deercountry | what do you have there, oz?

Who: Oz Vessalius & Open Prompts | Closed Prompts are marked as such

What: Baking a Cake & Eating Cake

When: Early February

Where: His Home & Shopping Districts

Content Warnings: N/A

Early in the month of February, Oz reaches a realization: This is the second month of a new year, so it is basically February. That means that Gilbert's birthday is this month. In five days, to be exact.

The thought initially leaves Oz paralyzed with grief and mourning. Hearing about the month's Patron, Oz is haunted by the oath he's broken to Gilbert by being here. It's enough to make him feel sick (with corruption,) before a lighter thought shines through his despair: He can keep his oath by throwing Gilbert a party. One so extravagant that when Gilbert gets here, his birthdate will be the thing of legend and he'll be so upset that he missed it!

Armed with a pettiness that transcends the cycle of reincarnation, Oz heads out to learn how to throw a party. The first step being...

(1) OPEN | How To Bake a Cake w/ Oz Vessalius

[Oz can be found throughout the Trench in search of cake baking ingredients. Unfortunately, he is motivated by grief and the power of being a bully. So he takes numerous breaks along the way. Fear not! He does eventually get everything that he needs. But along the way;]

(a. recipe hunt in the archives)

[His first step is near the end of January! In order to bake a cake, Oz must secretly find a recipe. 'Secretly,' because he's embarrassed to tell his housemates what he is up to. They might see through his bully façade and tease him about how sincere his feelings are! ... Or Alice might suggest they switch the cake for bacon, which isn't the baking that Oz has in mind.

Finding Oz among the archives isn't new. He's a familiar face, who usually looks for information on the culture of the Trench. What might be unusual is seeing Oz with his face flat on an open book.]

(b. shopping for ingredients)

[Armed with a shopping list, Oz sets out to buy ingredients for his/Gilbert's birthday cake! It's been relatively easy, but he's absolutely lost when it comes to some simple things... For example, Oz can be caught struggling to pick between types of flour (there's more than one?) and not knowing which sugar you put in cakes. It's his fault, really. His shopping list is vague, because he didn't realize some of the specifics were very important.

When he spots familiar faces on the streets, Oz tosses up an easy-going wave and nearly drops his bag of ingredients. Even to strangers, Oz will politely greet them and then clumsily stumble.]

whew.

[He sighs in relief, then laughs nervously to brush off the mistake.]

(c. taste testing cakes)

[Occasionally throughout this process, Oz will stop at a restaurant or cafe to sulk! It's an important step in this grief fueled birthday party! He's probably eaten five slices of cake already under the guise of "taste testing local flavors." Anyone with a sense of emotional awareness might be able to see that the boy with five cake slices in front of him is actually trying to eat away his emotions.

At least he has enough awareness of his own to recognize that eating five cakes isn't healthy. Neither is sulking on his own. So when he spots someone entering the restaurant, he pats the empty part of his table enthusiastically.]

(2) CLOSED TO HOUSEMATES | February 5th

[When Oz woke up on the morning of February 5th, he was expecting to take over the kitchen for his cake! Instead, he wakes up to find, of all things... a sword...

It's The Blade of Agency, the gift left by his Patron for his Blessed Day. Oz stares down the blade in silence for a few seconds, wondering why there's a sword in his room. Clearly a gift to him, but why? It's not his birthday...

And at least in private, Oz does take a moment to appreciate how special it is for him to receive a gift on Gilbert's birthday. Likely from his Patron, he realizes. A gift, not a punishment. He had harbored a secret fear of being punished for breaking his oath to Gilbert, but if he's getting a gift instead... Maybe it isn't broken after all. And that kind of confirmation means the world to him, alleviating the burden that had threatened to corrupt inside of him.

But after that emotional moment, Oz is full of mischief.

He picks up the sword, purposefully looking the part of a clumsy fool, and exits his room while shouting:]

HEYYYYY!

[A KNIFE!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's on the morning of February 5th that the great cake disaster begins. Oz has put his new sword away for now and decided to focus on Gilbert's birthday party. With the help of Alice, he hopes to make a cake and surprise his household.

And there is no Gilbert to prevent this disaster.

Oz is first in the kitchen. While he waits for Alice to arrive, he tries to arrange the cake ingredients on the kitchen table. When he hears the approach of very Alice-like footsteps, Oz eagerly lifts his head and grins.]

Goo~d morning, Alice! Are you ready to bake a cake?

[ Oh, excellent, that's a true and proper Oz grin, that is, and that means Alice does not have to kick him in the head. That's like two birthday presents for Gilbert already and he's not even here. They spoil this man so. ]

I'm ready to make a cake so good Gilbert will sense we're making it and burst into tears on the spot!

[ How hard can it really be to make a cake. It's just cake. You... uh... Oh wait she's seen Sleeping Beauty now, there was a cake scene in that. ]

I'm going to crack those eggs harder than anyone has ever cracked an egg!

[ Pounds her fist into her palm for emphasis. This cake will be legendary. ]

[Oz laughs at that. He's imagining that Alice might crack an egg and gets shells mixed in... and normally, he might leave that to Gilbert to clean up! But this is a cake for Alice to eat, so she can't be getting a stomachache from it.]

Should I leave the eggs to you, then? Or do you want to beat up the flour for me instead?

I can beat up anything in this kitchen, Oz.

[ For Gilbert. For cake. For you. ]

What's the recipe say? How much flour? How many eggs?

[ She dashes to the pantry - the whole flour sack is hefty, but she is assuming that she can lift it up and so she can, no matter how floaty it has to get before she properly can. ]

[Sorry for this insulting observation, Alice: But Oz is surprised that she asks 'how much,' like she respects a recipe. He's used to them both being a chaos tornado that makes Gil's day harder.

This is nice though. Strangely, it makes it feel like Gilbert is still with them. It's as if a piece of Gilbert is within both of them and has made them both stronger people.]

-- Oh! Threeeeeeeeee and 3/4 cups of flour! And 3 eggs? 2 white ones... [He walks closer to Alice, holding the recipe page that he's copied from the archives;] How did Gil get those out again?

[ She's growing up and also helped the clown with soup back when he was totally blind. Having better tasting soup is a wonderful incentive to respect a recipe. ]

One brown egg, two white eggs! Almost four cups of flour!

[ Alice is preoccupied very solidly with all of this math and assembling of relevant ingredients and does not think to question anything about this. She has, fortunately, progressed past the point of 1. using a regular cup instead of a proper measurement designated cup 2. breaking a regular cup off at the top to properly have three quarters of a cup, which frankly gets brought up far too often for something she only did once, in her opinion. ]

[Lucius doesn't tend to be groggy in the mornings, and even if he did any haze would have been blown aside by Oz's shout. He opens his bedroom door and peers out, prepared to feign interest.

He doesn't have to feign interest.]

Where did you get that?

[And where did you learn to handle it so poorly?]

what do you have there, oz?

Closed to Black Alice

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2, a billion years late