The warm aroma of gingerbread: spiced, aromatic, fragrant. The expansive kitchen is full of this delicious scent, beckoning and enticing. Decorated men sit in tidy little rows on cooling racks.That is, that's how it would be if any good smell like that weren't masked under the layers of burnt-to-a-crisp. Ami takes out yet another batch,
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It looks like it's time for Ikuko-mama to the rescue! Amazingly, she doesn't seem to mind that she's no longer in her kitchen. Or that Ami has brown hair. Or really that she's in a different dimension for that matter. No. All that mattered was the cookies. The cookies needed to be saved!
"Ami-chan!" Her voice booms through the kitchen as she points towards the rejected pile. "What is this!"
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She recovers in time to hope the stunned silence will be seen as no more than natural surprise at suddenly being intruded upon. She shakes her head to clear it of whatever disturbing thoughts are invading her, more and more by the moment.
"They were burnt," she says lamely. Don't save the cookies; save her, Ikuko-mama.
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Saving Ami can come in a few minutes; maybe it will even come in the course of saving the cookies.
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"They were for a scavenger hunt," she explains. "So I thought I'd try to bake them myself..." Yes, Ami, because Ikuko really needs to know every little detail of why the deadly mountain keeps growing. For that matter, it seems like Ami would learn after long enough and stick to things she can do. What about knitting some gingerbread men?
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"You've got the temperature up too high!" From the oven, back to the results. "And your men are thin like wafers! It's as my mama would say, 'the quicker you try to make perfection, the quicker perfection slips away'!"
There is clearly only one solution: Don't worry, Ikuko-mama will fix it a cooking lesson.
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"Too thin?" She will heed your wisdom, Mama. Actually, it's kind of nice to have, well, any Mama here helping her learn to bake. If only it were hers. Ami pops over to adjust the oven, switching it to a slightly lower heat that will make the given time actually work well.
"I should feed you more," she jokes to the men next, and she starts making a few thicker.
* - not to be confused with Eddie and squirrels, but further National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation references are welcome, as the mun has not seen it this year yet. D:
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...What? Somehow she's slipped right into that habit of listening to the directions of someone bold enough to give them and make them sound authoritative. She pauses. Then she decides it's fine. This isn't something important and, well, maybe the cookies will turn out alright this way.
Ami finds some non-stick cooking spray and coats the next pan. That grease should conduct the heat a little more, and she really wants to be sure these go alright, so she'll check them halfway through the time they're supposed to take, and every minute after. She gives a nod at what seems to be nothing, her plan set.
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"Every ten minutes, poke the center of one of the men in the middle. If the toothpick comes out clean, the men are finished cooking!"
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This also, unfortunately, leaves Ami facing Ikuko with nothing to distract her. She doesn't really know how to look at the older woman, and if Ikuko's perceptive about such things, she might notice Ami never quite looks her in the eye or full in the face.
For that matter, shouldn't Ikuko be worrying about herself and how she'll get back to her world and her house?
"You probably need to get home, so, thank you for the advice," she says a bit brusquely.
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"Paradism?" Ami asks, for now deciding to invite Ikuko to say more until she has an idea of the situation. If it turns out Ikuko's already familiar with this sort of phenomenon, she can explain the nexus without sounding insane.
Consider it repayment for the terrible food. Wait. Repayment for the help!
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Oreo-stuffed omelet, anyone?
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Usagi's boyfriend? Ami sounds less than thrilled, and closer to suspicious: "Chiba Mamoru?" Curse it, everywhere.
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How convenient, it's time to check the cookies! Ignore the clock saying she could ignore them for another three minutes. They need to be looked at now. Ami busies herself about this task and, it turns out, the cookies still need more time. She slides the rack back into the oven and straightens her posture.
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