Neloth and Fyr's Baking Disaster (Fyr)

 OTP Challenge Cooking/Baking Fyr and Neloth attempt to bake something and end up arguing over the recipe like the dramatic besties they are

“Are you ever going to get over here or will you continue to procrastinate until I show up at Tel Naga myself?” Neloth makes a hum of annoyance and continues to wander from what I can see from the spell that allows for a sort of spectral apparition and thus face to face contact in real time, much faster than sending letters back and forth. “Yes yes yes I’ll be over soon. Remind me, what are we doing again?” he asks, putting away some potions on a shelf. “We, my dear friend, are making something. As for what, you’ll have to wait and see. Valan should be on his way back with the ingredients.” Neloth, having finished storing the potions, turns around, so he can see me, and I can see him face to face. “Fine. Give me a moment and I’ll be over.” At that note, the spell ends, fading away to nothing. Judging by Neloth’s usual timing of things, he should arrive in approximately twenty minutes.

“Ah, Fyr, Valan is back!” Alfe calls from downstairs, and so I head down from the lab to where he stands, sorting out a variety of ingredients with her. “Were you able to find everything?” I ask the Nerevarine, and he nods “I even found two kinds of chocolate.” At the mention of sweets, Beyte  looks up “Not for you, unfortunately, unless there are extras” I explain, and she makes a disappointed noise before going back to whatever it was she was doing. Delte and Uupse I would assume are in the basement, or at the very least Uupse, she usually is, after all. “So is he coming over?” Valan questions “Of course he’s coming over. I didn’t tell him exactly what we were doing, only that we are making something and you went to get the stuff we needed. Little does he know we are making cookies. Mostly because I don’t want to argue with him about it...again.” Alfe rolls her eyes, seemingly thinking I can’t see that. “You always end up arguing about recipes though, that’s why you’re friends.” she sighs, walking off as there is a repetitive knock at the door. However, it is not Neloth, but Ayron. Well now everyone is here...except Neloth. “I heard you were making cookies…” Ayron says, taking off his coat and boots, it had rained for most of the day, after all.

After a few more minutes of waiting Neloth finally shows up, fashionably late, as always. “Now will you finally tell me what you have summoned me all the way here for?” the other master wizard asks. “Cookies!” I reply, pulling out a pan from behind my back “Unless you’d rather make muffins…” Neloth looks at me silently for a solid five minutes as my children, those of whom are not in the basement doing whatever chaos they can come up with, and Valan, look on seemingly entertained. “Muffins are better.” Neloth mutters. “Muffins it is. Now you three, shoo. Valan you too” waving a hand at them Alfe, Beyte, Ayron, and Valan wander off to another part of the tower, leaving Neloth and I in the kitchen. “Okay we have to be quick, I am in a good mood today, but we don’t know how long that's gonna last. So let's go” I explain, clapping my hands together “Today I was thinking we make banana chocolate chip muffins since we have the ingredients. What do you think about that?” Neloth goes to say something but I shush him “I don’t care. That’s what you’re gonna eat today.” I’m four thousand years old, I get to decide what’s on the menu, I deserve that power.  “So, old friend, what shall we do first?” I ask, rolling up my sleeves. “Look at a recipe, I suppose.” he pulls out a piece of paper and I glance at it. “Okay, first, you’re gonna need dying bananas, not a little brown, very brown- terminal disease, on the edge of death.” Neloth explains, reading through the first section. Dying bananas, I look around the kitchen- check. “If you listen closely you can hear their last words.” I joke, “Yes, go, follow the light.” Neloth interrupts me as I begin to peel one “You have to cut off the top and bottom first!” I give him a look and pull out a knife. The beginnings of how every time we bake something together is starting, now it will only become more chaotic and argumentative from here. I chop off the sections as directed “Rough life eh?” I ask the banana, getting rid of the scraps, and putting the peeled fruit in the bowl. I get a spoon, and after peeling a few more hand the bowl and the spoon to Neloth “Now you’re gonna end their suffering.” With a scoff he takes them and begins to mash them. “Now two eggs.” I read off the paper and go and get them, cracking them quickly, but cleanly, and dropping them in the bowl. “One third of a cup of vegetable oil...that’s an easy ingredient to find around here.” Neloth remarks glancing at the sheet. “Oil in there? That’s...ew. “ I remark, thinking about it. “Do you really think I’m making this for you? Who’s gonna eat it?” Neloth asks. To be fair, he has a point, it’s very likely the children will eat it. “You can put whatever you want, butter, sload soap, I don’t care Divayth. Now one cup of flour…” rolling my eyes I hand him the bag and a measuring cup. After pouring exactly one cup in he scoops some more up and looks at it “Would that be one third?” He asks and I look over his shoulder “Eh, close enough.” He says, pouring it in. “What do you mean close enough?!” He shrugs “It’s flour, I’m sure it will be fine...after all, we will most likely not be eating them…” Again, he has a point. “You can also use oats, sometimes I use oats, but I don’t have them anymore.” I add, taking the bowl and mixing everything for a while. “No wait, don’t mix! You have to mix at the end!” Neloth exclaims, having looked back at the paper and yanks the bowl away from me. “Is it really that necessary?” I ask and he glares “Yes.” I guess I will have to wait then, the bastard. Getting out the bag of sugar I grab the measuring cup away “I’ll take that thank you very much.” Take a scoop from the bag, disregarding the sheet entirely “Sugar to taste, honestly” I add, pouring it into the mixing bowl, much to Neloths disappointment and mild annoyance, and to add to that I give him a shit eating grin as I put down the measuring cup. “You can also put in maple syrup.” Wait, that pronunciation doesn’t sound right. “Valan!!” I call “Is it syrup or syrup?” I ask, putting emphasis on different pronunciations. He simply responds “Help.” and there is sounds of the girls laughing, guess the two old mages who don’t speak common as a first language are on their own. “Alright, a little bit of baking powder. And now you’re gonna start mixing” Neloth explains, handing the bowl to me finally again. “But slowly, don’t make a mess.” He adds. “Excuse you, Neloth, are you not the one who has had to clean up explosions in your lab?” The other mage gives me a less than pleased look “Uh huh, that’s what I thought.” I reply to the silence as I mix the various ingredients. “By Azura we should have turned on the oven.” Neloth says and goes to do that, pushing the dial until the correct temperature “Four Hundred!!” He yells at the machine. “Now, when you see there is still some flour there you put in the chocolate chips.” Neloth explains, having finished his battle with the oven and hands me the bag. Breaking open the bag I pour them in, though it does make a bit of a mess to the other wizards disappointment. The counter is clean at least, I wouldn’t put it past Beyte to possibly eat the wayward ones that ended up on it instead of in the bowl. Neloth passes by me, accidentally stepping on my foot “Did you just step on my foot? You’re fired.” I mutter jokingly as I continue to mix.

“It is time, hand me THE PAN!” Neloth silently gives it to me. “Okay, we’re gonna start greasing this...yes I know spray oils exist but I’m lazy and do you know how hard it is to find things out here? Unbelievable.” The pan is uneventful, other than disagreement over how much it should be greased, what can I say? Baking with old wizards, it’s going to have arguments about stupid stuff. “The oven is ready and we’re late! Hand me a spoon!!” Neloth gives me a clean spoon so I can put the mixture in the pan and while I am working goads me on “Faster!” excuse you, are you helping? No, therefore, no comments. Distantly I can hear voices that sound like they’re from the basement “Girls, not the time!” still the noise continues “I’m busy at the moment!” Eventually the noise quiets down and I am able to put the pan in the oven, luckily this time without getting burned. Now we wait for twenty minutes. Neloth makes a remark about how long that is “Neloth I’m gonna put you too in the bottom. There’s space, eh?” That ends those complaints quickly. That gives us twenty minutes to discuss and argue about what to bake next, politics, the Telvanni council, Ayron’s usual chaos, the Nerevarine, and other topics. In the middle of our conversation the timer goes off “How dare you…” Neloth scoffs at its general direction. Grabbing an oven mitt I take out the pan “Here’s the final result. People always ask me Fyr how are you so good at everything? My talent is infinite. Really, how do you think I did half the bullshit I ended up doing and still continue to do?” The muffins do look good. “Girls! Ayron! Valan! Food is ready!!” I call and there is the sound of six pairs of scrambling feet. Lucky for us, Neloth and I had managed to set aside a few for ourselves, as the rest go fairly quickly “Well, old friend, I think that was one of our better attempts” Neloth remarks as we watch the six of them “Same time next week?” I ask “Same time next week.” The other wizard replies.

...These really are good muffins.