Legends of Mirandis Academy

Chapter 57: Un Rendez-vous Romantique

Luna had been watching Iridia hound recipe sites for—she checked the clock—nearly two hours. There was never a time Luna was allowed to forget her friends were rich, especially when looking at a perfectly preserved antique grandfather clock in the far corner, right beside a hutch full of ornate porcelain china. This was a kitchen, and it was as stylishly decorated as if the whole population of Far'Runa would be passing through it to judge.

"Have you found—"

"No." Iridia grumbled. "Half of them aren't good enough, and the other half are too complicated. There's no way I could make them."

"How hard is it to cook something French? Bake her a loaf of fucking bread."

"Sure, because that would be so romantic to have a singular baguette for dinner and I'm totally capable of making bread from scratch."

"Why does it have to be from scratch?"

"Because I want it to be!" Iridia dropped her head on the keyboard of her laptop. Luna watched as the recipe site's search bar rapidly filled with h's. "She plans all these dates and they're always so nice and I wanna make something that shows I put a lot of effort into it."

The doorbell rang, and Iridia's youngest sister shouted from the top of the stairs the moment the first chime went off. "I GOT IT!"

"We are right here, we can—" But the little girl had already bolted down the stairs—hopping past the bottom two—and grabbed a little stool by the coat rack to peek through the peephole. She gasped dramatically, tossed the stool aside, and threw open the door.

"Hi!" Irena squealed. "Come in!"

"Irena!" Iridia scolded and stood in the archway between the kitchen and living room. "You don't just let people in without telling me who they are!"

"Oh, uh, it's just me." Duran said quietly as he stepped inside. "And Nibbles."

"Duran!" Luna cheered, throwing her arms up and nearly herself out of her stool. "Come in, we need your help."

"Luna—" Iridia turned back to her with the same older-sister-scolding look. Luna pulled back, minorly discomforted, and Iridia shook herself out of it, evidently not realizing she hadn't dropped the expression. "Sorry."

"Can I come help too?" The annoyed look on Iridia's face returned as she turned to little Irena, who had crept up and been standing a few feet behind her.

"No, you're hardly allowed to use the microwave on your own."

"I forgot water one time!"

"It doesn't matter, fire is fire!"

"You would know!"

It was adorable, their sibling bickering, but in the end, Irena was finally sedated by the deal of sitting at the dining table but getting to play with Nibbles as a bargain to stay out of the way. Nibbles didn't seem to mind, in fact, he seemed to really like her. He especially liked her when Iridia pulled a little bauble out from a side pocket of her school bag and plopped it in front of Irena for them both to play with.

"What are you trying to do?" Duran was towering over the two girls, more Luna than anything, leaving her blanketed by his soft shadow.

"I want to make Brielle a nice dinner. Like, a really nice one. She's planned all our dates—I mean, literally every single one—and I want to pay it back somehow. Just like everything else French, she loves the food, and so I'm planning on making some nice, classic French food for a night in when—" she projected, "the little gremlins will be out of the house!"