DISCLAIMER: CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, I ACTUALLY DON'T OWN ZOIDS. AND SEEING AS THAT FACT DOESN'T CHANGE WITH EACH CHAPTER, I'M ONLY GOING TO SAY IT ONCE. SO DON'T SUE! ENJOY!
-?- Baking Cookies -?-
Leena woke up feeling excited. 'Only twelve more days until Christmas!' she thought cheerfully as she crossed another day off of her calendar. She jumped out of bed and pulled on a robe to protect herself from the chill in the air. When she opened the door, she was greeted with a surprise; a small, carefully wrapped gift was placed in her doorway. She bent down and picked it up.
"To Leena, For the first day of Christmas." she read. Leena looked down the corridor, but there was no sign of anyone. She retreated back into her room and gently shut the door. "Well, it didn't say not to open it now…" she reasoned with herself. She tore the paper off the gift and opened the lid of the box. Inside was a hand carved zoid. Leena lifted it up and admired its beauty. 'Whoever sent this must have spent a long time making this.'
She walked across the room and placed the little zoid on her dresser. 'I wonder who it's from. Maybe there's a note inside.' She retrieved the box and looked inside. There was a slip of paper at the bottom. "On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: a carving made just for me. Hmm…that's just like that song." She turned over the paper, but nothing else was written. 'Oh well, maybe one of the guys knows who sent it to me.'
Leena sighed and set the box aside. Her stomach gave a huge growl. 'I guess I better get some breakfast.' She exited the room and made her way to the kitchen.
Leena entered the kitchen and rummaged for a bowl and a spoon. She sat down at the table and grabbed the cereal away from Bit.
"Morning." he said with a mouth full of food.
"Morning. Could you pass me the milk?" He silently handed her the milk. "You know what? This morning I woke up and there was a present outside my room." Bit immediately stopped eating.
"A present?" he asked innocently.
"Yup, that's what I said."
"Did you open it?"
"Yeah. It was a carving of a Liger. It's really beautiful." she said while filling her bowl.
"Really?"
"Mmmhmm…but the thing is, I don't even know who sent it to me. Did anyone stop by and ask for it to be placed outside my room?" Bit thought for a moment.
"Uh…I…I don't know. Why don't you ask Jamie? He was up before me."
"Did someone say my name?" Jamie asked while poking his head into the kitchen.
"Yeah. Do you happen to know who sent me a gift this morning?" Jamie glanced over to Bit, who was frantically shaking his head no and waving his hands above his head.
"Yeah. I know who sent it." he said while looking back at Leena. Bit nearly passed out.
"Really? Who?"
"I promised not to tell." Bit let out a sigh of relief while mentally beating Jamie over the head with a frying pan.
"Aw, c'mon! I want to know!" Leena pleaded.
"Sorry, a promise is a promise. Besides, I think you'll eventually find out who it is. Don't you think so, Bit?" Leena turned to look at her frazzled teammate.
"Uh…yeah, I do." he answered while shooting a death glare at Jamie. Leena looked questioningly at the two.
"You guys are behaving really strange today." She stopped to spoon some cereal in her mouth. "Did Bit spill juice all over the computer again?"
"No." Bit answered.
"That was you! I thought you said—"
"It was an accident! Besides, it was Leena's fault."
"It was not!" Leena disagreed angrily.
"Yes it was. You were the one who tackled me while I was next to the computer." Bit argued.
"Well, you shouldn't have been drinking near the computer, anyway!" she countered.
"It's not my fault that…hey. Where'd Jamie go?" he asked while looking around, bewildered.
"I dunno. Maybe he had stuff to do."
"Yeah, that must be it." he agreed, completely oblivious to the fact that Jamie had left because of the two's constant fighting.
"I wonder who my secret admirer is." Leena said, bringing back the uncomfortable topic of conversation. Suddenly Bit didn't feel like eating anymore.
"I dunno." he replied while standing up from his place at the table and dumping the remnants of his breakfast in the garbage. He dropped his dish in the sink and ran it under water.
"Maybe it's Harry…" Leena suggested with a scowl.
"Nah, it can't be. Harry is way too obvious about his advances and I honestly don't think that he is that thoughtful or intelligent to pull something like this."
"True…but still…who else could it be?" she questioned. Bit sat back down and picked up a worn copy of Zoids Weekly that had clearly been read on more than one occasion.
"Who knows."
"Jamie does." Leena mumbled angrily.
"He's not going to tell you, so don't bother trying to get it out of him. He's way too smart and loyal for you to get him to give in." he stated while throwing the old magazine down. "I think we need a new copy of this; I've read the same article about fifty times now!"
"Hmmm…" was all he got for a response. Leena finished up her breakfast and carried her bowl over to the sink. As she was rinsing her dish, she caught sight of the cookie jar and an idea popped into her head. "Hey, Bit, do you want to bake some Christmas cookies?"
"Sure. It's not like there's anything else to do." he said with a grin.
"Alright!" she cheered enthusiastically. "What recipe should we use?"
"There's always the traditional chocolate chip." Bit suggested.
"No, that's not…Christmasy enough. Ooo! I know! What were those cookies that you made that time when we ran out of everything else? You know, the ones with the nuts and chips and spices?"
"You mean my great grandma's Mistletoe cookies?"
"Yeah! Those are the ones! We could make those!"
"Well, I dunno…that is a secret recipe that has been in the Cloud family for years…"
"Please, Bit?" Leena begged while giving him the best puppy dog face she could conjure up. Bit sighed, he just couldn't resist that look.
"All right. I'll let you know the recipe, but you can't tell a soul!" he warned.
"Cross my heart!" she said happily while tracing an x over her chest with her index finger. "So, what do we need?" Bit began listing ingredients. Pretty soon the table was filled with various baking goods. "Okay, that's everything. Where do we start?"
"Flour and eggs." he answered while getting out a huge mixing bowl. Leena began to measure out flour.
"How did your great grandma come up with the name for these cookies, anyway?"
"Well, it has to do with a few things." Bit answered as he cracked an egg into the bowl. "My grandma didn't actually come up with the recipe her self, she said that she got it from the Wood Folk."
"Wood Folk?" Leena interrupted.
"Yes, Wood Folk."
"You mean like fairies and mystical creatures and all that other junk?"
"No. They were a primitive tribe that lived deep in the woods. Anyway, when she was young—only about twenty, she was hiking through the woods and got lost. The Wood Folk found her and let her stay with them for awhile. When she was there, they had a celebration for some goddess—I think it was Arena, the goddess of love. They made these cookies in order to honor Arena. They were supposed to bind your heart to another and bring good fortune your way. At the time, my grandma didn't believe all that stuff, but she did think the cookies were really good. So, she wrote the recipe down and tried making them when she returned home. It took her awhile to figure out how to bake them in an oven, but she eventually got it right. Now, the first time she made them, she shared it with a zoid warrior. This warrior turned out to be my great grandpa. Although my grandpa didn't believe it, my grandma always said that it was the cookies that brought them together. She called the cookies Mistletoe cookies because she first made the cookies around Christmas and like the cookies, the Mistletoe is supposed to bring people together." Leena stared in awe as Bit finished his tale.
"That's a great story. Do you believe that the cookies actually bind people's hearts?" she asked while adding chopped nuts to the mixture. Bit blushed a little.
"Nah, it's just a story my great grandma used to tell around Christmas time when I was a kid." he lied; in all actuality, he believed every word of the story.
"Oh." Leena said. Bit thought she almost sounded disappointed. 'No, it can't be. I must just be imagining things' he thought sadly. Leena added the last of the ingredients to the bowl. "Now what?"
"We kneed the dough until it's the right consistency. Then, if you want, we can roll it flat and cut it into shapes." Bit answered while taking the dough in his hands and slapping it down on a cutting board. He began to work the dough with his hands. "Aren't you going to help?" Leena made a face.
"That's going to get stuck under my nails." she complained. Bit gave a small laugh.
"I never thought of you as the type of person that would care about something like that." Leena scowled. "Aw c'mon! It's fun!"
"Okay." she sighed. She rolled up her sleeves and began to kneed the dough with her palms. "Hey, this is kinda fun." Within no time the dough was ready.
"Do you want to cut them into shapes?" Bit asked.
"Sure. How do Christmas trees and candy canes sound?"
"Fine with me." Leena got out a rolling pin and rolled the dough flat while Bit searched for the cookie cutters. For the next ten minutes, the two teens cut the dough into various shapes.
"There. Now all we have to do is grease up the cookie sheet and pop them in the oven." Bit said.
"Yup." Leena agreed. She frowned slightly and added, "And clean up this mess…" Bit looked at the kitchen and groaned at what he saw; everything was covered in flour and other ingredients that they had used. He looked up at Leena and smiled at her; she was covered in flour, too.
"The kitchen's not the only thing that needs cleaning." Bit said while picking up a strand of Leena's hair that had a glob of dough in it.
"You should talk." Leena countered while wiping dough off of Bit's nose. The two glared at each other for a moment longer before bursting out laughing. "I guess we need to wash up."
"Yeah. But we should probably get the cookies in the oven and finish cleaning before we change…"
"I guess so. I'll start clearing the table while you finish the cookies."
Half an hour later, Bit and Leena sat at the now very clean table, waiting for the cookies to finish baking. "Ugh…the dough is starting to cement to my face!" Leena whined while scraping a piece of dried dough off her cheek.
"Just think of it as a face mask." Bit said with a grin. "Unclogs pores and leaves skin felling clean and smooth!" Leena shook her head, but she couldn't help smiling at her teammate's antics.
"Mmmm, those cookies sure do smell good! Are they almost done?" As if on cue, the timer rang. Leena jumped up from her seat. "I take that as a yes!" She grabbed some oven mitts and pulled the sheet of freshly baked cookies out of the oven. Bit's mouth began to water.
"They look delicious!" he exclaimed while carefully using a spatula to place the cookies into a tin. "Want to split one while they're still warm?"
"Why don't we eat them all now?" she asked.
"Because we don't have any mulled cider."
"What?"
"These cookies taste better when accompanied by warm, spiced cider." Bit explained. "It's practically a sin to eat them without it!"
"If you say so…"
"So, do you want to split a cookie?" Leena smiled.
"Sure." Bit pulled a cookie in two and gave one half to Leena, while keeping the other half for himself.
"Well, here goes nothing." he said while biting into the warm dessert. Leena did the same. Her eyes instantly lit up.
"These are the best cookies I've ever had!" she raved.
"I have to agree with you there. I guess I did my great grandma justice after all."
"Do they really taste better with mulled cider?"
"Of course." Bit replied while shoving the last of his cookie into his mouth. Leena looked at him.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked with a grin. Bit smiled back.
"To the store!" they shouted in unison. Bit grabbed his keys off of the counter and raced to the hanger, followed closely by Leena. Neither of them cared that they were still covered in dough.
"I'm so sleepy!" Leena said through a yawn. She was sitting on the couch next to Bit. They had decided to eat the cookies after dinner, when everyone else had gone to bed. It was dark in the room, the only light was coming from the fire place. A tin, containing nothing but crumbs, and two empty mugs sat on the table in front of them.
"My grandma's cookies combined with a few mugs of hot cider tend to do that to people." Bit said, also yawning.
"Ugh…I'm too comfortable to go to bed." Leena stated while pulling a blanket around her. She leaned into Bit and sighed. "Just too comfortable and too sleepy."
"Mmmm…I don't think I could move if I tried." he commented. 'Not that I would want to, either…' he thought happily to himself. Before long, the two drifted off into a peaceful sleep, each dreaming about the other.
-UNTIL NEXT TIME-
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In case anyone is wondering, the twelve days of Christmas refers to the period of time between December 25th and January 6th (Little Christmas). It is a holiday that is mainly celebrated in countries like Italy. It is supposedly when the wise men reached Jesus (I think…please correct me if I'm wrong). This fic isn't actually going to take place over that period of time—I'm going to have it take place on the twelve days leading up to Christmas. I just felt like throwing in that for a fun fact for those of you who didn't know what the twelve days of Christmas was referring to.
-Madam Midnight-
