⚔ // once upon a dream

[discutio]

[You all know the drill by now. Ignis and Camilla have taken over the nearest kitchen, and there's going to be food in the Pokemon Center soon enough; a warm and comforting vegetable curry. Highwind's even out now, welcoming any and all who might need a large cloud bird to hug after everything that was.]

[It's been a long night. Everyone needs a good meal and a long rest, and luckily one of those things is being seen to immediately.]

Comments

[eudaimonikos]

[Considering how he fell apart after his first encounter with Darkrai, Michael seems pretty darn okay right now. If he took the time to really dwell on the second encounter, maybe he wouldn't be, but it ended well enough, and Cresselia took a lot of the edge off. He's fine!

He lets his Pokemon out and, after taking the time to reassure them, spends more time pacing around the Center to see that everyone else is present and eating and all that. It's not an anxious pace; if anything, he seems a little bit excited. Dreams! Humans talk about them all the time! Michael does like getting to experience human things, and this is all the better for being something he actually asked for. Not like a surprise nightmare, or anything.

Later in the evening, he vanishes into the kitchen. Follow him if you want to taste-test any of the batches of chocolate-chip cookies he's making. There's not a ton of noticeable difference between them, but he has labeled the different plates: "A", "B", and so on. He'd only gotten through the theoretical stages of this before they left Canalave, and now it's time to go practical.]

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[swiftasacoursingkawa]

[Someone being fidgety after all this? Not so weird.

Someone being excited? That's weird. But then again, this is Michael, so being weird is like...his forte or something. He thinks. Sena's not really giving a lot of thought to things in the outside world right now. Not because he wants to avoid it, or ignore it, it's just...

Everything is just so much.

So while he's technically kinda fine, he doesn't look like it, because Sena's got this vague thoughtful expression on his face and hasn't touched his food. Kinda worrying.]

[eudaimonikos]

Hey!

[He's just gonna pop on over here.]

What's going on here?

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

[Yikes! Sena jumps up in his seat and spills a little soup, which ow, that's hot, definitely wakes him up a little.]

M-M-Michael?

[Oh, there's the Sena we all know and love. Or at least, some of him. He looks at least startled even if it's not his usual brand of nervous apprehension.]

I, um...nothing, I think?

[He's actually not completely sure.]

[eudaimonikos]

[Sena, we talked about how he wasn't gonna rip your head off...]

You're not eating.

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

[look...he was just surprised this time...honest...]

Huh?

[He blinks, then looks down at the mess he made.]

Aw, no...

[eudaimonikos]

[tsk tsk]

I'll get you a new one.

[BYE

when he comes back, he's also brought a chocolate chip cookie. remember all that stuff he was raving about in the library last week?]

[swiftasacoursingkawa]

Uh-? That's not nece-

[Aaaand he's gone. Might as well mop himself up, then.

He manages to finish cleaning himself up right when Michael comes back, and he blinks in surprise at the addition.]

Huh? This is a...

[He looks up at Michael quizzically, memory flooding back. Weirder, but far more pleasant memories, he has to admit.

The question on his face is clear. Did you make this?]

[eudaimonikos]

You can eat it after you've finished your curry. That's the "good" food order.

[He says with way too much certainty. Also not answering the implied question.]

Kitchen

[anythingforyou]

[...You know, she was honestly about to go get some milk to drink, so seeing all of these cookies? This just makes everything better. Camilla walks up to Michael while he works, looking at the batches with a very interested smile.]

My, experimenting with baking? I wouldn't have figured you for the type, but these look rather delectable...

[eudaimonikos]

Ah!

[He's midway through making another one! Not consulting any visible recipe, it's all in his head, but he sure looks to be measuring out those ingredients really precisely. As if this were as much a science experiment as anything else to him.]

Well, some of my past research indicated that these are a really popular human comfort food. I thought it would be...a useful skill to develop. [Michael's pretty shit at comforting people with words but at least he's aware?] I drew up a plan, this is the testing phase. All the different platters represent variations on the recipe.

[They're all pretty slight variations that you can't distinguish, because Michael's looking at this like there's some kind of objective Correct Cookie Recipe and doesn't totally understand that you mostly can't taste whether there were two or three milligrams of whatever]

[anythingforyou]

--Oh goodness, did I scare you?

[LET'S. NOT BE TRYING TO DO THAT AFTER THE NIGHTMARE-O-PALOOZA--but anyway, Camilla actually smiles a bit once she listens to Michael? Like, holy shit. That's sweet? Literally and figuratively???]

Well, your research would be quite correct; they're one of the best ways to comfort anything that ails you. They're quite the versatile little snack...I don't suppose you would mind if I tried one, do you? I have a little experience with baking, and I would love to have a taste of what you've done...

[Let's put this research into practice!!]

[eudaimonikos]

Oh, please! Getting humans to test them is the most important part!

[He'll have some too, when he's finished, but he's not really sure how his own tastes would align with theirs on this. Anyway, it isn't for him.]

Yeah, sometimes I'd make oatmeal raisin cookies that looked like chocolate chip for the humans, and pretend I didn't understand the difference. Just a tiny bit of disappointment on top of the pile.

[anythingforyou]

Oh, most excellent.

[She's just gonna go grab a glass of milk before she starts to try any of those cookies--that second remark, however, gets a bit of a recoil and a smirk out of Camilla.]

Oh, that's just hideous. Truly, the ultimate form of betrayal for those who love sweets...honestly, who outside of the elderly even like those kinds of cookies anyway? They're awful.

[eudaimonikos]

[He grins and does that terrifying evil chuckle.]

Right! And then I would just go - [Suddenly, Everyone's Lovable Grandpa Michael is here] - "Oh, Eleanor! I just felt so terrible about everything that happened, so I made you some cookies! Feel better, okay?"

And then they'd feel bad, so they had to eat all the cookies and pretend to be happy while I watched!

[anythingforyou]

[Holy shit.]

Oh, that's dreadful! Using their own kindness against them to force them into such a thing...really, I could hardly imagine a fate more dire than being forced to eat such terrible lies.

[It'd certainly go a long way in making a bad day worse, which she imagines was the point. Once she pours out a nice glass of milk, she's gonna grab a cookie from the A pile and give it a try, though...]

Hmm... [She gives it some careful consideration while she eats, before washing the first bite down.] Hmm! These are quite good...

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael just giggles; he's developing some...pretty different feelings lately, about things he's done, but the cookie thing in particular was just plain funny.]

Oh, damn. It would have been funny if those were oatmeal raisin now. [But they aren't! Congrats, Camilla, you have a delicious chocolate chip cookie.] Well, thank you! Let me know if you like any of those better than the others.

[Gesturing between the different batches. And then he just dumps like, half a bag of chocolate chips into his current one. These are gonna be very chocolate.]

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[semistableman]

[Bucky is still feeling overstimulated and anxious. Cresselia's presence at the end helped him calm down just enough that, while pinned by four Pokemon so he can't move even if he wanted, he doesn't feel the need to be so massively paranoid.]

You got something on your mind?

[eudaimonikos]

Oh! No, no, it's nothing.

[Bucky's visibly not had the best times with dreams recently, so.]

Are you okay? You still seem... [you know]

[semistableman]

[His dreams are always kind of a mess. This is completely fair. He still nods, though.]

I'll be all right. That went... better than it could have, in all honesty.

[eudaimonikos]

Yeah. Would've been a lot worse if Darkrai was trying to torture us, I think. Makes me wonder how things ended up with the Commanders - if he just had to let them go to keep Cyrus coming after him, or what.

[semistableman]

That's an interesting question.

I wouldn't want to be them, that's for certain.

[Because it was probably more than Darkrai poking around in their heads to see what kind of person they are.]

[eudaimonikos]

No, no...

[Bad times were had.]

Gotta say, I was surprised about Mars and the whole "people she loves" thing. I mean, I guess she did freak out over the other two being gone. Didn't think it was because she cared about them as people.

[semistableman]

[He frowns.]

Maybe she just has a strange way of showing it. I didn't think so, either.

[eudaimonikos]

Doesn't really change anything, of course. Just means she loves a lot of people who are also terrible. Just - I don't know.

[It rang too true, for him.]