deercountry | patisserie lysitherie: preparations

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patisserie lysitherie: preparations

[a. video, un: charon, ota]

Good evening, Trench. The grand opening of... [she frowns as she says the next part] the Patisserie Lysitherie is currently scheduled for November 15th, pending any horrible Trenchian incidents. So most likely, November 30th.

As we prepare for transition into our new space, I'm seeking a few things.

First, Architects or anyone good with woodworking and metalworking to remodel the existing building and to install a few necessary appliances. I need more ovens. Anyone interested in helping with the business is welcome, too, of course.

Second, if any recreational businesses are interested in a steady supply of pastries - for instance, a café or a bookstore - I'm open to partnerships.

Third, if you've got a cake or a sweet from home you're just dying to experience, I'd like to start collecting recipes from all of you Sleepers. I began this business to revive my beloved nostalgic sweets, but I realize... I'd like to be able to bring that experience to others, too.

[b. Willful Machine, early November, ota]

Augh!

[There comes a loud explosion from a rather derelict building in the middle of the Willful Machine district. A half-dozen thumps and clangs follow. ...Then the upper story of the building drops about three feet, releasing an enormous plume of smoke that settles over wary shoppers and merchants. A girl covered in a thick layer of dust stumbles out ten seconds later and falls backwards on the ground.]

I suppose... that takes care of the rodent issue.

[The building belches out a gout of flame behind her.]

[c. Lysithea's home (Gaze), early November, for new and old customers, employees, or other general CR]

[With the bakery operations in full swing and the storefront not yet ready, Lysithea's home is in perpetual activity. Whether she's fulfilling orders, experimenting with new pastries, or bullying her employees, Lysithea works tirelessly to make her dream a reality. For the time being, her work as an Arcane Scholar in the School of Mutter is suspended as she focuses on her craft.]

Look out - hot pan behind you!

Yes, yes, of course - I can do a dozen mini-cakes for you by tomorrow; that won't be a problem.

Here to collect? If you would sign this form here and fill out what you plan to trade...

You've procured the cinnamon? Wonderful! How much did it cost us? Did you have to give up the hematite?

[Regardless of why you're here, she'll open the door with smudges of honey and chocolate all over her face and an exhausted, though satisfied expression.]

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[Break trundles out of the building moments after Lysithea does, much more calmly, looking decidedly put out underneath all the dust. Baltus slinks out behind him, likewise covered and growling to himself in a way that sounds mostly like a grumbling old man. Once they are safely away, the omen attempts to shake himself off, which accomplishes nothing but a horrible puff cloud.]

I promise you I could have killed it on my own. Ten feet tall and too many mouths is truly no problem, okaaaaaay.

[He is actively sulking about this. Baltus gives up and turns into transparent smoke to wait out the settling ashes, only to get mad that he can't flop on Break dramatically when he's intangible. The dog complaints resume.]

Mr. Xerxes.

[says Lysithea, her haunted eyes looking up into the gray chilly sky of November.]

If you tore down a wall to find a ball of nesting intertwined rats, I promise you would find my reaction perfectly reasonable.

That's... what it was, by the way.

[She forgets about Break's sightlessness nowadays when she's not actively instructing him.]

In the long run, we're saving on demolition fees.

[Therapy fees are another issue.]

[ Yuri isn't the most prompt person, or the most dedicated employee. He does show up or his shift, but it's about an hour after he said he would, the sun already low in the sky when Lysithea opens the door, and he smirks at her chocolate-covered appearance ]

Someone get into the chocolate chips again?

[ He teases, one hand on his hip ]

Nope.

[ Mako flips a little darkly-faceted stone from his pocket, letting it slip between his fingers for a moment before he tosses it to Lysithea. He's wearing a backpack which smells.... frankly kind of amazing, and as another unexpected cotton tote slung over his shoulder. ]

Got 'em to throw it in with the sugar since the last shipment had those weird black things in there.

[ Did Mako maybe threaten to expose the vendor for something like malpractice, using a lot of cop-speak to sound intimidating?

Absolutely.

Is Mako still speaking in a much rougher dialect than he usually does, possibly because he was haggling down at the docks and hasn't yet switched back into his normal way of speaking? Also yes.

He shifts forward with a grunt to drop the massive tote onto the nearest counter. ]

Never heard of half this stuff before, but I got some spice samples for you, too. Where d'you want the cinnamon?

[There's smoke. There's fire! That means Ruby Rose is on the scene as she realizes it. Except the moment she does arrive she sees Lysithea stumble out of the building and fall to the ground.

She waves her arms in the air and quickly moves to join her friend.]

Seriously!? And you didn't save any for me!?

Lysithea!

[Here comes Luz, face beaten by the wind and her hair mussed but otherwise looking pretty energetic and ready to work].

What deliveries have you got for me?

[Okay, fine, Break does accept that many rats at the same time is way more gross than one giant monster rat thanks to unfortunate previous experience in this regard, but still.]

Surely less explosive fire would have sufficed, all the same?

[Speaking of that, the heat of the flames emanating from the door reaches him, and Break tilts his head.]

...ah. Toasty. And me without any pocket marshmallows, woefully unprepared. Awful.

I have no regrets.

[says Lysithea, as she closes her eyes and dies. ...Probably.]

L-Look, just... when it stops being so... sizzly, help me clean up the... bits.

[This promises to be an unpleasant afternoon.]

I think that for having no previous experience remodeling buildings, we're making good progress.

Late!

[Lysithea grabs his hand and yanks him inside.]

Ten demerits! From your pay!

[Given that she pays him in cake, it's a mystery what that might mean.]

We've got a dozen orders to package before the end of the day, and I was so distressed by your absence that I had to take a chocolate break.

[.........]

You're practically a miracle-worker, Mako.

[Lysithea breathes a sigh of satisfaction and pockets the beautiful stone.]

How do you do it? Nobody ever takes me seriously when I barter unless I threaten to blow something up. ...Which is essentially just extortion, now that I think about it. Hrm.

[Could it be that she has the appearance and stature of a fourteen year old girl? This one will be an eternal mystery.]

Right there on the counter is fine; I'll examine it for, er... black bits later. Now what do you have here...?

[The tote is pulled open carefully.]

S-Save... what?

[This response baffles Lysithea as she gazes up at Ruby's upside-down face.]

...Explosions?

[The building emits another little cough of smoke.]

I was... trying to install piping...

Luz! Come in, yes.

[She is ushered inside to a wonderland where everything smells like sugar and the floor is dusted with a fine layer of flour.]

I haven't had a chance to clean yet, sorry. Actually - we're a little early on deliveries right now. If you want to sit and make yourself comfortable, there's time for a tea break.

"Remodeling". Will there be any building left to remodel, or shall we let the whole thing go and just sweep what's left into a dustbin?

[Coughing faintly, Break folds his legs beneath him and plonks down onto the street next to Lysithea, pulling his favorite parasol from mysterious hammerspaces and fwipping it open to protect them from falling ash. Why is Break even here today? This is a good question. He is a shifty creature who thus far likes to avoid all of Lysithea's other helpers, for starters, so no way in hell would he be hanging out with them while Lysithea herself was off on reconnaissance. He is also much stronger than he looks, useful when one is moving chunks of building about, and he comes with a cute (grumbling) dog who can conveniently change size when it pleases him.

Much more likely Break invited himself along without being asked when she announced where she was going, because being overprotective at teenagers is simply his lot in life and you don't live in Rainsworth for fifteen years without learning to sense the underlying destructive capacity of formal young women. To be fair he was not wrong.]

[Luz hurried inside, getting a big whiff of everything with a dreamy look on her face. She snapped to attention when Lysithea continued on].

Oh, right, good idea!

[Luz was super happy she could at least talk and relax first. A LOT was happening right now, but Luz wasn't rude].

How've you been? Is the bakery doing well? Need help with anything else?

Hey, hey! [ She packs a punch for being so small. He stumbles after her, holding up his hands with a laugh. It shouldn't be funny, but it is funny ] Eesh, sorry. Lost track of time. And, hey, chocolate break sounds great.

[ He glances over at the boxes, only half done, and a chocolate cupcake that was clearly part of said chocolate break ]

Oh, right. Flynn said I have to say that you should actually pay me.

[ You know, with stuff that isn't just cake. This is totally the time to ask for a raise, you know, when he was super late ]

[ Mako just shrugs casually like the answer is not right there in front of them: that he is 6'2" of intimidating firebender who knows exactly how to look like he's going to use force or walk away from a deal or both. ]

Dunno. I'm good at haggling. You just have to know what your stuff is worth.

Like, this stuff. It was a mystery to me, so I didn't know if you could use it, and he wanted to keep our business so he gave it to me as a freebie. It's a bunch of different stuff—something called tonka, ube, which I've actually heard of, uh... there was pink pepper?

[Lysithea is not an overly optimistic sort, nor does she observe the world through rose-colored glasses. So when she pauses and reflects...]

It's doing better than I had imagined.

[It was an objective statement.]

I haven't turned a profit, per se, but we've made an acceptable number of connections and customers. I'm not entirely sure what turning a profit would mean here, although the bags of rocks are beginning to pile up.

Pink... pepper?

[There is a collection of mystery satchels inside the tote. She pulls one out and gingerly peeks inside.]

I would say that I'm not sure what kind of cake has pepper in it, but if they threw it in for free, I have no complaints.

Do you want to keep it for cooking?

[She sniffs her bag, which proves to be full of purple powder. It has a lightly earthy, sweet scent. There might be uses.]

Huh?

[The last statement is so at odds with Lysithea's current train of thought that the whole thing derails and leaves her momentarily unable to formulate a response.]

...You are paid.

[That's how this works. Services in exchange for goods!]

There's... still no money here. ...Wait, you don't mean you want the rocks instead of the cake?

[For Lysithea, this would be absurd.]

Why would you want rocks when you could have cake?

[error: does not compute]

( When Peter sees the video announcement, he thinks Good for her. It's really, really nice to see Lysithea doing something like this! He's happy for her! He has absolutely no skills that would be useful in actually helping, but he does make sure to spread the word if anyone might be able to assist.

However, as the month trickles on........ he starts to think maybe Paimon has been bothering her in some of the frequent, disorienting spells that Peter loses hours of his time. The demon's sneaky and seems to prefer his teenage host not being privy to what he gets up to in his personal time, but the fact they share clothes kind of makes it impossible for Peter not to notice how sometimes there's flour on his shirts (...and he wears a lot of black).

It's... an uneasy thought, but Peter knows full well that Paimon a) is a fiend for chocolate and b) has a certain attachment for the girl (god...it's so creepy how he latches onto certain people). So one afternoon, Peter pays a visit to her new business while it's still at her house. Which isn't far from his own, a couple twists and turns down Gaze's cobblestoned streets until he finds it and makes his way inside.

She clearly seems busy — face smudged with chocolate, tired in a particular-looking way. Kind of like his mom when she'd been up all night working on her miniatures before a big art project deadline. )

Hey, Lysithea! ( Peter greets her with a shy, but warm smile (that, and the fact he can actually say her name is a sure sign this is not the clucky one.) )

Sorry to bug you — you're probably crazy busy. I just wanted to come see how it's going.

( ....And make sure Paimon's not bugging the fuck out of her, but he figures he'll like, try to casually slip that into conversation somehow. He's trying to actually be slightly normal for once. )

[Without moving from her position on the floor, Lysithea reaches into her pockets and pulls out a sheet of paper that she waves in Break's general direction. It proves to be a beautiful sketch / blueprint / floor plan of the dream storefront Lysithea is imagining. There are bins for all sorts of fancy sweets, towers of cakes, and elegant, revolving display cases.

It's very nice, except for the obvious issue about presenting it to Break.]

Look - it's going to be like this when it's done. See?

[...]

...Oh. Sorry. Just... pretend I made a compelling sarcastic quip. Here: 'why don't you remodel your attitude?'

[Why is Break here today, anyway? She had declared her intention of stepping out to visit the store, not even entirely sure who was in earshot, and he had just sort of... appeared. She didn't question his presence too much nowadays, having recognized that of her scattered employees, there were few who could be classified as 'reliable.'

(Looking at you, Yuri.)]

Ah, never mind.

What do you really think? Is this at all feasible or is it just foolish sunk costs?

[Break never fusses when she does this. It's a compliment when people who know perfectly well that he can't see totally forget this fact, honestly. Also inconvenient, mind, but good for his pride to know that no one is automatically thinking to baby him.]

Baltus, darling, stop warbling a moment and come read this for me.

[Anyway it turns out his omen can show him things telepathically and he has just kept this to himself all month long, so there is also that. With a snort, Baltus slinks over and stands behind Break, draping his snoot over the man's shoulder as he carefully relieves Lysithea of her paper and holds it for the borzoi to examine. Break is all kinds of reliable, at least. Just on his own time and in his own way.]

Well. This isn't exactly something life or death, is it? You have a great many people who want to support you, so -- a project like this isn't the sort of thing that will cost you a safe place to sleep or having enough to eat if it doesn't do as well as you would hope. [Hell, Break would offer her a guest room at his own place if she needed one. The horrible homesickness and grief of the past several weeks, finally eased now, kept him stiff and a little distant all through October, but he's taken a proper shine to her all the same or he wouldn't be here.] Since that's the case, can an attempt to pull off something that will make a great many people happy in a very stupid world really be called "foolish"?

That's good to hear! It already looks like things are bustling around here too! Looks like the word got out on your bakery quick!

Hey, you have to start somewhere! Besides, I bet the more rocks you get, the more ingredients you can have, and that'll get you even MORE rocks!

[You know, she was beginning to see why she might prefer actual monetary value over a barter system. Sometimes money was just easier to manage...]

Weird, right? It smells fruitier than the peppers I'm used to. Don't know what I'd use it for, but I'll take it.

Oh—

[ Mako squats to start unloading the cinnamon, of which there is... a lot. He has to haul each individual twined-together bundle of the sticks out, and then they'll need to grind them down into powder... oh well. He'll start that process once it's all unloaded. ]

—got a tip from the merchant, though. The next vanilla shipment's coming in early, and they managed to pick up a bunch of sugar with it, too. If we get there early enough we could stock up for the whole month.

Uh, because rocks can be exchanged for goods and services, or whatever.

[ It sure sounds like he's quoting someone, and putting on a stiff, higher pitched voice than his own as he says it. It's not a good Flynn impression, but it is a Flynn impression ]

Look, I like the cake. I'm not saying I don't want the cake.

[ But, like, he also needs other stuff. He guesses. ]

Just, rocks and stuff, too.

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patisserie lysitherie: preparations

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