2019-03-24 - TIMELINE 3: The Magic of Christmas
| The Magic of Christmas | |
|---|---|
| Summary: Two witches, one future witch, and their friends, make cookies together. Hijincks ensue. | |
| Who: Madoka Kaname, Akko Kagari, Sucy Manbavaran, Setsuna Higashi, Rei Hino, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Fuu Hououji | |
| Where: Pan Paka Pan, Tama | |
| OOC - IC Date: 3/24/2019 - 2014-12-24 | |
<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
Amid hills and grass and overlooking the distant bay, Pan Paka Pan is a shining beacon of buttery pastry, oozing chocolate filling, clean, bright surfaces and oven-warm air.
It is owned and operated by the Hyuugas, and arrangements were made through their oldest daughter -- who attends Infinity Institute -- to have them host a cookie-decorating party for the Sister Schools (with a little financial help from said schools' Cooking Clubs).
And so that brings us to the present moment.
Late morning -- Christmas Eve. Perhaps the most romantic day of the year, for those who have a date; no less joyful and anticipatory a day for those without one, though. Romance is not required to make Christmas bright. There are many kinds of love.
The cookies are already out of the oven -- bread baker-armed Daisuke Hyuuga is still taking them out of the oven two sheets at a time, in fact -- but they have to cool before they can be decorated, and the first of them have done so, ready and waiting on an embankment of wire racks.
Some are shaped like trees; some like snowmen; some like stars; some like simple circles, a palette upon which anything could be created.
Equally strong-armed Saori Hyuuga has assembled a rainbow's worth of food coloring and lots and lots of individual, white-as-snow bowls of frosting.
Somewhat less physically powerful Minori Hyuuga, who is barely in elementary school, is providing the enthusiasm.
"COOKY COOKY LA LA LA~" she sings, while keeping time to her impromptu Christmas carol with a wooden spoon and a small metal pot. "COOKY COOKY FA FA FA!"
She is presiding over the bits-and-pieces decoration table. Gumdrops. Mints. Chocolate chips. Sprinkles. Endless possibility awaits.
<Pose Tracker> Akko Kagari [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
There is, of all things, a rabbit here. He is helping Daisuke Hyuuga. Gordon is on hand for the expert opinion.
Atsuko Kagari is on hand for the amateur everything else.
It is with big, excited crimson eyes that she looks down at the cookies in front of her, and then thrusts a hand into the air. Her magic wand, clutched so firmly in her fingers, glows with a mote of green-blue light.
"ALL RIGHT!" she says, energetically. "Here we go! We're going to make the most Christmas cookies ever and we're going to eat ALL OF THEM! And I'm going to use my magic to--"
Gordon the Rabbit cuts her a look.
"...eheheh, I mean, I'm going to decorate a cookie..." Akko gets stars in her eyes. "...just like Shiny Chariot would...!"
<Pose Tracker> Sucy Manbavaran [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Sucy Manbavaran has come here, along with Akko. She has a big fuzzy knit hat resembling the cap of a poison mushroom on her head, with knitted trails that add extra insulation to her ears. Also, a white parka. This does present a certain effect when she's slouching around outside.
Sucy is okay with that.
"Hmmm... yeah, this ought to be enough," Sucy says, leaning her head down to examine the small array of cookies she's gotten - a number of rounds but a couple trees, snowmen and a trio of stars. As she unties her hat and shrugs out of her coat, she says, "Akko don't look in here."
She unfolds a small black cardboard box with a curtain in front of it. Into it she puts two of the round cookies, the bigger ones.
She also puts a small vial which has a completely legitimate label on it - VANILLA FLAVRING - on the table, super casually. "heh heh"
<Pose Tracker> Akko Kagari [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
"Sure, Sucy!" Akko says, because her object permanence is questionable at best. "I won't look!"
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Romance is all well and good. Dates? Dates are fine. But girls and boys come and go in a young model's life. There is but one constant companion, but one surety. And that?
...That is dessert.
Setsuna Higashi is here at one of the tables herself, having picked one closer to a wall just so that she can watch everyone else--she is... reasonably sure, by now, that she understands enough about Christmas for proper decorations. She has the colors down; red, and green, and sometimes white, for the snow. Blue if someone's being fancy, but obviously the Red Future isn't going to be using blue.
"...Well," Setsuna says, raising her voice to be almost friendly at Akko, "I can't eat all of mine myself. There's a girl down the way I'm planning to surprise with a few."
She's near Love's house, and Buki's, and Miki's, so... Why not drop in, while the day's still young? The holiday's giving her energy.
She is, of course, dressed in entirely too fancy of clothes for the average baker, but her jacket is off on the rack and the apron will protect her (red-dominated) outfit. And there are so many....
She starts to step from away, towards the now-cooled cookies, her red eyes peering thoughtfully into the shapes. "Hmmm...." She looks thoughtful. "...Love would probably make a mess with just the circles..."
She will start with stars and--And...
Two circles on top of one another? The Infinity student sort of tilts her head at the design. It is probably not obvious that she doesn't quite recognize snowmen immediately.
<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
"Oh, is that vanilla?" asks Madoka, reaching over from the other side of the table. "It's my favorite flavor, uehihi..." These are nervous giggles, of the kind that knows how boring it is for VANILLA to be your favorite. But not so nervous that she didn't say it.
She grabs it and drips a few drops into her icing--!, then puts it back in Sucy's reach. Her workstation is next to Setsuna's, and she smiles at the other girl. "What color icing do you want me to mix?"
Her bowl of white icing is just bubbling with possibility.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Hino [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
Rei Hino has taken care of all her presents already, no thanks to a certain Executive. They are, of course, all painstakingly home made. She will claim it was no trouble at all, and will certainly not admit to how many hours she poured into making little craft paper flowers to decorate things.
But, you know, there are some things which need to be made closer to the day. The effects of fresh cookies are frankly peerless in the Christmas landscape. Regrettably, no boy has passed her impeccable standards, but she has a circle of friends she has to take care of. Some more than others. Some way more than others.
Her first idea had been to go to one of them for help, but, well...
... here's the problem...
... that means they'll know what she's doing?!
So no matter Makoto's skill in the kitchen, she has not gone to her. Luckily, this is about the time she has heard from her friends - aspirant magicians, amongst others - that there is a cookie decorating party going on at the Hyuuga's.
It is the perfect crime.
She's in one of Setsuna's classy red jackets, of course, as she stands before a bowl of icing and several tree-shaped cookies. "Vanilla, really?" She asks, as she mixes in green icing - just a hiiint of blue - oh no, that's too much blue. More green, more green! "Madoka-chan, there are a million flavours out there. Live a little!"
Now her icing is comically green, and she frowns to herself as she stares down at it. No, this won't do at all. Maybe a little yellow...
<Pose Tracker> Marinette Dupain-Cheng [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.
Marinette doesn't have a date tonight. She doesn't have a love life to fuel enthusiasm for the day. She doesn't even have a secret crush she could slip cookies to - at least, not after the last few months of burying herself in her other life.
What she does have, however, is a much-neglected creative drive aching to cute loose.
There are other kinds of love besides the romantic, after all, and there's something kind of giggle-inducing about gifting amateur-decorated cookies to professional bakers. There's plans with her family tonight, and these should make a nice surprise to bring. Maybe she can even give some to...
Well, some surprises are harder to keep than others, and her hand drifts to her purse for a moment. Shaking her head, she joins the students swarming into the bakery, retrieving an apron almost out of habit. She sniffs at the cookies, a curious frown on her face as ideas start to flick through her head. "Sugar cookies, right? I'll..."
The loud singing from the decoration table catches her ear, and a grin crosses her face. "...you know what, I think I have a great idea or two. I just need a few things for it to all come together..." A handful of tree cookies find their way onto her plate, along with a few snowmen - though the latter, for some reason, she sets down sideways. And then, to the icing...
Which is already chaos, apparently.
"...flavour. How could I forget about flavour?!" Her eyes flick from one bowl to the next, darting back and forth. "I got so caught up in thinking about the design, and if I mismatch the taste I'm going to wind up disowned, and then I'll only be allowed to make sugar designs on pancakes for the rest of my life..."
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Art is not Fuu Hououji's best subject.
It's not like her grades are terrible in artistically-oriented subjects; she studies vigorously enough, and she knows how to commit names and dates and terminology to memory, but when it comes to the actual creative endeavors like sketching or sculpture, her results tend to be ... less than impressive. Truth be told, she prefers classes which are less rooted in 'fuzzy' aesthetic principles.
So, faced with the canvas of undecorated cookies, most of her peers would likely expect her to be at something of a loss. And, to some extent, they would be right - but Fuu is still collecting some cookies which have cooled and are ready to be decorated. Trees, a few circles, a couple of stars. She has a general idea of what she wants to do, at least, and a contented smile as she rounds up frosting - one bowl of white, one bowl she works on tinting green ...
Not quite as vivid a green as Rei seems to have wound up with, though. Fuu gives the shrine maiden a sympathetic smile, then gets back to work on her own.
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Setsuna was briefly lost in thought--but Madoka, of course, can bring her back to the moment. She turns, blinks--"I was thinking pink," she answers. "That's her favorite color." Then, a beat, as she lifts an eyebrow Rei's way. "I suppose there are that many flavors," she imagines, engaging with the hyperbole entirely seriously, "Is a single flavor insufficient for these?"
Vanilla, boring? Naaaah.
A beat, "That's a lot of creen, isn't it?"
Setsuna will pretend not to notice how intricate Rei's work is, later. But it won't be very convincing because she won't be trying very hard at all not to smirk at her other friend.
She puts down her set of stars and snowmen, preparing, and then... pauses, looking at Marinette for a moment. "..."
She's probably kidding. Probably. Right? ...Probably.
"Madoka-chan," Setsuna murmurs, "...People don't actually get disowned for forgetting extra flavorings, do they?"
<Pose Tracker> Akko Kagari [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
"Sucy can mix some really amazing things!" Akko asides to Madoka. She smiles at the pink-haired girl, before she looks down. She eyes the box of seemingly nirmal vanilla. Then, she grabs just a whole heaping of red icing, and begins smearing on Santa Claus (the cookie) in unsightly globs.
Then she sticks her fingers in, and licks some, when she thinks no one is watching.
Really: they probably are.
<Pose Tracker> Sucy Manbavaran [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
'is that vanilla? It's my favorite flavor, uehihi,' reaches Sucy's ears, and she turns her head a little to see
MADOKA
PICKING UP THE BOTTLE
AND!
ADDING IT!!
TO THE FROSTING!!!
The label on the bottle slips a little, but not enough to be revealing. Sucy feels a cold sweat climb up the back of her spine as visions dance through her mind, visions of brutal clarity and simplicitly.
1. Sucy is declared a DONKEY by the supervising lapine.
2. Sucy is PACKED INTO A JAR OF ADOBO SAUCE.
3. Sucy is THROWN ONTO AN AIRPLANE GOING BACK HOME
4. Sucy is DUMPED INTO A FRYING PAN by her MOTHER, who TURNS ON THE STOVE.
Externally Sucy appears a little tense.
"That's pretty strong," she tells Madoka, "so don't taste it until it's breathed for a minute."
Sucy leans over to Akko. Closer. There is a momentary pause as Akko helps herself to some frosting independent of cookie.
She confides in her roommate, "I think Kaname's got a Shiny Chariot hair thing on. You should check."
The perfect crime, Sucy thinks, even as she quietly reaches over to snag some green frosting for her own presumable use.
<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
Madoka blushes but her chin goes up rather than coming down. "I try every flavor, even anchovy!" she declares. "Even... locust tsukudani! Vanilla my favorite but I still live lots."
Over the course of this tirade she has folded her arms defensively, which means that she's not holding onto the frosting bowl.
Looking back over at Setsuna -- and following her gaze to the anxiety in Marinette's -- she shakes her head.
"Definitely no disowning," she agrees. "Everything's gonna be fine, even if our cookies wind up being like... Picasso-san, rather than Monet-san."
<Pose Tracker> Rei Hino [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
Marinette is panicking, so it must be a day ending in 'Y'. "Just go with chocolate," Rei says, because this is about to be a disaster. "Everyone loves chocolate."
Green is a popular colour! Rei's is now a cheery chartreuse, and she frooowns in consideration before deciding they will at least do for some of her friends. At least Fuu seems to understand her consternation. Setsuna, naturally, does not. "Of course it's a lot of green," she says. "I'm not about to make blue trees, Setsuna!"
She does not comment on Akko's icing crimes, but she raises a brow because she absolutely saw.
And Madoka, who apparently has a cool hair dec, defends herself. "Geez, even anchovy..?" She laughs off the thought of anchovy cookies, waving a hand. "Okay, okay, you win. Enjoy the vanilla." Which is totally normal vanilla, surely.
Of course, for all her icing is intricately coloured, it still needs a flavour of its own. And here, she pauses at the many essence-bottles. Oh no. Oh no. She's spent so much time giving everyone crap over their flavour profiles she hasn't thought about what to make these trees taste like at all. Oh no.
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
"I've never heard of anyone getting disowned over Christmas cookies, Marinette-san," Fuu offers helpfully as she continues stirring her frosting. "As long as the recipient enjoys them, isn't that the most important part? Especially when it comes to Christmas - the thought counts more than the skill. It's proof that *you* made them, instead of buying something that was perfectly made by a professional ..."
She pauses, wincing a little as she remembers exactly whose kitchen she's in. "No offense, Hyuuga-san," she apologizes to the family of bakers, offering quick bows in Daisuke's, Saori's, and Minori's respective directions.
Rei's defense about 'not making blue trees' prompts a quizzical look from Fuu, "Isn't there such a tree as a 'blue spruce,' though?"
<Pose Tracker> Akko Kagari [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
"What, really!?"
Akko says to Sucy, looking up with a face covered in red icing. She licks out with her tongue, clearing not even half of it off. Then, her eyes turn towards Madoka -- and she misses entirely the anxiety that Marinette feels, the way that Madoka is talking to her friends, or even the sheer presence of Rei Hino. All Akko sees is potential:
The presence of Shiny Chariot(-related merchandise)!
Thus in a flash, she is there behind Madoka. She lifts Madoka's left pig tail, and peers under it. "Shiny Chariot? Are you there?"
<Pose Tracker> Marinette Dupain-Cheng [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.
There's a...lot of support, and a lot of reassuring comments. It takes a minute to sink in, though - a minute in which Marinette almost reflexively peers at every single bowl in grabbing distance. By the time she manages to stomp down on the thought of ruining everything ever, the bowls have been thoroughly shuffled.
"Ah. Right. That makes a lot of sense and I should probably just...get to work." Flushed, she looks over the mismatched array of bowls she's managed to scramble, attention seemingly caught by one thing then another. "...admittedly, though, I think I might be able to work with this. It's all sweet, anyway, and a mélange might be the best way to go..."
So Marinette grabs a piping bag.
And proceeds to grab a few spoonfuls each of at least a dozen icing bowls, swiftly grabbing each in turn and putting it back in a location that may or may not be where it came from. The net result is that she now has a ridiculously rainbow-hued icing bag of chaos, and the icing has been subjected to a bit of a makeshift shell-game.
"There! A bit chaotic, maybe, but it should do for a nicely patterned border..." She traces along the edge of one snowman, nodding at the marbled rainbow line that results. "Does anyone else want to give it a try? It might be fun for Picasso-san cookies!"
<Pose Tracker> Marinette Dupain-Cheng [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.
"It might be fun for Picasso-san cookies!"
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Setsuna does not express surprise at Madoka's flavor bravery. It is entirely in line with her high opinion of her. But even with that in mind she looks impressed. "Locust tsukudani..." She can't even imagine. Except...
"Green pepper cookies..." It is a mournful statement, the realization that even in seasons of warm feelings, evil can continue to exist.
"Sure, sure, Rei," Setsuna answers lightly back. "It's all about accuracy. I believe you." She does not believe her. Sometimes Setsuna misses things here and there but she has always been curiously good at sarcasm.
"I do like professional cookies too," she admits however. "I was planning to get some of those for myself..."
Not paying attention to the frosting for the moment, Setsuna instead lisens to Madoka's answer, and nods. "Yes." Setsuna looks forward into nothing for a moment, as she thinks about the art classes she's taken and the paintings she can recall. She imagines Picasso cookies. ...It's a nice image.
"Oh!" Setsuna says, her eyes widening lightly. The very cookies she'd considered. "Yes, I would like to try that for a border, too."
<Pose Tracker> Sucy Manbavaran [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Sucy sees her opening. She ducks down and is about to reeeeach over and hook a finger into the vanilla frosting bowl when she looks up at a statement from across the table. "Blue spruces are totally real," she says. "I saw them in Finland."
Sucy did not see blue spruce trees in Finland. They grow in America. Sucy probably thinks she sounds cool, though, and as she speaks, she reaches over and swaps the potion-infused vanilla for her own basically-identical bowl, looks down, and
her eyes
widen
as
she
sees
THE
- SPOONFUL*
- SHAPED**
- GAP!!!***
In Sucy's mind she imagines her mother leaning down as she sizzles in the butter in the frying pan and her mother asking her, with a voice like booming thunder; "WHY, SUCY, DID YOU DECIDE THAT YOUR SCHOOL BAGGAGE NEEDED TO CONTAIN..."
The small vial of homemade whatever-it-is has its label slip. The false label peels away.
Beneath it is the true label. One stark word written in spidery copperplate handwriting in English letters.
That word:
CLAUS
Sucy sweats a little more.
<Pose Tracker> Madoka Kaname [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
"Aa," Madoka objects with a wrinkled nose, as her hair is lifted from her cheek and ear, "That tickles!"
There is no Shiny Chariot barette, her hair is secured only by the most adorable red ribbons known to all girlkind. She turns to look at Akko, and they're basically nose-to-nose.
"U-um, sorry, it's just me, Madoka..."
She turns back to her icing only to find that now there is... all icing, everywhere. After a few moments of open admiration as to Marinette's piped rainbows, she grabs a spoon and starts using its back to paint one of her stars blue.
"Stars can be blue too," she chimes in, in vague agreement with Sucy. Sort of. She furrows her brow, sticks her tongue between her teeth, and tries to concentrate on creating a smooth sugary surface.
"Mmmmm..."
<Pose Tracker> Akko Kagari [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
"Ohhhh--hey, Sucy said you had Shiny Chariot barettes in your hair! Aw, maaaaan... thanks anyways, Madoka." Akko turns and sighs, before she steps away from Madoka and marches herself back to her seat. She looks down at her icing.
"I didn't think I ate that much... oh well!" She reaches over, then, and plops some more icing down. Then, she squeezes a Christmas tree cookie atop the Santa one. Then, she grabs some of Sucy's icing without asking, like it ain't no thing.
She starts spreading that upon the Christmas tree.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Hino [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
Setsuna answers Rei with sarcasm and gets a haughty little 'hmph' in response, because of course she believes her. Her fellow archer, on the other hand, engenders more curiosity. "Eh - are they really blue?" Rei asks, on the subject of blue spruce. Apparently they are totally real.
She is, naturally, distracted from this question by personal space invader, Akko Kagari.
"Hey, look, I get that Madoka's about as huggable as a panda bear, but aren't we here to make cookies?" Some people just don't appreciate when it is appropriate to just get up in someone's face, honestly. "You're gonna get icing in her hair like that."
Madoka probably wouldn't mind, but still, it's the principle of the thing.
She turns back to the flavouring, and considers. Surely a hint of mint would be appropriate for trees? So she adds a little splash. And then she realises that she doesn't want them to be tasteless, so she adds a little more. But maybe sprinkles aren't good enough, so she adds a little more...
It's fine, probably.
<Pose Tracker> Marinette Dupain-Cheng [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.
Marinette, for her part, starts testing a few patches with her rainbow icing. One snowman gets a few lines piped on it, before she floods the interior with red icing; the other gets a quick spiral of the rainbow line, creating a garishly technicolour pattern.
Though in neither case did she go to the edge of the cookie...
"...hm?" She looks up suddenly, having been overcome with concentration for a moment. "Oh, sure! Here you go!" She hands off the rainbow piping bag to Setsuna, before dashing over to the decoration table. A few moments later she returns, with a handful of red licorice strings and a scattering of small candies, which she arranges-
-to reveal that her 'snowman' cookies have been decorated to be guitars.
"...red on red. I really didn't think that through. The solid pattern is a bit better..." She taps her chin, glancing around like a skittish bird. "Maybe the green? Though - oh, is that mint? I'm not sure if that would go with the licorice..."
Decisions, decisions. In the meantime, she holds up one of the tree cookies. "...you know, I'd thought of making these into Tokyo Tower, but I'm not sure we have piping tips that narrow..."
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
Trees that are blue...
Fake stories about Finland just don't grab her the way fake stories about America might, though. She just accepts the blue spruce as fact, instead. And continues to fail to notice what Sucy is doing until it's entirely too late, when she looks over at her.
"...Is it too warm for you in here?" Setsuna asks, before look between Akko and Madoka again. She missed something... "Blue stars seem fine. Cookies can be any color." Yes, she is sure of this. Just as sure as she is of how these cookies are going to work next. She moves for the nearest free icing bowl and a bit of yellow, this time. Unlike some people, she hasn't been eating frosting... yet. But--
"Thank you," Setsuna answers, and caaaarefully begins to edge snowmen in rainbows. ...She is still grinning faintly at Rei's hmph, though, for a moment. It's... well, getting the exact amount right is hard, the first outline starts a little blotchy.
...Then a little extra blotchy on the star because for some reason when Marinette mentions her plans for the tree cookies Setsuna has the strange ghost of an urge to knock one of them over.
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
Finland, America, Fuu doesn't know for sure where blue spruces are from; she simply nods to Sucy, still smiling, and sets to work decorating the cookies she's got; her bowl of green may or may not be among those momentarily usurped by Marinette in the quest for rainbow-swirl icing. Either way, the effect does draw Fuu's attention, along with an appreciative nod as she sees the effect wrought.
"Tokyo Tower cookies?" she muses as Marinette mentions that idea. "I think it would take a little different of a shape, but ... hmm. It would be interesting to see!" she smiles. "Maybe it's worth trying one as an experiment with what we have available here?"
Not, perhaps, the most Christmas-y of cookie motifs, but the question still has her interest. For now, though, Fuu focuses on decorating some trees; if the green is a bit richer than a realistic tree, she's not letting that stop her.
<Pose Tracker> Sucy Manbavaran [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Sucy's internal "zawa zawa zawa" is broken by - of all people - Rei Hino. "So make them," she tells Rei, before looking down at her own cookies.
She seems to ignore some of the little round ones. Instead, she picks up a star cookie and considers it for a moment, before turning it towards Akko...
She sees Akko steal her icing, opens her mouth -
'I'm gonna eat all the cookies I make!' Sucy half remembers hearing.
- and closes it. She palms the vial of SANTA discreetly and says, "I need to go get something," before walking around the table the long way in her sloucy, oochy way. She gives Madoka a careful look in passing as she comes around the table and brushes against Rei on her way past, before she intercepts Daisuke during another offloading session.
"Mr. Hyuuga, can I get a knife? I wanna do something custom. It doesn't have to be mega sharp or anything."
Inwardly, Sucy's eye turns towards Rei again and she grins (in spirit). 'They don't have any idea that I've gotten rid of the evidence. Heh heh... Constanze better appreciate this but even if she doesn't, I've already come out on top.'
Shortly thereafter he makes her way back towards her station, now slightly pointiness-enhanced.
<Pose Tracker> Akko Kagari [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Akko looks up at Marinette. "Aw, you're doing them so fancy... I just decided to make a Christmas cookie sandwich because--um--"
Quick, Akko thinks. Find a cool reason!
"It seems like what Diana Cavendish would do?"
She spreads on a layer of white frosting, then smooshes a snowman cookie atop her ever-growing pile of a mega-sandwich.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Hino [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
"I know what I'm making!" Rei insists, to Sucy. Of course, her own attempts at decorating her trees are - let's use a kind term - enthusiastic.
They are not nearly as inventive as some of the other things being created. "Wait, are those..." Rei leans over to examine Marinette's cookies. She has no recourse but to admit: "oh my god that's adorable." They're tiny little guitars!
She is perfectly distracted, in fact, when Sucy brushes against her. "Look where you're going," she grumbles, and at first does not notice anything amiss.
This is, of course, because she has to pick on Setsuna. "Are you planning on using every colour?"
Akko and her cookie sandwich just get a Look. It is a Look well-known to Usagi Tsukino, but she's not here right now, so Akko can borrow it.
<Pose Tracker> Setsuna Higashi [Juuban Public School (9)] has posed.
The wages of theft...!
Setsuna does not wonder what is in the flavorings, though getting so close with them she will certainly have to be careful. There's some excess...
She is tempted to take a bit that falls off for herself. But then she would have to wash her hand... It wouldn't be clean. ...She considers again--before she notices Akko's towering pile of cookie.
"That's fair," she seems to conclude.
Rei asks a question. Setsuna looks to her, gamely. "Yes," Setsuna answers simply. Then pauses. "Maybe not every color. But it makes them brighter."
"I'm filling in each with mostly just the one color, though."
Maaaybe she just doesn't see a huge difference between 'kind of colorful' and 'riotously colorful'. Maybe she's just enjoying having options besides gray.
"But I like red on red," she adds. She's being very talkative tonight, in fact. ...and her cookies are, well...
At least they aren't bright green.
<Pose Tracker> Marinette Dupain-Cheng [Juuban Public School (8)] has posed.
Marinette nods to Fuu. "That's why I was looking at the tree cookies - it's basically triangle-shaped, just with...accoutrements." She pokes at a branch-tip. "Just need to do a narrow enough line, maybe if..."
Her train of thought gets derailed by Akko's comment, and she has to stare at the mega-sandwich of sugar. Slowly, her head tilts. "I guess if that's your style, there's no reason why not. Except using too many cookies, but it looks like there's a healthy supply, so...keep going, I guess?"
She beams a bit as there's a comment about 'adorable' behind her, which tells her there's at least one tree she's barking up correctly. Another comment about the colour choice gets her turning around, and she looks at it again. "I suppose it's striking - I'm just worried it blends together. Maybe if the guitar itself were kind of a different shade?"
Back to the icing bowls, to steal a bit of white-vanilla icing to blend with some red, making a darkish pink. Another outline in red, another fill, and another quick trip to the decoration piles - and soon enough, Marinette is touching up a red-string-on-pink guitar. "Getting there - I think the rainbow and the pink might work together. Maybe the next one, but I should really sketch out the tower design..." She lays another liquorice string on a tree-shaped cookie, turning it every which way to see how much room there is to work with. Detail work, after all...
"...I feel like this warrants something other than vanilla. Does anyone have any idea what Tokyo Tower should taste like?"
<Pose Tracker> Sucy Manbavaran [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
"You should focus on what you're doing, not on everyone else," Sucy says to Rei as she starts doing her thing. She trims down two star cookies and puts them together with icing into what looks a lot like a cog wheel. She puts a swirl pattern on a few more of the roundels, seeming to get more courageous as she goes along.
Then, taking her knife, she goes into her mystery box.
And she works.
This seems to be taking her a long time. It's like she has her head in the blind of an old-timy camera. Periodically she slides the knife out to collect a glob of icing, like she's mixing paints on a palette.
"Like otap," Sucy answers Marinette's question. Like... immediately, no hesitation.
A couple of seconds later, she says, "Hey, Akko."
<Pose Tracker> Fuu Hououji [Infinity Institute (9)] has posed.
What *should* Tokyo Tower taste like?
Fuu finishes the cookie she was working on, realizes that she's all done with her trees but still has a fair amount of green icing left, and starts on the edges of a circle - or rather, what's going to be a wreath, it looks like. "Hmm ... maybe a mix of peppermint and vanilla?" she suggests. "And those flavors sort of go with the tower's usual red-and-white appearance, as well."
She pauses to focus on getting her wreath's green band the right width - not as easy as you might expect: the outside is going to be relatively inconsistent, but the inside edge is going to be more of an inside *hedge*, with stray 'branches' of green going back and forth. Eventually she gives up and focuses on dotting clusters of red sugar sprinkles around the wreath.
It'll still taste fine when eaten, won't it?
<Pose Tracker> Rei Hino [Ohtori Academy (9)] has posed.
Green trees decorated, Rei can now set to giving them decorations. A few of the baubles she dollops on the cookies are red and pink; blue and orange; a couple different shades of green. Each one has its own theme of decorative colour.
This is, of course, because they're meant to go to different girls who have different favourite colours, but of course she's not going to explain that. "I'm taking some of this," she says, to Setsuna, when she indicates she likes a particular shade of red she's mixed up. Just leans over and scoops some up with her instruments of cookie destruction. RUDE.
Sucy is on top of knowing what Tokyo Tower tastes like - for some reason??? - and Akko is left to her doom.
At some point during this tree-decoration, though, her hand brushes up against her Akamira jacket pocket, and she frowns as she reaches into her pocket. "... eh?" She blinks, at a vial which she is quite sure she didn't bring with her. "'Claus'..?" When did she pick that up? What a bizarre mystery.
<Pose Tracker> Sucy Manbavaran [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
What Sucy was doing in that box of secrets...
The cookie is relatively large, which gave her a broad canvas, but it was still a strain. The figure is cartoonish, and, apparently by default, green. The little dots and streaks of black icing make a face, an outline of a hand, the shape of a hat (blue) and a hand (also green) holding some kind of oblong red object...
But that hat. It's a familiar hat. A familiar POSTURE.
Like a certain poster...
"So when I said Kaname had some of that stuff in her hair I was just throwing you off the trail so you wouldn't know before the time was right," Sucy says. "I had to kind of improvise, since there wasn't a chicken breading color, so just pretend that's like, buffalo fried chicken, okay?"
She proffers the cookie to Akko. "Merry Christmas. I promise it doesn't have any potion in it."
<Pose Tracker> Akko Kagari [Infinity Institute (7)] has posed.
Akko takes the offered cookie. She looks down at her terrifying mish-mashed cookie sandwich... and at the cookie offered by Sucy. While Akko is, at times, a selfish brat, a gluttonous little demon, and irritating... she values friendship. She just looks cluelessly at Rei; then, back to Sucy.
"Thanks, Sucy!"
She takes the offered cookie, turns it over in her hands, and then leans over and chomps right down on it. "I can pretend all day! You're the best, Sucy! I-If you want, you can have my cookie sandwich!"
It beckons, stacked now eight high and with frosting oozing from every nook and cranny.
