[Closed Post: Cinnamon Roll]

[timebethine]

A few days' recovery have left Laertes feeling refreshed enough to return to his baking, although not quite ready to dive into anything particularly complicated. Thus, he abandons the more complex direktørsnegl recipe he'd been meaning to try in favor of perfecting the humble cinnamon roll.

The days are getting shorter--even Laertes can feel it, though his sense of time is poor. He can no longer rely on the sunrise to wake him at a decent hour for baking, and so today he's up a little before the sun, kneading the bready dough by hand rather than using the paddle of the stand mixer in the hopes that the physical exertion will wake him up a little. It's not working particularly well; his eyelids keep drooping.

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[timebethine]

"I fear it will have to wait until springtime," says Laertes, with some regret. "I'd not make thee lie out in the snow to look at the stars."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Cold doesn't really bother me," Susan admits. She's been cold for seven months. The winter barely registers, in comparison. "But alas! If only there were a tower suited to such purposes¹."

¹Teeheehee?

[timebethine]

"Have a care," Laertes laughs. "This place may hear, and heed--I don't know why I cautioned thee; hearing and heeding would be ideal, actually."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I do believe this place hears and heeds me plenty," Susan says, trying some of the bacon and finding it to her liking. "You just have to be bossy with it in the right way. Brook no argument."

[timebethine]

"Presume thou wilt be obeyed," Laertes agrees. "Well--bend all thine iron will upon the question, and I shall take thy victory for granted."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Precisely," says Susan, shaking off some of the solemnity of this rather-intense early-morning conversation and offering Laertes an amused look. She eats a little more of the breakfast - it's simple fare, good and hearty, and immensely comforting for it. It's possible that some of this comfort might show on her face, too.

[timebethine]

Laertes can't help smiling (as much relief as pleasure) to see her pleased. "Wilt thou want me to make a plate for Lancelot, too? Or will he be satisfied with the cinnamon rolls?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, he'd likely say the cinnamon rolls are fine," says Susan, with a dash of good humor. "But I say a man who drills like he does every morning would benefit from something more substantial. If it's not too much trouble." She's nearly finished with her own breakfast, and takes a big sip of tea to wash it all down. "I can put together the icings for the buns."

[timebethine]

Laertes hasn't actually started eating his breakfast, but immediately he's getting the bacon and eggs back out. "He needs to keep up his strength; doubtless, he must train continually if he's to prevent Gideon from knocking him on his arse again."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I beg your pardon?"

[timebethine]

"Did he not tell thee? He sparred with Gideon, and she trounced him," says Laertes with no small glee. "I can only beat him with the rapier, but it sounds as though she fought him longsword to longsword, and won."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I've not met Gideon," says Susan, sounding rather impressed indeed. "But now I think I must." She notices then that Laertes hasn't started on his own breakfast, and puts her fork down on her nearly-clean plate. "Oh, you silly man, this isn't time-sensitive. Eat first."

[timebethine]

"It's only that I fear that if I don't begin at once, I'll forget to begin at all," says Laertes ruefully. While the butter heats in the pan, he starts another piece of toast and separates out a few strips of bacon to fry.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Does the same go for eating your own breakfast before it gets cold?" Susan carries her plate over to the sink and washes her hands before going to check on the recipes for the cinnamon roll icing.

[timebethine]

"--ah." Because the truth is, he doesn't see his own breakfast as particularly important, and it's all right if that falls by the wayside in service of someone else's. "Well. He can have the colder plate, and I'll eat the fresh one."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Very good," says Susan, a little too stern. This is followed up by a fleetingly wry expression, and she rolls her eyes at Laertes. "See? There I go, fussing." She sets herself to making the cream cheese icing first, dumping cream cheese and butter into a bowl as she tries to think of how to reset the conversation. A glance outside reveals that the sun is growing higher - oh, perhaps she can kill two birds with one stone? Lancelot had, after all, mentioned finding Laertes handsome. "So you've sparred with him."

[timebethine]

"Ay, I have. He's a fine swordsman--I fear I shall not long have the advantage with the rapier; he hath a natural gift for the blade, and speed enough to match me."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I shall have to contrive an excuse to watch him spar," says Susan, thoughtfully, working on creaming the butter and cheese together. "I've only seen him running drills."

It occurs to her, as she speaks, that she seems to have a natural disinclination to talking about her lovers with others. But Lancelot talks about her; he'd said as much. And she really is ever so curious. So she adds, "I imagine sparring would be even more of an appealing sight than the drills."

[timebethine]

"It can be," says Laertes as he takes the bacon out of the pan. "It depends upon how well the fighters are matched, and how well thou knowest the weapon. A match with rapiers can be fought with deadly skill in the space of inches--an entrancing show, if thou art familiar with the blade, but dull entertainment for groundlings at a theatre. The longsword makes better spectacle. It's a hewing weapon, rather than a thrusting weapon; it requires great commitment to the swing."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I've watched a fair few duels," says Susan, who would - if she only had the vocabulary for it - admit to having a competency kink. "But never one conducted for fun."

[timebethine]

"If thou wouldst like to watch him thrash me, thou hast only to ask," Laertes laughs.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I rather would," Susan admits, going to measure powdered sugar and cream into the icing bowl. As she seems to focus on ensuring the cups of sugar are appropriately leveled, in a tone that anyone but Ingrid would assume to be one of total, genuine distraction, she adds, "He really is devastatingly handsome, isn't he?"

[timebethine]

"Oh, certainly," Laertes agrees. "Never more so than when he's thrashing me, in fact."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh? Do you enjoy being thrashed?" Susan asks, still the picture of someone focused entirely on the task at hand and very little on the conversation. For effect, she almost immediately makes a pitch-perfect moue of shock at herself, and then lets her gaze fly, startled, to Laertes. "I mean--"

[timebethine]

Laertes senses that he's overcommitted to the play; he retreats. "It's always an honor and a pleasure to cross blades with a skillful swordsman," he says--then immediately realizes that that might come across as innuendo, and retreats again. "I mean to say--I have only the purest of intentions toward thy Lancelot."