Sweat and Sweets

Looking over her finances for the month, Madeira couldn’t help but smile.  Spinning her chair around, she stood up, almost dancing into the living room.  Pectin was snoozing on the couch and squealed when she picked it up and spun it around.  “Do you want to go get dango?” she asked.

Pectin’s wings fluttered eagerly as they chirped.  A customer had ‘tipped’ her with dango a few months ago, and Pectin had really liked it.  Her finances early after opening her restaurant wouldn’t have accommodated buying such treats, but it had seen a spike in popularity after Angora had deigned to dine there, and at last she had enough excess she could consider treats.

(She’d tried to see if she could get Dan to teach her how to make it, but he wasn’t willing to teach his secrets to a fellow chef - fair enough, she supposed, but she didn’t want to compete with him, just to be able to make treats for her imp…)

The little black chirop flapped its wings, hovering over her shoulders as she got her purse and shoes on, landing on the left shoulder as soon as the purse was on, and chirping happily.

“Yeah, it’s good to go on adventures, isn’t it?”  Madeira scritched Pectin’s head, smiling as she headed out the door.

One of the nicest parts of owning her own restaurant was wearing what she wanted all the time now.  She’d been used to the skimpy uniforms of Wonderland, of course, and hers had gotten to a point of feeling comfortable… but it was nothing compared to the comfort of wearing what she liked.  The long skirt of her dress swished with every step she took, its layers of ruffles simply a pleasure to move in, and her shoes were much nicer to her feet than those heels at the casino had been.

The breeze of the day was pleasant, and it was fun to look at things through the windows without being stressed about carats as much.  There was still some stress - Mercy had let her know that Azgad had taken another group of infants this year, so she was determined to save up to help them out - but it wasn’t as bad now as it had been.

Dan wasn’t behind the counter immediately when she came into the shop, but she heard pounding from the back.  There was another customer in, waiting as well - a pink sloth bun with a cyan impup.

Pectin fluttered down to the impup curiously, chirping at it, and it responded with a bark.

“Wave, why are you barking at the chirop?  They’re not doing anything to you…”  The pink bun scooped the impup up, holding it so it could sniff at Pectin.  “Sorry about that, Wave doesn’t bark at my girlfriend’s chirop, I dunno why she’d bark at yours…”

“Maybe it’s something Pectin said,” Madeira joked, watching the two examine each other.  “I don’t think it’s seen a colored imp before, since it doesn’t like to leave my apartment much.”

“Well, that might do it,” the other bun said.  “I’m Andi, by the way!  Is Pectin related to pecs?”

“Pecs?”  Madeira was confused.  “Like the…muscles…?  No, um, it’s a type of ingredient, it’s used to thicken things like jellies and such.”

“Like the muscles, yeah,” Andi beamed.  “I guess a food thing is cute, though.”

Madeira tugged slightly on her own ear.  “I didn’t really have many ideas at the time,” she admitted.  “So I just picked what I knew…  I’m Madeira, also, I forgot to say, sorry.”

“That’s alright!”  Andi reached out to give Pectin some pets, boosting Wave onto her shoulder.  “Always fun to hear how other buns name their imps!”

Dan finally emerged from the back, carrying a bagged box.  “Here you go, Andi,” he said, passing it over.  “Do… try to keep it all from going so fast this time, I don’t always have slow days where I can spend time making dozens of marine mochi.”

“We can try,” Andi said, accepting the bag.  “Not easy when it’s two of our imps favorite things, though.  Thank you, Dan!”  She gave Madeira a cheerful wave as she went to leave.  “Nice to meet you, Maddie!”

Madeira sighed at the misremembering of her name, but Andi was out the door before she could be corrected.

“She’s always like that,” Dan said, to the unspoken question.  “Really nice bun, just…  Doesn’t think or remember much.”

“I see,” Madeira said, sighing.

“What are you here for?”

“I wanted to get a stick of dango for Pectin,” she said, brightening.  “The restaurant is doing well enough I can afford some things, and I wanted to get it something nice.”

Dan nodded, looking at Pectin.  He was used to buns bringing their imps in for dango, certainly.  “I’m guessing it prefers black sesame?”

“Maybe?  I’ve offered it treats of other types before, but…”

“What types?”

“I know it doesn’t want raspberries, blueberries, or strawberries,” she said.

“Hmm, well that helps rule out a few things.”  Dan went to his counter and opened the door to it.  Using a pair of tongs, he selected a few different dango sticks.  Standing up, he beckoned Pectin to fly closer.  “No eating just yet, but is there one you’d like?” he asked the imp.

Pectin fluttered around them, seeming to examine them, before gently tapping a set of white dango balls.  Then, it fluttered back to Madeira’s shoulder.

“Mitarashi, huh?”  Dan shrugged.  “If you’re alright with the possibility it’ll change colors, I can do that.”

“I’m fine with that,” Madeira said.  “Does it always… happen right away?”

“No, sometimes it happens right away, sometimes it’s over the course of an hour or days or weeks.”  Dan shrugged.  “I couldn’t tell you why, but Hutch’ll talk your ear off about it if you swing by their shop.”

“Good to know,” Madeira said, making a mental note to do that.

The transaction proceeded easily, though the cost of the Mitarashi did make her wince a little.  Sesame dango was so much cheaper…

Still, Pectin’s happy reactions as it ate the dango as they left the store made it worth it.