#Derailing trains to spite the stars themselves

[the-ratronaut]

[artificialqueens]

Down with the Recipe, Bake from the Heart, 6/10 (Taywhora) - Juno

Chapter summary: For alternative ingredients week, the bakers are challenged by a vegan signature, a gluten-free technical, and a dairy-free showstopper which will threaten to derail them. Meanwhile, Aurora is confused by Tayce’s seemingly opposing actions. Bimini’s motives are a mystery to everyone in the tent. And Lawrence’s strange avoidance of Ellie may send her to breaking point.

WEEK 6: ALTERNATIVE INGREDIENTS WEEK

All of Aurora’s side had moved up one space following Asttina’s unexpected elimination last week. Now Lawrence was at the front of their row, with Ellie behind her and Aurora behind Ellie. On the other side there was Bimini at the front, followed by Tia, then Veronica, and Tayce at the back, still on her own as Aurora’s side dwindled each week.

It was the halfway point in the series, and Aurora wasn’t nervous any more.

Screw that. I’m Star Baker. None of them had better mess with me.

Five more episodes to go, and only four more eliminations. It almost felt like the home stretch.

Aurora was a little taller this week, letting her gaze drift around the much-emptier tent, wondering who the three finalists would be.

Me and Tayce for definite. But who else?

Bimini and Ellie had a badge each, while Tia, Veronica and Lawrence were yet to win one. But Asttina had won the first week and gone home.

Besides, they all had strengths and weaknesses. Ellie couldn’t get consistent in Technicals, but always made up for it with her Showstoppers, a seemingly boundless imagination in that head. And Bimini had been fair, not bad but not great; but they’d won Bread Week. Anyone who watched more than one season of this show knew that winning bread week was basically a Willy Wonka golden ticket to the finale.

Then again, Veronica was a great baker, and she had yet to have a disastrous round, even though she hadn’t exactly done anything groundbreaking either. And Lawrence was consistently in the top half of the pack, and Aurora thought she could have won Bread Week too - if Bimini hadn’t pipped her to the post.

That just left Tia. Tia, who could bake an amazing, light-as-air cake; whose rainbow-iced biscuits were just the right ginger flavour; and whose bread was delicious - but whose bakes always looked like she’d sat on them before presenting them. Great taste, but appalling presentation.

If she starts nailing the looks of her bakes, she’s gonna win a badge.

Still, badges didn’t guarantee you a place in the final. Asttina had already gone home; someone else with a badge might do the same this week.

What if it’s the Star Baker curse? Coming back to take us badge-winners out one by one? Maybe it will be badge-less finale?

But Aurora pushed that thought away.

There isn’t a Star Baker curse. That was just some previous seasons. You don’t win Star Baker and get eliminated the next week any more.

Bimini was grinning from ear to ear, and Aurora realised why - it was alternative ingredients week, and there was definitely something vegan in the pipeline for Bimini to excel at.

——

Signature: 6 vegan mini quiches.

“Prue and Paul would like you to make six vegan mini-quiches this week. Now, these are not quiches made out of vegans, but quiches made with no animal products at all - no dairy or eggs.”

“And of course the filling must also be vegan - so no meat or cheese for the flavourings.”

Aurora grimaced. Here we go.

This was the week Aurora had been dreading. She’d tried to make vegan cakes and gluten-free treats for her work with the shelter, but they’d almost always failed. She’d sworn off making anything for her best friend Blake, who was celiac, telling him to go find a professional baker.

“But that’s you!” He’d protested, nudging her as she declined to make him a birthday cake last month.

She’d sighed. “I’m not that good, mate. I don’t really want to kill you.”

He’d tilted his head. “Bit rich to think you could get rid of me that easily. If you kill me with a bake, I’ll just come haunt you. Rattle some chains at you like I’m fucking - Marley or whatever his name is.”

Aurora sighed at the memory. Trust Bookworm Blake to bring up a Dickens reference.

Once Matt and Noel had announced that it was time to start baking, Aurora grabbed the ingredients she needed and ran her pencil back down her recipe again. The dough for the pastry cases was straightforward enough - she had to replace the milk, but there were plenty of replacements, and Aurora had opted for oat milk, which she’d read was best for vegan baking.

The real challenge, and she thought everyone was thinking the same thing, came to the filling. She had her pastry cases ready to go in no time, but making the filling eggy but also egg-less would be the biggest issue.

God. What do vegans do about eggs?

“You alright, babes?”

Aurora met Bimini’s hazel eyes as they stood, leaning on their elbows at Aurora’s workbench.

“What - what are you wearing this week?” Aurora said finally. Bimini’s outfit this week was a red and silver jumpsuit under the plain beige apron, causing an absurd clash of colours. “You look like a can of Coke.”

“Oh, this old thing? I found it in the back of my wardrobe earlier this week. Nah,” Bimini waved their hand, “it’s a replica of an outfit Noel wore when he was in The Mighty Boosh. You know, that comedy show he did? You never seen it?”

“And he wore that?” Aurora nodded. “Okay. Well, I guess it looks as if it will repel food if you spill it on yourself.”

“You alright, anyway?” Bimini switched straight back to concern, a concern that Aurora was unsure was real.

We’re at mid-point. Is this some kind of game plan that Bim has?

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You sure? Because baking something vegan is normally weird enough for people when they don’t have any vegans in their lives, but like, when it has to be egg-less, people tend to lose their minds a bit.”

“Well -“

Aurora faltered for a second too long; and that was enough of a cue for Bimini to round the corner of the workbench and sift through Aurora’s ingredients.

“Hang on. What are you replacing the egg with?”

“Uhm,” Aurora held it up. “Silken tofu. I thought I’d blend it and use that for the filling.”

Bimini gave a low whistle, nodding and evidently impressed. “Good choice! You just have to make sure you blend it so there’s no lumps. Whizz it up really fast. Give it a splash of oat milk too, you don’t want lumpy quiches. Oh, and if you have nutritional yeast, it will give it a really good flavour.”

Before Aurora could say another word, Bimini had skipped away to Veronica on the other side of the room. “You alright, babes?” She heard them say to her.

“What’s Bim doing?” Aurora asked Ellie as they went to the tea tent together.

Ellie shrugged. “Don’t know. They came over to me earlier and gave me some tips on the egg mixture.”

“They did the same thing to me! Did it help you at all? Are they - d’you think they’re playing the game?”

“Weird game to play,” Ellie shook her head. “And my egg mixture seems to be alright. What I’m wondering is when are they gonna make their own quiches? They’ve spent twenty minutes coming and looking at all ours instead.”

But when Ellie and Aurora went back to the tent, Bimini had put their pastry cases in the oven and was doing some sort of rap and dance with Noel, the cameras trained on them both.

This day is just getting strange.

While her own pastry cases were baking, Aurora watched the judges approach Tayce, who was a little behind the rest of them, still moulding her pastries into the cases and preparing the beads at the bottom of them to keep their shape whilst baking.

“Morning Tayce!”

Tayce blinked, for a second in a dream, before putting on her winning smile. “Bore da, judges! Fancy seeing you here!”

“Tell us a bit about your bakes.”

“Well,” Tayce leant over the workbench, surveying them through her eyebrows. “I’m making some mini quiches flavoured with onions, tomato, and broccoli.”

“What’s inspired that then?”

Aurora’s heart stopped beating for a moment as Tayce paused for a couple of seconds, and then chuckled, a strangely sad sound, her head suddenly dropping to hang.

She straightened back up, putting the winning smile back from where it had slipped.

“Makes me think of my Pops. Out in the allotment, digging around for onions and potatoes and all that stuff, he liked to bring me along and gave me a little trowel and let me dig for worms. He’d say, Oh, they’re good, worms, good for the earth.” Tayce paused, tentative, before her next words. “Would have been his birthday today.”

“That - all sounds very nice,” Prue said gently. “Best of luck! Can’t wait to taste them, Tayce.”

And they were gone, going out the tent to grab themselves a cup of tea for their own break. Tayce stared straight ahead for a few seconds, before biting her lip, turning her gaze down to the onions she was about to start cutting.

Aurora realised her own hand was on her chest, at the base of her throat.

——

In spite of the ingredients being a little unorthodox, not what she was used to at all, Bimini’s tip for blending the tofu worked surprisingly well, and when Paul and Prue had both praised her tomato, spinach and olive mini quiches - not Aurora’s idea, one her nan had told her to do to be ‘more posh’ - Aurora realised with a rush that almost everyone had had some good critiques this week, mostly on the quality of their egg replacements.

And they’d all been based on Bimini’s good advice.

Handshakes were being dished out like Oprah’s cars. Lawrence got a handshake, then Veronica got a handshake, then - Aurora gasped - Tayce got a handshake, looking flustered for the first time since Aurora had known her, with a high-pitched giggle that Aurora was unfamiliar with, and a gasp of “Who, me? Like this?”

“Contest seems to be heating up,” Aurora said, as they sat in Carr Hall’s common room during the break. “And we thought you were trying to sabotage us, Bim!” She said as Bimini approached them, grinning from cheek to cheek, a pile of mini quiches on their plate.

“I’m just happy I get to try everyone’s this week,” they replied, picking up one which Aurora recognised as her own, and biting into it. “God. It’s so harsh seeing loads of cakes and stuff each week and only being able to try your own.”

“I’ve tried vegan baking before, it just always goes tits up,” Tayce piped up, coming to sit down. “Like me on a Friday night. It goes flat, or it goes wonky donkey, or it falls over.”

“Is that the cake, or you on a Friday night?” Bimini nudged Tayce with their foot; Tayce responding by slapping their arm.

“Hey! Cheeky bitch. Bet I’m not the only one.”

Tayce was laughing and joking as usual, while Aurora couldn’t help chewing her lip. It was a little uncomfortable, Aurora found, being around Tayce right now.

Last week had been the strangest week yet. She’d found herself floating through it in a mixture of fun at flirting playfully with Tayce, a little bit of pride at being the centre of attention for once, and trying to let herself enjoy the baking in the same way she did when she baked for her friends - filling it with love and good thoughts and positivity.

And it had worked. A bright badge in the shape of a dessert sat on her chest.

But the day of the Showstopper, things felt distorted again.

She’d known this whole flirting thing was meant to be a play for the cameras. That was what Tayce had implied only two weeks ago, that their romance was mainly for on-screen. But last weekend, Tayce in her bed, warm and secure and silent, was heavenly; both of them comfort for each other during this time, and Aurora dared to hope that Tayce might be starting to feel the same way as she did …

… until she’d woken up the next morning to find an empty bed, a cold spot where Tayce should have been.

And then again in the evening, just the two of them. Tayce hadn’t even responded to her kiss, instead opting to leave straight after, as if she didn’t want to be around her at all.

Aurora didn’t understand, all her thoughts about what was going on and what this blur from fake flirting into actual closeness was … tangling into one big worrisome knot that occupied most of her mind.

Does she have any feelings for me at all, or … is this fake-flirting thing a really elaborate scheme to distract me and get me sent home?

——

Technical: 12 Gluten-free pitta breads

“Any tips for the bakers this week, Paul?”

“Yes.” Paul straightened up. “The ingredients are there to be used.”

At the relative silence throughout the tent, Matt shrugged. “Alright then. That’s nice and clear. They have to leave the tent now, so goodbye judges!”

Once the judges had gone, and the Technical had been announced, Aurora shut her eyes, her fingers drumming on the workbench again. Gluten-free pitta bread? This week was going to be even more hell.

She focused on making notes on her instructions, and once she’d got her ingredients into the KitchenAid, she was starting to feel a little calmer, as she did once things were starting to move. She was running her pencil down her notes when her thoughts were interrupted by a voice in front of her.

“You alright, babes?”

She looked up to see Bimini leaning over her workbench, chin in their hands. Aurora tried to hide the frown. Again?

“Hi. No - no. I can never get gluten-free baking right. My best friend is celiac, and I haven’t managed to make anything he can eat that doesn’t look like a mess.”

“More xantham gum than you think,” Bimini muttered with a wink. “That’ll make it less crumbly. Oh, and if you rest it, it will help the bake.”

When Bimini skipped away again, over to Tayce to most likely give her the same tip, Aurora stared dumbstruck after them for a good ten seconds before shaking her head in wonder and adding another teaspoon of xantham gum to the dish.

“Did he say they wanted six pitta breads?” This time it was Ellie’s voice that made Aurora look up.

“No - twelve.”

“Ah - alright.”

Aurora concentrated on kneading the dough, trying to give it as much air as possible, when she was interrupted again, this time by a gentle but familiar hand on her shoulder. She turned to look at Tayce, who held a cup of tea in her other.

“Thanks.”

The cameras were absent, pointed at Bimini and Noel doing some dance at Bimini’s workbench, rapping along to something.

“You looked like you could do with some tea. Giving that dough some welly, aren’t you?”

Tayce’s voice was strangely subdued, her fingers twisting in front of her. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes to savour it. “I love the smell of dough. Makes me think about my nana’s house. She was always baking stuff. Her whole kitchen smelled like a bakery.”

She was stopped in her reminiscing by Ellie knocking her baking tray to the floor with a crash. Pushing her hair behind her ears, Tayce nodded to Aurora.

“Right. Well. Better get back to it.”

And Aurora stared at her retreating back, wondering what had come over Tayce today. She wasn’t really as flirty, more … caring, even bringing over tea for her. This whole arrangement was just getting more confusing. It was supposed to be fake, but now lots of threads of what seemed like care were starting to entwine themselves into the knot her mind was in.

I just can’t think about Tayce right now. It’s too confusing. Focus on pitta bread.

By the time Aurora was laying out her pittas on the baking tray, Ellie spun round to her again, hands clutching at her hair.

“Is it six pitta breads?”

Why am I bloody Wikipedia all of a sudden today? And didn’t she just ask me this a minute ago?

“Eleanor,” Aurora said sternly, while Ellie grimaced, seeming to shrink slightly.

“I know, I know -“

“It’s on the top of the instructions as well - look - twelve pitta breads! I think you need a break or something, Els,” Aurora pointed outside. “Why don’t you take two minutes or something?”

But Ellie’s hands, still in her hair, balled into tight fists as she spoke, sounding a little hysterical. “I can’t - it’ll spoil - I don’t -“

“Ellie, go outside! Go on! You’re panicking!”

As Ellie marched past her outside, Aurora watched Tia, her breads already in the oven, rushing out after her. But Lawrence, in front of Aurora, simply glanced to the clear partition of the tent briefly, before turning back to putting her bread on the baking tray.

“Lozza?” That was Tayce, who had noticed the same thing. But Lawrence didn’t seem to hear her, even though everyone else in the tent did.

“Lawrence -“

“I’ll go get her in a tick, alright?”

Aurora swallowed, watching Lawrence as she arranged her breads, putting them in the oven, and she had no choice but to do the same; time was running out for them all.

It wasn’t long before Tia led Ellie back into the tent, arms linked, as Tia dropped Ellie off at her bench and stopped for a second to talk to her. “It’s just a bake, alright? Sometimes bakes go wrong for whatever reason, and that’s okay! Remember, you can only get better from making mistakes, alright?”

And Ellie nodded, grabbing her dough to shape into the pitta breads. Tia gave her one last squeeze on her forearm before heading back to her own bench to carry on her pittas, which were starting to look a bit flat.

Hopefully that will be the kick Ellie needs to turn this bake out.

When it came to judging, she sat with Tayce, who nudged her in the ribs with an oddly saccharine smile. Ellie still looked subdued on her other side, so she took her hand, rubbing it with her thumb, but to no reaction.

“In seventh place, we have this one, whose is this?” Paul motioned to Ellie’s plate, and Ellie defeatedly raised her hand no higher than her chin.

“Ellie - far too much baking powder in these, it burns the tongue - and a little bit over-baked, we expect them to still be soft in the middle.” Paul nodded to her, but Ellie just blinked in response, pursing her lips.

“And in sixth place -“

“Oh, that’s me,” Tia replied, raising her hand.

“Tia, these are burnt. I know you tried to scrape them a little so it looks a little bit better, but they cracked when we tried to bend them.”

“Okay,” Tia nodded, the earnest smile still on her face. “Next time.”

Aurora still cringed to herself whenever Tia said next time in response to her disasters. When in the name of Dawn French would she ever have to make gluten-free pitta breads again?

Maybe she has a bestie who’s celiac that she really wants to make some bakes for. Like Blake is.

The realisation stung Aurora harder than she thought it would. After all, she’d been wondering if she could make these for Blake one time. She leaned forward and saw Tia, no tears, no self-pity, graciously smiling at Veronica as Veronica tried to comfort her.

She never makes excuses. She’s never sorry for herself. She just … tries again.

Maybe that was it. This competition was about self-improvement, wasn’t it? Aurora pictured how happy Blake would be if she told him when she got back that she’d made something gluten-free and that she could now bake more things the same way.

How much she’d grown as a baker only in these six weeks.

“Whose is this one?”

Tayce was nudging her, and Aurora saw that Paul was behind her photograph. She raised her hand.

“Aurora - really good bake, well done. It just came down to the colour on this one. Which means the winner is … this one!”

Second in Technical! That’s gonna help at this point.

She joined the polite applause given to Veronica for her top placement, Veronica’s mouth agape in apparent shock. But as they all trudged out to the tent for their interviews, she watched Veronica spin in elation, her balled fists in the air to celebrate her placement, as if she’d expected it all along.

How much of any of this is real?

——

“Are they annoyed at us?” Veronica murmured, watching Tia and Ellie on their own on the opposite side of the room. They’d both opted to sit alone together, chatting quietly at first, both pallid and shaky, but now they sat silently, staring at the ceiling fan as it turned.

“I don’t think so -“ Aurora began, but Lawrence was chewing her finger again, and Veronica’s jaw twisted as she watched them. “I mean - you got top and third in Technical, you’re doing good - and they’re happy for you -“

“They don’t look fucking happy,” Lawrence muttered.

“They are, honest to God,” Aurora said, trying to calm Lawrence’s evident nerves, “but like … it’s hard, isn’t it, seeing people do better than you at this stage in the competition? We’re all here to win, at the end of the day.”

“We are all here to win, but …” Veronica trailed off with a sigh. “Me and Tia … we’ve really bonded.”

“You’ll still be friends afterwards! Or - y’know, whatever you two are.”

“What’s that meant to mean?” Veronica snapped.

“It’s pretty obvious to anyone with eyes, Veronica,” Lawrence added, “I don’t think you can really try to downplay that one.”

“Oh, right?” Veronica’s face grew redder with every second. “What about you then, Lawrence, if we’re bringing that up? You’ve been trying to avoid Ellie since Tayce said she saw the two of you canoodling after Asttina’s elimination last week!”

Lawrence’s jaw dropped open, and she frowned. “Canoodling? Did you really just say canoodling in a sentence?”

“I’m gonna go outside if you two are going to just argue,” Aurora muttered, shaking her head, standing to walk away from them both.

Her feet led her outside into the warm evening glow, watching the first of the stars come out into the deepening blue of the sky. The trees around the grounds caught the last orange light, a ring of fire, still a hot pressure cooker of a contest.

Aurora knew where Tayce would be. Through the grounds by the trees was a lake they’d found only last week, that Bimini had told her about, having found it on their morning run. And sure enough, she found Tayce on the bench, leaning on one elbow and kicking dirt with her shoe.

In spite of the confusion in her mind, Tayce still drew her in like a magnet.

When Aurora came to the bench, she startled Tayce momentarily, before Tayce’s easy smile came back, and Aurora sat with her, pulling her close into a one-armed hug.

“Hey.” Tayce gently disentangled herself, still not sounding herself. “Coming to see me?”

“I can’t stand being around those lot any more,” Aurora huffed. “I don’t know what’s going on with any of them, but it feels like you can cut the air in the room with a butter knife, for God’s sake.”

“They’re just annoyed because one of them is getting eliminated tomorrow.”

Aurora blinked at her strangely sharp words. Tayce scuffed the dirt with her shoe, turning to meet Aurora’s stare and to give her a reassuring smile, but it didn’t stretch to her eyes, and she looked as if she almost didn’t seem to believe it herself.

“You got a bit emotional earlier as well, when you were talking about your quiches.”

Tayce shrugged. “Yeah, yeah I did a bit.” She turned back away to scuff her shoe again, a little rougher than before.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She shrugged. “Not much more to tell, really, just me and my Pops going to get veggies from the allotment. He had tomatoes in his greenhouse. And broccoli. He had loads of veggies.”

“Did he bake with you too?”

“Yeah. Actually, he liked making a quiche or two. Normally with ham, but he used to let me put the beads in the pastry tins to keep the crust from moving. Or he’d make a pie and let me do all the crimping on the edges.”

Tayce’s smile was fading as she spoke, leaning her head back to look at the sky.

“I miss him.”

Three words that hit Aurora right in the middle of her chest.

Her own eyes welling up, she rubbed Tayce’s back, until Tayce shuffled nearer and let herself drop her head to Aurora’s shoulder, let Aurora pull her in tightly, sitting silently to count the stars as they came out of their hibernation.

“It’s weird.”

“What’s weird?” Aurora asked.

“I dunno, just - it’s weird the things that remind you of people.”

“That doesn’t sound weird to me.”

“I mean …” Tayce began, but she stopped, twisting to get comfortable. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

Tayce was an elastic band, pulling away before snapping her back with a modicum of tenderness, and letting Aurora back in to see through some of the cracks in her armour. Just enough to keep Aurora hanging on, so it felt.

It was exhausting.

——

Showstopper: A dairy-free, vegetable-based novelty cake.

The Showstopper seemed straightforward enough. Everyone liked carrot cake, right? At least, Aurora enjoyed a slice of the orange stuff, although when she’d mentioned it to Ellie this morning she’d wrinkled her nose in an adorably disgusted manner.

“What’s yours going to be, then?” She’d asked.

“Beetroot.”

“Beetroot?”

“Yeah,” Ellie had nodded earnestly, “like, I know it sounds a bit weird, but trust me, when you mix it with chocolate it tastes like heaven.”

Aurora hadn’t pushed the matter any further, but a bigger part of her than she anticipated was hoping Ellie could pull it off. After all, she and Tia were practically tied for worst at the moment, and as much as Aurora was growing to like Tia, she and Ellie had bonded far more.

On Aurora’s left, she watched Tia chopping sweet potatoes that would form the basis of her own cake, ready to cook and then go into the mixture. Veronica, in front of her, was also making sweet potato cake, but Aurora wasn’t worried about Veronica.

When she and Tayce had spoken about who she thought would excel at this week, they’d both said Bimini above everyone, but Veronica had been the shock frontrunner, the dark horse, as she had been all this contest. Veronica tended to keep to herself, grinding her teeth and locking her jaw, a cool stare keeping everyone away.

How someone as uptight as Veronica had thawed to someone as lackadaisical as Tia was anyone’s guess.

“Yeah, I guess she’s a bit stiff,” Tia had shrugged when asked about Veronica, “and yeah, don’t mention anything about the two of us to her, she’s a bit nervous about it being public yet. But we actually have loads in common. She’s really arty. She painted one of the scenes I photographed and showed it to me this weekend, and that meant a lot.”

“She - she paints?”

Tia had shown them all Veronica’s instagram, where Veronica had painted breathtaking scenes and posted them there. Watercolours mostly, with the odd acrylic, some experimental but mostly true life, leaping from the screen and into their minds.

Veronica might not be quite making the same art as usual now, but her bakes definitely showed some artistic flair when she presented them. They always had to be just so. And her colour palettes were always a theme in the judges’ comments.

“Well,” she’d grinned nervously this morning at breakfast when asked, “I’m left-handed. So I’m a bit arty farty, yeah.”

Aurora stole glances around the room as always, seeing Bimini with Tia a lot more today, leaning over her workbench and giving her guidance. Ellie looked a little less nervous, but she and Lawrence still weren’t really communicating.

Maybe Lawrence really is trying to avoid her. Or maybe they’re avoiding each other.

But Ellie had changed the subject this morning when Aurora had tried to bring it up. Turning the conversation back to her and Tayce.

And that was complicated enough.

This morning was the second weekend in a row she’d found herself falling asleep with Tayce in her bed, and the second weekend in a row she’d woken up in the morning to find an empty space there again.

It was a strange, numbing place, and Aurora wasn’t even sure what they were at the moment. Sure, they’d agreed to put on a bit of a show for the cameras. And Aurora could deal with that, with the playful nicknames, the kisses, the touch that didn’t feel tender enough to be more than method acting.

But Tayce spending the night in her bed had been an odd addition. Aurora had held her hand as she’d drawn her back from the pond, and they’d both ended up back in her room again, Netflix on, curled up into one another under the duvet.

All it had taken last night was half an episode of Glow before their hands and arms had intertwined, drawing them nearer still, into slow breathing in tandem with each other. Tayce purring at Aurora’s fingers as she played with her hair, until her breathing had relaxed even more and Aurora had looked down to see Tayce asleep at her chest, too serene to disturb by shifting her.

Nothing about it felt like an act. In fact, it was practically the opposite - bare bones, honesty, sincerity.

A far cry from the motions in the tent.

“Hey, babe. How’s the carrots?”

Speak of the devil.

Before Aurora had the chance to look up, she felt Tayce’s fingers at her waist, her chin resting on her shoulder.

Tayce seemed to be feeling a little better this morning. Her relaxed smile was back, her eyes glinting with the same mischief, and Aurora’s stomach was turning somersaults at the contact.

“Carrots are good. Just grated far more than I’ll need, just in case. What are you making with yours?”

“I’m making carrot cake too!” Tayce chuckled in her ear, sending a shiver down Aurora’s neck. “What a coincidence. It’s almost like we’re really in tune with each other. I hope you haven’t read my mind on what my flavours will be as well?”

But as Aurora looked, two cameramen were following them over to Tayce’s bench, as Tayce’s hand hovered at her back. “Carrot and cream cheese replacement, and I’m gonna shape it into a cow’s head, because … you know, no dairy?” Tayce chuckled. “I’m a comedy genius!”

“So we’re a bit different then,” Aurora nodded, as Tayce rested her head at her shoulder. “I’m adding diced pecans to mine.”

“So different then,” Tayce interrupted her, smirking, a hideously fake giggle bubbling at her throat. “That’s good. We’re just doing carrots at the same time! Imagine if we’d had the same recipe and the same idea. That would be strange, wouldn’t it!”

She’s trying a bit too hard now.

Tayce’s fingers were looped round her waist, her head on her shoulder; but she didn’t seem to be listening, just talking at the cameras pointed at them both. Aurora disentangled herself from Tayce’s touch and smiling as widely as she could, backed away.

“You going back to your bake?”

“Yeah - lots to do, Tayce,” Aurora muttered through gritted teeth.

“Alright. Cwtch you later.” Tayce cocked an eyebrow as she smirked, but Aurora’s stomach twisted at how sinister her words seemed to sound on her tongue.

——

“Veronica, would you bring your cake up to the front please?”

Veronica was last this week - the judging had been in alphabetical order - but Aurora had also barely been concentrating. Tayce’s actions this afternoon had confused her yet again, and she’d tried to avoid speaking much to Tayce for the whole rest of the day, but that hadn’t gone as well as she’d hoped. Tayce had come over regularly, and cameras had followed them both around.

“It’s - it’s a sweet potato cake flavoured with almonds, and the icing is dairy-free buttercream with a vanilla flavour.”

Veronica was giggling nervously, while the rest of the people in the tent smiled at her. But Aurora’s mind span in a whirlwind of thoughts.

What if Tayce really is trying to distract me? To throw me off?

The thought struck her over the head, a sudden bolt of lightning that left her numb with the shocking gravity of it.

No. Tayce is trying to keep attention on us. She’s trying to help us.

… or at least help herself.

But Aurora hastily pushed that notion away. After all, everyone else in the tent was also fighting for that attention, whether they meant to or not.

Take Bimini, and their absurd dancing and rapping with Noel, what they insisted was called a crimp, whatever that meant. Was that genuine, or was that the result of them all being on the show? Maybe Bimini was a bit of an exhibitionist, but maybe they weren’t - maybe it was a front.

Was that really all that different to Tayce wanting to play up their relationship to the cameras?

How do I know that she feels anything for me at all?

“Beautiful. Beautiful flavours, you don’t get anything apart from a rich, sweet cake, and the design is ingenious. Really great week for you, Veronica.” Prue was smiling her sweet smile, and Veronica hunched shyly into her shoulders as she took the cake back.

The fog of dread was descending on them all as they walked back to Carr Hall. The bakes were always put on a table for them to try, before being given to the crew at the end of the day; but no one really felt like eating anything as they went in, the fog following them all.

“We don’t want anyone to go home at this stage,” Veronica said grimly.

They all knew what she really meant, Bimini more than anyone, as they nodded and stretched their legs out. “It’s shit. I feel like a jinx. Get too near to me, and you’re gone. Happened to Ginny, then Asttina.”

Aurora thought back to the judging for Bimini’s Showstopper, which hadn’t gone as well as any of them had thought.

“I thought this week was yours for the taking, Bim,” Aurora said quietly, cautious. “It’s all vegan stuff, and alternative ingredients. No one would have thought you’d be getting those sorts of critiques.”

Everyone murmured in agreement. The judges has been kind as always, but it was clear that Bimini had landed themselves in trouble at the expense of helping out everyone else in the tent, helping them all with their recipes.

“Well, I did.”

They all turned to stare at Bimini’s dark words.

“Bim?”

“It’s my own fault. Well, not even really a fault. But somewhere between Asttina going home and me coming back here this weekend, I decided it’s probably not important.”

“What isn’t?”

“A cake stand.” Bimini laughed bitterly. “That’s what it is! A cake stand. And I can get one of those from M&S. I could get Joe to come with me. No, I knew this was gonna be an okay week for me, so …” they shrugged, “I wanted to help you all out too. So it looks like I didn’t really … try.”

But Bimini was smiling still.

“I mean, it’s not all bad, is it? You can now all bake vegan quiches. You can make stuff for your intolerant mates, or your vegan mates, when you get back. That’s more important to me than winning this week - getting you all to be able to make more stuff vegan for your friends. Anything you can bake, I can bake vegan, and I feel like spreading awareness is gonna be better in the long run than me winning a badge!” They waved a fist in the air.

“Don’t you … want to win?” Aurora asked.

Bimini paused for half a second too long before nodding.

“I do want to win, course I do - but this show is a platform as well, know what I mean?”

——

When the producer came in to call them back to the tent for the elimination, Aurora watched as Ellie jogged to Tia to hug her around the waist, both of them holding back to let the others go, Tia wiping tears from her cheeks as they stood there.

As Aurora left them to it, she walked into Lawrence, at the doorway, watching the entrance intently.

“Lozza?” Tayce called to her from the grounds, but Lawrence waved them on.

“I’m coming - see you inside.”

Lawrence and Ellie were last in the tent, the rest of them on their stools while they waited, no one quite sure what they were doing outside. But when Aurora finally watched Lawrence come in with Ellie, both of them had red eyes and Lawrence’s eyeliner was running as they sat down.

Veronica put a hand to her mouth at being called for Star Baker. Aurora clapped her politely, while Tia smiled widely and rested her head on her shoulder, pulling her into a one-armed hug.

But Tia was biting her lip, waiting for the call for the next person to leave the tent. They all knew it was between her and Ellie, and Aurora could hear Lawrence whispering to Ellie, who was staring straight ahead as usual, but she couldn’t make any words out …

“Tia. I’m so sorry, Tia.”

Veronica’s hand, lingering at her mouth, shook as she gasped.

But Tia, her face deadpan as ever, tilted her head. “Are you sure? Positive? I mean, I don’t have any other plans, so …”

Aurora managed a laugh at Tia’s attempt at humour at the situation, but she appeared to be the only one. Bimini’s eyes were downcast as they got up to hug Tia, and Tayce was rubbing Veronica’s back to comfort her. Lawrence had her arms linked around Ellie’s waist while Ellie dabbed her eyes.

“Come on, Els - it’s fine, I knew it would be me -“ Tia wrapped an arm around them both, unable to disentangle Lawrence from her, drifting over to Aurora next, and then Tayce.

Veronica, both hands in hers, stared up at her with eyes pooling with tears, as Tia bent to whisper something in her ear, causing Veronica to snort with laughter and double over, before tugging Tia towards her, wrapping her arms around her waist, Tia dropping kisses on her forehead before they both left the tent for their winning and exit interviews.

“What did Tia say to you?” Aurora asked Veronica later on, when Veronica came back to Carr Hall, her face red and eyes bloodshot.

“Oh,” Veronica snorted again. “It’s nothing, just silly stuff -“

“It must have been good, if it made you perk up?”

“Alright,” Veronica said, sniffing. “She said - she said If I had a badge, I’d be leaving it to you in my will. That was it. I don’t even know why I found it funny, but it was at the time.”

Tayce threw back her head in a laugh. “Only way you’re getting another badge, Vee!”

Veronica blinked before smiling, more like a grimace; but Aurora’s blood had frozen at Tayce’s comment. The languid smile on her face, the flash in her eyes, just made Aurora question Tayce’s intentions even more than she already was.

Tayce had changed.

The woman who had helped her cut and load her brownies only two weeks ago, now tossing verbal barbs at any opportunity. Yesterday about Tia and Ellie. And now to Veronica. And as much as she was madly attracted to Tayce, there was no denying that doubt crept around the edge of Aurora’s mind at this new development, unsure what Tayce was truly thinking.

What would she be saying about me if I’d gone?

——

SIX BAKERS REMAIN

[the-deserts-rose]

The life hacks of interstellar.

Need inspiration for setting and reaching your resolutions? Look to the stars, or the movie screen and follow the wise advice of Interstellar through quotes from its main characters.

“Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” —Dylan Thomas, as quoted by Professor Brand.

Carry these words as your mantra when setting short-term goals. Go ahead and RAGE to complete a daily goal. Let the dying of the light be sunset and begin each day anew ready to burn through daylight toward completion of the tasks at hand.

“I have an itch, heading back to base.”—Cooper.

Intuition is your inner-speak! Listen to it. How many times have you castigated yourself for not paying attention to a gut feeling? Be brave by following your instincts. If your actions are causing doubt, then STOP to re-evaluate. Scratch that itch because apparently, your choices are off the mark. Don’t worry about being dubbed indecisive; it’s okay to double check the direction of your goals to get back on the correct path.

“It’s not possible.”—Case

“No, it’s necessary.” —Cooper.

Own your choices as a necessary means to accomplish a goal. How you approach a problem is how you will find a solution. The key to finding an answer is to never doubt its existence. KNOW that it is within yourself to recognize it and your expectations will be met for completion.

“So how do you plan on saving the world?”—Cooper

“We’re not meant to save the world, we’re meant to leave it.”—Brand.

Time to throw out losing causes. One of the reasons your past goals may have never been met is because they weren’t meant to be completed! TAKE stock of what makes you happy and fulfilled rather than trying to fulfill someone else’s ideals. Be brave enough to take care of yourself and that empowerment will translate into achievement.

“Murphy’s Law doesn’t meant that something bad will happen. It means that whatever can happen, will happen.”—Cooper

Learn to ride the roller coaster of unexpected moments. Setbacks happen, and because we allow our perfectionism to rear its ugly head, those moments can derail our progress. Instead, allow your thoughts to move toward readjustment and new pathways. A positive end result can come in spite of detours. USE these growth moments to strengthen your resolve.

“We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.”—Cooper

Remember to DREAM big. Stretching the boundaries of what you think you can achieve may just give you the perspective necessary for success. If you’ve thrown out losing causes as recommended earlier, it’s time to replace them with better goals and possibly bigger goals. Rather than the promise of walking 10 miles per week, think of it as training for a half marathon and eventually, build toward something more. Why not you?

“Maybe we’ve spent too long trying to figure this out with theory.”—Brand.

Preparation is necessary for success but don’t SPEND all your time planning and not executing. One of the reasons magazines highlight dieting on their monthly covers is because they know their readers are procrastinators. Rather than hoping for the “perfect” method, start trying something!! Action breeds action and eventually, action breeds success.

“We’re still pioneers, we’ve barely begun. Our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, cause our destiny lies above us.”—Cooper.

Why stop with your first success? Let one achievement roll into another. The lessons you learn from failure and success can be the motivation you need to attack the next resolution on your list. BE proactive and try not to settle for half a goal reached or half a list completed. Follow the destiny you mapped out for yourself.

“I’m not going to make it.”—Brand.

“Yes, you are. Yes, you are.”—Cooper.

Enlist support. No person is an island…happily. To make your journey easier, turn to your friends and family when the task seems insurmountable. If you’ve surrounded yourself with good people, they’ll remind you of your goals. If saboteurs call themselves your friends and urge you to stray from your path, add another resolution to the list: Stay away.

[piffyocs]

Legs v: Dimensional Refugees info masterpost.

Ace’s reference post in advance of her pony reboot has reminded me that I haven’t done an info reference for Legs in v: Dimensional Refugees, her crossover verse into a normal MLP setting. I know it’s kind of weird to describe an MLP fan character’s verse as being a crossover with MLP, but the AU setting she’s from is so radically different from the main series that I can take her out of the AU, but I can’t take the AU out of her.

The Tartarus AU is a fusion crossover most quickly described as “A deconstruction-reconstruction rewrite of the Avernum series of shareware RPGs by Spiderweb Software, but with ponies and it goes off the rails.” 

Please be advised that, given the general tone and content of the Avernum side of the source material, the Tartarus AU is inextricable from some heavy themes that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic would not address with a hundred-foot pole (genocide is the big one). Please also be advised that, although Legs is a Party creature and naturally inclined toward cheerful chaos and More Cartoony Physics Than Baseline, she also has some pretty serious PTSD (multiple wars, multiple assassination attempts, deaths of friends and loved ones due to war and assassins, has been forced to flee her home to protect her children) and is still grieving for her most recent losses.

If any of that is Nope Town for you, I strongly suggest that you skip past this post. Because of that, and because it’s 16 bullet points long, I’m putting it under a cut.

Tartarus was originally a subterranean penal colony. Before that, it was intended to be a mass grave where Empress Daybreaker, tyrant of the entire surface of the world, could dispose of subjects who co mmitted “soft” crimes where direct execution would upset the public. Examples of soft crimes include but are not limited to: Criticising the Empire (just “the Empire”; there are no other surface nations left to disambiguate from) or the Empress in any way, publicly doubting the divinity of alicorns, unintentionally rendering goods or services to a rebel, being on the losing side of a political power struggle, and not fitting in. A sentence could also be lowered to “exile” in Tartarus if that would cause less fuss. Deaths out of sight are deaths out of mind

Tartarus is now a self-governing kingdom under King Star Russet. Most Tartarite ponies are either willing immigrants from the Empire or the grandchildren of the exiles who survived out of resourcefulness and spite.

Legs, along with Tempest Shadow and Moss Rose, assassinated Empress Daybreaker with the assistance of the exiled Nightmare Moon. Her successor, Empress Cadance, was under mind control by Princess Midnight Sparkle for over five years, during which Midnight prepared her army and waged a revenge war against Tartarus. Since being freed by Midnight’s death, Empress Cadance has been gradually but surely making the Empire less of a fascist dystopia. She’s playing a long game, and it’s a precarious balancing act between fixing things and avoiding assassination from holdouts who believed in or benefitted from Daybreaker’s policies.

Queen Legs Dragonfriend has derailed the course of Avernum canon, and the Kingdom of Tartarus is part of the Hypogeal Federation, rather than the only nation left at their cave level after killing off or assimilating most other sapients. (Avernum’s narrative roots in oldschool D&D give it a very... problematic take on goblins, ogres, giants, and sapient “monsters” like drakes. Tartarus is, in this regard, a fixfic.)

The Hypogeal Federation is an alliance of many smaller nations and groups. It was founded with the goal of peaceful coexistence, cooperation, and safe passage that benefits all member states. Many nonponies have emigrated to Tartarus and vice versa.

Due to rising populations, crowding has become an issue, and creatures of all kinds are progressively being forced to expand into increasingly hard-to-access cave systems. A devastating canon mushroom blight has been averted, but a militant hate group calling themselves “the Defenders of Tartarus” has developed. The “Defenders” believe that they would have land and wealth, if only Tartarus had continued the Extermination of Nonponies that the Daybreaker had started. The Kingdom of Tartarus is currently in a state of civil war.

As an unaging changeling queen, over a hive with a very high proportion of well-trained diplomats, Legs and her brood have spent the last sixty or seventy years being the face of interspecies peace talks.

They’re called the Dragonfriend Hive because Legs founded her hive in Denton, a small town that formed in front of the lair of Motrax, an aged and uncommonly social dragon who has been one of Legs’s closest friends since the early days of her adventuring career.

A concerningly well-prepared “Defender” militia attacked Denton in an attempt to kill both Legs and Motrax. They succeeded in killing Motrax, and without a dragon, Tartarus cannot spare the forces to protect such a small and out-of-the-way settlement. Denton becomes a ghost town almost overnight, abandoned by evacuating survivors. The Dragonfriends’ founding hive sits empty.

In v: Dimensional Refugees, Legs and her hive have escaped through a well-hidden world mirror to a recognizable version of MLPworld. They’ve taken on the hive name Palecave because MLPworld’s dragons are Very Different than pony!Avernumworld’s and Legs’s brood shares her pastels-on-white hypopigmentation and heightened vulnerability to sunburn.

The Palecaves’ official cover story is almost entirely the truth, just downplaying the scale of the caves and without the world-hopping: Legs is a long-estranged daughter of Chrysalis who originally founded her own subterranean hive in lands far away enough that an Equestria that canon-compliantly knew almost nothing about many of their geographically-close neighbors would have a very hard time disproving. They’re fleeing species-motivated violence and would rather not go into detail.

Tartarusverse has many different changeling queens with no or distant relation to Chrysalis, and, by default, I assume the same is true in MLPverse, but they’re far away and Chrysalis is a pariah on account of being a chronic backstabber. Legs makes it known that Chrysalis is her mother anyway, because she very much wants to head off any squicky awkwardness with Thorax or Pharynx (who have Tartarusverse alternates) by making it clear they have the same mother. (In Tartarusverse, changelings’ genders are purely social and they can change biological sex at will, and the biggest shortcut in changeling-changeling diplomacy between unrelated queens is to genetically invest in each other’s brood. Emphasis on unrelated. Tartarusverse reproductive-caste changelings can only conceive with each other to begin with, so it’s the diplomacy that’s a pragmatic addition to what they were already doing, not the other way around.)

Because Tartarusverse changelings have a eusocial insect family structure (i.e. the queen is usually everyone’s mom, and "everyone” is usually in the hundreds or thousands), they socially distinguish between clutchmates (hatched from the same clutch of eggs and were raised at the same time) and broodmates (have the same mother). Technically the closest human/pony terms would be “sibling” for broodmate and something like “quatrodectuplets” for clutchmates, (And that would accurately reflect the squick levels being dodged in the above point!). In practice, mammals look at you weird when you say “quatrodectuplets”, so changelings usually use sibling terms for clutchmates and say something descriptive (e.g. “We’re of the same brood” or “we have the same mother”) for broodmates. Thorax and Pharynx are clutchmates with each other, and broodmates with Legs. Due to timeline incompatibilities, Legs is from a younger clutch than Thorax and Pharynx in Tartarusverse, but an older one in MLPverse (in continuities where she had an MLPverse alternate to begin with).

In continuities where Legs had an MLPverse alternate at tall, Chrysalis killed her alternate, and Tartarusverse!Legs in for a nasty surprise when or if Chrysalis recognizes her. (If you’re playing a Chrysalis, this is definitely something I’d want to discuss in DMs beforehand. We don’t need to work this piece of backstory in if you don’t want to, but if you do want us to go with this, then I’d like for us to hammer out some details for how it went with your specific Chrysalis.)

My interpretation of changelings (and thus the Tartariteverse changelings) are, well, my interpretation. If you’re playing a changeling or if your interpretation of changelings would otherwise come up, I’m 100% down for a “different worlds have different rules” handwave.

Legs is poly, and Tartarusverse!Tempest Shadow is her main partner. That relationship takes priority.