The Art of Cake

[Foxglove]

Looking at the clock, Maren kicked back her legs on the couch. It was something she did increasingly often in the recent days, given that her fiance Ezrael was currently injured on the Apahanta, undergoing surgery after surgery in order to put skin back where it belonged. It wasn't anything life threatening, but it would take time and a lot of lost sleep for the doctor responsible.

The utensils for the cooking she had planned with Elena were neatly arranged on the counter of the kitchen, with the exception of the strawberries, which still needed to be taken out of the fridge. Maren briefly thought that it was sort of funny the way she had approached Elena about this. Since Ezrael had played superhero with his persona of Operative Red, Maren had an eye on Elena.

This was going to be interesting.

Getting up, she decided to visit the toilet while there was nobody there. Better than doing it while the prized guest was there.

At some point around the early evening - or at least around Curacao's early evening, when the sun was already crawling down the heaven's tent again, Elena would park her ship on the main and thus busiest of spaceports, and after she had hopped out of her pilot seat, would outfling her PDA with the location details of Maren's bunker.

After having bought a ferry ticket and launching for the island the PDA guided her towards, she would spend some time drinking in the fresh sea air. It was a welcomed change to the tainted air of Manhattan, she thought. And at one point, she even got a little excited about the meeting that was to come, warming up to the idea of dabbling with cake baking.

At the end of her short journey she stood before the entrance to a bungalow that evidently had to be the one Maren had talked about. Scratching her head, she rang the doorbell.

At some point or another, Maren had almost fallen asleep on the toilet. Having just closed the door of the bathroom, she heard the doorbell rang and it was evident who it was. Either the mailman or Elena. Probably the latter, since she hadn't ordered anything and anything Ezrael would've bought would've been delivered already.

She sensed the other person before she could see them. The body tempersture was higher as of that of a man, and from that she deduced that the visitor had to be Elena, or at least she believed so with conviction that bordered on certainty. She licked her lips before opening the door.

"Hi!" she exclaimed in her usually bubbly manner. Seeing Elena on the other side, she gave a lopsided grin. "Oh boy, you don't seem in beach mode. Got a bikini under that, or?"

Frankly, while she had been waiting at the door she had looked around a bit and contemplated the scenery, and thus would react quite off-guard by Maren's vivid welcoming. "My gosh, Maren", she gasped while taken a few deep breaths to lower her heartbeat again which had risen from this minor fright. Her aghast mien however would soon be overcasted by a smile forming on her lips. Yet it was obvious she wasn't exactly in a relaxed manner. "Don't scare me like that."

As a reaction on her other comment, Elena would look down herself, realizing that her outfit - sneakers, blue jeans, black top - indeed seemed a little off. She in fact found it weirdly herself suddenly that she had dressed that oddly, but in the end she just shrugged it off, pointing at the handbag she had with her. "There's some stuff in there, a bikini, some films, the usual stuff", she would return. Her voice sounded a little tired and drained.

Clearing her throat, she went on. "Anyways, hey! Can I come in?"

Maren contemplated asking for a password but thought that was too juvenile. "Yeah, come in." She stepped aside to admit Elena entrance into thr bungalow. It looked a bit dischevelled. Maren didn't like the KSRs and preferred to clean herself. That didn't mean the bungalow looked messy, but rather that it seemed as though the place was used. Homey. "Want something to drink? We got juice, smoothies, water and iced tea." She deliberately didn't mention any alcoholic drinks since she still assumed Elena was pregnant. If she were to pay closer attention, she might be able to dicern the lack of a second heartbeat and therefore that something was wrong, but there were too many background noises, with the door to the terasse open for air, and the distance between the two. "You can put the bag on the couch or somewhere on the table if you want."

While stepping in, Elena's sometimes fatal curiosity almost instantly kicked in - though it had been buried under a lot of ballast as of late -, and she would quickly start looking around the room she was led in. The untidiness however didn't bug her all too much, especially since she was used to far worse in her own room, that was before the extraordinarily gifted KSR had taken over. Leaving her handbag at the couch, she would walk up closer to the kitchen. For a moment she visibly stewed over what to drink, but still made a call pretty quickly. "Smoothies sounds good", she replied, arms akimbo, still looking around. It was actually a nice place, she thought, not what she had imagined when she had heard the words 'bunker' or 'bungalow'. "You are quite comfy here, aren't you?"

Maren couldn't help a vulpine grin thst she hastily hid again as Elena strode into the bungalow and she let the door fall shut. "It's a nice place," she replied, stretching. "There are two stories. The bathroom and the bedrooms are above, and the living area is below. It works well, considering the closeness to the beach. The sand stays down here mostly, you know." Going over to the fridge, she opened the door to take a look at thr smoothies, opting for one with red-ish color. She actually didn't know what was inside them but didn't rightly care.

Noddingly, Elena looked around a little more, not managing to hide a small smile herself, however this one was in fact a close to happy one. The place had indeed some sort of snug charisma that had a cheery effect on her, she realized. Pretty welcome it was to her. Not to mention that Maren was a very cheerful acquaintance. Moving a bit closer to the table with the couches, glancing at the terrace and the pool through the window, she smirked slightly. "And a sweet pool you got as well. I can imagine it's easy to stay and live here for a longer time without going insane."

"Well, there is only so much a pool will do to occupy you," Maren meant, figuring she spoke from experience by now. "It's little more than a big bathtub for me at this point." She carried over the smoothie as well as two glasses to the kitchen counter and poured in a little. She personally didn't like ice in that, but maybe Elena would. "Ice?"

Seeing the smoothie was ready, she came over to the kitchen counter again, waiting for Maren to fill the glasses with the red-ish smoothie. Upon her question she just nodded. "Yeah, please." Biting on her lips a little, she went on: "I can imagine chilling in that pool with 30 degrees outside during summer to be pretty relaxing, though. Procrastinating, uhm, is a thing too, no?"

"Well, from what, really," Maren just replied, alluding to the fact that she didn't really have anything else to do, and in order to procrastinate, there needed to be something to put off again and again. Turning around, she went to the fridge and opened the freezer, withdrawing a small tray with ice. Withdrawing the lid slightly, Maren slapped the plastic tray slightly against Elena's glass, making three ice cubes drop into her liquid. "Chin chin," she said, raising her glass in a motion as if wanting to clank their glasses.

Elena took her own glass, swaying it a few times and watching the ice cubes float on the smoothie while clinking against the glass. Then, similarly to Maren, she raised it just as much while almost staring into her counterpart's eyes, having one eyebrow slightly raised. Not yet actively clinking the glasses. "What do we toast to?", she would ask.

"To me, because I'm glorious." She was about to take a swig before holding up a finger. "And cake. That too." She chuckled, wanting to see Elena's reaction.

Her reaction turned out to be a quite startled one at first, however it quickly transformed into a genuine grin. "Oh, is that so?", she would ask a bit jokingly. "That almost makes me tempted to check it out for myself." She cleared her throat briefly. "The cake is more important here, though!" Letting out a small chuckle, she would then clink glasses with her. Being a bit baffled over her suddenly jokingly demeanor. Without the influence of alcohol it actually had been awhile since the last joke she had brought up.

"Alright, let's get the cake before we do anything else," Maren decided after having taken a few sips. It didn't taste awful, but the viscosity was something to get used to. "How much do you know about this kind of stuff?" She placed down the glass on the counter, motioning for the assorted materials on the counter.

It was tasting better than Elena had expected when she guided the glass towards her mouth and took some sips from it. Different to Maren, she actually enjoyed its viscosity a great deal. After having parked the glass on the counter as well, she rested her hands on the table, drumming her fingers on it silently. Then, a headshake. "Virtually nothing. I occasionally baked as a child, but ever since then I never really bethought it." Halting for a second, she thought about it. "I'd make a great assistant though."

"In scientific terms, not being able to bake is a necessary condition of a sufficient minimum condition for being my assistant," Maren mused, waving Elena over. "Alright, no problem. This isn't actually difficult, since we don't need to make any dough. We got a bottom here, and we'll put vanilla pudding on it, then cut strawberries on the pudding, and then we put glaze on the strawberries," she explained.

Coming over to Maren who stood behind the corner, Elena breathed a sigh of relief hearing her words. "No dough? Thank God, then even I could manage to do that", she muttered. While standing beside her, she clapped her hands and rubbed them eagerly. "Alright, let's get to work. Do we have to blend the pudding or have you already prepared that as well?"

"Well, if I had, it would be more of an assembly job," Maren meant, figuring that would be making it too easy. "No, we'll cook the pudding from scratch." She motioned for a smaller pot. "It's easy, really. See the vanilla beans there? Take a knife and cut them open by their length. Scrape out of the insides and put it in the pot together with 500 millilitres of milk."

Noddingly, she caught at the bowl full of beans while grabbing a knife with her other hand. It happened to be a job she wasn't exactly made for, as a knife, little things and her hands wouldn't go well together at all, but at least she tried, and besides some Rheinlandian swearing when she accidentally cut one of her fingers open slightly, she would be done with that task relatively fast, pouring the insides and the milk in the pot in the end. After that, she seeked out a plaster to put on her thumb. In the meantime though she was also getting reminded of why she generally disliked cooking - having to do stuff that painstakingly. "Would you call yourself a convenient cook?", she asked out of the blue curiously, wondering whether Maren conceived a dislike for it as much as she did. Even though she personally did, she succeeded in keeping a stiff upper lip.

"How do you mean?" Maren asked pretty certain that there was some error in the way Elena had worded her question. Convenient as an adjective didn't really fit. "I like cooking, if that's what you're asking. It's nice to create something with your own hands." While Elena had worked, Maren had separated egg yolk and white into two bowls. "Now cook the mix until it boils, then switch off the heat."

"Bear with me, I'm a Rheinlander", she replied, blushing immediately afterwards as she realized this wasn't a valid argument considering Maren wasn't native speaker either. While patching herself up with the plaster, she leaned against the counter, watching her company for a few moments. "I rather prefer being creative when it concerns my ships, I guess. But everybody their own, I suppose", she said, rather to herself, before getting back to work, putting the pot with the vanilla beans on the hotplate and switching the heat on.

"Ships?" Maren repeated again, not understanding where that came from. "Uh." Absently, she put the yolks and sugar into a small pout and stirred.

"You get creative when cooking, I get creative when working on my ships", she replied, staring at the pot standing there, just waiting for the milk to start boiling. "To everybody their own", she repeated her last words again. Crossing her arms, she looked over to what Maren was doing, then checked the milk again. Finally, when it began boiling, she promptly switched off the heat. "Anyway... what's next?"

"Oh, that's what you meant." Maren laughed a bit to bridge the awkwardness of her just not having understood the wording this time. "Well, I mean, it's just a nice way to do it. I like my ships. My Prosecutor is my baby," Maren went on, taking the pot with egg yolk and sugar that she had stirred until now and stepped closer to Elena. "We pour this in here, and stir it a lot. It'll become more viscous the harder you do."

Elena shook her head, hearing about the Prosecutor being Maren's baby, narrowing her eyes a bit, while she was carefully pouring the egg yolk into the pot with the boiling milk. She kept being silent for the moment, and was absolutely satisfied with staring at the pot and grabbing a spoon to stir the liquid with. It would indeed become harder to do the more she stirred it, but her conditions weren't bad enough for her to start puffing over it. "How long?"

"Until it becomes harder to stir," Maren replied, looking at Elena winding up about the stirring. "The sad thing about this part is usually that you know you're done when your arm hurts and you can't continue."

While at first it had seemed being plain sailing, Elena would quickly reach the point at which it went slower and slower, up until when she grunted faintly, even getting worked up on it. "So ... if this isn't harder to stir enough, I'm lost", she said while turning around to face Maren. "It's pretty hard to do by now."

Maren stood there with a small smile that looked as though it was leaking through Maren's attempts not to laugh. "Yes. Yes I think it's done." Before anything could come out that would even approach laughter at Elena's enthusiasm, Maren moved to the bottom that she had prepared. "Just pour it on there. Use the spoon to spread it evenly."

After she had taken the pot and moved it over to the prepared bottom, Elena took the spoon and bucked up. Different to the stiring, this seemed to be a pretty easy task for her. In no time the pot was empty and everything had been spread over the bottom, evenly to a more or less acceptable degree - it had unmistakably not been the work of a starred chef, though. The outcome raised a minor smile from her. "It's time for the strawberries now, right?", she asked Maren, already looking around for them.

"Yeah, but we need to clean and slice them," Maren replied, opening the fridge to pull them out. "How are things for you, Elena?" Maren asked lightly, wanting to get a bit of Smalltalk going.

She had virtually waited for that question, as she had expected it to pop up sooner or later. Facing away from her, Elena would star out of the window opposite to the kitchen, resting her elbows on the counter. Maren's question apparently found little to no enthusiasm at all, and it temporarily became silent in the room as no answer was audible. "Things are alright, I guess, just as always", she would say in reply finally, pulling a Pinocchio there, except of her nose not becoming any longer. A sigh would be followed by a hasty addition: "What about you?"

"Oh, I've been alright." Putting the strawberries into a sieve, Maren rinsed them under the tap. "Been a bit grounded here. Ezrael had had a small accident and he's staying on the Apahanta right now, which means that I'm pretty much unable to do anything, because I want to be able to come to him if I need to." She weighed her head a little from left to right.

That ironically made her turn around again, leaning against the counter with her back and tilting her head to the left, looking at Maren. "Oh, he had an accident?", she asked, more as a note to herself than an actual question. "I hope he's getting better soon again?" While her hands were resting on the edge of counter, she began drumming her fingers again, a manifestation of her still somewhat flustered state of mind. "Seems like fate is getting us all at one point or another", she susurrated to herself, normally not audible to Maren.

"Well, he's been burnt, so a lot of skin is not pretty anymore. He's currently getting artificial skin implanted," Maren replied, putting the sieve onto the side of the sink. "Help me chop the strawberries. Cut off the green on the top like this." She did. "And halve them afterwards." Continuing where she had started, Maren continued. "Well, I had actually thought that his superhero larping as Operative Red would've gotten him hurt sooner than I would've imagined the Apahanta to do it."

Coming over to help Maren, Elena took a knife and mimicd what she was showing her. Trying to not get hurt this time, she would do it slower, but with more precision. "Well...", she said, having to sort her thoughts, knowing pretty well what she was presumably alluding to. "He did not even do -that- much dangerous stuff as Operative Red, at least as far as I know", she went on, hoping to pour oil on apparently troubled waters that way, althought she doubted it. "It was mostly to keep his identity secret, I don't think he was trying to play Superman."

"Really?" Maren replied incredulously, though laughing. "He had a costume, Elena. All that was missing was a cape!" She put the cut strawberries into a separate bowl in front of them.

She quickly realized that the "trying-to-stay-anonymous" argument was pretty much *****, considering that he couldn't even leave his helmet on during the first official meeting between him and herself. That thought however made her smile a little. "Maybe you're right", she answered shruggingly, cutting the last strawberries and putting them into the same bowl as well. "But in that case, he would have needed a logo on his breast as well. A big fat 'V' in a circle."

"I imagine it more phallic," Maren mused, more to herself than to Elena. It wouldn't take long for them to cut the strawberries, considering they were two. "I would've been less annoyed by him playing V-Man if he'd at least invited me. I'm the best sidekick."

Elena would instantly start humming a tone, grinning. "Na na na na na na na na na, V-Maaan! And Maren. Would have been absolutely unstoppable", she said, having to suppress a genuine chuckle.

"What do you think would be my superpower?" Maren asked Elena humorously, taking the bowl after Elena had put the last strawberry inside.

She shrugged, however earnestly thought about the question for a few moments, looking at Maren, inspecting her, wondering what would fit her. For herself she waived the imagination of her having any kind of superpowers as absolutely hilarious, but she still wanted to give an answer. "Maybe... moving objects? That could come in handy in pretty much every situation, I guess."

"Oh my, here I thought you would have said something nasty, like controlling bugs, or resurrecting cockroaches," Maren said lopsidedly before taking strawberries and putting them on top of the pudding that was spread on their construction.

Controlling your boyfriend might be a beginning, she thought to herself, trying to come up with something nasty, however favored to not voice that consideration loudly. Elena as well would take some strawberries and help her spread them over the pudding. Their cake finally began taking actual, good-looking shape, she thought. "Already now I'm looking forward to eating that", she said as her mouth began watering alittle already.

"Well, we need the glaze still and then fridge it for a while," Maren replied a little absently as she spread the berries. "Nancy would've liked it too, I bet." The comment again had her call Nancy by her real name rather than by the alias Lily Austin. It was hard for her to keep up the switcheroo.

Elena looked over to her, a curious expression flashing over her face. "Who's Nancy?" As soon as she was done with spreading her portion of the berries, she would clap her hands again sighingly.

"Uh, a friend," Maren replied, rolling her eyes inwardly at having slipped up on this again. It really didn't get better. "Well, she's been busy lately and I haven't seen her a lot. Know what I mean?"

"Mhm", she responded, seemingly lost in thoughts herself. "I know what you mean, everybody has those kind of busy friends, I assume." She paused for a second. Her curiosity had been triggered again. "What does keep her occupied, though? I mean, usually you can find at least some freetime."

"Well, I don't know," Maren replied, shrugging. "I can't contact her. Hasn't happened before." Maren didn't rightly want to believe she was dead, although she had nothing to make her believe the contrary.

"You can't contact ... her?", Elena asked, bewildered this time. She was quite in for the surprise, for she was fully aware that somebody inside Maren's boyfriend's circle of acquaintances had gone missing. "What was her name again? Nancy?" She narrowed her eyes. Possibly it was just sheer coincidence, as the woman she was supposed to look out for was not called Nancy. Flabberghastedly she would stand still without saying a word, caught in her own thinking processes.

"Uh yeah." Stupid. "Well, anyways, the glaze ist just the eye whites with sugar and some gelatine," Maren said, wanting to retrieve the latter from the fridge.

With her arms crossed before her breast, Elena watched her taking the gelatine out of the fridge. The wondering about the missing person Maren had referred to and the question about Lily's whereabouts wouldn't easily leave hold of her mind, from the outside it seemed as though Elena had begun daydreaming all of a sudden. She would however bid goodbye to her thoughts before they'd drift away to far less pleasant topics, and concentrate on the here and now again. "Alright, let's get this done as well then", Elena said. "Anyhow. Uhm. How's it going with Leon?"

"Well, he's with Ez," Maren replied, figuring that that was what Ezrael had meant when he'd said that Leon was busy. "The Apahanta had a problem with the power flow, and a lot of stuff is fried, so Leon's gotta work, being the mechanic." She added sugar to the remaining egg white and stirred, adding the gelatine shortly after, then pouring it in the pot they'd used for the pudding to heat it up a little to make it more malleable.

She just nodded, having her question answered. Watching her working, she came a bit closer again. "Can I help you with anything?", asked she, looking over Maren's shoulder.

"Well, it's now just pouring," Maren replied, turning off the stove again. "It'll be flowy while warm, but once it gets cooled in the fridge, it'll become elastic." She paid a bit more attention to Elena's body language while talking, stroking over her dress, which was just plain white.

Her body language didn't say all too much, it was more or less a relaxed leaning against the counter, however in an awkwardly huddled way. She kept tapping on the table with her fingers, looking around every now and then, which could be easily interpreted as a sign of nervousness, which she apparently tried to downplay with her otherwise relaxed behavior. At times she also brushed over her face with one of her hands, which could be interpreted in many different ways though.

It struck Maren as nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't anything strange that people tended to be nervous when at someone's home. "Are you waiting for something?" Maren asked motioning for the hand that Elena used to tap on the counter. Maren continued with the glaze for a few moments still.

She would instantly stop with the tapping, looking at the hand which she was now raising, then back at Maren. "No. Don't know, that's some kind of quirk I got, I guess. Doesn't mean much", she replied, resting the hand on the table again, however not starting to drum this time. It somewhat staggered herself that she had this absurd nervousness anchored in her mind, though it also reminded her of the gun in her handbag. As a measure of safety she had brought it with her, in case of a random robbery or other unpleasant events, of which she could imagine many. Thus, she briefly checked whether her bag was still lying on the couch, having to lean over the counter a little to do so, just to be sure - and it did.

"Oh well. Help me with the pot?" she asked before turning off the heat and lifted the pot. "Take the spoon there because this stuff might need a little coaxing to come out." Until now, Elena hadn't done anything that would make Maren suspicious. She could probably subdue her, but Maren was not the type to do anything unless she was completely certain that this was the most advantageous course of action.

Noddingly, she took the spoon and walked up to Maren again, using the spoon to make the glaze come out of the pot. This time, the spreading part of the job worked out a lot smoother, as it wasn't too difficult to spread it evenly on top of the strawberries. Elena didn't exactly bother about the situation because of her company, not considering herself to be threatened, but it was more of a continual state of tension that caused her nervous behaviour; something she hadn't been able to trash so far during the last days.

"Oh boy, now we're pretty much done," she replied after the deed was done. "We put this in the fridge for 45 minutes and it should be good to go." Putting the pot into the sink, she let water run over it while carrying the cake into the fridge. "By the way, there is a fair a few kilometres from here, in case you want to go later."

Tilting her head slightly to the left, she would pipe up. "A fair? Hmm. That sounds like it could be fun", said she, a little stiffly and without any real smile litting up her face. When she thought about it, it had been some time since her last activity containing crowds of people, thusly this fair could actually be a welcomed change, she thought. "Any ideas what we could do while the cake is in the frigde", she would ask, crossing her arms.

"How about I show you around the beach?" Maren asked, figuring that was simultaneously a nice idea and also a way to put Elena into yet another unknown environment. Maybe it was just her paranoia, but something seemed off the entire time. She tried listening to her blood pressure, but it was too loud here with the window open. The cooking smells also made it impossible for her to make out whether she was sweating, which shouldn't hapoen, given the air conditioning.

"The beach? Sure, why not", she responded. As she had had the pleasure of residing on Curacao in the past already, she knew well enough that its beaches verily were a sight for sore eyes. However, besides that she found it to be a good idea as well, her expressions kept being neutral. Even though there was some sort of enthusiasm about it gleaming inside her, she wouldn't let it shine. Besides a quite cheesy smile to not appear too indifferent about it. "Not in those clothes though, I guess?"

"Well, depends on whether you want to go swim," Maren replied, looking down at her white dress. It was more than likely that the white wasn't a good idea on a beach, because any sort of stain would be easily visible. "It's not like we need to return after 45 minutes sharp."

She looked down on her own outfit, deeming it to be not exactly fitting either. "Well, we could of course go swimming as well", she returned. "I'd be in for that. It's been some time since I've swum the last time."

"Right, then why not." Maren turned off the water and put the pot into the dishwasher, where the other utensils already waited, and closed it. "I'll be upstairs real quick to change. You can use the bathroom if you want."

"Right", she said, already walking over to the couch with her handbag on it, slinging it over her shoulder after she had quickly checked whether everything was still in there. It was a pretty paranoid quirk, and she was aware of that, but somehow she couldn't switch it off. Then, not intending to be impolite, she would wait for Maren to guide the way upstairs.

It would be interesting to see what Elena had brought, Maren felt, although this desire was merely spawned by Maren's wish to get to know her taste in movies. "Upstairs." Stretching her back, Maren ascended the small flight of stairs and showed Elena the bathroom. "Be right back," she said, intending to leave Elena to do her business.

After having locked herself in the bathroom, she would put the handbag on the toilet lid and open it, taking the bikini bottoms and bra out of it while having another quick gawp at the gun. She wouldn't feel to thrilled about having to leave it here, but it wasn't all too bad. After she had taken off her clothes and tidily placed them on the lid as well, she'd quickly don the bikini, having a look at the mirror afterwards to examine whether it was fitting. Though being of generally slight build, she definitely couldn't make a show of her dream body anymore. The once enlarged belly was still visible to a certain degree, but it wasn't too big anymore. At the mere sight of it, she couldn't suppress a deep-drawn sigh, but succeeded in stifling any kind of bad feeling. With her other clothes stuffed in the handbag and her shoes in one of her hands, she would walk out of the bathroom again, waiting for Maren to show up as well.

Maren hadn't known in which month Elena was, so the bump didn't seem out of the ordinary to her. She had expected one to be there, so her expectations weren't undermined, thus no suspicion.

Maren herself was wesring a red bra. She herself found it worked nicely with her hair, which was currently done up in a ponytail, because the water made it stick to her face otherwise, which she didn't like. "N'aww," Maren intoned when she saw Elena. She always thought pregnant women looked adorable. "I envy you, you know." She had a small bag, like you'd see in a gym maybe, slung across her back, which contained some necessities that Elena yet hadn't seen Maren needed.

Elena's bra was plain white and otherwise didn't look really special - it seemed to be a rather cheap model. Her hair was hanging down just as normal, she didn't really care about it currently anyways, visible through the sole fact that it could have certainly used some hair dyeing. Apparently she lately hadn't bothered to keep them look as freshly coloured as she usually did. A reaction to Maren's words came in form of a mutter, yet her expressions kept being quite emotionless. "No, you don't. Or you shouldn't", she plainly stated while walking past her. "You got some towels with you as well?", she asked in passing.

The reaction was strange, Maren found. Maybe Elena was h- No, that didn't work. Periods didn't happen when pregnant. It was in this moment that she wished she could discern hormones, but that was something she couldn't do. "Yeah, I got two, and my, uh, medicine." It came out smoother than intended. "Sorry if I make things awkward at times. I have a problem reading social cues at times, so just tell me if I become annoying, alright? I don't mind." Better to get this out of the way here and now than to have it become a problem later.

As she already seemed to ask for it, Elena had no objection against telling Maren which topic she should try to avoid at all cost. "Let's just ... not talk about all that kind of stuff, okay?", she said tiredly, however her words also contained something almost pleading. Going downstairs, she put the bag back on the couch, though pausing and keeping it clasped for a moment. Then, looking at Maren for a second, then back at the bag, she came to realize she had nothing to fear from Maren, and the chances of meeting a thuggish person equalled zero. "Alright, let's go."

Hmm, so there was something wrong. That sat uneasily with Maren since it was related to children, and if there was one topic that made her queazy, it was that. She couldn't have own ones, although she wanted to, and never really gotten over it.

Again, Maren noticed the flicker of Elena's eyes, though she wasn't fast enough to follow where she had looked. It didn't matter though. "Alrightee, let's melt in the sun like..." she needed a few moments to come up with a witty comparison, "marshmallows?" It sounded more questioning than anything else. "Uh, yes." She made a step towards the stairs, starting to descend towards the ground floor.

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