide!" Rose plunges the new brush into Alisha's bowl, and directs it at her mouth. If Alisha won't indulge in guilty pleasure of her own volition, Rose will be the one to corrupt her.
"Kind of curious to try Seraphim-cooked food now... also kind of spooked by the idea. I guess ghostly powers would be great to make icy treats though..." It is, after all, not everywhere you can just make or buy ice cream. Gotta find someone who knows some ice sorcery most of the time. It's more convenient than looking for someone with ancient food-freezing technology. Or going to cold regions just to make some food.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha doubles over, hand on her stomach, laughing hard -- though still a little softly, all told. She doesn't usually laugh so hard that it's loud, but this is the most that she has laughed since she came to Filgaia. Which means that, while she is listening to Rose, her guard is down. She has a few tears in her eyes. "Y-You're... you looked so--"
Wait. Open wide?
"Mrrrmmmf!"
She sputters when she has the brush in her mouth. She drops hers -- it falls right into the bowl and sinks into the batter -- and then sputters, yanking back. She licks her lips, before she looks at Rose with a furious blush. "Rose! That--oh, actually, that was quite good!"
She laughs, again, and then she looks down at her lap. "Y-Yes," she says. She giggles, again. "You should try Mikleo's iced cream. It--ahahahah, eheheheheh, you stuck the whole brush in your mouth!"
She starts snickering again. Her dropped brush sends a few bubbles to the top of the batter.
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"I might have looked silly, but now your brush is gone!" That poor brush, it'll be remembered fondly. Rose just hands the one she was holding to Alisha, since it was in her batter anyway, and reaches to get yet another one. She has a lot because she kinda plans for things like "maybe I'll drop two in the fire like last time". Rose is a competent chef.
"Oh well, we'll dig it out as we use the batter. And I know, right?! Raw cake batter and cooking dough are some of the best delicacies you can find anywhere!" And relatively easy to make, when you think about it. "If I didn't know it's terrible for you I'd probably eat the whole bowl and not bother cooking it at all. Cake's good too, though!"
Yes, let's move on from laughing about Rose.
She has a feeling the princess won't let her live that one down for a while.
"Well, let's get to it! So the most important thing here is to watch the color. When it starts browning is when you want to add another layer. Keep rotating the spit, but not so fast the batter just flies off, it has to stick. And careful about the flames!" That last one probably went without saying.
Now see, if Dezel was here, he'd be using his wind powers to fan the flames and keep them from burning too hot - or making them burn hotter - in pace with Rose's efforts to assemble the cake. It was his softer side, the one he didn't show people. He also tended to help pick fresh ingredients since he could smell them from such a distance. Now... well, Rose and Alisha are on their own.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
Alisha giggles, before she takes the brush. She looks down at it, flipping the brush between her fingers, before she plunges it into her batter. She nods, before she looks up at Rose with a smile. Maybe she was laughing, but the smile is warm now, at least. "Cake is wonderful," she says. "I always loved to have a chance to eat it. And to make it, now!"
She nods, then she starts to paint her first layer on. Hers was more sugary than Rose's -- so it forms a different consistency, but proves quite sticky. She wrinkles her nose, once, and she watches as it drips.
"Ah... the fire cooks it quicker than I thought--" She says, before she tilts her head. "Where did you learn to make this, Rose? Was it something that Brad taught you?"
She hasn't forgotten about what Rose told her about Brad.
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Oh yeah, the fire cooks this in a flash! This isn't like trying to make cake in a oven where you're having to cook the entire thing at once, with just a small layer of it here it heats up real fast. That's why you have to pay attention and re-coat often! It shouldn't take more than a minute between layers!" Or a bit more. Or a bit less. It's already obvious that Rose's timing is... not perfect. Some layers are a bit more burnt than others. It's probably still edible! ... but not exactly five star material. Or four. Or three. Generous two, maybe.
Rose bites her lips, evidently quite focused on the task.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Well, he didn't teach me per se. One day I caught him and Eguille making a really big one together for all of us, so I spied how they did it so I could make one for them."
Dezel would describe the finished product as dark matter.
"They liked it!"
Actually Eguille still has nightmares about it, and Brad was too nice to tell Rose she'd messed it up baaaaad. As expected of them.
"I learn a lot just watching others do things. Some days if you just slow down and carefully watch what other people do, you'll see them doing all kinds of stuff that's incredible, but that you usually don't notice."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Oh... oh, yes, I see! Ah--some of it's already burning..."
A glance at Rose's tells Alisha that this isn't uncommon. Indeed, she is about to open her mouth to apologize for distracting Rose and causing hers to burn, when she says: 'They liked it!' Her eyes widen and, finally, understanding comes. Rose actually isn't that great of a cook. She just watched them, picked up on some of it, and imitated.
Which, really, is impressive in its own way.
"Oh... I see!" she says, as paints some more of the batter on hers. It starts to accumulate layers, but it is lopsided. Instead of a glorious, round cake, she has an indistinct lump in varying states of being badly burnt and a little undercooked. But, it smells sugary and delicious, and she keeps it rolling.
"What else have you learned that way?" she asks, with a glance sideways at her friend. "Most everything I learned, I studied or had a tutor for..."
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"That's a tough question. Most of my merchant-y skills were learned that way. You can't really teach someone to have a good eye for wares or to treat people right, you know? You can't just learn overnight the value of everything, or how much you can mark up a price before people stop buying. You just kind of learn that by watching other people and seeing how they do trade. Then trying it yourself! Learning from your mistakes."
Rose hums, and glances at Alisha thoughtfully. "Fighting, too. I bet it was the same for you. Sure, I had a tutor - like you - but you can't get real combat experience from practicing moves stiffly. You have to fight! Watch other people fight. Watch other people die, sometimes, and you make your failures yours so you don't repeat them."
Rose's cake is start to look like a large donut. It's nice and round, mostly because she's practiced that a lot. That doesn't mean the insides are cooked evenly in the slightest but at least it's presentable!
"Uuugh! It's like the fire's not cooperating today. The flames are going every which way!" Yes, Rose, that is how fire works.
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Ah, that's true... those aren't something a book can show you to do," Alisha says. "Either learning about selling goods or fighting. I learned to fight by sparring -- and then in the knights, in the field." She nods, once, though she looks down at hearing 'watch other people die.' It stings, because there is truth in it. When she lost her squadron, it shaped how she viewed combat.
Alisha keeps turning hers, though she starts to frown. Parts are glazed, while a few are burnt. "I... think it isn't, no," she says. "Maybe if we had a billows, to direct where the fire went."
That would be expensive, though.
"I think mine may be ready to come off? Too much more, and I may char the whole thing," she says. The parts that aren't burnt do look tasty.
Sort of.
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Mhm! Let's pull these off before they burn, then. We just have to take the spits off the fire, set them over the table and slide the cake down. Or we can just cut it off, if you don't mind it being in halves." These cakes were obviously not going to win beautiful cake contests, so keeping them whole would be an act of pointless vanity. And yet it's just so much more satisfying when your cake is in one piece, isn't it?
Rose pulls large gloves out, a pair for Alisha too, so they can handle the burning metal rod without fear of burning their hands. Transfering the cakes to the tables is, compared to the process of making them, pretty painless.
"That just leaves one thing! We can melt some chocolate and pour it over the cakes to make a nice, shiny coat! Or we can eat them as-is, that's what the fruits were there for. Bland cake is better with something on top, but with fruit flavors mixed in it's quite fine as-is! Oh! Wait, there are TWO ways to eat this!"
Rose instructs, by demonstrating with her cake. "You can eat it like normal cake by cutting a slice," which she does with hers, demonstrating the dozens of layers inside. Different shades of brown, from badly burnt to edible. "Or! You can unroll it, and eat it layer by layer!"
When she tries doing that on part of her cake, it kind of just... crumbles apart. It doesn't unroll at all. "Or we could, if the fire wasn't out to get us!" A sigh. "Well, practice makes perfect, princess. How'd yours turn out?"
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Oh, let's pull them off! I do want to see how they look as a whole. Maybe we could think of it as practice for next time!" Alisha says. Besides, she wants to see how the skewers handle. She takes the gloves, donning them in a hurry. Then, she pulls the skewer off -- and she slides her cake off onto the table. The skewer is laid down without ceremony before she sighs.
And then she listens.
Her eyes widen and sparkle a little. Chocolate is a magical word and a magical thing. She beams, before she looks eagerly at Rose, and then she nods -- and takes the chocolate. She pours some of it.
It glistens.
Actually, the whole thing does. She pokes it with a finger, and then picks it up -- and it doesn't crumble, but it actually looks rather hard. So much so that, with her thumb, she breaks a piece off.
"I-I think I did not make it nearly fluffy enough," she says, with a sigh.
<Pose Tracker> Rose has posed.
"Not enough flour? Not enough milk, maybe?" Rose hms, unsure. She hasn't really pieced everything together yet about how each ingredient affects the dish. Taking a piece of Alisha's cake and tossing it into her mouth, she chews for a bit and then beams the princess a smile. "I tell you what though, I think that tastes better than the first one I did! I must be a great teacher!" Or Alisha is a natural at this?
But it's Rose we're talking about.
"Well! Let's pack this up, Sorey might want a piece. I've got some books I need to give him anyway, found them in some ruins." She taps her chin, trying to recall. "Ruins of Memory, I think? Some books about the Metal Demons near as far as I could tell. Not sure if any of it's important."
<Pose Tracker> Alisha Diphda has posed.
"Mm... I'm not sure, but I can work at it." Alisha eats the piece that she broke off. It may be crispy, but it crunches well enough. It tastes a little like a cookie, she thinks. She licks her lips, and then she looks up at Rose. She starts to pack away the supplies on the table, before she looks sideways. "Some books...?"
She wrinkles her nose, before she nods. "They may be helpful. I will have to have a look." She looks back down at her cake, then, and smiles. "Thank you for showing me, Rose!"