Gall thunked her third glass of mead down on the table and stared across it at her partner. “You’ve never cooked for yourself? Not once?”

“Why would I?” Derik glowered at her, taking umbrage at her extreme disbelief. “More to the point: when would I? My time was thoroughly occupied with studying, then raising a dragonet, then being a dragonrider.”

Frowning in skepticism, she held out her hands as though to encompass a simple object. “But it’s, like, a basic life skill.”

He snorted. “It’s called division of labor. I sing, they cook; I fly, they cook; I mission, they cook.” He indicated Rudi’s kitchen with a gesture.

“But . . . you never even cooked out or anything? You know, meat on a stick, fire, something even the biggest, dumbest idiot should be able to do without totally screwing it up?”

“With that attitude, I suppose you’re some sort of culinary expert.” He chuckled, plainly very amused with the notion.

Gall regarded him quite seriously. “My father and I lived in exile for eight years. You met my father. Who do you think made that whole thing work?”

That gave him pause. “Well, all right, but feeding yourself isn’t the same as cooking. Like you said, any idiot can roast meat on a stick, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Freya’s tits. That’s it. You. Me. General Store. Now.”

“What? But—” He gestured to the half-finished food and drinks on the table, but Gall was already up and tugging on his arm.

“Now!”

“All right, all right!” He downed the last half of his ale as he rose and just managed to get the glass back on the table upright as he was dragged out of the pub.

Twenty minutes later, Derik found himself sitting in the moon-lit Courtyard with his sleeves rolled up and his fingers sunk into a mound of barley and wheat flour on a flat, freshly scrubbed rock. A small fire, courtesy of Fellrazer, gave additional light. Occasionally, a horse or a wolf would wander by to see what was going on, but the presence of the dragon, curled up on a patch of ground he’d toasted to a comfortable warmth, discouraged them from getting too close.

Gall hovered at Derik’s elbow, watching his progress. “Okay, you’ve got your flax, your lard, and my personal very secret ingredients that you will not share with anyone on pain of asskicking. Now just work it until it comes together—carefully! If you mess up that well, your bread is screwed. Here, look. Like this.”

She pushed up her own sleeves and slid her fingers in with his. Derik followed her guidance, and together they pulled the dry ingredients into the wet, first mixing, then kneading. Their hands got slick with the grease and flax, and slid easily over each other. After a few minutes, they had a uniform round of dough.

“There. That’s good.” Gall nodded, then gave him one of those looks, like she expected or hoped for something from him.

After a moment spent deciding how to respond, Derik folded his hands in his lap and said, “So now what?”

Gall shrugged. “It rests overnight, and we get fresh, hot bread in the morning.”

“Really.” Derik raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see an oven.”

“You don’t lug an oven around on a raid, genius.” She punched his shoulder for his quibble. “It bakes on a rack over the fire, or you wrap it around a stick. In this case, stick-bread. Only one rack to be had around here, and it ain’t for baking.” She grinned.

Derik’s mind resolutely sidled around the come-on. “In the meantime, we’ve got a lump of dough sitting on a rock in the middle of the Courtyard. What’s the plan for that?”

“Wanna camp out?”

“You don’t get enough of that on missions?”

“That’s because we have to. This is because we want to. It’s totally different.”

Try as he might, Derik couldn’t fault her logic. And it was nice to be safe from Suvians or rogue time skips under a wide, starry sky, even if it was fake. He couldn’t think why he didn’t come here more often.

“You don’t think it’ll get too cold?” he said.

“Well, if it does,” Gall started eagerly, and then, with a visible effort, turned the remark in a different direction. She’d tried the spooning for warmth tactic before, to no avail. “I’ve got Fellrazer,” she finished. “Anyway, it’s not like we’re in the Archipelago or somewhere it gets proper cold. This is nothing.”

“True enough. All right, I suppose I don’t mind. And in the morning, we’ll see if this recipe of yours actually turns out edible.” He got up to go wash off in the nearby stream.

Gall sprang up after him and gave him a shove, setting him off-balance for a step. “No, we’ll see if you aren’t a completely pathetic waste of space when it comes to practical skills.”

Once recovered, he shoved back. “I have many practical skills.”

“Oh yeah? Name one.”

“Functional literacy?”

“Nah, that’s a fancy-pants Harper skill. Try again.”

This continued while they scrubbed the fat off their hands and while Gall wrapped the bread dough in the empty barley flour package. Finally, they settled down on the grass under a large elm tree and went to sleep.

In the morning, there was fresh, hot stick-bread, it was indeed edible, and both partners considered it time well spent.

---

Viking flatbread recipe yoinked from a YouTube video I've since lost track of, based on findings from this study.

The stick-bread comes from commenters on the video, who remarked that the recipe sounds similar to something still made in Scandinavian countries today.

I kinda want to try this myself... we'll see.

~Neshomeh

The morning, like all other mornings in RC 112358 over the last few years, began with the sound of bells. Peregrin woke up and read the (Arban) date off the clock tower he'd built in the RC. Two hundred and forty six years now, he thought, plus or minus a day. It was, unless HQ had been messing with time to excess, his birthday.

I wonder if I should make an announcement. Peregrin thought, as he was sitting up and getting out of bed. Back home, a birthday generally passed with a remark at a meal with an accompanying toast, or possibly during Proventer. Headquarters, however, was much too large for these types of communal gatherings. So, his last three birthdays had been quite small affairs. Last year, his now-former partner Tomash had taken him to a rather nice restaurant in New Caledionia, for example.

Or I could organize a party. he continued thinking as he wound the tower. This wasn't something he ever needed to do, as the clock had to be able to keep itself running when he was on missions, but the mechanism made the RC a bit closer to just another extremely remote math. But who would I invite? he wondered. And the organization would take significant energy so that is a bad idea.

Pondering potential birthday plans and wondering what the giggling child a fewt doors down was up to got Peregrin through to lifting the weight on the clock all the way up to the top of the tower. I suppose I could simply go to Rudi's, maybe invite Tomash or Taq. he concluded as he walked towards a chair. Yes, that is a reasonable way to mark the year. Yes.

"Taq?" he asked his partner, who was also waking up.

"Sir?"

An annoyed look crossed Peregrin's face. "Would you be interested in—"

[BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!/Dong, dong....]

The console went off, along with the bell sequence for Voco that was meant to replace the beeping.

"Thought he'd fixed..." Peregrin muttered as he shut off the alarm.

"What'd you want, boss?" Taq asked once the noise had died down.

"Birthday plans." Peregrin replied. "Not important at the moment." I should have seen this coming.

(( - Tomash

Thanks to Thoth for checking for typos. ))

Loosely based off a true story.
------

In a moment of pure and utter shame, Jordan picked up his phone, and called Harris.

"Oh hey Jordan, wait just a moment so I can put you on speakerphone. I'm in the car right now."

As he listened to Harris' fumbling in the car, Jordan grimaced.

"All good now. What's up?"
"So, I tried making pasta, and it came out horrible. Got any advice or special tips I should know? I know you don't cook a lot, but you gotta know something."
"I mean yeah, sure there's ways to cook well, but pasta? You just take a pot of water and boil it, and shove some spaghetti or something in. It can't be that bad."
"It really, really was that bad. Can you please please please just give me some instructions? I'm making penne for Aaron tonight."
"How can you mess up pasta terribly? It's two ingredients. Pasta and water."
"The pasta caught fire; just tell me what to do."
"Wo-HAH WAIT HAHH WHAT HOW HAH HAH HAA-"

Jordan hung up while Harris was cackling, and poured the ashes in the pot into the trash. Another night of takeout, he decided.

Ce’rana of Borune glared at the pan as yet another of these thin shells tore and muttered irritably as she was forced to scrape it into the filling garbage can. “Ridiculous thing,” she grumbled, reaching for her bowl of batter to begin the process once more. “How is it that you are so fragile and people can still make you work?”

She sighed as she ladeled it into the pan. “The only reason I bother with you is that someone refused to share. If he wanted it all for himself, he could easily have waited for me to leave - but no, he had to show off how well he could do this. On that note, how is it that he makes it seem effortless to keep you in one piece? Is there some mysterious technique that I have failed to discover yet?”

The Dryad managed to become more and more irritated as she spread the batter around, perhaps a bit thicker than was strictly necessary this time. “And if I were to ask him how it is that he makes it seem so easy, all he would say is that he has more practice than I do. So if there is some secret that I am unaware of, he would not tell me, merely leave me to figure it out on my own, infuriating thing that he is.”

She glanced over at the tub of Nutella, which had been locked up and covered in chains until Alex came back. “And this. I am not that bad with chocolate, Alex. There really is no need to take such measures with it whenever you leave the room. As though I could not get past something so simple.” She chuckled to herself at that; he had no idea of her past hobbies, obviously, or he would have taken measures a bit less flimsy than a pair of two-pin locks.

Of course, that was just too tempting to the IO. The container fell from its shelf, popping open when it hit the floor, dragged by the weight of the chains she had left around its base. The resulting mess spattered all across the floor.

Ce’rana simply stared, first at the goopy brown mess, then at the garbage can full of failed crepes, then the shell that was presently trying to burn.

“What smells like burning crepes?” Alex stepped into the room, a cheerful grin on his face which faded immediately as he beheld the absolute mess on his side of the room. “Ce’rana. What did you do?”

She looked up at him helplessly. “I…” Words failed for her for a moment before she came up with a simple, effective answer. “I have no idea.”

Alex walked over and sighed. “If I make you a crepe, will you clean up your mess? I was hoping to get sleep at some point today.”

The tiny agent looked around for a moment, taking stock of exactly how much cleaning she would have to do. Well, I suppose this is mostly just scrubbing the floor, she decided. “That sounds like a very good idea. Though would you be offended if I ask how it is you manage to make them not fall apart?”

“Sì, certo.” He moved in to carefully pour and spread the next crepe. “It is all about being gentle and slow. You just have to wait until it’s nice and ready, then carefully slide the rod under the delicate batter. Get it nice and loose, then pull it up and quickly flip it over. Then, it’s finally time to fill it.” He began to spoon the leftover nutella onto the crepe, getting it ready.

Ce’rana close to ignore the massive pile of hopefully-accidental innuendo (though she couldn’t avoid what she hoped was a small smirk) in favor of leaning a little closer to make sure she could see exactly how Alex was going about getting the shell ready to be flipped.

Once the nutella was in the shell, Alex folded it over and easily scooped it onto a plate. “Merda,now I want one.” He poured out another shell’s worth of batter as he offered the plate to Ce’rana.

She took it with a smile, then stepped away to grab a pair of forks and a second plate. “Thank you, Alex,” she said sweetly.

“Va Bene.” He started to get the shell ready to flip, smiling softly. “Don’t feel bad about not knowing how to do it easily. I’ve been learning how to do it properly since I was six years old. With that much practice, it was bound to get easier.”

And just like that, the shell tore. Ce’rana couldn’t keep herself from breaking into laughter at his expression.

“Oh, figlio di-”

Elanor looked up at her mother, tiny brow furrowed in confusion.

"You blow out the candle and you make a wish," the Aviator repeated. "It's a—ELANOR, NO—"

Elanor licked her hand while her mother was talking and smashed her palm down on top of the candle wick, extinguishing it. She giggled and clapped her hands together. "Again!"

"Maybe we should just eat the cake," Zeb suggested hurriedly, and Elanor nodded in agreement.

"Cake," she crooned, and grabbed a handful of cake. Her mouth was soon covered in sticky blue frosting.

The Aviator grinned and shook her head. "Here you go, kiddo," she said, cutting a slice around the missing fistful of cake and setting it on Elanor's high chair tray. "All for you. Just don't get any in your..." She trailed off as Elanor promptly mashed a handful of cake on top of her head. "...Hair."

Zeb laughed and accepted a slice for himself. "You're going to miss her doing that," he said, elbowing the Aviator gently.

"Yeah," the Aviator said, watching her daughter proceed to smear cake around the tray. "I will."