SHEETCAKE PARTY #1

[goneawaymod]

SHEET CAKE MEETUP

“Who the fuck is Linda?”

The question pops up every few minutes, a little tack of punctuation above the offensively-inoffensive music being piped in*. The room the hires have been ushered into is clearly just a conference room, with a layout that requires either sitting at awkwardly-spaced intervals around a giant table or milling and scooting around the smaller folding table, where the “big surprise” the corporate officers promised them is on display: a sheet cake.

A sheet cake that that still bears HAPPY BIRTH DAY LINDA in blue icing across the top, although someone has, at least, gone to the effort of writing welcome, to the team new hires in Sharpie on a purple flashcard and used a Popsicle stick and tape to plant it like a dismal flag right in the middle of Linda’s “DAY”. Dedication aside, the cake itself looks pretty suspect too, not as if it were poisoned but more like if it were salvaged. The cake part looks dry, and the frosting seems strangely...sweaty. No one’s eating yet, and yet there’s already a piece missing.

However, there’s no lack of enthusiasm around the room. A projector hooked up to a laptop casts an off-center, warped rectangle of WELCOME TO, THE BEST TEAM. NEW HIRES!! onto a wall. The many paper plates have a festive print, although they all seem to be Christmas themed. The table cloth looks as if it came from both 4th of July and potentially a war, given the scuffs and tears. The shot-glass sized paper cups are inadequate to hold a satisfying amount of sparkling cider, but at least they don’t leak. There are many more plastic knives than forks, which could prompt some hires to give in to their animal instincts and just use their hands, or perhaps start a barter economy for the better utensils.

“I’m so jealous,” a corporate employee keeps saying as she ushers hires into the room. “We haven’t had a good party in this office since Kelly’s baby shower, and that little girl practically has teeth now!”

(An eagle-eyed hire may suspect that the box of donuts next to the sheet cake might have come from said baby shower, on account of the fact that the few stale hunks of donut remaining have Pepto-Bismol pink strawberry icing and that there’s still the paper envelope for a gift card with ITS A GIRL written on it.)

Most of corporate slips out after the hires get set up - this is clearly an event for the hires to do some “team building” and work on “rapport” in addition to filling their bellies with cake that tastes remarkably like sand. There’s a karaoke machine in the corner, but hires are instructed not to touch it because, as an employee points out, last year’s Christmas party demonstrated that karaoke is the worst thing in the entire world for morale (“in any world! even before this one got eaten away by the bombs!”).

There’s an additional big glass jar filled with scraps of paper, which the hires are informed are filled with prompts for ice breakers and activities in case the party needs a pick-me-up. Any hire who investigates will find that most of the ice breaker activities start with three benign questions (“what’s your name?” “where are you from?” “what’s your favorite animal?”) and somehow, always a fourth question that feels a little invasive (“what are your feelings on unions?” “under what circumstances would you kill an innocent person?” “do you use the same passwords for all your accounts?”).

“Please enjoy yourselves and all the desserts Jorgmund has generously supplied you with,” one of the employees says on her way out, “and don’t worry about making a mess, janitorial gets paid too much to sit around as is.”

*All music that can be summarized as ’grocerycore’.

Comments

[passifloraincarnata]

Well, if no one else is going to take a slice of the unfortunate-looking cake, Setsuna will be a polite guest and ... try ... a piece.

It tastes like crumbling pebbles of dust mixed with an appallingly high amount of off-brand confectionary sugar someone found sitting in an abandoned pantry (and all things considered, given the condition of the world, who knows how long ago that was or under what circumstances it might've been abandoned), and her face reflects it for as long as it takes her to choke the bite down.

"Oh," she struggles to get out around the mouthful, her voice cracking slightly, "well ... it's not ... bad ..."

And that's true, inasmuch as that's important, here. It isn't bad.

This cake is, in fact, terrible.

[princesspower]

"You're braver than I am," Adora admits, "I don't think I'd try it..."

Poor Setsuna. Adora is giving her a concerned look as she chokes down that bite.

"Are you... OK? I don't think you should eat anymore of that."

[passifloraincarnata]

"I -" Hrrrk. It feels like swallowing sand. Sand that has been wet at some point long enough to clump into chunks and then forgot to stop being like that even after it dried. And also someone sprayed it down with the most aggressively floral-noted perfume imaginable. And it's in her throat.

She has eaten bad meals. More bad meals than good ones, if she's actually counting, though the good thing about meals that you only eat because you must is that the minute you start eating food because you want to those memories last longer, but still. Those were inarguably bad meals.

This is something else entirely. This is concentrated discomfort in a pan. She coughs. "... it's fine," she finishes, weakly, visibly drained by the effort. "I'll be fine?" Yeah, no, that's exactly too wobbly of a smile to be believable as reassuring in any capacity. "It seemed like it'd be - rude -" she coughs as a few more pebbly, gritty crumbles of it briefly stick in her throat on their tumbling way down - "to just ... leave it there, like that ...?"

[princesspower]

Adora just stares in horror. Poor Setsuna seems like she's half-choking on the cake and she isn't quite sure what she should do about that. She hastily hands her one of her tiny glasses of cider. That'll help, right? Liquids are good? Or maybe a pat on the back. She doesn't know.

"You don't look fine," Adora points out, "And I don't think we need to think about being polite when they basically forced us into this. Besides, it looks awful."

She gives her a nudge with her shoulder, "Just... don't eat any more of it, OK? That bite looked bad enough, I'd hate to see what trying to put that whole slice down would do to you..."

[passifloraincarnata]

The cake "taste" is so bad Setsuna's murmured "Mm, thank you," is less a conscious effort to be grateful and more a reflexive burst of relief at being handed the liquid refreshment necessary to at the very least wash some of it down and maybe also by some miracle dissolve what refuses to un-stick itself from inside her mouth.

She all but chugs the cider down, gasping for air after. "Thank you," she says, again, this time intentionally. "It's ... not very good cake, unfortunately. If I didn't know any better, having this be part of the welcoming party might make me feel threatened."

[heterochrocatic]

Catra arches an eyebrow at Setsuna. She stays silent, hands on hips, until Setsuna manages to get the rest of the cake she's so gamely attempting to eat into her face and down her throat.

"You don't have to pretend to like it. It's not like you're gonna hurt their feelings," she says. Her voice and expression are pinched. Disdainful. Pretending at being happy with something has never sat well with her, even if it's brought her plenty of pain.

[passifloraincarnata]

Eventually Setsuna's throat stops trying to suffocate itself in protest over being suffocated by this abomination of a baked bad and words can stagger out of it again, croaked and cracking.

"It just ... seemed wasteful, not to try ..." She definitely sounds full of regret. Regret, and also some other ineffably worse thing, that should not under any circumstances be called "cake".

[heterochrocatic]

"Waste of time, maybe," Catra retorts. THere's vindication in seeing herself be proved right and she's trying (a little) not to gloat. She can't help the little amused smirk on her face, though.

"This whole thing is stupid. Who do they think they're trying to fool, honestly? At least back home they never tried to act like we should be happy about the crap they fed us."

[passifloraincarnata]

Setsuna struggles to swallow the last crumbs of it that still linger like awful cake-shards against the back of her throat. It gives her time to collect herself, some, taking in a deep breath now that trying won't immediately send her into a throat-tickled coughing fit.

"It's still ... food," she says. She pauses, before adding, almost apologetically, "In theory, anyway." She puts the back of one hand up to her mouth and covers it as she coughs once, painfully. Her eyes harden as a bleak thought crosses them, for just a second. She huffs out a sad little whuffling laugh, the cake leaving her throat too raw to really get any relief out of it. "Don't you think they might actually want us to like them? ... but I'm not sure any of the people on this machine have ever really been liked." She stops herself, about to say something else, then turns to set the plate down, eyes lowering, and says something else instead, more quietly: "Maybe they just think a little 'gratitude' is the least they deserve, and ... forcing us to show it ... is more than we deserve."

[becauseimacoward]

"..."

Dojima can only feel sympathy at that. He had just finished taking a bite of his own slice, and found it incredibly unpleasant. Seeing others have the same trouble, well, it confirms it further.

"...I think you can say what you're really thinking. The higher-ups won't care"

Speak your mind, Setsuna!

[passifloraincarnata]

"... it might have gone stale," she says, hedging on the side of kindness despite the support, before her shoulders stiffen, and she shakes her head slightly, closing her eyes and exhaling.

"You don't know that! Someone ... might care."

[becauseimacoward]

"This Linda would be offended if this cake was offered to her"

Maybe Setsuna is right to be concerned. Who knows how petty the higher-ups are, but they'd have some seriously thin skin if they retaliate for some reason.

[passifloraincarnata]

Setsuna's face looks somber and sympathetic at the thought of this hypothetical Linda. "She might not know any better." She considers the idea. "Who knows how long it's been since the people on this ... uhm, Rig, they called it, right? ... had a good meal, anyway. They might not know this isn't really ..."

She fishes for the word, fingers tightening on her plate, before finishing, "... edible."

[purple_paradox]

Saint-14 gently pats the young girl on the shoulder, smiling warmly.

"Don't force yourself, friend," he said in a thick, Russian accent, handing her one of the tiny cups of sparkling cider to wash the cake down. "A true warrior shows wisdom in admitting defeat when necessary."

In his opinion, it took a true warrior's courage to try the cake.

[passifloraincarnata]

Setsuna only blinks for a moment at being addressed by a giant android with a Russian accent, because she has, honestly, encountered weirder as a magical girl than he looks, and being Labyrinthian means she has a slightly wider category base when it comes to what she thinks of as baseline "human" features anyway - but she still blinks, because it usually isn't for very long that she has, and none of those include anyone who really looks like Saint-14. She's more confused by the kind gesture than the appearance, regardless, under the circumstances, so any confusion quickly fades in place of heartfelt gratitude, as she quickly takes the offered cup of cider and washes away the last bits of awful bricklike cake-texture sticking to the roof of her mouth.

"I wasn't expecting to need to fight a dessert today," she says, mournful and not even slightly joking.

[purple_paradox]

Saint laughed a deep, boisterous belly-laugh in response.

"You must always be prepared," he replied, his tone much more obviously joking. "Confectioneries are the most dangerous foes. After all, that is why it is called 'getting your just desserts', is it not?"

Listen, it sounded funny to him.

[passifloraincarnata]

Her eyes widen, with genuinely open surprise, not even mocking in the slightest. "Is that actually something it's called? Incredible ..."

She looks down at the cake, contemplative in ways she wasn't a moment ago. "You know, I feel like that explains more than I ever realized ..."

Wow, no wonder the fairies from the Kingdom of Sweets put up such a terrific struggle against Labyrinth's strength, is what she's thinking.

[valkywhee]

The only reason Setsuna beat Nora to the cake was by arriving at the party first, and Nora looks up from her own plate—corner piece, more frosting, aww yesssss—to squint at Setsuna.

"Ish naw—" she pauses to swallow, which proves to be more work than one really expects from cake, "—it's not that bad. I've had worse."

Nora Valkyrie, an orphan who survived on the streets as a kindergartner, is an outlier and should not have been counted.

[passifloraincarnata]

"It's not -" Setsuna has only slightly a little bit of a poker face and thus openly gapes in astonishment at the sight of Nora just shoving cakefuls into her mouth.

"Are you - secretly a fairy?!" The outburst escapes her before she can actually help herself, but she was certainly thinking it anyway. The only people she's ever known with tastebuds so insensate and stomachs so potentially ironclad were fairies, either in human guise or not, and it's all Setsuna can imagine faced with a sight like this.

[valkywhee]

The idea that Nora possesses the capacity for any kind of deception is a charmingly naive one.

"What's a fairy?" she asks, though she's clearly more interested in the cake than in any definition she thinks will be forthcoming.

[passifloraincarnata]

"Oh - it's not important, never mind," Setsuna says, discretion lending its better part to her valor, as some level of self-awareness sinks back in and she remembers that even if they weren't probably being monitored by cameras or some other form of recording equipment (even if it was at least several generations less effective than what Labyrinth used to field) she has promises about that sort of thing to keep. Promises about not telling people fairies are real, or where any of them came from, or that there's a whole lot of them, on a whole lot of other worlds, or where those worlds might be found. Anyway there really are more pressing concerns right now, like, in fact, the cake.

"Are you sure you want to uhm. Keep eating that ..."

[gautiheir]

Sylvain's standards for food are somewhat colored by the general level of food insecurity in the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, even if he grew up in a better position there than most. So he's not afraid to try it, certainly -

There's a very long pause as he cycles through the spectrum of appropriate reaction faces while he chews, and eventually manages to swallow.

"You know, maybe at some point I'll be hungry enough to go another round with this, but..." He snatches up the nearest cup of sparkling cider and chugs it, inasmuch as you can be said to chug a cup that holds maybe two mouthfuls. "But not yet."

[passifloraincarnata]

"It's ..." Setsuna looks, mournfully and with more than a soupcon of betrayal, at the slice still mostly intact on her plate. It's hanging together seemingly more out of spite than actual aptitude for baking, by the crumbly, dried look of things. "... well, it's an effort."

Does she mean the cake itself, or trying to eat the cake, or both? Well, she's reasonably good at being polite but not so good at being polite she can hide herself behind it, so probably both.

[gautiheir]

"This thing was old before it ever made it to this room. Don't worry about offending anybody - if they're not going to make an actual effort, then we can hardly be blamed for following suit."

Sylvain is, in fact, normally pretty good about putting on a polished face and playing nicely with people no matter what he really thinks.

Sylvain is also used to people who at least just strongly imply the things they want to force him to do with societal norms instead of implanting shock collars. Fuck these guys, really.

[passifloraincarnata]

"I don't try to judge myself by other people's actions," Setsuna says, and she doesn't even have the decency to act prim or chastising about it, instead of sounding like it's the most naturally kind and considerate thing anyone could possibly say to that. Her heart, it's a bottomless well of wanting to believe in the best of people, it's just that the lid of said well is made out of knowing people often are not at their best in bad situations.

"Although ..." She sighs. "It would be pretty upsetting if this is their best work."