Quote:
While out and about, you manage to obtain a cute cooking pot designed to look like a witch's cauldron. It's a little eccentric but wanting to get in the spirit of things, you or a loved one obtain it and food is prepared in it, be it for a personal or social gathering.

Only... anything made in this pot tastes startling of candy corn. Regardless of whether you finish your homemade treat, you find that no matter what you eat or drink, everything for the next twenty-four hours tastes exactly like candy corn. The strange thing is, this only seems to happen once. After you've given it a good scrub, it doesn't seem to have the same effect ever again.


It looked like an ordinary cauldron, not that Etoile really knew what ‘ordinary’ was supposed to look like in this case.

For Halloween, Alise had decided she was going to go as a witch again this year, a bunny witch like last year, only fancier. She’d enlisted the help of a classmate, Kalani, whose mom was apparently good at sewing (and had made Kalani’s Halloween costume last year), to help with the costume, and for the most part, it was finished and ready for wearing. While out shopping for treats for Etoile, though, Alise had come across a cooking pot that resembled a cauldron, and had immediately made the decision to buy it. It was the perfect accessory, the teen had declared to her feline companion later that day, even if she had no idea what she’d really do with it.

(And Etoile wasn’t super certain how Alise planned on carting the thing around all night.)

After some debating a few google searches, there had the idea in mind to maybe try some Halloween recipes she had found online, the non-alcoholic kind, anyway. There were some recipes for ‘potions’ that one could make, usually involving simple stuff like ice cream and soda, so Alise had told Etoile she was pretty certain that they could sneak away the ingredients from the kitchen and do some experimenting without her mom noticing… maybe. The plan was to make a test batch, and to do some taste testing, before making a larger quantity to give out to friends.

Etoile, of course, had the honor of being the official taste tester, something she was very proud of. Trying new foods was something the little cat loved a lot, especially when there were sweets involved. She usually got the honor of eating leftover Halloween candy as well, as well as any candy that Alise’s mom hadn’t handed out to trick-or-treaters. Ultimately, holidays involving candy were Etoile’s favorite times of the year.

Taste-testing the ‘potion’ Alise had made, though, Etoile realized there was something funny about the taste- it was like candy corn… but Alise hadn’t used any candy corn or candy corn-flavored ingredients. Although Alise had frowned and declared that ‘dark magic must be at hand’, Etoile didn’t really mind. It was okay, she liked candy corn! But Alise had informed Etoile that it was ‘back to the drawing board’, and had set aside the pot for now.

For the rest of the day, the strangest thing happened to Etoile. No matter what type of sweets she consumed, from the chocolate pumpkins to the caramel candies, it all tasted the same, of candy corn. It was very weird, but also left the tiny cat a little concerned. Had she been afflicted by the ‘dark magic’ Alise had talked about? Was she ‘cursed’? Certainly, Etoile liked candy corn, but the thought of everything tasting like it forever, especially her beloved gingerbread cookies and candy canes, filled her with despair.

The next evening, they tried again, after the pot had been given a thorough cleaning, but oddly, things… did not taste like candy corn. Shrugging, Alise had suggested that maybe the curse had been broken, that they had vanquished whatever hexes had been placed on the cauldron, but otherwise seemed pleased with the results.

And Etoile, who had no idea what any of those words meant, was happy as well.