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[ Whoever is using Catra's comm is standing at the foot of her hospital bed. Probably one of the medical staff or some other Jorgmund pencil pusher. Catra is sitting up, still bandaged but much grumpier than usual (or just as grumpy as usual?). A pair of nurses, along with a couple of other Jorgmund employees are crowded around her bed, one of them holding a plate on which sits a small, sad looking cupcake in which someone has stuck a very lonely candle. The fellow holding the plate, a rather selnder man with too-large glasses and too-cheery disposition, speaks. ]

We want to congratulate Catra on her continuing recovery and wish her a very happy twentieth birthday from all of us at Jorgmund. We understand that it's been a bit of a rough time for some of you lately, and thought this might help raise morale. All together now.

[ The group launches into a slightly off-key rendition of 'Happy Birthday to You' and Catra seems to sink down into her bedclothes, as if it might help her disappear from this plane of existence. Having no such luck, she is forced to sit through the song. ]

Go ahead and blow out the candle, Catra.

[ Catra looks like she would rather do anything except blow out the candle. Maybe even go toe-to-toe with the killer again. In spite of this, she leans forward and gives a half-heard puff of breath, which extinguishes the candle. Styrofoam plate is carefully balanced on her bedside table, and the glasses-wearing guy, no doubt from HR, takes the comm. ]

Go ahead and leave Catra some birthday wishes. I'm sure that hearing from her fellow employees will be just the thing to help her get back on her feet as soon as possible.

[ The comm is deposited into Catra's lap. She stares at the camera, then plants her face in her hands. ]

I swear if ant of you say anything...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Pft, don't worry about that. She'd probably just shove you out if you tried to get in bed with her anyway.

[ Woosh. ]

I'll grab that scroll, though! I hope you're feeling better, too!

Edited 2020-10-29 20:25 (UTC)

I. Thanks.

[Tenten manages to beat Adora to the kitchen that night. Probably because she forgot to mention which ceiling panel her scroll's under. Pity whoever her roommate is. She glances up at Adora as she enters and glances up at the time. She's much more lightly bandaged than she has been, but half of her face and her hand are still covered in wrappings. Very medicinal-smelling ones.]

Oh, hey. You got my scroll? Also, do you have about as much experience with cooking as Catra did?

Edited 2020-10-29 21:52 (UTC)

[ It took her a bit of searching, but she did find the damn thing. She gives Tenten a look and can't help but remember what she looked like when she found her on the floor and winces. ]

Oh, yeah, here-

[ She hands the scroll over with a nod. ]

And... yeah. I haven't really done a whole lot of cooking before.

[It takes a lot for Tenten to avoid cringing at that wince. That'd probably make Adora feel worse than she already does. Heaven knows she's probably already beating herself up over it, like it's not Tenten's fault for losing that fight in the first place.

There's a brief flash where she considers asking Adora to see what her powers can do, but... Well, if she hasn't offered by now, there's probably a reason for it. She'd said she lost the powers before, after all, so there might be some kind of block there.]

Thanks.

[She takes the scroll and sets it aside. They'd get to that later.]

I had to teach Catra to do some basic stuff too, but if you pick things up half as fast as she did, we'll have something for her in... maybe an hour and a half. Two hours.

I already got our ingredients laid out, but. [She holds up her bandaged hand and wiggles her fingers. They're still stiff, not a lot of flex.] I've got the oven preheating, so no worries about that. And our ingredients are here.

[She indicates each with a gesture.] First, eggs. You're gonna have to separate them for us, which is tricky, but it's a two-handed job. [Then a gesture at five bowls of powder. Four white, one dark. Off to the side are three smaller bowls with small liquids in each.] Here's our cake flour, baking powder, sugar, and cocoa powder. I don't know if Catra likes chocolate, so if you don't know it might be a good idea if we forgot about the cocoa powder and just used this extra cake flour over here. Finally, we've got our vegetable oil, water, and vanilla extract.

[And again, first, the eggs. She moves over, pulls up an empty bowl, and gestures for Adora to pay attention. Expertly, she cracks an egg with one hand and drops it into the bowl.] So, you see the yolk here? We need to separate that from the clear stuff, the egg white. You've got a clean option and a messy option. Messy one is to just... Crack it in your hand, catch the yolk in your fingers, and drop it into an empty bowl. Clean one's to crack the shell in two and sort of... catch the yolk in one half, then pour it back and forth until the white falls off entirely. You might break the yolk if you're not careful, though, and letting any of it drip into the whites will ruin them. Which is why you're gonna crack each over an empty bowl and pour the whites into this bowl here and drop the yolks into this third bowl.

Don't worry if you break them, we can use them for something else later.

[...Yeah, Tenten kinda believes in dropping people off in the deep end. She'd do this herself, but, well. Hand.]

Edited (while flour is cake powder, it's probably best not to call it that in a lesson) 2020-10-30 06:10 (UTC)

[ That is a lot of information to take in. Adora's brow furrows as she listens and tries to remember everything. Truthfully, she's never really cooked before, but it can't be that hard, can it? She flexes her fingers and turns to look at everything. ]

I think she's ok with vegetables...

[ But to be fair, ration bars aren't really anything. ]

I guess I can give the eggs a shot. Uh. I think I'll try the second way?

[ She picks up the egg, raps it against the counter and then splits it, trying to juggle the whites and yolks into separate halfs. She's... mostly successful? Her tongue is stuck out in concentration as she tries to make sure this works. She's very determined. ]

Well, that's good, 'cause I've stuffed her full of those. [She laughs a little, sound slightly muffled by the bandages.] It's kind of fun to watch her try new foods. I guess you guys weren't eating well where you used to be?

[There's a pause as she watches Adora.]

That's good. Keep it up.

[Catra'd managed just fine her first go around, even with her hands covered in plastic gloves. Tenten's got faith in Adora. And, hey, this is kinda cute. It's a bit of a wait until Adora's done, but then she's taking the bowls and setting them aside. The yolks and some of the sugar get poured into a counter-based mixer, which she kicks up to high. Raising her voice a little, over the racket, she points at the flour and baking powder.]

When that color starts turning a pale yellow, like a pastel yellow, then turn the speed to low. Take those two bowls and slowly add them until it stops looking powdery.

[She snags a whisk herself and, trapping the bowl of egg whites under her bandaged arm, she starts beating rapidly.]

That's gonna keep it from getting grainy. When that's done, stop it. That's when you add those bowls of water, oil, and that little bit of vanilla and turn it on some medium setting until it gets all creamy.

[Hopefully she's not going too fast, but this isn't a situation where she can provide examples. She stops, glances at her whites, and pours in the cream of tartar, then works the whisk into a blur of speed, trying to work them into the bright white and stiff peaks that promise a good meringue.

Normally, she'd explain what she's doing here, but she's not quite sure how confident Adora's being. Just that she's trying to get things together, so it seems best not to distract her.]

Not in the Fright Zone, at least. I ate better in Bright Moond...

[ Fortunately, she's managing the eggs, bit by bit. So at least that part is going to be done. She helps move things around as they start to move on to the next step, her hands half-raised as she waits for the next set of instructions. She listens attentively and then starts again, working on adding the bowls into the mix as the color shifts to yellow.

She's pretty good at following instructions, apparently. ]

Right. Medium...

[ She sticks her tongue out and flicks the switch.

Nothing explodes. So far, so good. ]

Better than Rig food or...?

[That's genuine curiosity there. She doesn't really know that much about their world and it just seems so... unworkable from what she hasheard.

Tenten's watching over her shoulder, but, even though she seems a little less certain, Adora certainly seems no less competent than Catra was. After a bit, she nudges Adora's foot with one of her own.]

That's it. Turn the mixer off and pull the bowl over to the cake pans, please.

[She stops in her own stirring to pour in some stirring, then picks up the pace for about thirty more seconds, moving back to the table. Tenten holds the whisk up, displaying the stiff white peak of cream on it.]

This is why we wanted this separated. When you beat egg whites and add a few ingredients, it gets all thick like this. The yolks would've kept it all runny. [She takes the bowl and holds it upside down, showing off how the meringue sticks, not falling off.] This is meringue. You could make little cookies out of just this if you wanted, but instead we're gonna mix it all in.

[If they weren't trying for a speedy thing here, she'd have Adora do it. Instead, she sweeps the meringue into the yolks and takes a little rubber spatula, starting to fold and mix it together with practiced movements. While she mixes, she keeps talking.]

All right. I've already got some parchment paper in the bottoms of the pans. Some people might grease the sides of the cake pans here, but we're not doing that. It's going to get too dense if we do.

[She slides the bowl to Adora and gestures at the pans.]

Go ahead and pour that into the pans. Try to get equal amounts in. Then stick it in that oven, we'll leave it in for... I guess twenty minutes. We can just talk now, I've still got to make the whipped cream but that's going to go fast.

Bright Moon food definitely was... Fright Zone food was really more like goopy bars. So... worse. A lot worse, honestly.

[ She goes quiet and listens attentively, frowning in concentration as she does her best to keep up and actually handle every step of the process as they move on. It makes sense, but she's struggling a bit to keep up. Still, she manages to get through all of it. After a long moment, she pours the mixture out into the cake pans. One, then the other. It's a little mismatched, but not bad for a first go, right?

Finally, Adora slides them both into the oven and slumps against the counter with a sigh. ]

...is cooking always this intense?

Yeah, I heard a bit about those.

[She thought it sounded like a messier version of food pills, really. Then again, with her particular skillset, relying on those wasn't exactly a problem.

She eyes the mismatch, but bites her tongue. It doesn't seem like enough to be bad, and Adora is trying. They'll just put the smaller one on top.]

No, it's usually a lot calmer. But I wanted to get this done before midnight and all, I'm down a hand, and I'm not great when it comes to shadow clones. Sorry to sweep you up in this, but you were there and I figured you'd want Catra to have an actual good birthday experience, too.

[Even if she hadn't known about it.]

No, no, it's fine... Catra deserve to have something nice after... everything.

[ She gestures. ]

So does everyone, honestly. It's been weird.

Speaking of deserving something nice...

[Tenten reaches out and takes the scroll, unrolling it on the table. It's full of seals and symbols, but she's tracing her fingers along them like she knows what they are either way.]

One of the traditions that come with a birthday is that the person having one gets presents. Normally, I'd just give her a weapon of some kind, but I don't have anything like that right now. [Thanks, Obama.] And I don't know what she'd like otherwise. So I was kinda hoping, y'know. You could help me pick a present?

[There's a beat.]

Um. Of course, I'd give you something to give her too. No offense, but our resources here are a little... limited.

Hmm.

[ Adora wrinkles her nose as she thinks. That's honestly kind of a touch question for her to answer. She and Catra never had a lot of stuff when they were growing up, so figuring out if there's more stuff that Catra might like is kinda hard. ]

I can try. No guarantees, though. It's not like either of us actually owned a lot of our own stuff growing up.

[ She scratches her chin. ]

...clothing, maybe? If you can get some.

[That casual little admittance kinda gets her attention. No personal possessions? Sounded... Not good, really. Were they just cogs in some war machine, then? There to fight and nothing else? It was a miracle the two came out as well adjusted as they had. If you could call Catra's standoffishness 'well adjusted'.

Tenten's finger's skitter down the scroll until she finds the seal she wants. Then she places her hands on it and, with a puff of smoke, a few neatly folded piles of clothing are just... There. Largely things she considered work outfits, since this was what she worked with on missions, but there were one or two fancy dresses and robe arrangements in there. And, of course, Master Guy's infamous gift of a green bodysuit. Somehow, she didn't figure Catra for one of those.]

I'd figured she might like some clothes. And she and I are about the same size for a lot of things. I'll need to fix up a hole for that tail, though...

[She had the clothes she'd come in with now, of course, a reward for her 'good service', but she hadn't seen the point in wearing them with Planker around to ruin a decent outfit for his own amusement.]

What kind do you think she'd like? Go ahead and look through them. I've got some other stuff, too, but I need to do up the whipped cream real fast.

[Unless Adora stops her, she's going to just. Step away and do that. It shouldn't take her more than five minutes.]

Huh.

[ Adora is thankfully used to magic, so someone summoning a pile of clothes out of nowhere isn't all that strange. She crouches to start sorting through them, holding the outfits up one by one as she tries to figure out which one might work. ]

Something sleek, I think. And definitely needs a hole for her chest-tuft...

[ She's half talking to herself and partially to Tenten to see if she has any ideas. ]

[Honestly, Adora just accepting that as a thing that happens is a little gratifying for Tenten. The people who freak out over the things she can do are a little annoying, it's like ninjas are lame in their worlds or something.

True to her word, she's doing up the whipped cream while Adora pokes through her outfits. It feels weird to have someone just going through her possessions like this, but it's for Catra. And, honestly, better Adora than some of the other options around here. The cream is already thickening, thanks to the beating, the powdered sugar, and smells great thanks to the vanilla extract, so she glances over her shoulder.]

I don't have a lot of outfits with a gap there. It's, um. Not an area I advertise a lot.

[Look, Hinata and Ino already put her to shame, no sense in advertising that fact to everyone back home.]

I'd need to take a few hours to adjust one of them for that.

I mean - you don't have to. It's just something she usually likes...

[ She's not thinking about that particular bit of endowment, anyway. Just Catra's chestfur. ]

Besides, I don't want you to have to do a lot of work with your hand still busted up.

It's no-

[There's a pause, then Tenten looks down at her hand.

Oh. Right.]

...Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Sorry. I guess I'm just kinda caught up in, you know. You two deserve something nice.

Well, I have my jacket back-!

[ She laughs and tugs on the hem of said jacket in illustration. ]

So at least there's that. But... yeah. Catra could use something after all of that. I don't have anything for her, though. But... that's sort of how it is. There's not a lot. [ It's like the Fright Zone all over again. ]

They're letting me wear my clothes and my forehead protector. But I don't trust Planker, you know? And then there's whoever keeps leaving jackets on my bed while I'm out...

[Adora's got a nice jacket!]

I wouldn't mind working for Jorgmund normally. Like, if they'd come to the village for a long-term contract instead of trying to pick up slaves. They're incompetent, but they... seem to mean well? It's just that they can't seem to stop being evil. [But, hey, if there's a paycheck...] So, find something nice for her and claim it. I don't have to give her clothes, if you don't want to give her the same thing. [She'd like, to, though, just to see Catra's eyes light up. And see how they look on her.] What else? I don't have any weapons here, but I've got, um. A lot of stuff.

I'll figure something out. Problem is I don't actually have a lot of my own stuff, let along anything I can hand out as a gift.

[ She wrinkles her nose in thought. ]

I mean... I guess they're not as bad as the Horde in some ways... worse in others. Weird to think about.

[ OK. Back to thinking about Catra. ]

...maybe I should find a weapon for her.

Adora, [she begins with a long-suffering tone of voice] A present from you is going to mean a lot more than a present from me. She loves you. I'm just... [Excess.] just some girl she's met and hangs out with now and then.

Give her a gift whenever you can, but birthdays are special. They're a time for people to let you know how much they love you and think of you while celebrating your life. That's why I'm telling you to pick something. I'll give it to you. You give it to her. She doesn't need to know where it originally came from, just that you gave it to her on a special day.

[ Adora blinks. Wait a second- ]

Tenten, you are way more than just some girl. I was Catra's only friend for as long as I knew her! The fact that she's connected with you at all is... it's great!

[ She flashes a big smile. ]

Look - we can give her something together. From the both of us.

[Tenten's... honestly not sure what to say here. She blinks stupidly at Adora, then coughs and pauses. Oh! Cake. Yes. Without a word, she busies herself, checking the cake, then pulling both of them out of the oven. They look... Not perfect, but good. Time to just let them cool.

It also gives her time to think. Refusing an offer like that, it would be horrendously rude. And, as much as Adora's her silent rival for Catra, she honestly doesn't want to hurt the girl. They ARE friends, after all. Or maybe just friendly, but she's pretty sure Adora would call them friends. Then again, Adora seems like the person who'd consider someone she met five seconds ago friends.]

...Yeah, that would work. She'd be fine with that?

[ Adora's a little confused by the sudden silence, but she goes back to filtering through the clothing until Tenten's finished with the cakes. That's a little weird, isn't it? ]

Catra's never been good at saying "thank you" or anything like that, but... I think she would.

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