Baked Goodies Gone Baddies

TheCuriousSeed

I, Heather Rosesong, am relieved to say that Kyra has returned to bake, but not so relieved to tell you how things turned out while she recovered. Okay, I mentioned that we made some Pixie Dust-infused sweets that were super delectable to all that tried them, but a fortnight later when we finally good and sold out, we ran into some problems.

The first problem we had was with the regular-looking sweets. Heidi refused to eat any of those sweets and our Animal Friends could sense something off before we could, although we never tasted the treats ourselves either. We let everyone try them first that wasn't a Baker or a Culinary Talent of any sort... well, almost everyone; Heidi had Josiespring taste the sweets first and if Josiespring tasted something unsafe, she made sure neither the Queen nor those working directly for her or on her staff got said treats, making certain a skilled Baker prepared the exact same treats in a much safer way. Daylily wasn't letting even the apex predators have the magical treats either because to her they smelt like hundred-year-old broccoli, a pie tin that refused to cook anything but a sloppy stroganoff pie filled with slices of moldy mango and three-century watercress left in a pile of long-unwashed socks, a smell that was even worse than mincemeat. Instead, she let the predators gather their own food while the herbivores ate the food grown by the Gardeners of all persuasions. Oh, and any other Scouts we knew that tasted the treats complained of the aftertaste too, but most found the treats tasty. Only the Animal Scouts found them horrid through and through.

The next problem was with the end results, which affected all that consumed more than one treat (the Scouts decided one apiece was enough for them). Everyone was having trouble with their talents, especially the Dust Keepers. Dust Keepers can't sneeze, but everyone else kept sneezing after opening their daily dust rations, so Bakers, no matter what they fixed, were only able to bake wheat grass pies, Musicians that weren't able to repair instruments were only able to play dirges in the key of E minor, Sewing Talents could only make brown clothes that looked like tree bark jumpsuits and Tea Talents without additional abilities could only brew black tea, which has a little too much caffeine for us. Even the animals that were fed the treats alongside the flowers behind the Scouts' backs were acting really weird. Everything was topsy-turvier than Wonderland!

The third problem was with our flight. We were all flying weirdly because now even the Pixie Dust proved inefficient! We were only given 1/8 rations because any more proved unsafe, but at least we finally had a saving grace. Kyra, Jessie, Xenops, Gardenia, Onyx and I had taken it upon ourselves to bake our goodies the right way: the traditional Neverfairy way. Daylily and Heidi even had to make sure the sweets were measured correctly and no shortcuts were taken, which after that huge fiasco, never again with out baking! Not only that, but once we fed everyone a sweet baked the traditional way, the issues with the shortcut sweets were righted. Now we were slowly back to normal.

Lesson learnt: sweets require a little extra love to taste good. We were now good to go when it came to baking and learnt so much, including that not everyone should. I leave now on this note of warm cookies on my tray.