The Art of Cake

[Foxglove]

Looking at Maren, Elena would remember her speaking about some sort of medicine that she apparently carried in her own bag. It made a small smile crawl up on Elena's face. "Say, may it be true that you lots all got your own afflictions? One has burnt skin, another has cardiac problems, so what's your one?", she asked, alluding to the medicine Maren had told her about.

Maren briefly deliberated lying, though there was little use to it, she found. Even if she lied, there was no real gain from it. "Cardamine." She raised one of her hands. "My nerves also don't rightly work the way they're supposed to, but only around the hands and lower arms." She raised one of her hands. The sun of Curacao made the small lines of scar tissue that framed the hand all the more noticeable against the slightly brown tan. If Elena would see her other hand, there would be a similar pattern on scars, some natural, some from surger, it seemed.

That would leave Elena baffled for a few seconds during which she stared at her company, switchingly into her eyes and at the scars. "Huh. So you're an, uhm, addict", she stated, not meaning it derogatory, though it could very well be interpreted as such. With a raised eyebrow, arms akimbo again, she would add: "How bad is it?"

"Dunno. I get queazy after an hour without, unwell after two. It wakes me up at night every three hours but I usually have no problems falling asleep again afterwards." She looked at her hands. She really didn't like what the sun was doing to her skin. It made the acar tissue stand out, not to mention she found light skin more beautiful. "The nerves in my arms can cause seizures, but only if I exert them too much."

"Hm, alright. Sounds bad enough to me", Elena responded, pulling sort of a wry face. For a brief moment she thought about asking where she got the Cardamine from, thought it would come clear to her that she probably didn't even want to know. Asking her out about this nosily she nilled, maybe at another point in time she would ask more about it. Intending to go out of the bungalow, she would move up to the door. "Let's enjoy the sun as long as she's still there", she suggested.

Maren wouldn't have minded if Elena had asked. If she had, Maren would know that Elena put curiosity over tact, while if she hadn't, Maren would know that Elena either gave no further thought to the topic or intended to later. Either way, Maren learned something from it. "You can swim?" Maren asked, cocking her head while moving towards the terrace door, which would allow them to leave for the beach. She would slide the door shut before leaving, though, locking the two of them out. She had intentionally left the key inside so they couldn't go back.

Elena wouldn't catch on to that Maren had locked them out since she was distracted by the scenery around her, as well as the warm sun shining on her pallid skin that could really use some tanning. Out of her handbag she had also taken a pair of sunglasses which she had put in her hair for now. Looking back at Maren, she'd say: "Yeah, I can swim. It's been awhile, but you don't unlearn it." Sauntering about towards the beach slowly, she'd wait for her company to catch up. "You won't have me drown today."

"Aww yiss," Maren intoned as she saw Elena's sunglasses. "Well, at least one of us can swim, then." She led the two of them to a small hip-high garden door and the two of them left towards the beach. The closer they came, the louder the voices of people and the waves became. "I never really learned how to do it."

The scenery that presented itself to her revived plenty of memories of her past vacation trip on Curacao together with her boyfriend. To a degree, it saddened her, knowing those good times were gone and by what kind of circumstances they had been replaced. By putting the sunglasses before her eyes though, she tried to carry it off well and to maintain her composure. "You can't swim?", she asked with some surprise. "I mean, it isn't exactly hard to learn, is it?"

"Well, here we have tgis taught in school. It is hard finding an actual swimming course," Maren explained, having experienced it firsthand. The sand under her feet was warm. Almost too warm. "I was born on Nuremberg, and the waters there aren't really made to swim, given that there are also few of them."

Nuremburg. Uh. Elena wouldn't allow herself to get carried away by such segregating thoughts, but Nuremburg had this sort of image of a flophouse. Stopping and looking around, she would fold her arms before her again, squinting at the distant horizon. "Bathing in dark matter seas isn't exactly thrilling, I can imagine", she bantered. "Hasn't your fiance been a phys ed teacher back in the days, though? Hasn't he tried to teach you swimming by now?"

"No, he did biology," she meant while kicking a bit of sand lightly. They were now walking on the farmost side of the beach, some two hundred metres separating them from the water. The tide was low currently. "I guess he could teach me, though. Hasn't really come up yet, though. I usually stay in the shallow water so I only need to stand."

"Hmm", she replied, walking beside her while having her hands folded behind her back, and her head lowered to have a look at the consistency of the sand. "I hope you won't mind if I head for the deeper areas of the water?" For a moment, she actually found it amusing that her company couldn't swim. She hadn't expected that.

"I could come with if I piggyback you," Maren suggested, only half-serious. Elena didn't look strong enough to carry her. Turning right, Maren headed towards the water, intending to go into the water.

Going with her, her suggestion raised a smile on her lips. It was an interesting notion, she found, even though Elena wasn't sure how serious Maren had meant it. "I could try if you want to, actually", she said while cracking her knuckles in anticipation of jumping into the water. By now she had managed to succesfully repress any kind of thought concerning her recent loss, and as she finally felt the water on her skin, to her it actually seemed like everything was alright; for the first time since two tweeks.

"Really?" Maren asked, a little surprised that she actually proposed that. "What if I bite your ear midway, though?" She couldn't help but make this slightly meta joke, considering how dangerous she actually was for the girl.

Elena was already about to jackknife into the water, but halted when Maren voiced her 'warning'. A little puzzedly, she regarded her while taking off the sunglasses. Then, a shrug. "I think in deeper waters you wouldn't dare to do such mischief ", she replied with a grin flashing over her face. " You are the one who can't swim, right? Anyways, keep those glasses for me, will you?" With that being said, she would thrust them in Maren's hand and jump into the water. Ironically, she felt safer than usual as of late, as she had no idea by whom she actually got observed the whole time.

Maren didn't see them, but she knew there were exactly eighty four people in their near vicinity of two hundred metres. It was a beach, so mischief was expected. The loud voices even made it easy to mask an actual scream. "Hmm." She turned the sunglasses in her hands, using the bent glasses to see the reflection of the person standing nearest to them, maybe five metres. He'd swam before, so his breathing was loud and erratic. Maren placed the glasses on her hair and made a few steps into the water, making it go to waist level at first. She couldn't see Elena while she was diving but it was easy to guess where she was.

After a few seconds, Elena would come up again after the dive into the water. Her hair was pretty much all over the place, which is why she brushed it back with her hands before having a blinking look at Maren. She was about to urge her to follow her, but quickly the problem with swimming. "So, you wanna try your luck or not?", she shouted, making sure Maren could understand her.

"Sure your spine won't crack?" Maren asked back, more as a joke than anything else, given that it should be easier for Elena to do while underwater, or at least partially submerged. "Uh, how do we do this?" She sort of expected her to crouch so she could jump on her back.

"Uuuhm, wait, let me think", she replied before she had a similar idea to what Maren was thinking. Swimming up to waters where she could stand again, she would crouch a little, showing Maren her back for her to jump on it. "How much do you weigh again?", she asked jokingly

"I weigh as much as sixteen cats," Maren replied, not actually sure how this measurement would hold up. Cats weighed around three to five kilos, so she figured it was close enough. Seeing Elena submerge for a moment, Maren half-skipped to land on her back, wrapping her legs around her and using her hands to steady herself.

It was quite a jolt when she jumped on Elena's back, who had in the meantime stewed over how much sixteen cats would approximately weigh. "Oh dear", Elena uttered, trying to keep her balance. "That's gonne be interesting." As soon as she thought to be relatively stably standing on the ground, she would move further into the deeper waters, until she had to swim to buoy up. Maren would push her down quite much through her weight, but she managed to keep her head afloat.

The situation had something comical, really, Maren felt. Elena was quite literally being a boat. Only thing missing was a song that fit, though none about boats came to mind. "You sure you're not going to go under? I can feel your pulse on my thigh." That was a lie, but close enough.

In fact, Elena had a hard time to keep her head above water, and due to keeping two people afloat being a strenuous task, her pulse indeed fastened quite a bit. Puffing and blowing, avoiding to swallow any water, it proved to be slightly more difficult to speak than she thought. That had been a pretty dumb idea, she thought. Still, she kept her countenance. "I can keep it up a little longer, no problem", she said, huffing and puffing, which would make it hard to believe her words.

"I think that's a lie," Maren mentioned needlessly, the effects on the weight of the two on Elena easily visible. "Alright, I think we rode this joke to death. Literally. Just, uh, go back." There was a dude closeby who gave them a funny look before swimming further.

It was probably the wiser decision to go back to shallow waters before one of them was really going to drown by accident. Elena saw the dude as well, steadfastly staring him into the eyes for a second before concentrating to get back to the shore. Wasn't much of a trip anyways. As soon as she was on firm ground again, she would bend down to set down Maren from her back. "That was ... interesting", she gasped.

Maren simply relinquished her grip on Elena, splashing back, the water obscuring her satisfaction with herself. She was been able to feel across Elena while in the water like that, able to confirm her suspicions. The belly was too soft. It unsettled her, yet Maren didn't know what had happened, so she wasn't angry. She would be if it became apparent that Elena had caused the loss. "Well, that was enough sports," she commented, looking back to the beach, where she had placed their bag by a palm tree.

Still standing in the water, Elena copped a look at the scenery around her, all the other people in high spirits dabbling in the water, laughing and living the moment. And there was her, and although she had seemed just as eupeptic and cheerful as everybody else, her whole behavior felt far too staged and surreal for her likings, at least to her. With a suddenly pinched face, she would look back at Maren, then at the palm tree. "Yes, definitely", said she. "That palm over there seems to be a pretty nice leafy bower. Guess we could take our ease there?"

"Sure," she replied, not minding it if they stayed there. It would hopefully mean she didn't catch as much sun, since she disliked tan. "I got something to drink, too, if you need." She felt for the glasses on her brow, and was elated that they were still in their place. "I even still got your glasses."

As Maren mentioned it, Elena instantly remembered her company still had the glasses, promptly tilting her head and warily stretching out one of her hands to snitch the glasses right off her head. "I'd have almost forgotten about them. Thanks!", she admitted while putting them on her nose and after that wringing out her wet hair. "Wouldn't have been amused if they were gone. Anyways, some soft drinks? It's still pretty warm out here."

"Of course soft drinks. Like hell I'm going to drink water, you know," she said, stepping onto the sand again. Sixty people close. Under the palm tree, Maren opened the bag and withdrew two towels, holding out one for Elena.

She shrugged as she sat down underneath the palm tree and accepted the towel. With it, she cursorily dried her skin and after that laid it on the ground to have a lie-down on it. Steadying herself with her elbows, she watched the ever moving crowds of people. "Well, water is healthier, and slakes the thirst better, but who am I to give an actual ***** about this." Underneath the tree it was actually quite pleasant, the casted shadow prevented them from getting burnt by the sun. She was coming closer and closer to the horizon though, indicating that the later hours had already been reached, and thus the beach quite imperceptably emptied over time.

"Sounds pretty dismissive," Maren replied, wondering whether this was Elena's usual way of speaking or something else. Her tone had been nondescript. Maren only towelled her hair slightly before putting the towel down so she could sit on it. The water on the skin would be gone soon enough.

"Hm? Uh, hm, apologies", she replied, being surprised herself about the choice of wording she'd gone with. "Just ... slipped out, I guess." She would have to be more careful what to say, she thought, and to carry it off well. There was some nonsensical, pent-up anger flaring inside her, as though it was a reaction to watching the other people getting their jollies. To some extent she begrudged them. "Just pass me one." In the end, she dabbled with a smile, and it came off better than she had expected.

Rummaging in her bag again, Maren fished out a small bottle of fizzy liquid, passing it to Elena. "It's a weird drink, but sort of nice," she said, which was really nondescript, she knew, but it was difficult to describe. "I don't rightly know how to describe the taste."

"Weird, but nice", she would reiterate, casting a glance at the substance descrption, which would make her knit her brows, but ultimately, she shrugged. "Alright. Sounds good to me." After having unscrewed it, she would take a few sips to have a taste. It had a weird first taste, indeed, but the aftertaste wasn't even that bad, though kind of sour. It was still alleviating to water her dry mouth with it. A sigh escaped her mouth. "You're kind of living in paradise here", she noted, staring into the sun briefly.

"There aren't even mosquitoes," Maren gave back in a manner that made it seem like she was agreeing. "It's quiet. All you need is here, but it cam become agonizing if you want to have your mind challenged at times. Makes it all dull, this luxury," she explained, conveying some of her feelings. "It's a nice place to live, though. If only Ezrael were here, it'd be better."

She cocked her head to the left slightly, listening to Maren's words. "Mhm, too much luxury can make you lose the grip to reality", she replied, briefly looking down, inspecting her fingers. "I guess I'd feel similarly about it. Can't stand long periods of doing nothing either." The feeling overcame her that her company might need some brightening up since she had mentioned her boyfriend. And even though she herself somehow conceived her words as rancidly feigned, she would still utter them. "I'm sure he'll be back soon enough", she added with a smile. "He's a tough one after all. Doctors won't be able to keep him on the Apahanta for too long, I could imagine."

"Heh, it's funny, because he always cusses about how he can't keep himself from building tents with the hospital blankets when the doctors are working on him," Maren said, chuckling as she remembered the more unruly position the doctor had walked in on. "He's so stubborn. Insisted on walking me around the ship while being like this."

"Sounds pretty cute to me", she replied before shrugging and taking another gulp from the bottle. She would have wished it to be alcohol, actually, but there was no way she could perform such miracles and transform the soft drink into a beer. The thought raised a smile from her, though. "Or he just wanted to mime the badass while around you. You know, impressing females, it's inherent to men as I see it." Her last words would be long in coming, but probably the sincerest ones simultaneously, while a crooked smile played around her lips. "You got a good man there."

"Well, I rest easy knowing that I am the best that ever happened to him." That was a lie again, but Maren just convinced herself to be right. "But yeah, of course he's gloating about it. That doesn't mean he's not sincere. You should know that if anyone means that sincerely, it's him." She was referring to her having had contact with him. "How were your adventures with his superhero persona, by the way?"

That question instantly reminded her of various situations where she had met him with his suit, pleasant and unpleasant ones alike. The curious thing was the smirk she couldn't hold back when she thought about said situations, knowing far too well how exasperated she had already been about them before. Now, it was easier to look at them in mere apathy. "Those actually weren't real adventures, honestly", she replied, not knowing how much Maren knew. "Admittedly, besides some business talks, we had one m run-in that was a bit riskier once, but that's actually it." She downplayed the events back then well and properly, unaware that she wasn't telling Maren anything new at all.

"Hmm, yes, but those are the most interesting, right?" she pressed on, wanting to hear the story from her angle, now that she knew both Hussaini's, Vertiga's, and her own. "Come on, help a brother out here. I'm curious."

It felt like she was on the horns of a dilemma here. Any other person she would have probably just given a short version, with the delicate information cut out, but she had no idea how loose Ezrael's tongue had been about that. How much did he want Maren to know? "Well", she said, stumbling a little, searching for a proper description. "He offered to come with me to a meeting about delicate matters. It was actually my own curiosity that led me to this place, believing that listening to a pompous orator could prove informative or something." At that point, she couldn't hide a chuckle as she remembered the details. The whole deal seemed to be so far back. And her decisions so infantile. "He was my bodyguard, of sorts. It proved to be a good idea to have one. At first, it was really just that - talking, although pretty content-free. It was only when this preacher realized he couldn't convince me of his ideology that he whipped his killing squad out. Ezrael managed to get us out of there, though. Somehow. I still don't know how." The whole time, her voice kept being pretty neutral. The last bit was a straight lie again, but she doubted Maren had the means to find that out.

"He dropped a name," Maren replied, being quite aware of what had happened, though unaware that Elena had fudged the truth at the end. She knew what had happened, and Maren thought it was a fair assessment on Elena's part that she assumed more than just one precision shooter in their vicinity. "His eyes. Tell me about his eyes." Her grin was almost vulpine.

Due to Elena having lied about it, she knew far too well which name it was that had been dropped, and what meaning it had. It was visible that it scared her to some degree that Maren knew about that, and her grin didn't make the situation better for her. Neither did the mentioning of Hussaini's eyes. Almost instinctly she backed off a little, trying to not make it too obvious, though. "They were normal", she said bluntly. "Why do you ask?"
It bummed her out a little that Elena wasn't playing along, but she relented. "I just think it's so exciting that you were able to face him like that and came out on top," Maren replied, wanting to play a bit in favour of Elena's ego. It was a bit of a shot in the dark, but her experience with her so far suggested that she was craving this kind of acknowledgement for her actions.

Even though Maren relented, Elena remained in a state of tension, as her hyper-cautioness as of late had got triggered. But at the same time she was utterly perplexed about it, trapped in a state of confusion. "It wasn't exciting, it was pure luck", she replied bluffly, staring into Maren's eyes unwaveringly, while her owns narrowed to slits. "What does that have to do with his eyes--?" She halted immediately, getting reminded of a sentence Hussaini had said and which she mumbled to herself now. "Except that they glow if he gets fed after midnight" Speechlessly, she kept staring at Maren, not knowing what to say. "What name was it that Ezrael mentioned?", she asked. Althought she knew the answer, that nonsensical question just slipped out of her mouth.

"Oh, I just wondered," Maren replied dismissively, now backpaddling a little intentionally, intending to manipulate Elena like this by stimulating her curiosity. It wouldn't even be bad if she accepted these words. She chuckled. "Fed after midnight." She leaned against the tree, the bottle of something between her legs. "I thought you overheard," Maren told Elena, cocking her head slightly as she posed her last question.

"What do you mean?", she asked baffledly, tilting her head to the left. Then however she shook her head, dismissing the question she had asked before again. But that Maren was referring to Hussaini's infection definitely rang an alarm bell inside her, especially as she had done in such a nebulous way. "Why did you ask me about that in the first place when you already seem to know about what happened?", she asked further, having switched from a laying to a crouching position, ready to follow her instincts any second.

"Well, I wanted to hear your story," Maren replied, unscrewing the bottle again to take a swig. "Ezrael has his way of making it dramatic. I really wanted to know if he had sparkly eyes."

She kept squinting at Maren. "I'm actually kind of surprised he told you", she said. "I for my part didn't tell anyone." Even though the situation seemed to be back to normal, something still appeared strange to her. "And? Did he have 'sparkly eyes'?"

"According to Ezrael," Maren replied, shrugging. "I haven't yet met one, so I can't tell if he's fibbing. I tend to not believe a word of it, though. Hell, I haven't even seen this Unschuld character. Only the voice, through a voxmorph."

"Aha, so 'Unschuld'", Elena returned, her muscles slowly beginning to relax again as she made it herself a little more comfortable. Talking about this topic in its details though, she couldn't really relax completely anyways. "I can't remember them to sparkle, but that's irrelevant I assume", she added. "So I guess you've met this figure, 'Unschuld', already? What's their attitude, if I might ask?" At that point, it was just her curiosity taking over again.

"As I said, I only heard a voice," Maren said, figuring Elena wasn't meaning 'met' as in face to face, but simply conversing. "Unschuld is to the point. It does have a sense of Humor, strangely enough. Makes me really wonder whether that's a remainder, or, well, normal."

"Unschuld and to the point?" slipped out of Elena's mouth with an sarcastic undertone. That description was different to what she had learnt about Unschuld herself, forgetting for a second that she was still pretending to not know about them. "Hmm. Interesting enough", she just said, covering up her prior sarcastic comment.

Maren wouldn't have caught on to what she was saying before if she hadn't been speaking with sarcastic intonation. Of course, being who they were talking about, she knew she had talked to Elena, but she couldn't say that just like that. "Hmm, did you meet it?" Maren asked, arcing an eyebrow. "Dunno, I guess its behaviour depends on how you approach it."

"One time and it was enough", she replied, although she really wasn't pleased how this conversation was going, and neither had she expected to talk about these matters with Maren out of anybody. On the other hand, she seemed to know a bit about all of it, which caught Elena's attention to some degree. She however was a bit recalcitrant as well, without a good reason to tell Maren the specifics. Not that it would have mattered, but she obviously wasn't aware of that.

"Hmm, so maybe that's why it mentioned your name," Maren mused, faking a thoughtful expression, keeping Elena's expression enough in her vision to see any changes. Up until now, Elena had played along nicely.

There were enough changes in her face to perceive for Maren, as her mien uncontrolledly derailed once again. Her heartbeat quickened and her blood pressure rose due to the stress reaction. As she spoke, her voice was faintly trembling. "Wha-What did it say?", she asked, completely unrattled. It woke up the fears she had had before the accident, of nomads and infectees, and especially of Hussaini and Unschuld.

The proximity made it possible for Maren to hear the heartbeat. Hussaini really picked a great location in the Freeport, free of many noises in the background. The pace of the beats let Maren knew that Elena was stressed. Good. It made her less perceptive to details. "Well, it just made a joke about you being Ezrael's pet," Maren replied, picking up on what she had said before about Unschuld having Humor.

To some degree that statement actually snubbed Elena, who naturally disliked being called anyone's pet. Not to mention that the so called 'joke' seemed weirdly skewed to her; had'nt it rather been the other way around? First and foremost though, her suspicions rose since Maren seemed to stay in rather close contact with this infected individual. Different to Ezrael, who had spent quite some time convincing her that he was no nomad supporter despite his connections, Maren delineated it as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "Did you have an afternoon coffee party and gossiped on that occasion, or what?", she asked, noticeably still angered about the joke.

"I don't even know if they eat," Maren gave back, simply rolling with the statement Elena had made. "How about we look for our cake?" Maren asked, dropping the subject, convinced that she had thrown Elena off balance enough for now. She screwed her bottle shut and put it back into her bag.

Elena couldn't hide the relief as Maren decided to change the topic of conversation, as this whole talk about Unschuld had made her relatively uneasy. Some suspicion of why Maren had such contact with an infected however still remained, which was quite curious to her. Emptying her bottle, Elena would pass it to Maren again. "Sounds like a good idea", she said, still squinting at her.

"Then let's wonder while we wander," Maren replied, getting up, folding her towel, intending to put it back in the bag. "I didn't think that phrase to the end, so I just made it rhyme. Nifty, right?" She gave Elena another lopsided grin, wanting to appear like the careless girl that she was. She even gave a little thumbs up.

Given that the situation had been quite unrelaxed before, Maren's all too sudden mood swing towards high spirits would only confuse Elena more. Weighing her head to the left, she would gawp at her company with a wondering mien. Then however, she gave in, finally slacking off her muscles and letting out a sigh. It was probably really her own paranoia that made had her that wary just now. "Let's eat the cake, but for God's sake, don't let it be fake", she replied, as well attempting to rhyme her words, mostly to distract herself. Grabbing her towel up from the ground, she folded it as well, handing it over to Maren. "Alright, let's go. The next rhyme's gonna be pretty low." However, a bad taste would remain on her tongue. She couldn't exactly tell if it was the soft drink's or the former situation's fault.

Maren's tongue still tasted salt from the seawater she had accidentally inhaled when getting off Elena's back. "I really wonder, though: Is it cake or is it pie? I think pie is more creamy." Maren hummed as she slung the back across her back. "You wanna carry the towel, or?" Elena still had the towel that she'd used to dry herself with.

"Uh sure, I carry it", she replied, holding the towel beside her in her right hand. The other question - unintentionally - reminded her of a joke, though. A joke about maths, and though she had hated it at school, that one joke was stuck in her mind because of its stupidity. "Well. Pie are squared", she gave back, which basically already was the joke. She was in fact wondering whether Maren would get it. This quite helped to ease Elena's mind again.

Maren probably would have gotten the math joke if Elena had said 'Pi is squared'. The plural made her understand it as meaning actual pie. "Huh. I'm pretty sure that's not true," she said, humming briefly. Scratching her leg and plucking some sand from her skin, she made a step towards where they'd come from originally. "How did you like our toilet by the way? If you turn off the lights in the bathroom and you sit on the toilet, there are a few lights under the lid that light up, making your ***** shine."

A burst of laughter came out of Elena's mind as she imagined the shining ***** in the toilet, finding it pretty funny. Holding one hand before her mouth, she tried to suppress the giggle, though. It seemed like the old Maren had returned, Elena thought, which however made her wonder for a short moment how she would have described the one that was sitting under the palm tree - almost creepy, she'd have said. "No, I actually haven't seen that", she said. "But if so, I absolutely have to take a dump there as long as I still can." Then, she put the sunglasses on again, to have another glance at the beach, the horizon and the sun.

"Do warn me before though," Maren gave back quietly, in a manner that almost sounded concerned. The way back seemed almost too short. Because Maren had intentionally forgotten the keys indoors, Maren had to take the spare one which was buried in the earth beneath the third bush on the left of the door. "Yeah, figured I forgot the key." It had turned out she hadn't needed to 'forget' the key after all. With a motion, Maren beckoned Elena in.

"Uh, sure I will", she replied, beginning to wonder why she had to extra warn her to take a *****. Shruggingly, she walked up to where Maren was standing. Frankly, Elena was already looking forward to getting indoors again, simply because of the fact that's where her safety measure was still resting in her handbag. With the paranoia that had crawled up inside her, she'd want to see the gun before anything else. Eagerly, she stepped in.

While Elena passed her, Maren took out the Cardamine and looked at it briefly. It was a small breathing device, similar to asthma breathers, and worked the same. Taking two inhalations, Maren looked after Elena, letting her mind think about what she saw. Her mind, coupled with a bit of intuition from the outside made her connect a few strings. "You know, I just noticed that I don't really know you as a person," Maren was made to speak. "Where were you born?" She followed her inside, closing the door and placing the key on the kitchen counter.

Maren would see Elena quite hastily walking over to her handbag that was still lying on the couch, rummaging around it until she would let out another satisfied sigh. She apparently found what she had been looking for. It would make her feel a lot safer again, knowing she could easily shoot down any threat again. She didn't exactly view Maren as a threat, but her hyper-cautiousness played foul games with her. Turning back to glance at Maren, she'd say: "I'm from Stuttgart, originally. It's the best you can get in Rheinland, I suppose. Better than New Berlin and Nuremburg without a doubt. Good climate and all."

"I heard they got grass there that bristles and folds when you step on it," Maren meant, walking over to the sink to clean her fingers from the dirt. "I also need to find a new place to bury the keys now. Anyways!" A small pause and she opened the fridge. "How was life like being there?"

Walking up to the counter of the kitchen, she spent the time to think about the question, thought the answer wouldn't turn out exciting in any way. "It's been pretty easy, I guess that's the best way to describe it", she said, staring at the ceiling, almost lost in thoughts. "As a child or teenager, you don't have to worry about much either way, but it's true what everybody says. Stuttgart is the safe haven of Rheinland. Low crime rate, low jobless rate. And the broad acres where they cultivate crops are extremely beautiful during sunrise or sunset." With a lopsided smile, she looked at Maren. "Sounds better than Nuremburg, I suppose?"

"Sort of, depending on the time you take for reference," Maren gave back, thinking back. "Nuremberg was weird in that sense. You had a lot of really big cities across the surface, and a lot of forest or savannah in between. It was all pretty arid, so only a limited number of crops actually grew there." She took out the cake and removed the foil that she'd put on it. It seemed as though the glaze had become as squishily solid as it needed to be. "Imagine looking across a savannah, and you it's almost like the sea, where you can see the planet curve."

"Hmm." Elena cocked her head slightly to the left, having a quick glance at the cake. It looked pretty delicious, and to her own astonishment she actually had appetite enough to eat it as well. "Doesn't sound like a very inviting place. I prefer humid planets, not tropical ones, but you know, ones with a more or less stable, earth-like climate. Stuttgart comes pretty close to that, as far as I heard." Talking about this, another question came to her mind. "Say. Do you actually have any kind of job? Or are you just reaping the benefits of your fiance's wealth?"

"I'm not a gold digger," Maren replied, frowning at the insinuation. It was probably good for the social interaction if she, too, would act a little offended or unsettled at times. "I have been working with the Rheinland law enforcements before I found Ezrael. I quit the job afterwards, to move in with him."

"Oh, so you've been a cop?", she asked, barely able to imagine her in a uniform and actually doing serious work and obeying orders. Elena hadn't meant her question in a mocking way, and as she kept looking at the cake or at her handbag, she didn't see Maren frowning. Thus, no real apology.

"Sort of." Placing the cake on the counter, Maren took out a knife and cut out two slices of cake, then noticing she had no plates. Fetching them, she put the slices on the platters. "And you?"

"I tried to study at college, but dropped out of it fairly quickly", she replied, looking back at her own 'work career' which really wasn't that impressive at all. "I've been a waitress for some time, before I decided to travel around more through space, you know? Getting away from your boring homeplanet, having whole Sirius open to you." Retelling that, she couldn't hide a smile, a typically bemused good-old-times smile. "Was quite a cool time, and after a while I decided to look for work in space, true freelancer style."

"Hmm, pretty dangerous, ey?" Maren asked, figuring that was at least one aspect of her job that Elena couldn't honeycoat. With two cake forks, Maren returned to the platters and handed one over to Elena. "Let's move over to the couch, okay?"

***** you Maren, I know, she privily thought as she moved over to the couch together with her company. The smile on her face almost instantly vanished, making it obvious that Maren had struck quite a nerve there. After taking her plate, she would let herself fall down on the couch, sighing. "It's a bit dangerous, yes", she squeezed out of her mouth.

"You're really brave," Maren said, taking a bite of her cake. "I know that I wouldn't have the guts to go around shooting Rogues. I'm a pansy like that." She sucked on the fork a bit while the piece was in her mouth, humming.

The cake tasted pretty nice, Elena thought, and closed her eyes while chewing on the bit, concentrating on the taste. Another sigh became audible. After that, responding on Maren's question, she didn't look at her while saying it. Instead, she glanced out of the window. Not to mention that she wasn't convinced that Maren was really such a pansy, after all she was cop. "I prefer the term 'bold'", she said neutrally. "It isn't as positively afflicted, which I kinda like more. But yes. Probably." She didn't really seem happy about it.