MCYT RANDOMNESS 2

A piece of cake

Hermit a day May said I could. Promise.

PoV: Cub

Baking the perfect cake is a science.

And it's one I've spent an awful lot of time studying.

I've read hundreds of books on baking and food science, memorised what every single ingredient does, tested every single quantity of every different kind of flour, sugar, dairy, fat, raising agent, flavouring. Hours spent testing, comparing, sampling. Of course, it was the secret ingredient that caused the most chaos, and Scar's now officially banned from talking about the time he found me in the middle of the S6 shopping district, high on vex magic.

But it was all worth it. After hundreds of cakes, and hundreds of recipes, and hundreds of hours, I found what almost every hermit has unanimously decided is 'the perfect cake'. I put the issue to rest. The hermits were happy, Scar particularly was happy, so I decided to be happy.

From then, it didn't take long to gain a reputation as the guy who makes perfect cakes. A reputation I refuse to take alone, as the only reason they're any good is the stunning work Scar does in designing and frosting them. For every event, party, situation, we're the first people any Hermit calls.

And, so, 5 years later, it's only natural that Impulse called us for Skizz's surprise 1-year-of-Hermitcraft party.

I stand by the furnace, counting down the final seconds, oven gloves over my hands, poised to grab the final layer of our five-storey cake of Skizz's pyramid at the exact right moment. The rest are in varying levels of cooling and frosted on the table behind, Scar's busy on layer two.

The timer beeps. With well-practiced skill, I open the furnace, grab the cake, and place it on the surface behind, simultaneously slamming shut the furnace door with one foot. A quick check with a metal rod proves it's cooked. I switch off the oven, smiling.

'It is taking everything in me to just sit here and frost these instead of eating the entire thing right now...' Scar calls, deep in concentration, from across the room. I chuckle back.

'Cheers. You're doing an incredible job, man.'

Scar glances up at me with, also well practiced, sad puppy eyes. 'Do you have more cake scraps for me? As payment?'

'Coming right up!' I say, grabbing layer 3 to start trimming down, right as the timer for cooking finishes. I slip it from the tin, measure exactly the height it should and cut slowly and carefully across the whole layer.

'Thanks, Cub! You're the best! Layer two is very nearly done... I've just got a few more bricks to go...'

'You love to hear it!' I stick a crumb-covered finger in my mouth, taste-testing.

And freeze.

A sour taste fills my mouth, a blandness, a dry wodge where the texture should be light and fluffy. I can't swallow. I just stand there, dangerously close to crying, running through the recipe, running through everything I did, every step, every quantity I carefully sized down for each cake. How did I get too little sugar? This much too little sugar? So much that it's not just imperfect, it's almost inedible.

'Cub?' Scar says behind, noticing my silence. 'What's wrong?'

I sprint across the room, snatching the recipes from the side, the one I checked, and double checked, and triple checked, scouring until I see.

Fuck.

I put the quantities of sugar on the way round. On cakes three and four. There's not enough sugar.

Which means cake four is fucked up too.

And if we're missing two of the cake layers, then the whole cake is ruined.