Crafting ambrosia

The succubun waited nervously outside of the greenhouse with the wicker baskets filled with freshly harvested blossoms, leaves and stems, pacing back and forwards while Dove was gone to fetch Primrose, so he could craft the separated flower parts into their different versions of ambrosia. It felt like an eternity of waiting, a million thoughts running through Zepp's head. Was all his hard work enough? Were the plants grown to a high enough standard that they were actually viable? Dove had assured him that he had done fine, but he couldn't fully tell if they meant it, or they were just trying to spare his feelings. Yeah, they were always genuine, and he'd never known them to even make the smallest of white lies, but that fact was overwhelmed by his anxiety. Finally, the two cherubuns arrived, after what felt like forever, whereas in reality, he was left alone for no longer than ten minutes. 

Primrose spent a few moments examining the flowers in one of the baskets, then turned to Dove. “These are adequate, thank you for your assistance.” Zepp gave a sigh, he didn't expect acknowledgement from Primrose, but it was still disappointing. They bid their farewells, and Dove set off towards the elevator. The succubun attempted to follow, but was stopped by the blond angelic bun. He had his usual look of disdain across his face. “You stay here, please. I require assistance with processing the plants. This will be the final task I require you to do.”

Zepp laughed sheepishly. Yeah, he had been the one to offer his help to the cherubuns, but that was before he had properly met Primrose… and learned how hostile he seemed to be. He was happy at least trying to help Dove work away with the gardening, but alone with him? That just made him more uncomfortable and nervous than he had already been. 

“Uh, okay, yeah, no issues… What do you need me to do?”

The cherubun picked up one of the baskets, filled with emerald green leaves, their golden veins shimmering in the light. “Please bring the rest of these inside, while I start to prepare the equipment.” He entered the greenhouse, and Zepp followed, two of the remaining seven baskets in tow. He left them on one of the workbenches, and continued to fetch the others. While he was doing this, Primrose had turned on what looked like an oven of some kind, and was spreading the leaves out onto a large tray, careful that none of them were overlapping. He left the other basket of leaves next to where he was working, and the others with the two he'd already brought in. 

“Start to spread those ones out onto this tray, please.” He handed a tray to Zepp, and continued working on his own in silence. The succubun did as he was asked. Once both baskets were emptied, the angelic bun placed the trays into the oven. 

“What are we doing here?”

Primrose rolled his eyes, his tone feeling quite critical to the pride bun. “Drying out the leaves. We do this first as it takes a few hours. Once they're dry, we will grind them down into powder.”

“Like making flour or something?”

“That's an appropriate comparison.”

He left the door ajar, and turned his attention to the baskets of plant stems, pouring them out onto the workbench, and then pulling up a small copper pot, placing it next to him. Where the pot had originally been hanging from was a little fire pit. He started a fire underneath it, and came back to the bench. He handed Zepp a knife, and took a second for himself. 

“Cut a slit down the middle of the stems, and give them to me. We are going to remove the sap from the stems, and then slowly bring it to the boil. The ambrosia produced acts as a remedy for most common illnesses.”

He sliced the stem from top to bottom, and passed it over to the cherubun, who then opened it up, scraping every drop of the golden syrup into the pot, then discarding the rest back into the basket. 

“What will you do with the rest of the stem?”

“Compost it, and we'll use it to fertilise another planting in the future.”

After some time, they worked their way through the pile, filling the pot about three quarters of the way with the thick liquid. Placing the pot back on its mount over the open fire, he picked up a metal spoon, stirring the contents, before placing a lid over top. 

“I'll need to keep an eye on that while we're working on the petals, it will need to be over the heat for about an hour, and needs stirring every few minutes.”

He took out two mortars and pedestals, and the pair began grinding the petals down into a paste. Once sufficiently crushed, they added the paste into a large bowl. Every now and then Primrose would leave to tend to the sap, returning shortly after. Once all the petals had been finished, water, sugar, and other plants Zepp didn't recognise were added to the bowl, and he was asked to stir them all together. Once it was mixed to the cherubuns standard, the pink syrup was bottled up. In the middle of the process, the sap was finished boiling, left to cool, and its gold, shimmering liquid was also bottled. 

He washed and dried the mortars thoroughly, as Primrose checked on the drying leaves. They were finished, taken out of the oven, and let to cool for a few minutes, before they were also ground down, this time into a fine powder. The green dust was then placed into a bag, as it was only going to be turned into liquid form as it was required. 

Finally, all that was left was the two baskets of bare flower heads, which Primrose insisted he would work on by himself. Something about the technique being much too difficult for the succubun, with his limited knowledge of botany, to reliably help him complete. 

“That is all, while your work was amateur, it is at the least passable. While it won't be the highest quality ambrosia, it will suffice. I can finish the rest of the preparation process on my own. Thank you for your assistance.” While his tone, as per usual, was quite cynical, Zepp perked up at this, a huge grin across his face, taking his words as a compliment, this being the closest thing he figured the cherubun would give him to one. Primrose was possibly proud of the work he had done, but didn't want to say it aloud, at least in the pride bun’s mind. “Thank you, there anything else you need me to do for you, and the other cherubuns?”

“I will contact you if anything comes up, but for the minute, no.”

Zepp bid his farewells, and left to the elevator back down to Burrowgatory, leaving the angelic bun to finish the final ambrosia preparations.