OTA: pie makes everything better

[offthebeatenpath]

It wasn't that Em had forgotten. But a commissioned piece had been giving her fits for days, and she'd finally had a breakthrough that had kept her at her easel enough she hadn't been paying close attention to what day it was, or spent enough time online or around other people for someone to mention Friday the thirteenth, or the, according to many, more notable day after.

It was only the third time since she was born that March thirteenth had fallen on a Friday again, and she went and missed it. Not that it made a difference; no one in this reality had known it was her birthday, and she wasn't really one for celebrating it anyway.

As soon as she'd seen it in the New Age shop, she'd known what deck she was buying for her birthday this year - Mucha artwork, reworked to follow Rider-Waite imagery. She'd played around with similar ideas in the past in her own paintings, and she was curious to see what the deck designers had come up with.

Then, in memory of a fallen friend in another reality who loved both puns and math, and missing the bustle of a castle kitchen full of friends baking pies, and even more eating them, she stopped in at a bakery she'd passed a few times. Then she sat at a table by the window to introduce herself to her new Mucha deck, occasionally remembering to take a bite of key lime pie or wash it down with a sip of her coffee before it got cold.

It wasn't the Pi Day or belated birthday she would have had back home, but here and now, it suited her. Maybe she'd splurge, get a whole pie to take back to the boys.

[[I flaked on giving Em an EP on her Friday the 13th birthday, so have a little something for Pi Day too. Feel free to notice her (or her tarot cards) through the window, or while coming in for pie of your own. Not a bad time to meet her. Besides, pie.]]

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[anamusebouche]

The girls at the Hummingbird Bakery were as sweet as their cakes. Hannibal didn't come here very often. He favoured the natural in his food, and this bakery was famed for its use in colourants of all kinds. Eating one of their cupcakes was like eating a little chemistry set. That didn't mean, though, that it wasn't a very delicious little chemistry set.

Hannibal liked their designs and they were always pleased to make him something in the style he asked for, making their boxes ideal gifts for special occasions.

He saw miss Colbert sitting in the window and greeted her politely. He had bought one of her paintings and it was - according to his guests - a delightful painting that stood out in the conservatory. "Miss Colbert, a pleasure seeing you here."

[offthebeatenpath]

Hands stilling over the cards, Em looked up through a wayward lock of hair with a small smile. "Dr. Lecter. Hello."

She hadn't seen the man since the opening of her show, but thought maybe it was a good sign he remembered her. "I hope you're doing well."

[anamusebouche]

"I am, thank you," he said politely. "And you, I hope you are finding London a profitable place for your paintings."

[offthebeatenpath]

"Kendal seems pleased." Em had never tried to make a living on her art before, not with a gallery showing her work anyway. So she felt like Kendal was probably a better judge of how things were going than she was.

"The show went well, and I've picked up a few commissions since which has been good. And it still leaves me enough time for fortune-telling." Painting was something she did, but fortune-telling was who she was, even if some people believed she was, or could be, more.

[jageskro]

Jag was just walking back home when he noticed Emma in the window, and of course he decided to stop by for a chat. He walked into the bakery, greeted the people behind the counter, and headed straight for her table. "You've finally come out," he stated happily, taking a seat across from her.

[offthebeatenpath]

"You should be used to artists by now." Em grinned as Jag joined her. "And I did warn you I could be a hermit sometimes." A card slipped from her fingers where she was gathering them together, the Hermit, as though the cards were emphasizing her point.

[jageskro]

"I wasn't complaining," he replied, reaching for the card that had slipped out and chuckling when he saw which one it was, before handing it back to her. "I'm not complaining about your return to the land of the living, either."

[offthebeatenpath]

"I wouldn't have haunted the place forever." Ghost jokes and the like had been part of Em's vernacular for so long she didn't really think about doing it, and Jag had kind of started it this time.

"Besides, an old friend would never forgive me if I didn't celebrate Pi Day in his memory. So. Pie. I had to crawl out of my cave."

[jageskro]

"Is it good?" Jag asked, looking towards the counter and suddenly tempted to treat himself while he was here. If he'd learned one thing about Emma, it was that you could trust her opinion when it came to cooking or baking.

[offthebeatenpath]

There was food which could objectively be described as bad, but when it came to good, at some point it became entirely subjective. So rather than answer - Em wouldn't have been eating the pie if it was bad - she got a bite on her fork and held it out for Jag to taste for himself.

"They know what they're doing here." It was maybe bias that had Em feel like Abigail's were better - not to mention Dani's and Sarah's - but the Hummingbird bakers were good at their job. "Key lime. It's tart enough to balance the sweet. I probably would have gone with a meringue instead of whipped cream, but people make them both ways."

[jageskro]

Jag leaned over to take that bite off the fork, and smiled at the way the flavour burst over his tongue - as much as he could with a big of pie in his mouth, anyway. A few more seconds to savour and swallow it, and he sucked his lips in as if he might get a little more flavour out of it. "So that would be a yes. D'you want anything else?" he asked as he stood up.

[offthebeatenpath]

"I'm good." Em'd never had much of a sweet tooth, and she was distracted enough by her cards she wasn't ready for a refill on coffee.

"But I was thinking I might get a pie to take back to share with the house. Since I'll be delivering that painting in a few days after all. See if anything looks like what you and the other guys might like?"

[jageskro]

"You realise I'm just gonna tell ya what I'll like and hope they like it too," Jag pointed out with an amused smirk, not looking for a reply as he turned around to go and buy himself that piece of pie. He had no idea what kind of pie the others liked. Discussing desserts wasn't something that had ever come up between them.

He was back a couple of minutes later, with a piece of pie and a coffee of his own. "So are you happy with your progress?"

[offthebeatenpath]

Em didn't have any idea what kind of pie the others might like either, but asking Jag for input did give her one advantage, which she pointed out when he came back. "If you tell me what you'll like, that's one of the three guaranteed, which is better than me guessing all on my own." Not that she thought any of the guys would be too picky about free pie. She wasn't worried about it going to waste regardless.

"It's coming along. Almost done really. I'll probably put the finishing touches on it tomorrow, after taking some time away from it today, so I can look at it fresh. Then it's cross my fingers and hold my breath that the client likes it."

[jageskro]

"Do I get to see it before you ship it off?" he asked hopefully, after sweetening his coffee. He didn't always take it the same way (other than free of whipped cream, although that too might happen some day, who knew), but today he felt like sugar.

[offthebeatenpath]

"If you want." While she was likely to hermit while deep in a project, or when she was stuck on one, Em wasn't exactly secretive about her paintings. Probably because Sabine had always been curious what she was doing, and there had been the Soul Train too. So now she was past her block, she didn't mind Jag getting a sneak peek.

[jageskro]

"I want," Jag confirmed with a half-smile, and took a sip of coffee before nodding at the deck of cards. "Is that a new one?"

[offthebeatenpath]

It felt good that Jag wanted to see what she was working on, and Em could be her own harshest critic, so getting an outside but friendly perspective could be helpful.

"It is." She fanned the cards out on the table to show a bit more of their artwork. "It was time for a new deck, and I've been a fan of Mucha for as long as I can remember. So when I saw this..." It had been obvious to her.

[jageskro]

"Mucha?" Jag echoed. He rarely felt self-conscious about his lack of cultural knowledge; he just had a different culture from most, and he didn't feel the slightest bit ashamed about it. Art was not his strong suit by far.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Alphonse Mucha. He was a painter around the turn of the century, so around a hundred years ago now. He's mostly remembered for his ads and theatre posters, but he did more serious work too." While he was somewhat well known now, he'd gone in and out of favor, and it wasn't like Em expected everyone to know the name, so she explained it simply, without any judgment involved.

"A lot of people, when they think Art Nouveau, they think of him. He had a very distinctive style: lots of pretty ladies with long, flowing hair and dresses, flowers all around, pastel colors, that kind of thing. The artists who designed this deck basically took his paintings, and tweaked them to be more like one of the big tarot decks."

[jageskro]

"That's cool," Jag stated, still watching the cards she'd spread closely. The art itself wasn't really his thing, although he didn't know enough about art, or about his reaction to art, to explain why. But he could still appreciate the effort that had gone into it, and why Emma would have wanted it, since she fancied the art.

"Is that the devil?" he chuckled as he spotted that card, and needed a second to figure it out. "She's something."

[offthebeatenpath]

"The devil usually is," she answered, noticing the changes made to Mucha's Salammbô so she would be more Devil-ish. It had been awhile since Em had read Flaubert's novel, but from what she remembered of the story, it was a match for the tarot Devil. But that was more the kind of tangent Em would have followed with Sabine, and not really the point now.

Green eyes bright with her grin, "What gave it away? The red tail, the wings?"

[jageskro]

"The tail, yeah," Jag confirmed with a chuckle, and got started on his pie. "What does she mean again? The obvious, or...?" He remembered some stuff about tarot, but certainly not all of it.

[offthebeatenpath]

"The Devil is excess and abandon," Em began, the explanation patter she'd worked out years ago. "The wild child, or the monkey on your back."

Then she shrugged. "It's not a card I get a lot for myself. If I do, it's more about letting go. But it can also be a warning of the ways giving in to your desires can hold you down... um, hold you back." The phrasing had been a slip, but Em couldn't help that she associated the Devil with Pyro some. The stranger thing was that misspeaking the way she did for once didn't make her blush.

[jageskro]

"How's that?" Jag asked, genuinely curious about what she meant, and not paying that much attention to her slip. "I mean, I get the general principle, but..." He shrugged. "Giving in to pie doesn't feel like it's holding me back very much, is it?" He was smiling slightly by the end of that sentence, and followed that up with another bite of pie.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Giving in to a slice of pie, no." Especially not for Jag when most energy projectors had crazy high metabolisms, but Em wasn't going to mention that part in public.

"But for somebody who binge eats, giving in to pie could cause problems. Or whatever someone's addicted to, or has a weakness for and has a hard time resisting. When they or other people could get hurt because of it." And not in the good way, but that was something else she wasn't going to say just now.

"Or maybe it's somebody playing devil's advocate just to see what kind of reaction they can get." Whether she was talking about herself or Jag, or even hinting at their conversation at all, she left for him to decide, and maybe wasn't entirely sure herself.

[jageskro]

Jag was oblivious to the fact that she might be referring to the conversation at all, his thoughts having gone in another direction. "That's the bit I could never wrap my mind around. It might be different for you, but for regular tarot readers - how you know which meaning to pick for any reading."

He apparently had a lot less qualms referring to her abilities in public than she did to his.

[offthebeatenpath]

It wasn't something Em had ever really had to rely on; her visions still required interpretation, but with the cards as a guide, it was easier to put patterns together. "Reading the person mostly. Or pointing them in a general direction and seeing how they interpret it. Even people who don't believe the tarot can predict the future sometimes use the cards as a way of putting their thoughts in order, or looking at their lives from another perspective. It's not all that different."

She finished off her last bite of pie while thinking about it more. "It can be kind of like inkblots or those psych tests where someone tells a story about a picture... well, it is someone telling a story about a picture, or a group of them. Different things will seem important depending on the situation."

[jageskro]

"I was never that good at reading people," Jag answered easily, a smile lingering on his lips from the combination of his last bite of pie and of their conversation. He'd admired people with that skill, ever since the circus. "But that makes sense, yes. The inkblots."

[offthebeatenpath]

"Reading people mostly takes practice. You read audiences well from what I've seen. That's a similar skill, just with a group that kind of averages things out.

"I have other reasons for preferring decks both the majors and minors are illustrated over the ones with pips for minors," mostly appreciating the artwork and having something to project. Em's powers worked with just a regular deck of playing cards, if that's what she had to hand. It made poker games interesting.

"But I think they're probably a lot better for other people to read with. There's usually so much going on, one part of the picture or another is bound to stand out in the moment."

[jageskro]

Jag shrugged her words about him and audiences away. That much he was good at, and he was better than average at reading individual people. But it was nothing to good card readers, and he knew it. There was no self-deprecation there; it was simple fact.

"Is your foresight always - well, on?" he asked curiously. Could she read cards the normal way, that was what he wanted to know.

[offthebeatenpath]

Em waved her hand back and forth, yes and no. "I can look at the cards or talk about what their usual meanings and stuff," like they've been doing today. "But if I'm trying to read them, I'll see something. Maybe not exactly what I want to know, but something related."

She remembered back to a conversation she had once with Lorna, scientist and sceptic and coming at things from a very different perspective than Jag. "And there's some kind of pull between me and what cards show up, You could do a reading for me, without me touching or even looking at the cards or knowing the question, and still wouldn't get a random result. I wouldn't See anything if I didn't look at the cards, but the cards would be dead on."

[jageskro]

"And here I thought I'd known the real deal," Jag remarked with an amused half smile. He sucks on his spoon for a few seconds, then grins. "Seriously, you can't tell me that's anything to do with genes."

[offthebeatenpath]

"Well, I can. I just can't prove it." In this world.

It actually hurt some, him not believing her, even though she understood why he didn't. And that was with knowing what it had taken for her to believe she was a mutant when she lived in a world that knew about them. It didn't hurt as much as having to hide, though, and at least with Jag she wasn't alone.

"Silly me, being a fortuneteller and artist, and not a geneticist. What I get for dropping out of school, I guess."

[jageskro]

"I guess I shouldn't have either," Jag stated with a smirk, although he didn't sound sorry at all. More like cheeky. "'Cause it makes no sense to me."

He was very happy about not having gone to school after his parents had taken off, honestly. He hadn't liked it there, and he knew now he would have hated it even more after being taken in by the circus. Drina and Kennick's homeschooling was all he'd needed.

"Then again, a lot of science doesn't."

But he didn't feel that science the way he could always feel a fire, burning inside of him.

[offthebeatenpath]

Between Sabine being Sabine and Em's own curiosity, she'd spent a lot of time studying after leaving Sacred Heart, but she'd always been more interested in the humanities than science.

"The only science I'm really good at is chemistry," she offered in a cheeky tone not too different from his. "And by chemistry, I mostly mean baking." Although honestly, she was more cook than baker.

"Even that I know when to leave it to the experts."

[jageskro]

"For the record, I will never ask you to leave it to the experts," Jag stated, and ate his last piece of pie. With great and obvious relish. "Even experts as good as these."

There was something about the baking - or cooking - being done by someone you knew and cared for, and about the lack of transaction involved, possibly, that made it all better.

[offthebeatenpath]

"Hey, any time you want me to cook for you," she started, even as one snag came to mind that she quickly added, "when I don't have artist's tunnel vision at least, all you have to do is ask."

Looking down at the deck of cards in her hand, Em shook her head. "Or just being in the general area when I'm cooking is probably enough. It's always better cooking for someone else than just for myself. And I don't do it as much here in London as I did before."

[jageskro]

"Consider me up for it whenever I'm around," Jag assured her with a grin. He was never going to turn down food, never mind good food. But even food in general; it was a thing.

[offthebeatenpath]

"You'll have to give me some ideas on your favorites." Whether they were already in her repertoire or not. She liked trying out new recipes, especially when she had an eager guinea pig. "I'll surprise you at some point."

[jageskro]

"Sure, I'll make a list," Jag agreed, although he wasn't serious. That would feel really odd, to be honest. But if she just happened to be cooking whatever she wanted, and she had enough for him, now that wouldn't be so bad. At all.

[offthebeatenpath]

"No you won't," she answered, although she nodded as though agreeing with him. "I'll just have to figure it out for myself. And in the meantime, you can make do with French and some Italian, or whatever I happen to feel like deep frying that day."

[jageskro]

"It'll be such a hardship," Jag promised her with a shit-eating grin.