Ornstein and Smough were casually sitting on their bench. There wasn't anything they had to do today., soOrnstein enjoyed just sitting leaned against Smough, his boyfriend made for such a great pillow. He had his legs stretched out across the bench and Smough's arm was laying around his shoulders, allowing for Ornstein to just relax into this boyfriend's frame. But Smough seemed a bit restless. Was he bored? Ornstein could feel that Smough was playing around with his ponytail with his other hand and was sighing a bit.
"Is there really nothing to do today? Or anywhere we could go?", Smough suddenly asked. "Anor Londo has been abandoned for a while now.", Ornstein answered. "It's hard to find a place where there is something going on." Smough sighed again, twirling Ornstein's ponytail in his hands or at least that was what it felt like. Ornstein wouldn't have a problem just lying there for the rest of the day, he enjoyed this comfortable silence. But it was clear that his boyfriend would like to have some action. An idea suddenly sparked in his mind.
"You know what? Recently I found Artorias book with all the cookies recipe. Do you think we should try baking some?", he suggested.
Ornstein was suddenly pulled out of his comfortable position into a very tight hug. "Kitten, I am so proud of you!", Smough excitedly said.
"Don't call me that.", Ornstein grumbled. "Uh, proud for what?" He was a little bit confused.
"You actually came up with an activity yourself." Smough explained. Now that he said it, most of the time Smough encouraged Ornstein to do stuff or came up with activities. For Ornstein it often was hard to get himself doing things. He didn't even know exactly why. Some day it had all started to feel so pointless... Being together with Smough was one of the things that kept him going.
"Would you release me, please? So I can get the book?", Ornstein gently asked, still been caught into the hug. "Of course.", Smough released him so that Ornstein could get the book.
A short while later Ornstein arrived back at Smough with the book. Together they flipped through the pages. Ornstein once again had to admire Artorias beautiful and pristine handwriting. The recipe book was one of the mementos he had kept when his old friend had deceased. Artorias had loved baking in his free time and often had came up with new cookie recipes.
"Which one should we try?", Smough asked. "I am so used to cooking but not really to baking." Ornstein considered their options as well. He wasn't exactly the greatest cook. His creative talent had always been drawing. Then his eye fell on a recipe that sounded simple enough: "How about this one? Butter cookies. That seems to be easy."
Smough read the recipe too. "Yes, that should be doable.", he said. "I'll go getting the ingredients." He stood up. Ornstein stood up as well. "And I am going to search Artorias room for some tools. I bet he had something lying around."
Artorias room had been left mostly untouched. Even though Ornstein knew that his friend would never come back, he didn't had the heart to throw all this stuff away. And it wasn't like anyone needed that room. Ornstein rummaged around a bit in the cupboards until he found some tools that looked like they could be used for baking. He collected them and made his way to the kitchen where Smough had already brought the ingredients.
"So what is the first step?", Smough asked. "We need a large bowel.", Ornstein answered, reading the recipe from the book that had been placed on the table. At first, the butter and the sugar shall be stirred together." Smough grabbed a whisk: "That sounds like a task for me. I bet this requires some strength." Ornstein was sure that Artorias surely had had this strength and Smough was strong as well. He watched as the ingredients started to become one. He checked the recipe: "It says it shall be light and fluffy? I am not even surprised that Artorias would write something like this." "Got it.", Smough said and continued stirring until the dough was fluffy and looked really soft. "What next?", Smough wanted to know.
"The next thing is stirring the egg and the vanilla in it." Ornstein walked to the counter where the ingredients were laid out. "Let me handle this, I am pretty good at preparing ingredients now." Even though Smough almost did all the cooking, Ornstein often helped him out with preparing the ingredients. After cracking the egg and cutting open the vanilla beans with a knife, they added it to the mix and Smough got to work again.
"We need another bowel now.", Ornstein stated after checking the recipe. "There we shall add the salt to the flour and then stir it under the mixture we already have."
Smough continued with the stirring and Ornstein helped out with slowly adding the flour to the mix. After it was done, Ornstein read from the recipe again. "Cover it up and let it rest for an hour." Smough sighed: "Oh great, back to doing nothing, I guess?" "Come on, it won't be that bad.", Ornstein said. "How about we take a bath together while we have to wait?" This got Smough's approval and around an hour later the two warriors were standing clean and refreshed in the kitchen again.
"We need a cookie sheet now.", Ornstein said. "I think that is something like that." He pulled out a sheet that would fit perfectly in the oven. A part of him wondered why Artorias had stored that in his room. Maybe he had asked the blacksmith for a special manufacture. "And we also need an icing bag to get the dough onto the sheet. I guess that is it?" He pulled out a strange bag in which the dough certainly could be filled. It was made out of soft leather. He wondered that it wasn't broken after all that years, but that probably could be explained with magic. Things reinforced with magic where holding practically forever. And in Anor Londo there had been enough sorcerers around, so Artorias surely just had asked one to help him out.
They filled the dough into the strange bag. Smough was really eager to press it onto the sheet, so Ornstein simply watched. He loved to watch Smough cook anyways. After his boyfriend was done, he wanted to know the next step. "They shall go in the oven now. I don't really understand this part, better take a look yourself.", Ornstein had to admit. He also wasn't eager to fire up the oven, fire sparked bad memories in him. "Let me take a look.", Smough said and took the book. A short while later the oven was set to the right temperature, the cookies were baking and they were waiting again.
While they were waiting, they had time to talk a bit. "Artorias was always running around the cathedral and handing them out to everyone.", Ornstein told Smough. "Oh, I am sorry, I guess you didn't get any..." "It's alright. I rather eat the ones I made with you.", Smough said, laying an arm around Ornstein's shoulders. "You can continue to tell me about this if you like." Ornstein continued: "Well, Artorias also liked coming up with new recipes. He knew that I liked to try out new things to eat and I guess he saw it as a challenge to always have a recipe I hadn't tasted yet. Now that I think about it, was that one of our duels...? I bet he won that one! He always had a recipe I hadn't tasted yet!" Smough gave Ornstein a pet on the head and seemed to regret it instantly: "Oh no, I forgot that your hair is still wet." "You were the one who wanted to wash it.", Ornstein said with a grin and then continued: "One time Artorias managed to accidentally break my arm. He gave me so many apology cookies at this time. I had to start to share them with the whole cathedral. That wasn't that much of a problem, cause the cookies were very beloved. It just became awkward when me and the master were munching away on some of them and then Lord Gwyn walked by, wanting to know if we had nothing better to do and then asked where he could get the cookies for himself." Ornstein chuckled at the memory. "Nobody was save from Artorias cookies, really." The kitchen had started to smell very delightful now. "I'll go see if they are ready.", Smough said.
A short while later Smough came back with the hot sheet, setting it down carefully so that it could cool. "They look really tasty.", Ornstein said after a glance at the cookies. "Yes, I can't wait to taste them.", Smough said.
"These aren't Artorias cookies but it was a recipe of him. I bet you will love them.", Ornstein said.
"I will love them anyway cause I made them with you."