Fifth Floor Common Room; Sunday Evening [ 11/07 ].

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

Ariel had so much energy right now, but was so bored, especially after a long day of treasure hunting, and so she tried to think of something new and fun and interesting to do when she realized that there was a whole plethora of things she could start doing now that she was someone's girlfriend. And right at the top of her list, she decided, was making cookies for her boyfriend. She'd seen people do it before, in person and on the television, so it couldn't be that hard, right?

...right?

Well, perhaps she was a little off on that. Coughing, trying to clear out the black smoke that came from the oven when she opened it, Ariel realized that cookies looked a lot easier to make than they really were and looked at the pan of pitiful charred black things in her oven-mitted hand and wondered if maybe Bruce needed some nice, homemade paperweights instead...


[[ it feels much later than it is and I feel lame going to bed so early, so viola! Open and smoky and probably smelly common room post! Huzzah!]]

Comments

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

Bruce wasn't planning on going back into the common room tonight, but he couldn't pass by smoke without seeing what happened. "Is everything okay?"

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

Ariel had to cough again, the waving hand seeming to do nothing to help, but at least maybe it wouldn't make her forlorn look down at the unfortunate attempt at baking so obvious.

"I was making you some cookies..." she offered.

She trusted he could figure out all his own that the effort didn't go so well. But hopefully it was the thought that counted.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

The thought was sweet, if misguided and potentially dangerous. "I appreciate it. But just so you know in the future, I try not to eat too many snack foods." Especially if they were made by someone who didn't know how to bake very well.

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

Considering Ariel's diet consisted of probably half snack foods and half actual foods, a comment like that earned Bruce a look like he'd maybe grown a second head for a moment. But even she had to admit that what sat on her baking tray right now would turn anyone off sweets for a while.

"Play a lot of hockey?" she tried.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

Bruce was used to that look from people. He barely even noticed it anymore. "Not really, but I could start," Bruce half-joked. "I have been meaning to get started on another sport."

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"You think the duck pond freezes in the winter enough that you could play hockey there?" Ariel wondered, giving the cookies an experimental poke now that they'd cooled a little bit.

Yup. These suckers looked like they could definitely hold out for the winter...Maybe they could burn them like coal to keep warm, even.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Possibly. Or there are ice rinks on the mainland," Bruce said. "Have you ever skated?"

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"I have!" Ariel was clearly pleased to report. "With that sports class I took over the summer!"

Which wasn't to say she was very good at it, but that seemed a minute detail.

"It was a lot of fun, even if I fell a lot. But they have rinks on the mainland, too? Maybe we should go!"

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"I don't know where on the mainland offhand, but there has to be one nearby," Bruce said. "Are you doing anything after classes tomorrow?"

[snarkyhealer.livejournal.com]

Shira wrinkled her nose as she walked into the common room. That was seriously the most unpleasant smell she'd ever smelled.

Oh, all right, the most unpleasant one she'd smelled since coming to Fandom. But it was also a familiar one, given that not everybody here could bake as well as they thought they could.

"What burned this time?" she called over her shoulder as she plopped down on a couch.

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"Cookies," said Ariel with a disparaging sigh. "At least, they were when I put them in, but they came out more like hockey pucks."

Pause.

"I think there's something wrong with the oven."

[snarkyhealer.livejournal.com]

Sure there was, Ariel.

"Maybe it's possessed or something?" Shira suggested, because look, she's not gonna tell the poor girl she killed the cookies. Probably something she already knows.

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

Killed was putting it lightly.

"Could be!" Ariel said, eager to place the blame on something like the island rather than her own ineptitude. "I wonder if there's anything we can do, except maybe, you know, not cook out of it and just order pizza instead."

Mmm, pizza. Clearly the solution to any possessed kitchen appliance conundrum.

[snarkyhealer.livejournal.com]

"You can't really go wrong with pizza," Shira agreed. "But for those times when you really want cookies... um... did you have directions written down? 'cause I think it usually goes better when you're not just throwing things together."

Said like she knew it from personal experience, no less.

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"Ummmm." Ariel considered the bowl soaking in water in the sink. "I didn't write it down, but I remembered all the same stuff they used in the television program...You think writing it down would help?"

It would be mostly the same stuff, so Ariel didn't see how it made much of a different.

[snarkyhealer.livejournal.com]

"It might," Shira said. "I mean, it'd be a way you could make sure you remembered everything correctly. 'cause it would be kind of horrible to get to the end result and realize you forgot, say, step three. Whatever that might be."

[shes-got-legs.livejournal.com]

"...I think it was the sugar," Ariel offered. "Or perhaps the eggs. Do you think it makes a big difference what order they're in? Are you much of a baker yourself?"

[snarkyhealer.livejournal.com]

"It probably doesn't make that much of a difference," Shira said, frowning thoughtfully. "I mean, if it did, the television program would say that kind of thing, right? And unfortunately, not so much of a baker."

Though really, it was kind of the same principle as making a healing brew, so she could probably be convinced to give it a shot sometime.

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"A noble experiment in baking," Bruce said, being nicer about it than the end result probably deserved.

[snarkyhealer.livejournal.com]

"Well, it smells like that noble experiment met an untimely end." Shira wrinkled her nose. "How sad and unfortunate."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Especially since I assume there would have been enough for a decent portion of the floor to snack on," Bruce said. "I don't think we've met before. I'm Bruce."

[snarkyhealer.livejournal.com]

"I don't think we have, either," Shira said after a second. "I'm Shira."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"Nice to meet you," Bruce said. "I wish we could have met under more pleasant smelling circumstances."

[snarkyhealer.livejournal.com]

"Me, too," Shira said with a grin. "But since this is what we got, might as well make the best of it or something."

[willbethenight.livejournal.com]

"That's a positive attitude," Bruce said. "And really, this could have been worse. There's no fire and nobody had to be moved outside in a sudden rain."