Cookies
by Cheezey

Chilla walked into the kitchen of the MoonTower with a displeased scowl upon her icewalker features. Her mood was foul not because she was a member of the royal family in one of the areas utilized primarily by staff—she was not pretentious enough to be bothered by such things—but because she had been summoned there. Chilla did not like being summoned. She had spent too many years being summoned and ordered around by Luna, or as Alluro called her behind her back, “The Troll”, back on Third Earth to tolerate it now. Normally Chilla would have blown it off, but unfortunately the individual doing the summoning had made it clear she would not take “no” for an answer and she was someone Chilla, and everyone else, could not really say no to when she put her tiny foot down, as even Chilla was not stubborn enough to tell the Lunar Queen to stuff it.

“I’m here, Selene,” Chilla said grouchily to the petite lunar woman as she entered. Selene was standing by one of the counters with five-year-old Erissa at one side and three-year-old Silvian at the other, with a hopeless mass of canisters and mixing bowls and food containers around them. Chilla did a double take when she saw what Selene was wearing—a frilly apron and puffy purple slippers—and that she was holding a wooden spoon with a handle almost as long as Luna was tall. The icewalker noticed that Amok was snoozing on a cushion in the corner, but thankfully, Luna was nowhere nearby. That probably meant that The Troll was out with Frostor somewhere, and as far as Chilla was concerned, better him than her.

Selene brightened when Chilla approached. “Oh good!” she exclaimed with nauseating enthusiasm. “We’re going to bake shaped sugar pastries with decorative glaze,” she informed her.

Chilla blinked. “You’re making cookies?”

“Shaped sugar pastries,” the Queen corrected firmly, much in the same way a nanny might correct a child. “They’re for the party later.”

The party that Selene referred to was the MoonTower’s annual holiday celebration common to all of the Plundarrian Moons that took place that time of the standard year. It signified the original uniting of the five moons under one leadership by an ancient Lunatac called Luran the Conqueror—the original holder of the MoonSaber—and although it was celebrated on all of the moons with different style and fanfare, it was the Third Moon that went all out the most with it, second perhaps only to Tukabir, but the gravitons liked any excuse to throw a big party with a lot of food and alcohol. The holiday itself was celebrated over two days, and that day was the eve of it.

Since she had lived there, Chilla had seen them throw a big party almost every year, and Selene was very festive and involved with it. The Lunar Queen had the Tower decorated lavishly with seasonal sparkling garlands and lights as early as tastefully possible, and gifts and candles set out and wrapped. Selene herself generally wore expensive outfits in style with the season, including her puffy purple slippers with a silver ribbon and bells. The holiday was also a big deal to the children, as traditionally they were given plenty of gifts, including “surprises” from a mystery benefactor—their parents not signing a name, of course—that would only give them toys and gifts if they had behaved well the year before. Children were told that the spirits of the astral watched them and knew if they had been naughty or nice, so it was incentive for them to behave—although “behaving” in Lunatac terms was defined as doing what their parents told them and not being difficult. For instance on their neighboring world of New Thundera, “naughty” and “nice” had entirely different meanings than there on the Moons of Plundarr.

Chilla glanced at the collection of bowls and the growing mess on the counter in front of Selene, Erissa, and Silvian. “So why are you making them and not the staff? Are you that bored?” she questioned, and then eyed her warily. “Do you even know how to cook?”

“Yes I do,” Selene replied haughtily. “Just because I’m Queen doesn’t mean that I’ve never cooked. During the disasters we didn’t have servants, you know. Riala taught me most of what I know about cooking,” she said, referring to the elderly half-breed lunar/graviton that was now the children’s nanny. “She learned to cook on Tukabir.”

“I’m surprised we’re not having rum balls then,” Chilla muttered.

“Uncle TugMug sent me a box of those!” Erissa exclaimed energetically. “And I ate some earlier and then Silvian ate some and he got dizzy and fell over and then Riala took them away from us though ‘cause she said we were hyper and I wasn’t hyper but she said I was and she took them even though I wanted more and we only ate half the box and—”

Erissa was cut off mid-babble with a sharp and mildly displeased glance from her mother and lapsed into silence as Chilla continued to speak with Selene. “So why not just have the staff make them?”

“I thought it would be fun!” Selene replied cheerfully, twirling the wooden spoon in her hands. “I was reading about holiday traditions here and on other planets and I actually read that the New Thunderian snarfs, you know, like Ambassador Snarfer—”

“I don’t think we could ever forget,” Chilla hissed frostily.

If Selene caught Chilla’s tone she ignored it entirely as she rambled on. “Well they have these nice family traditions where they cook part of the holiday meal with their kids and I thought that would be fun to try especially since the kids love to decorate things.” Although she had said “decorate” both Selene and Chilla knew it was a euphemism for “making a mess”. “So I figured why not put their creative energy to constructive use? And I’m feeling kind of creative myself. I sometimes like to cook.”

Chilla nodded, failing to see why menial labor in the kitchen or anything thought up by a snarf should be something one should be enthusiastic about. While she could grant that snarfs were well known for their culinary skill—and on Plundarr, for their savory meaty flavor as well—she did not see why the Lunar Queen found it necessary to involve her in it. “So you called me down here to tell me that my child will be making cookies all afternoon?”

Selene nodded. “Yes, she will be helping with the decoration of the shaped sugar pastries, but that’s not why I called you here, Chilla.”

“Why did you call me here?”

A wide grin spread across Selene’s face as she handed Chilla a canister of flour. “You’re going to help!”

The canister hit the counter with a thud as Chilla’s expression changed from curious disgust to disbelieving shock. “What?”

“It’ll look good for as many of the members of the royal family to get involved as possible,” Selene informed her matter-of-factly. “You weren’t busy today, so get cooking! And don’t say you don’t know how, because I know you can read and we have a recipe book right here,” she said, thwapping it with her spoon.

Chilla pondered the consequences of icing the Lunar Queen in her own kitchen in front of her child and the Prince for several moments before deciding against it and answering verbally instead. “I am no cookie-baking domesticated house mother,” the icewalker hissed contemptuously. “If my child wants a damned cookie, she can call the servants or pull it out of a jar.”

Selene frowned, and a pissy edge crept into her lunar voice. “You’re being very stubborn and unreasonable about this, Chilla. Don’t you want to spend the afternoon with your child and step-grandchild?”

Chilla’s fingertips drummed against the edge of the counter, sparking with unspent heat energy from her rising temper. “If I want to spend time with the children I will spend time with them, but I have no desire to spend it in a hot kitchen doing work that our staff is paid to do,” she retorted. “And why me? Why not Alluro?”

Erissa set a bowl she had been stirring back up on the counter. “Daddy says he doesn’t do meenyal labor anymore,” she told her mother with a shrug, parroting the phrase without a clue as to what it meant.

“But he wants a troll shape cookie,” Silvian added from beside Erissa, poking his fingers into the unbaked dough. Without missing a beat, Selene thwapped the boy on the knuckles with the spoon. It occurred to Chilla that the lunar was as comfortable with the kitchen implement as her Aunt Luna apparently was with her riding crop, and at the moment, her similarity to her older relation was not at all endearing or cute.

“Yeah, so he can bite its head off,” Erissa giggled with malicious glee. Even Chilla might have smirked at the thought of biting the head off of a Luna cookie, had she not been so irritated at Selene at the moment.

“We do not have a troll-shaped pastry cutter, young lady,” Selene said to Erissa softly. “Now put in a half a cup of butter like the recipe says.”

“Ok,” the girl replied, and she and Silvian began rooting through the drawer looking for the appropriate measuring cup, tossing out what they did not need onto the floor behind them. When a flour sifter beaned Selene in the back of the head from their enthusiastic searching, that time Chilla did crack a smile.

Selene frowned and picked up the sifter, pointing the spoon at them warningly. Without a word they settled down, found the measurer, and set about retrieving the butter while the conversation between the adults continued. “Actually although I asked Alluro, he said he could not, because he and Psiarik had some sort of meeting with Frostor over at the military complex.”

“How convenient,” Chilla snapped, now equally irritated at Alluro and his son for running off and leaving her to deal with the Queen’s festively inspired nonsense. “What about Luna? She’s family to you,” she said, and glanced at the sleeping Amok. “Is that why he’s here?”

“Amok is here to help, but his hands are too big for the delicate pastries, so I told him he could just have some when they come out of the oven and he could keep us company. Aunt Luna brought him here and left with Frostor although I’m not sure why. This morning she said she wasn’t speaking to him.” Selene shrugged. “So that leaves us. I knew I could count on you to help, Chilla! Here, you can start rolling some of the dough,” she said, and passed the icewalker a rolling pin.

Chilla debated using the blunt object to beat some sense into the Lunar Queen but she supposed that would probably be considered assault and most likely would not do any good anyway. Before Chilla could do anything else, Selene spread out some flour on the counter and placed a hunk of dough in front of the conscripted ice woman. “Just roll it out to about this thick,” Selene said, demonstrating with her fingers. “I’m going to help the kids stir the next batch.”

“Whatever,” Chilla growled in obvious annoyance. She slammed the rolling pin down hard into the dough, causing it to squish all around, and rolled it with pressure in the equivalent to her aggravation. The aggravation tripled when the dough stuck to the rolling pin and curled around it, instead of laying flat as it was supposed to against the counter. Chilla swore under her breath, and she spied the children watching her, and muttered some more, not particularly caring about their delicate ears.

“Maybe you’re rolling too hard, Chilla,” Selene said, noticing her trouble. The lunar woman set her bowl down and helped her peel the mess off. She added some more flour to it and then turned to the ice woman. “Try again.”

Using an incredible amount of restraint on her temper, Chilla rolled the dough again—and had the same result. That time she did not wait for any of Selene’s well-meaning and very irritating advice, and slammed the rolling pin as hard as she could against the counter, sending scraps of dough flying everywhere—including a rather large piece onto Amok’s head—with a loud enunciation of a curse that could make even TugMug blush.

Erissa winced and yanked Silvian, standing dangerously near her mother, back. “Mommy’s mad. Better hide.”

Taking the older child’s suggestion to heart, especially after seeing the enraged look upon his step-grandmother’s face, the young Lunar Prince went and hid in the nearest cabinet behind a graviton-sized stew pot. Erissa followed suit and crouched behind the open drawer, knowing full well that an icing of something or someone was imminent.

Amok meanwhile woke up and shook his head groggily. The dough that was decorating his horn like a gooey ornament had fallen into his hand. Curiously the brute sniffed at it, and then put it in his mouth. “Mmmm!” he said happily. “Cookie dough yummy!”

“Pastry dough!” Selene said emphatically, and glanced down at the recipe book. “Hmm, it says the dough has to be chilled. We did have it cooling for about an hour, but it was sitting out a bit. Maybe that’s the problem.”

Scowling, Chilla peeled the salvageable scraps of dough off of the rolling pin, curled them into a ball with a firm squish, and then spat a blast of ice around it. “That cold enough?” she hissed sarcastically.

“Oh my,” Selene murmured. “Well, this is a graviton recipe, so I don’t think they’re counting on an icewalker ability to keep it cold. Maybe we should have you make some refrigerator cookies,” she suggested.

“Maybe we should just feed them the dough and tell them to like it,” Chilla countered. “Amok does.”

“Me too, Mommy,” Erissa said, munching on a scrap of the dough that had fallen near her. Silvian emerged from the cabinet to retrieve a similar one, only to be stopped dead in his tracks by a shriek from his mother.

“That’s dirty!” Selene screeched in a note that only a lunar could reach. “You don’t eat things that fall on the floor,” she said, enunciating each syllable with a thwap from her mixing spoon. “My governess would turn over in her grave if she saw my child doing that. Just think of the germs! All the nasty things that could have walked there! You could die!”

Chilla raised an eyebrow at Selene’s dramatics. “The staff mops this floor every day, Selene. It’s not good table manners, but I don’t think a little dirt or roach crap will kill him.”

“Roaches?” the Lunar Queen screeched. “There are no roaches in my kitchen! Are there?” she gasped in abject horror, cringing as she looked around for any sign of such unwelcome vermin.

“I didn’t see any bugs,” Erissa said helpfully. “Did you see any Silvian?” The boy also shook his head a negative.

“Well there had better not be,” Selene huffed.

Amok lumbered over to the counter and picked up more dough off the floor, munching on it happily. “Sweet,” he murmured between mouthfuls.

“Mommmyyyyy,” Silvian whined, looking from Amok to Selene. “How come Amok can eat it and I can’t?”

Ignoring Silvian as well as the irate Chilla beside him, Amok reached up on the counter and picked up the frozen hunk of dough. Before Chilla, Selene, or either of the children could comment, the brute opened his mouth wide and bit down hard on the frozen pastry dough. He chewed hungrily and swallowed, took another bite, and then another. “Iced cookie!” Amok exclaimed with a pleased, sugar-intoxicated grin.

“Amok!” Selene exclaimed. “Be careful! You’ll be sick!”

“Amok like!” he argued with an emphatic shake of his head.

Chilla regarded the brute with surprise. “You liked that, Amok?”

The brute nodded enthusiastically. “Amok want more!”

Erissa looked down at the bowl in her hands, and then was struck with inspiration. She would help Amok and make her mommy proud of her. Determinedly she drew in a deep breath, and then with all her might spat what for a five-year-old half-breed icewalker was an impressive amount of ice onto the half-mixed dough in her own bowl. “You can have mine, Amok,” she offered sweetly, holding out the bowl in her little purple fingers.

In seconds it was gone down the hungry brute’s throat, and Selene sighed in defeat against the counter, tapping her spoon against the recipe book. “Oh my,” she said, shaking her head. “I give up. This was a bad idea.”

Chilla nodded. She almost felt bad for the Queen, who was normally someone she did not loathe, except when she was inspired by unspeakably terrible things such as snarfs or her Aunt Luna. “In the future I recommend not trying to incorporate snarf ideas into Lunatac tradition,” the icewalker said finally.

Selene straightened, set down her spoon, and smoothed her hair down. “You’re absolutely right, Chilla. Snarfs are to be visited but not imported.”

“I don’t even want to visit them,” Chilla muttered.

“But what about the cookies?” Erissa asked, and then when Selene gave her a sharp look she quickly amended, “I mean the sugar pastries with decorative glaze?” she said, using Selene’s exact phrasing so as to not be on the receiving end of a loud correction.

“Erissa dear, we’re royalty,” Selene said with a snooty shrug. “We’ll pay to have someone make them. And make Iced Pastry Balls for Amok, too!”

“Mmm, Ice Cookie,” Amok said, and followed Selene, Chilla, Erissa, and Silvian out of the messy kitchen.

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