When Theora woke up the next morning, the name of her ridiculous new Skill was still etched onto her retina.

So, she shoved it aside.

After yesterday, all her willingness to fulfil that fetch quest had somehow disappeared into nothingness, and so, she would forget that the Skill existed, forget about the quest, and instead, dedicate her time and attention to things that were just a lot more important.

For example, Dema.

Theora still hadn’t forgotten about how Dema wanted her to express and put into words what kinds of feelings she harboured. However, there was an issue: to be open and straightforward was one of the hardest things to do in the world.

Of course, Theora did have a vague and undefinable amount of what could be, more or less, called feelings for Dema. That, however, was something she had trouble conceptualising in her own head already, so saying it out loud was impossible.

She could communicate these feelings through flowers and through tea, and it was something she really liked to do, if only for the rare occasion of seeing Dema flustered or prideful or happy.

However, maybe it was time for Theora to expand her tool set. 

It was her fourth free day since entering Hallmark. Yesterday, she’d met Ulfine, and found out about Fragments of Time, and then, she’d gone home and fallen asleep like a brick. Now, it was noon on the next day, and Dema was already gone.

Apparently, the other three were out together. They were still all in the same party, and Theora could see them scuttle around in a group in the vicinity if she opened the menu and looked at the member locations relative to herself. 

Theora found a little note on Dema’s bed, written in very messy handwriting.

Stay home! Rest! We’re gonna take care of stuff, so YOU REST!

Theora took the note. It was the first time Dema had ever written her something, so she wanted to store it somewhere she’d never lose it. Somewhere in her travelling coat, perhaps — although she did keep losing things in there, just because the pockets were interdimensional and harboured way too much space.

Some day, she’d need to find a way to organise herself. But not now. So, she just placed it in a random pocket, and left the coat in the guestroom because she didn’t need to wear it while inside.

So, now she was home, and didn’t have anything in particular she needed to be doing.

Expanding her tool set. There was something she’d wanted to learn, wasn’t there?

She went into the living room, finding Hell sitting on her armchair, and explained her request.

“Only if you have time to spend, though,” Theora finished, and gazed into Hell’s green and friendly eyes.

“Sure we can!” Hell said, smiling wide. She slowly rose, pressing down on the chair to help lift her age-addled body. Theora held out a hand, but Hell just waved it off. “I can walk, I can walk! Hey, Balinth!” she shouted through the apartment. “Come help us!”

Theora traipsed after her — she hadn’t expected Balinth to be invited in, and in some way, that would make her request maybe a little more embarrassing, but on the other hand, the idea of spending time with the two of them sounded really nice.

A few moments later, the three of them were sitting at the small kitchen table that was perched into the corner of the elongated room.

Outside, it was raining in buckets — even more than it did on usual days in Hallmark. The drops pattered against the window right next to them, and it wasn’t the brightest day. The kitchen had changed a lot in the past few decades; mostly it was now filled with more utensils than it used to be, and somehow, it was painted in a different colour, and the desk was new.

When had all this happened?

Theora visited the kitchen on most days, either to make tea or to fetch some food, or to just sit here and listen to the others talk on some evenings. But all these gradual changes, they registered in her mind only now, as her life slowed down just a tad, and as she realised that she might be leaving this town soon, for good.

“Alright,” Hell started, brushing her hair out of her face slowly, to form a ponytail. “We can help you, but first, you need to decide what exactly you want to make. Any ideas?”

Theora nodded. She had made that decision long ago — on her first day in Hallmark. On that day, when she’d been sitting in the living room next to Dema, and been subjected to her dizzying proximity. “I would like to make something very solid. Hard. Something that crumbles.” She frowned for a bit, trying to find a way to phrase it. “Something that is like a rock.”

“Cookies,” Hell said. “That sounds a lot like cookies. We can definitely make those.”

“If something like that is possible for me,” Theora said, “then I would like to try this being the first thing I learn to bake.”

“Of course, of course!” Balinth said. She was sitting in the very corner, right next to the window, a cane resting next to her chair. “Cookies are easy. You want to make them for Dema?”

Theora blushed faintly. Was it that obvious?

“It’s only so I can communicate how much I appreciate her,” she said.

“Oh, if it’s only that,” Hell said, snorting. She got up and scuttled around the kitchen, gathering a few things. “Hey Bal, you think the heater is done?”

At that, Balinth opened the window right next to her, letting a gush of wind and rain inside, and fetched a rune plate hanging on a hook right outside. “Should be,” she said. “Was out here for a week.” She fetched a cloth lying on the counter next to her, dried the plate off, and placed it down on the table.

From what Theora understood, these runes were magitech items able to absorb heat from outside, and release it all at once when needed. Meanwhile, Hell put one ingredient after the next onto the table, and Balinth started explaining. 

“Flour, as the base for the cookies, obviously,” she said, pointing to a jar. “This white powder here,” she said, gesturing to a small bowl, “Is used to make the cookies rise.”

“To make them rise?” Theora asked.

“They’ll grow a bit when heated!” Hell said. 

Theora frowned. “If we want larger cookies, couldn’t we just use more dough?”

Hell shrugged. “Makes them fluffier if we do it like this. And here! Look, we have something new. This is chocolate!”

Theora stared at the jar containing many dark brown, almost black pieces of… something. Hell opened the lid, and a soft sweet and rich scent got into Theora’s nose. 

“Oh, that is amazing,” she said.

“Yeah!” Hell cheered, and showed more ingredients, including some kind of oil pressed out of sunflower seeds that looked golden and cosy. The two instructed Theora on how to properly measure and mix it all, ultimately watching her knead the dough.

It felt soft and still firm. This didn’t feel too bad at all. Making cookies was kind of fun.

“You’re doing a pretty good job,” Hell said. 

“Yeah,” Balinth said, seeming impressed. “Damn, I get tired just looking at this.”

“By the way,” Hell said, “How’d yesterday go? You met that magitech girl?”

Theora stopped pressing down on the dough for a moment, just staring at it. “I… I don’t know. I suppose I got exactly what I wanted.”

Bal frowned. “Oh? Not happy about it?”

Theora sighed, and continued kneading. “This side quest will force me to do things I’m unhappy about,” she said, in a matter-of-fact tone. “But mostly, this is just me lamenting.”

Balinth laughed. “What, lamenting? You? Come on, you deserve to whine a bit, don’t you?”

“I also received a new Skill,” Theora murmured. “And it was in a weird way, too. It was a Class Skill, but I didn’t receive it on a Level-up.”

“Oh?” Hell let out. “Didn’t know that was a thing.”

“It’s definitely rare,” Balinth agreed. “Yeah, yeah. So, don’t like the Skill? What is it?”

Theora averted her gaze, making a bit of a reluctant frown. “I don’t even want to say it,” she said.

Hell let out a soft ‘aww’ sound, and Bal went, “That bad?”

Theora sighed. “Again, just lamenting. There is one good quality about it, though. Like…” She took her hands out of the dough, gesturing with sticky fingers in a way to communicate length. “It has a lot of words. That’s good.”

After all, the longer a Skill name was, the more it would help push the glitchy parts out of her stat sheet. 

And indeed, the name of that Skill was beautifully long. Just what she needed to one day see only a collection of the prettiest Skills imaginable on her sheet — of which this wasn’t one, because she still felt a little annoyed at it, but it was better by far compared to the destruction above, so she would take it. Yes, ultimately, despite it all, the Skill was good, because its name was long.

Hell shook her head. “The two of you, always saying things that don’t make sense at all.”

“I kind of really want to know the name,” Balinth expressed, leaning forward on the table. “Come on, come on. Share it with the class.”

She was always so curious. Theora huffed. “I will share it with you when we are done with baking,” she said. “If I look at it now, I might just get upset.”

Theora had by now almost kneaded enough, and tried her best to form the dough into a uniform mass, pressing in and in on the soft ball she’d created. “As for these ingredients,” she started, “Where did you get them?”

“From the market!” Hell said. “Now, we can split it into smaller parts. Those will be the cookies. If you want, we can shape them, to make them more unique. To help communicate your feelings, if you want to.”

“Alright,” Theora said, and did as told, handing off some of the parts for Hell and Balinth to form as well.

Most of these ingredients, she’d never seen before… Or maybe, they were rare and could only be found at large cities like Hallmark.

But, if this were to be a success — if Dema were to enjoy them, then wouldn’t it be nice to be able to make cookies anytime? Theora could go to the market and trade for a large amount of ingredients to store in her cloak, but food was quick to go bad. She imagined that after a decade or two, they’d already not be usable anymore.

So, maybe she should learn the process of how to create them? Find the seeds of whatever grew this ‘chocolate’, and use grains to cultivate wheat herself. After all, she did have some experience with growing seeds; over the seventeen years she’d spent with Dema, she had cultivated a small crop of land to grow food for her. 

“Hell, I can’t believe you,” Balinth fussed.

Theora looked up to take a look. “What’s she doing?”

“She’s making lewd shapes. Very lewd.”

Theora blinked. Her gaze wandered to Balinth’s work — hers looked a lot like the faces of simplified humans, so they were probably her favourite fictional characters. Meanwhile, Theora had been shaping hers into little flowers.

She couldn’t discern what was ‘lewd’ about Hell’s, but maybe it was something she was better off not knowing.

“Let me have my fun!” Hell complained.

Balinth snorted. “You were much easier to deal with back when you were flustered all the time.”

“Oh, you don’t mean that!”

“I so do,” Balinth said, laughing.

Theora eyed the both of them, and slowly, had a revelation. “You really like each other,” she observed.

That made Hell jerk up, and blush faintly, but Balinth just nodded.

“That’s why I married this dork, yes,” she said.

In that case… maybe Theora could ask them for advice, just like Dema had back then. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, sure, Theora. Out with it.”

Theora stayed on Bal’s gentle smile, her dark eyes, as she started to think about how to word the question. These two had spent a lot of time with Dema. They’d known her for many years now — a time Theora had spent almost in the blink of an eye.

Actually, there was a chance that these two had spent more time with Dema by now than Theora had herself.

So, maybe they would have an insight that Theora so far had missed. She was, after all, still living in two realities at once, even though she by now heavily favoured the ‘good’ one. But still, the other one was needed to balance things out, and reared up its head every now and then.

Dema, the Ancient Evil, who’d been broken out of the Cube of Solitude under threats of being murdered, and then acted nice towards Theora so she wouldn’t get killed. Just pretending, this whole time. Pretending to flirt, and pretending to want more.

That was a possible reality, wasn’t it? Theora couldn’t prove it wrong.

It was the reality that made sense, as opposed to the other reality that Theora wanted to be true.

And these two, with their infinite wealth of experience with these issues, and their vast knowledge of Dema, maybe they could help her out? Maybe they could give an observation on the situation that eluded Theora.

And so, she decided to ask.

“Do you think Dema likes me?”

Hell choked on air, and Balinth let her head sink into her hands. They were still full of cookie dough.

Theora swallowed. Had she done something wrong?

“Girl,” Hell said. “Look, even I eventually—” She broke off mid-sentence.

“Dema did say she needed to take things slow,” Balinth murmured into her cookie dough hands. “I guess she really meant that.”

“Theora,” Hell tried again. “Please, listen to me. Dema does nothing but gush about you all day. Yes, she likes you. She does. Don’t ever believe anything else, unless she explicitly tells you. This is painful to watch!”

“Oh, you’re the one to talk,” Balinth said, rolling her eyes, slowly peeling the pieces of dough off her face.

“It’s because I am the one to talk that it means something!” Hell protested. 

By now, Theora realised she had made a mistake, as the blood was slowly creeping into her head.

She should have never asked a question if she wasn’t ready to hear the answer.

‘Does Dema like me’? There was a reason she’d never asked this question before, not even to herself. Because if the answer was ‘no’, she’d be devastated. But, if the answer was ‘yes’, she’d also be devastated. Or rather, blushing into a terrible mess. 

A deep breath.

Cookies. It was time to focus on the cookies. 

She swallowed, and started forming one flower petal after the next. Yes, maybe straightforward communication was too hard after all. Maybe she would need to give it a little longer. Communicating through baking and flowers and tea was preferable by far for now.

The truth was, Theora was still far too sleep-deprived to even attempt any amount of progress on these things. She needed to pass out for, like, another one hundred years… But at the same time, what if she couldn’t fall asleep?

What if, again, all those incredible thoughts would keep circling inside her brain to the point of not allowing her any rest?

Back then, things had been simple. A very simple conflict — she’d been tasked to kill the Ancient Evil, but didn’t want to do it, so she was exhausted and tired and slept instead.

Now, a torrent of thoughts busied her head. She had a daughter now, somehow. She had all those electrifying thoughts rushing through her head concerning Dema, and the entirely messed up and anxiety-inducing situation with the System, not to mention poor Bell who Theora still wanted to talk things out with. Maybe Bell would change her mind after all, if Theora made a very good case.

Or maybe she wouldn’t. 

Theora’s head was so incredibly full. She took a deep breath. Where was the rule? There was a rule, somewhere, in her head.

No more thinking for Theora.

Ah, yes. No more thinking. Yes.

“There we go!” Balinth let out, having shaped her final cookie. “Gonell, my beloved!”

Theora looked up. “Gonell?”

The cookie was shaped like a head, and Balinth had kneaded that piece of dough with something she called cocoa powder, giving it a dark appearance. Very short hair, and freckles all over the face, signified by little chocolate pieces.

“Character from a novel we just read,” Hell supplied.

Right. A novel.

You really should do some reading, Ulfine had said.

“Can novels distract from having too many thoughts?” Theora asked.

Balinth nodded. “Sure. Still struggling with overthinking?” 

Theora nodded. “Why do you like reading so much?”

“Just really fun to delve into a whole new world,” Hell supplied. “It’s like, escapism? When things are bleak, we can read and feel better.”

Maybe treat it as a vacation.

Theora sighed just a little. This was a bit frustrating. Maybe Theora should try it out after all. That Grand Observatory of Fiction. Not to find one of those Fragments, but… Just as a way to wind down? To run away from this oppressive reality she was living in. And she could take Dema with her, so they could enjoy that little world together.

She looked down at her final cookie, and a thought occurred to her.

Ah, that’s right.

Didn’t Dema have a favourite book?