[EP] Tea and Cookies

[st_oh_honestly]

For a few weeks Dot had just pitched in where it seemed like she would be useful and tried to pick up any interesting information for her notebook. Not that she'd learned anything too terribly useful, certainly nothing that would lead to a way home. Then she'd discovered the small bakery in the corner of the main cafe that seemed to be the unofficial gathering place.

She watched it for a few days and then poked about in the pantry kitchen before deciding that what everyone needed - aside from a priest to give mass on Sunday - was cookies.

And bread.

And possibly scones.

What she made would be decided by what she could find in the pantry but most baked goods started with flour, butter, eggs and milk. So many of the people here seemed to lack... well what Dot thought of as essential skills. At least for a woman of her class. What Dot could do with a little flour and some eggs was a sight to be seen.

Which was why the pastry case was currently bursting with cookies, a pot of tea was ready on a side table and Dot was kneading bread at the counter wearing an apron over the most demure clothing the little boutique had to offer.

She may or may not have a smudge of flour on her nose.

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[st_oh_honestly]

She blinked, then sipped her tea. The name sounded... well, a bit like a fairy tale. That was as far as any recollection might go.

"I've never met anyone named after... weather." She smiled, she wasn't teasing. "I do have a niece named Poppy. Like the flower? Well, actually she's named Margaret but we already have a Peggy and and a Meg. So Poppy it was."

[st_arkcrowblack]

It was perhaps the fact that Dot wasn't teasing her that kept Snow from retreating entirely. In truth, she didn't remember what her name was. She hadn't heard it since she was eleven years old, and even before then people barely used it. She was always 'Miss' to the household staff, and her governess never had need to distinguish her by name. Her real name was somewhere on a piece of official paper, like her mother's married name.

She didn't know how to be anyone other than Snow White anymore. Even if the name had come not for cleverness, beauty, or sweetness, but something her stepmother knew she couldn't be.

"For color," she said softly. "Not weather."

[st_oh_honestly]

Dot considered this, and offered a plate with more cookies to Snow as she mused.

"I think I prefer that. It's nicer isn't it. If it's weather its, cold and wet and not always pleasant. But if it's a color, it's clean and bright." Dot's name was just solid, dependable.

"I was named after a martyred saint."

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow made a noncommittal sound. It wasn't particularly nice. At all. But she didn't want to talk about that. "Ain't really familiar with saints," she said instead.

[st_oh_honestly]

"Not Catholic then," Dot smiled, it wasn't judgemental, her tone was light and amused.

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow only shook her head and drank her tea. Truth be told, as she'd never been to church she didn't know what she was.

[st_oh_honestly]

If you were Catholic, you would know.

"Well Dorothy was a martyr, a bride of Christ, and when she was killed she was mocked by a man." Dot cracked a couple eggs into a bowl and started adding sugar and butter and other wet ingredients.

"He told her to send him fruits and flowers from her bridegrooms garden, from Christ he meant. From heaven. So she took off the crown she wore on her way to her death and had it sent to him, it was full of dates and berries and roses. It inspired him to become a Christian, and then later he died on the rack."

She half shrugged and added a bowl of dry ingredients and mixed.

"So should I make more chocolate chip, or something else?"

[st_arkcrowblack]

It was hardly the most brutal story Snow had ever heard, but she listened to it and wondered what it was about Christian stories that they were so obsessed with suffering. "Depends, I guess," she said with a shrug, "if there's anything else to make."

[st_oh_honestly]

There were worse stories, but Dot didn't really like those.

"There's always other things to make, but the chocolate ones do seem to be popular." That made her decision, and she rummaged around for more of the bits of chocolate and added them.

"Would you like to help put them on baking sheets?"

[st_arkcrowblack]

Rather than answer in so many words, Snow finished off her tea and washed her hands. "There a spoon?"

[st_oh_honestly]

"In that drawer there," Dot indicated a drawer and started buttering the baking sheet - completely unaware of the fact that it was teflon and wouldn't stick anyway.

"I try to make them about the size of two shillings," she held up her fingers making a circle. "But you're the one with spoon, so as long as they're all about the same size."

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow White nodded and wordlessly set about the task, trying to get the globs of dough to match the size that Dot had indicated and giving them space to spread out while they baked.