Welcome to Gaia! ::

Cass was up to her elbows in flour as she rushed around the kitchen, looking for the ingredient she had forgotten to line up with the rest. She would have SWORN it was right there a minute ago, and now she couldn't find it at all! She cursed mentally and shoved a hapless kitchen helper out of the way as she went to check one of the other counters for what she needed, leaving floury handprints on their back. The little jar she had been looking so hard for sat innocently on the counter, its lid beside it, and Cass beamed in triumph as she grabbed it up and looked inside of it as she walked back towards her workspace. She stopped halfway there though, as she looked inside the little jar, only to see that it was completely empty.
"Augh!" she cried in annoyance, earning her many worried looks from her fellow cooks, but she hardly even noticed. Cass' hot temper was well known in the kitchens and so people quickly moved out of her way as she dashed from the kitchen and down to the storage chambers. She had to add that sweet spice soon or the dough would become absolute mush and she have to start all over again...

Ten minutes later, she rushed back in, little jar refilled, and scattering kitchen staff right and left as they jumped out of her way. She reached her station on the baking part of the kitchen, slamming the jar down as she did. She grabbed a pinch of its contents to add to the dough, but stopped as she realized that it was all too late.
"No! Argh! Sharding...Guh!!!" The petite girl grabbed up the dough and threw it into the trash bin with surprising force that sent it rocking. The little blonde girl fumed a minute or so longer before she took a deep breath and started back to work, restarting the whole process, making damn sure she had all her ingredients at hand this time, and that someone didn't come by and take them again. If she ever found out who did that she'd break their sharding fingers!

Cass certainly did hear the muted laughter from the corner, narrowing her eyes as she kneaded the fresh dough. She'd show them to laugh at her...right after she'd put this bread in the oven. The girl was quite kind in her nature, most of the time, but she detested being laughed at. Her new recipe had just been ruined because some careless clutch had run off with, and then used up, one of her ingredients, so she was hardly in a mood to be her normal chipper self.
It wasn't long before the dough had been cut into sections and carefully placed on a baking tray before being set to bake. Cass quickly went about the ritual of cleaning up her space while she waited. It would be at least an hour before the bread was done. She carefully wiped all the excess flour from her space and into a bowl with a damp towel. The dough was such that she'd had to use quite a lot to keep it from sticking to the counter. As her bin was full since she'd tossed the old dough in it, she made her way across the kitchen and towards the bin on the other side so she could dump out the contents of her bowl. Her path, coincidentally took her past the candidates or whatever they were peeling potatoes. 'Coincidentally' she just happened to trip over a potato...the contents of her bowl flew into the air...and promptly covered the two potato peelers in flour and scraps of sticky dough.

Cass felt a sense of release as she watched it happen, like she had let out her pent up frustration all at once. It was quite a nice sensation. It wasn't really them she was upset at...more like she was redirecting her pent up anger at a more readily identifiable target. The people that had laughed at her.

"Kyaa! I am so sorry!" she cried as she 'regained' her balance and looked at the mess she had made of the two of them. She was quite a convincing actress. No one in the kitchen could claim it looked intentional at all...never mind that it had been.

Cass actually jumped back in surprise, dark eyes wide. Sure, she'd known the pair would probably be upset, who wouldn't after getting covered in flour? But when the other girl launched herself at Cass, the blond found herself caught completely off guard. Thank Faranth that boy seemed to be pretty quick on his feet or Cass's cute little face might have been marred by a bruise, or worse, a broken nose. Realizing that the man had a good grip on the rather terrifying girl, if you could call her a girl (what was with that hair cut? And those clothes? blech), she gathered her wits again and put her hands on her hips and faced down the pair of weyrlings.
"I did apologize! A little flour is nothing to get violent over." She grumbled, pouting slightly, brow furrowed. She sniffed and spun on heel, snatching up a couple of towels and dampening them a bit before returning to the pair "Here, clean up with these." She said, offering them to the boy, keeping a wary dark eye on Yulu as she did so. The dragonrider had a few inches on Cass, and not to mention body mass, so she was wary, ready to duck and run if need be when L'pin released her.

Cass watched with a form of fascination as the dragon rider managed to juggle both the girl, and the towels without dropping anything. She had to clamp down hard on herself to not burst out laughing at the way Yulu's face turned a rather astonishing shade of red when the man started scrubbing down her face with a wet towel (an action which further surprised Cass. quite the strong man wasn't he?) As it was though, Cass bit her lips between her teeth to keep from laughing, lowering her eyes to hide her mirth. Normally she would not have gone through such precautions, but with someone as obviously prone to violence as Yulu was, the petite girl decided she could sacrifice this one time to avoid getting a black eye, or worse.
When L'pin finally let Yulu down, Cass kept a watch on her out of the corner of her eye just in case she changed her mind about 'not doing anything', but the majority of her attention went to L'pin. The small blond smiled brightly up at him as she took the proffered rag from him "Oh its fine. I managed to get them in the oven eventually." she said with a dismissive wave of the still damp towel. "I'm sorry you got flour dumped all over you...I know, do you like sweets? We have a few pastries that just came out of the oven if you would like one? It hardly makes up for the mess, but..." she gave a helpless shrug with a 'what-can-you-do' sort of smile while she pointedly ignored the ugly glare the other girl was still giving her as she cleaned up.

"Well, if its been awhile since you've had something sweet, than you must try one of these, they're quite good, and made with fruit." She told him cheerfully with confidence. Of course they were good, she had made them herself after all!
"And I'm sure I can manage to find something even your friend would like." She told him, raising an eyebrow at Yulu as she took the towel from her and went to the opposite side of the kitchen, depositing the dirty cloths in a bin for just such objects on her way.
She reached the far counters where they put freshly baked items to cool, sniffing appreciatively at the savory scents that emanated from them. She looked over the selection thoughtfully, grabbing up one of the sweet pastries she had made earlier that day. The dough was wonderfully flaky with a fruit filling, not overly sweetened, rather, it took advantage of the fruit's natural sweetness. She looked further and spotted some fresh rolls, seasoned to give them a nice herb-y flavor that surely someone who didn't like sweets would appreciate.
She grabbed up her other choice and went back to L'pin and Yulu, smiling. "Here, try these. Tell me what you think." She said, offering L'pin the sweet, and Yulu the bread. She had grabbed a second sweet for herself, and took and eager bite, relishing the cool, fruity filling, smiling to herself from around the pastry.
"So what brings the both of you here?" She asked conversationally "I'm sure we were only scheduled to have one person peeling potatoes tonight." Cass pointed out, wondering what their relationship? She was pretty sure now that the girl was a candidate, and the man was obviously a dragonrider. Lovers? Probably not, they didn't act like it, and they looked far to similar. Siblings? Cousins?

In fact, Cass did hear yulus comment, but discarded it. Even if the two weren't friends, they must at least be friendly. After all, the girl hadn't punched L'pin in the face when he'd grabbed her to keep her from attacking Cass. So there must be some sort of bond between the two. Besides, who couldn't be friendly with L'pin? He seemed very nice. Understanding to say the least. He'd hardly blinked when she'd dumped flour on him, which was something she felt mildly guilty for, since it was obviously Yulu who had been doing the laughing. Ah well, she'd apologized, so that was that!

"I did bake it!" Cass said with a proud smile "I'm glad you like it."
Looking from the friendly L'pin to the irate looking Yulu, the blond rather wondered at his choice. Was someone like Yulu really better than no one at all? She certainly wasn't entirely convinced of that, but she figured that was the weyrling's prerogative if he wanted to keep company with such angry women.
"Ah...I see." Was all Cass managed. "Well, I should probably leave you to your work anyways, we'll need those potatoes for dinner tonight." she said with a cheeky grin.

Cass smiled at the compliment, pleased to be the center of attention, though she knew better than to let it go to her head. Especially with a dragon rider. "I suppose I can help you out for a bit." She said, pulling over a stool and perching neatly upon it. "The bread needs to bake a little while longer yet."
She reached one of her dainty hands into her skirt pocket and pulled out a small, but very sharp flip knife. Taking one of the potatoes in hand she deftly peeled it, one long continuous strand of skin coming off and landing in the refuse bucket at her feet.
The blond laughed at L'pin's comment, though, a merry sound at such a ridiculous idea "L'pin, you can hardly treat every woman you come across like that. We aren't all future gold riders, after all. If you treated us like we were, well, no work would ever get done and everyone would be mincing about like a bunch of startled wherries, afraid of giving offense." She smiled at him, though, showing that her comment was all in good fun. "Though if you want to treat me that way, I certainly won't object." She said with a cheeky smile as she skinned another potato and set it to the side.
"Really, though, Yulu has as much a chance of impressing as I do." she pointed out as she grabbed up another potato, curious as to what the other girl was doing, noting her lean over and readjust something or other. She didn't say anything though.

Cass blinked slightly at this idea. The women treated with distaste? True, the menfolk tended to get the longer end of the stick when it came to most things, but Cass hardly paid any mind. That's how it had always been, how she had been raised. "Its different where you come from?" she asked with an honest curiosity, still deftly peeling potatoes, but interested in what he had to say. She had never been out of the Weyr before, and being a mere weyrbrat and kitchen worker she rarely even got to see the visitors they got, let alone the chance to talk to them.
The blond girl almost laughed, then, but managed not to. She had to agree though, she could hardly see someone like Yulu doting on a dragonet, face overcome with an expression of love...yeah...somehow Cass' normally verdant imagination couldn't quite manage to conjure that image. Before she could say anything though, Yulu had produced her little gold flit, and Cass felt a wave of envy wash over her, though she did her best to hide it. Kitchen workers were extremely low on the list of people to get firelizards, so neither Cass nor her birth mother had one, much to her disappointment. they were such pretty, useful little things...
The blond shook herself mentally, sniffing slightly and re situating herself on the stool. Soon, if she was lucky, she'd have a dragon, and some measly little firelizard couldn't compare to that!
"We don't allow firelizards in the kitchen, you know, unless they're delivering a message." She said with a little frown, not looking at Yulu, focusing more on the potato in her little hands.