“Pat-a-cake! Pat-a-cake! Baker’s man! Bake me a cake as fast as you can~!” chants Fresh, bouncing up and down in the kitchen behind Jubilee. They push her to the side, waving her off with a hand as they go to where she was just standing, bending down to grab a baking form.

“Will you get lost?!” barks Jubilee. “You’re in the way. Like always,” they grumble.

Fresh frowns and takes a step back. Then she clenches her fists and starts over again with her chant. “Pat-a-cake! Pat-a-cake! Baker’s man! Bake me a cake as fast as you can~!”

“Pakew!” shouts the house-spriggan from next to her.

Across the room, back by Shamrock who is gathering material, the healer-spriggan shouts a distant pakew over towards them as well. Jubilee sighs. “If you’re not going to be helpful, then go bug Shamrock.”

“Shamrock’s busy,” replies Fresh, looking back at the man for a moment. He’s dragging materials around for her to get started on the telescope platform with. She turns her gaze back to Jubilee, who has their arms out at their side, gesturing to signify something obvious.

“And I’m not?” they ask. “Get lost. Go pester Basil then.”

“Mm..” Fresh thinks for a moment, making a show out of it by tapping her chin with a finger. “But Basil’s working on her medicine. She doesn’t like it when I bug her then.”

“I fail to see how this is my problem,” replies Jubilee.

Fresh stares at them for a moment. They stare at each other, the sounds of Shamrock’s work filling the room.

Fresh claps her hands together. “Pat-a-cake! Pat-a-cake! Baker’s man! Bake me a cake as fast as you can~!

Today, Jubilee is baking a cake. This is, of course, extremely exciting. There isn’t really an occasion, as far as Fresh knows. Jubilee had just said that they wanted to bake a cake and Fresh had decided that this was a phenomenal idea. A cake? Jubilee has never baked a cake before. This is very thrilling, perhaps it is even the highlight of her life.

“Hey!” barks Jubilee over to the healer-spriggan. It looks over their way. “I’ll give you some more of that growing-water,” they offer, lifting a finger to point it at Fresh. “If you whack her on the head with that stick of yours.”

The healer spriggan looks at Jubilee and then towards its staff. “Wait, huh?” asks Fresh, looking between the two of them.

“Pakew!” shouts the healer-spriggan, lifting its healing staff high into the air with both of its stubby arms as it quickly wobbles their way. Fresh lets out a terrified yelp and runs away, bolting down the stairs, listening to Jubilee’s laughing as she makes her escape. The terrifying thudding of two small, stubby legs chases after her.

“Baaaasil~!” she cries, bolting towards the basement. She rounds the lowest bend of the spiral staircase.

“Not now,” says the priestess, looking over her shoulder from her workbench.

“Basil!” cries Fresh anyway. “The spriggan is trying to whack me on the noggin’!” she explains. “Jubilee bribed it!”

Fresh turns her head, listening to the steps of the healer-spriggan coming downstairs. She yelps and retreats to the door of the washroom, locking it behind herself.

Eventually, the store has to open however.

By then, the spriggan had already been shooed away by Basil, who was trying to focus on her work before they opened. Now, Fresh is standing behind the counter, watching the staircase with wary eyes.

- So far, so good.

“How’s the thing coming along?” asks Jubilee, looking her way.

“The thing?” asks Fresh. Jubilee rolls their eyes. “Oh, yeah,” says Fresh, realizing that Jubilee is talking about the heating bead for the orichalcum forge. “I dunno. It’s sort of kinda, but not really coming along, you know?” she asks. “How’s the cake?”

“It has to sit until tonight,” says Jubilee. “Otherwise it’ll get smushy.”

“Can’t we just eat it now?” asks Fresh, looking around the empty store.

Jubilee raises an eyebrow. “If you touch it before I say so, I’ll cut your hands off myself.”

Fresh frowns. “But what if I don’t touch it with my hands?” she asks. “What if like.. I use my elbow?” She waves her elbow towards Jubilee. “Or my shoulder?”

“Look,” replies Jubilee. “I don’t care what part of your body the knife is going to be going through, but it’ll be going through one of ‘em alright.”

Fresh smiles. Jubilee must be pretty proud of their cake if they’re this defensive about it. She can imagine that they’re actually really excited for them to see their efforts tonight and so they want it to be perfect.

She nods. “You’re a great friend, Jubilee.”

“You bet your fucking ass I am,” says Jubilee, pointing out towards the store. “There’s nothing going on. Go sweep.”

Fresh shakes her head. “I can’t leave the safety of the counter, Jubilee,” she explains. “The spriggan is still after me.”

“It’s a level two spriggan, you’ll be fine, you baby,” replies Jubilee. They point towards the door. “Worst case, you can run to Muldrich.”

Fresh frowns. “But he’ll kill it?” she asks.

“P- pakew?” asks the house-spriggan nervously.

“Yeah. So?”

Fresh thinks for a moment. “We’ve never killed a spriggan summoned by an item before, Jubilee,” thinks Fresh. “If we do and then re-summon it, is it the same spriggan, or a new one?”

Jubilee shrugs. “I assume it’s the same one, since they can be leveled and resummoned like a normal pet,” they guess.

“Oh. That makes sense,” nods Fresh.

The room is quiet.

Jubilee stares at her. “Are you just trying to distract me from the fact that you aren’t sweeping?”

Fresh lowers her head, shuffling out from the safety of the counter. Oh well. It looks like it’s safe down here, so sweeping should be okay. The shelves are low, so there’s nowhere for the healer-spriggan to be hiding. The house-spriggan wobbles after her, grabbing the broom.

She smiles, at least she has a helper and later on there’s going to be cake! Maybe it’s all not so -

“Ow!” she yelps as the top of the broom-handle whacks her over the head. She rubs her head, watching as the broom falls to the ground, the house-spriggan wobbling off. It spares a glance over its shoulder and then keeps walking. The menu vanishes. Muldrich peeks in through the door a second later.

She’s been betrayed.

The healer-spriggan pops out from beneath the basement, the two creatures finding each other in an embrace, before they flee together to the safety of the underground.

Fresh stands there, rubbing her head before turning to Jubilee. “Jubilee!” she complains.

“I’m impressed,” says Jubilee, honestly surprised, given the tone of their voice. “I didn’t know they were capable of teamwork.”

“Strong feelings make everything possible,” remarks Basil, who was sorting the shelves. The priestess comes over and looks at her bump.

Okay, so, maybe the day isn’t exactly perfect. But at least there’s going to be cake later. That’s something, right?

Fresh makes a show out of how much it hurts so that Basil will dote on her, though she thinks that the priestess knows that she’s doing it. Jubilee meanwhile pays the spriggans what is owed, a deal is a deal.

Razmatazz

Thank you kindly for reading!

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