(no subject)

[sunbaked_baker]

Something of the tension Sunshine carries, though nowhere near all of it, lessens as she realizes the door opened where she needed it to go. She comes in quickly, smelling of lilly-of-the-valley soap and heading for the kitchen. She had put her hair up wet after her too-hot shower, and already it has dampened the back of her dark purple tanktop all the way down to the waistband of her shorts. The skin of her face, neck, shoulders, arms, legs and bare feet are still pink of the hot water and perhaps too-thorough scrubbing, at least where bruises aren't purpling the skin to match the her tanktop.

Distracted or seeking distraction, she takes down mixing bowls and measuring cups from the kitchen cabinets. They come down on the counter with a clatter perhaps louder than it should be, and it upsets some of the rats. She mutters her apologies, trying to focus, trying not to focus, trying to think of what to make. She has to make something. Anything, really, to get the smell of blood and death out of her lungs. Something strongly scented. Strongly flavored. Comfort. Chocolate.

Catching on that point but having no plan beyond it, the distressed baker starts in on melting dark chocolate chips in a double-boiler on the stove, and pouring whipping cream into a mixing bowl to start some manner of attempted salvation of a wretched night.

So what if it'll be four a.m. soon? She couldn't sleep if she tried.

(ooc: However, it is nearly 1am for the mun, and she really must try and sleep. Tags will be gotten tomorrow! Mun is here! Mun is asleep again! <3333)

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[thewidewideworld]

A giggly, music festival hippy chick only faintly recognisable as Sinric comes bouncing in, following the scent of chocolate. "Oh, that smells amazing!"

[sunbaked_baker]

The chocolate has melted, and is being folded steadily into the freshly-beaten whipped cream along with some powdered sugar.

Sunshine looks up from her task, blinking distractedly.There's a faint flicker of a smile for Sinric's remark. "Not sure what it'll be yet. Just... figuring it out as I go."

Some small clot of dried blood close behind her ear was missed when Sunshine washed her hair. From the wet heat of the shower, it has left a thin red trail down the back of her neck. The chocolate isn't going to mix any further into the whipped cream - she needs to stop before she over-mixes. But that leaves her hands free. She takes some of the graham crackers she'd fetched from the pantry and stuffs some of them into a zipper bag, and methodically begins crushing them into fine crumbs with a rolling pin.

"That's a good look on you, you know," she remarks, casting about for something to occupy her thoughts while her hands are occupied. "Have you been visiting a different world for a while? Taking a break from the monks?"

[thewidewideworld]

"Thank you!" Sin giggles, curstying with a grin. "Ganymede invited me to a music festival. It has been exactly what I needed." He's tired and sore in all the best ways. "Could you imagine if the monks saw me like this?"

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's smile is shaky, as are her hands in the moments in between actions on the... whatever it is she's making. "Yes, yes, I can. It'd be a revelation, I'm sure."

Certainly cause a lot of soul-searching and prayer.

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric comes down a bit, enough to notice her state. "Rae? What do you need, my friend?"

[herr_bookman]

Autor follows the scent of chocolate and sweets to the kitchen, and spots his friend. He offers her a small smile, which fades as he sees how stiffly she carries herself, how mechanical her motions are. He smells a lingering odor of blood under the sugar, and watches the faint red line trail down her neck from a dried clot of blood behind her ear that she missed in her shower.

Autor doesn't say anything, just clomps over, making as much noise as possible, and stops in front of her. He opens his arms.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's eyes are overbright when she glances up from being seven flavors of hell from a ziploc bag full of graham crackers with a rolling pin, pulverizing them perhaps into finer crumbs than any recipe might call for. She pauses, stilling upon seeing Autor approach. Something crumples in her expression when he opens his arms, and she steps forward to hug him. She's still overly warm from the shower and exertion, her hug tight to keep herself from shaking.

[herr_bookman]

Autor has powerful arms, from undergoing strenuous training in the military, and he brings all that strength to the fore, squeezing her tightly. He clings for himself just as much as for her, offering what comfort he can--offering all of himself. He buries his nose in her wet hair, breathing her in.

[sunbaked_baker]

There is the faint lingering scent of blood under the waves scented with lily of the valley. She must've used half the bottle in her efforts to feel clean again. But old blood, dark blood, carries its own horrific scent that is hard to be free of. It carries all the scents of befouled, unclean death with it. Lingering death, painful death. Every death the bearer of this blood caused and which it drank in with dark delight.

She clings back, trying to find stillness in spite of the manic energy that possesses her, drives her forward. She almost attains it, holding Autor. But some treacherous thought reminds her of the fragility of human bodies, how even those with apparent strength can be so easily broken, and it leaves her shaking, restless.

"Autor," she breathes, trying to keep from struggling and keep desperation from showing in her tone, but needing to make known her need to move.

[makes_the_toys]

While Rae is working the door swings in and a wait rat walks through, chittering away. He's followed closely by a young man and his box of screams. The screams are courtesy of the puffball creature inside the open box, aka; Cisco's baby porg, and Cisco has his own voice raised to be heard over the squawking.

"No, Ben, burra fish. Burra, it looks like this," Cisco shouts at the rat, waving at an image of... let's just call it a 'Star Wars looking fish' on screen on his tablet. "You've gotta have one, or something like it. C'mon, man."

Exhasperated, Ben the rat turns around and chatters, gesturing at Cisco to stay put then scurries off further into the kitchen.

"FRESH!" Cisco shouts after the rat before he notices the woman. Blinking, Cisco puts on a smile. "Oh. Hi."

"ARRAAAAH! ARAAAAAH! AROOOOOO!" screams the porg.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine is firmly pressing the perhaps too-finely crushed graham cracker crumbs, coated in melted butter and honey, into the bottoms of the array of ramekins, when the ruckus comes through the door and startles her out of her focus.

"Uh, hi," the baker says, her eyes overbright and blinking often. She looks simultaneously freshly showered and - with all the new bruises - perhaps a bit like she recently fell down the stairs. And with that collection of scars, maybe like she has a habit of falling down stairs. "What... what is that thing?"

[makes_the_toys]

Cisco himself looks a little frayed and haggard, but his is a problem of not sleeping very much thanks to his new bundle of joy.

It's what has him up and in the kitchen at near on 4am.

Still, he tries to be friendly and not awkward talking to a stranger, who is a lady, and is in the kitchen, and she's... wait, is she... "Oooh, are you baking?"

He thinks he sees and smells chocolate!

On her question he holds out the box towards her to better show her the fluffy beak-less chick inside.

"This is Guinea-Puff, GP for short. He's a porg."

The porg doesn't deign to stop shrieking.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Yeah," she says, quiet but sounding distracted. Keeping her hands busy means they don't get so much of a chance to shake. "Not... quite sure what I'm making yet, but experimentation is good. I'm thinking it might be s'more-themed."

Baking is always her distraction of choice. It's familiar, like chocolate and flour and butter and eggs. Reliable.

"Ah, um, hello GP," she offers the shrieking creature, unsure. The sound it makes rattles across her nerves like nails on a chalkboard. "What's a... a porg? Some kind of bird? Is it supposed to sound like that?"

[irish_vagabond]

Cassidy is naturally nocturnal for all the obvious reasons, so baking at four in the morning might seem more of a quirk than a cry for help to him. People do what they do, you know?

So as he wanders through the bar, drawn by the clattering sounds and the smell of chocolate from the kitchen, he doesn't expect much more than to see Sunshine doing her thing.

Except when he steps into the kitchen, there's the faint tang of something else in the air. Something that probably no ordinary human senses could pick up.

And then he notices the freshly forming bruises on Sunshine's skin, and if she looks up at him right at that moment, she'll see an expression that she hasn't seen yet on the normally happy-go-lucky Cassidy. It makes him look older. And dangerous.

"Right. Who do I hafta kill?"

[sunbaked_baker]

A new note jangles along Sunshine's already raw nerves as Cassidy steps into the kitchen - There's a vampire in the room. She shudders and steps back from Cassidy - as though a few feet more made any sort of difference to an angry vampire - her voice rough and eyes wide with alarm and warning together, "Don't."

Her hair is still wet from her shower, but clots of blood had had the chance to dry in it before then, and a small bit of it near the hairline hadn't washed completely out. It's left a thin red trail down her neck.

[irish_vagabond]

Cassidy stops short and holds his hands up, palms out.

"Jaysus Christ, lass, what's the matter? What's happened to ya? Who did that? I'm serious now, if there's some arsehole whose head needs a good bashing in, just say the word, darlin', don't think I would hesitate."

It's strange blood. It's very old blood. And he knows for sure that Sunshine hasn't been telling him something about her world...not that he's been exactly forthcoming about what he is, either.

[sunbaked_baker]

The blood in her hair has been dead for a very long time.

Sunshine shakes her head, trying to calm herself down and ignore the fight-or-flight flood of adrenaline. "I... I know you would, and it's a... a kind offer. Thank you. But don't. Don't worry about... I'm okay. And the ones who did it... there's nothing you can do to them."

[electro_kinetic]

Four AM is...pretty normal for Noriko, to be honest: she's up and getting a blender down from the cabinet, trying not to disturb the chick making something waaay more complicated than a berry protein smoothie. But she seriously seems rattled.

"You okay?" Nori asks. Simple: she can answer if she wants, or can, and not if she doesn't. But the company is offered either way.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's normally assured movements in the kitchens are unsteady, unsure. She is having trouble focusing.

"I'm... I'm fine," she says, a faint, brief smile showing on her face as she looks up from crushing graham crackers into a find powder. It's a lie, and so is the smile. She tries, though.

[electro_kinetic]

"Yeah, that's totally not questionable since you're cooking something at four in the morning with a half smile like that," Noriko says.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Calling me a bad liar?" she says with a faint, dry laugh. Rae knows she is.

"It's, ah, just been a particularly bad night."

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Sleep mode is a rarity for Bastion; they don't strictly need it, and it's not a pleasant experience for them, so when they're in the bar there's nothing to stop them from staying there all night. Their bird companion Ganymede is not so much up late as up early, having slept beneath Bastion's watchful eyelight while the bar was quiet.

They're new enough to Milliways that they haven't seen a patron enter the kitchen before, only waitrats, and even the rats often fill orders directly at the bar instead of going in there. They also can't help but notice that the human is distraught and mildly injured, with blood on her but too little of it to be from an open wound. The sight fills them with an uncomfortable familiarity.

Bastion approaches the doorway, making enough mechanical noise to telegraph their presence simply by not trying to move quietly, and greets the baker with a wave and a four-note beeped tune. They look around curiously at the food preparation equipment.

[sunbaked_baker]

The restless baker is in the middle of lifting a tray of small chocolate cakes from the oven when she hears the first sound of approach. She looks up, questioningly, to see the giant... robot... wave and greet her?

"Oh, um, hello there," she replies, friendly but mildly quizzical, as she takes the tray of ramekins over to the cooling racks.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

Ganymede glides in from the barroom and lands on Bastion's shoulder, giving the hot pastries a curious look. Bastion looks from the bird to the chocolate cakes and whirrs a soft warning to him, a digital rendering of an uh-uh noise. Those are definitely not for birds. Ganymede chirps a few indignant and sulky notes back, but stays put.

"Bwee dwoo bzirp," they say, by way of explaining their presence. // I've never seen the kitchen here before and you look like you need companionship.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Have you explored the kitchen before?" She smiles slightly at the exchange with bird - chocolate is, alas, not for birds. But that suggests an idea.

"Hang on, there might be something that'd work," she says, moving swifter with a purpose to direct her than with grief to drive her. The baker goes to the pantry, and among the packages of whole and chopped nuts is a package of raw sunflower kernels. Rae pours a measure of them onto a saucer and sets it on the table. "Something better for birds than chocolate."