(no subject)

[sunbaked_baker]

It has been years since Sunshine has done any decorative icing. She had sworn it off long ago, after having once dropped a birthday cake she had worked on all day (the dog the cake had toppled onto, while a little skittish afterwards, was unharmed).

So, having been commissioned to make her first-ever wedding cake, Rae feels the need to get back into practice.

After figuring the right consistency, Rae has two large bowls of icing made up, the majority of one filled into icing bags fitted with various decorating tips. There is long stretch of waxed paper upon the kitchen table, lined with practice-swirls, clusters of uneven dots, and a thick row of icing-leaves at various levels of skill.

Currently being cursed at are flower petals. After an hour and a half of practice, keeping careful, consistent and even pressure as she makes the designs, Sunshine's hands are beginning to shake.

Comments

[is_the_motion]

"My that's a beauty!" Bonnie comments, coming into the kitchen. "Who's gettin' hitched?"

[sunbaked_baker]

There isn't a cake at the moment - this is just decorating-practice, today. Sunshine wants to be sure of her ability before doing anything final.

"Oddly enough, I don't know," Rae admits with a faint smile, looking up from making a faintly crooked icing rose upon the waxed paper. "She didn't give her name."

[is_the_motion]

The flower is a beauty too :)

"How you gonna know when the weddin is?" Bonnie asks, smiling back.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Don't know that, either," Rae chuckles, straightening with a faint pop. Leaning over a kitchen table all afternoon wasn't the best idea ever. "I was just told it'd be 'in about a month.' Once I'm satisfied with the icing designs, I'll make the cake, decorate it, and leave it with the Bar. She'll keep it fresh and safe until the appropriate person fetches it for the wedding."

[is_the_motion]

"Good idea." Bonnie says. "I made cakes for a couple of my boys' weddings, nothin' this fancy though."

[sunbaked_baker]

"This is my first," she grins. "It's only going to have minimal icing decorations - there'll be a wide ribbon around the base of each layer, to add color - but what there is going to be, I want it to look good."

[is_the_motion]

"Just make sure the father in law don't end up stickin' his face in it." Bonnie says.

[witchfinder_general]

Father Harman sticks his head into the kitchen, having heard her.

"Oh?" he says. "What are the flower petals guilty of?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"The damn toxic thing is being obnoxious, and won't knock it off," Rae answers, trying again. "I may scrap the idea of flowers all together, if the icing's not going to do what I want it to."

[witchfinder_general]

"What do you want it to do, then?" Father Harman says. "Not that I have the slightest idea about icing. It's supposed to be sweet, is what I know."

[sunbaked_baker]

"In this case, it's also supposed to look like a rose, not a ruffly blob," she clarifies, setting down the icing pouch with a faint noise of disgust.

"I'm horribly out of practice."

[witchfinder_general]

"It does look somewhat like a rose," Father Harman muses, peering at the offending pink thing.

[sunbaked_baker]

"That'd be okay if I were going for 'somewhat,'" Rae says, dry. Maybe it's time for a break.

"How have you been, Father Harman?"

[lt_blade]

Duaod's poppy juice actually helped her sleep without pain or dreams, but that still left the rest of the day when she had to hobble on crutches with one injured leg and burns on the other. Atleast her other injuries were starting to clear up-she just wished that was all she had to deal with.

It was for this reason she was stopping by the kitchen, not because she was hungry. Looking for Sunshine, she needed to tell her about what happened. Then her eyes took in the bowls of icing and decorating and she had to force herself to breath.

"Hello." She had to force herself to speak: it wasn't just the cake..it was the fact that the person she wanted to share her life with was no longer with her.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae is just putting the final petals on a rose she's halfway content with, when she sees the woman hobbling through the doorway.

"Dear gods and friggin' angels, what happened to you?" Sunshine says, a stricken look passing over her face as she looks up at her. Quickly, she moves around the kitchen table to move out one of the stools there so the woman might sit. "Are you all right?"

[lt_blade]

By now her energy's too much into holding herself together than to give a retort, besides, she's grateful for the stool and a chance to rest her leg.

"I'll live." She wasn't alright, but there wasn't anything to be done by it. "We were on a mission..it was a set up." Not that they didn't expect it to be a trap, but they didn't think they'd get ambushed that bad.

She holds onto the crutches, looking at the decorations. "There won't be any wedding." To the point, because anything more and she wasn't sure she could hold herself in check.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Oh gods," Rae pulled back with an involuntary gasp, covering her mouth with her hands. It takes a few moments for her to realize she's staring.






"I'm... I'm so sorry."

[lt_blade]

Least she understood and Sonya didn't have to go into detail. She wasn't sure she could do that at the moment.

"It comes with the territory." It sounds automatic, common knowledge even, but that didn't mean it hurt any less. "Half the team was KIA..the rest injured." She looked to the decorations, the thought of anything sweet turning her stomach.

"Also, I didn't realize until later that I didn't give you my name, but I was inside the barracks and Bar didn't show up when I opened the door." It was a mild detail as far as she was concerned, but it was just something to get her mind off things.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae reaches for the woman's hand, and squeezes it.

"Knowing that it's a risk doesn't make it any better, I know," she says, having grown up during Wars that had halved the population of the world in as little as seven years.

"Is there anything I can do?" The woman's name is such a minor detail that she doesn't address it. "If you're in physical pain, I can help you heal."

[runningred]

"That looks fiddly?" Jay observes, pulling up a seat opposite her. "How was the opera?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"It's all sorts of fiddly," the baker confirms, glaring at the lopsided rose that results from her efforts. "I'm being reminded of why I gave decorative icing up, those years ago."

Because it's not worth the effort. Her hands are beginning to shake with the prolonged effort of being very very steady and exerting specific, continuous gentle pressure.

"The opera was great," she replies, straightening from having been leaning over the table. "I really enjoyed it. The actors and the story more than the music, though. You could tell the actors really got into their parts."

"How've you been, Jay?"

[runningred]

Jay shifts to the seat closest and holds out his hands in a gimme gesture, ready to massage the kinks out of her wrists and hands.

"Sounds nothing at all like I remember it." He grins.

"I've been good. Getting into trouble as always but good."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Part of what I can do," Rae gives a vague gesture towards her face as she steps closer, "is occasionally read peoples' shadows. With the lighting how it was in the theater, I could see just how deeply the actors sunk down into the characters they were portraying, the emotions of that other person. It was fascinating."

She takes the other chair, taking the opportunity to sit, before offering her hand. "Trouble? What sort of trouble?" Her tone may be dry, but her look holds an offer of help, should he need it. "Thought I told you not to do anything stupid while I was gone?"

[runningred]

"That's cool!" Jay grins and starts working on her hand. He has quite a knack for remedial massage and good strong hands. "So you could see how much they got into it? That's neat."

He gives her a placating smile. "The fun sort of trouble that's only mildly stupid. Went clubbing in a friend's universe. Has a pretty good night out. It was nice to let off some steam."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Oh, well, so long as you were only mildly stupid, I guess I can forgive you," she smiles wryly at him, loving the feeling of the massage upon her sore hand. "Clubbing is fun - though I don't get to go out as often as I used to."

Duty calls, so to speak.

"What sort of trouble was it? Was there a fight or something?"