So my contribution to Pearlshipping Day is a fluffy oneshot, 'cause why not. Also because I barely have time to sleep thanks to homework, let alone time to start/edit/submit a 'Forgotten'-length piece. (Although I am planning one. Will there be Pearlshipping? Yup! Will there be aura knights? Absolutely! Will there be Lake Guardians? YOU BETCHA!)

Anyway, happy Pearlshipping Day, all, and enjoy!

"You have flour in your hair," Dawn informs him. She swallows down a snicker but can't keep the gloating out of her voice. "And in your ears."

Ash stops mixing, allowing the floating flour to settle on his hat. "My ears?"

"Yeah." The expression that comes over his face is such a comical mix of bewilderment and surprise, even shock, that Dawn has to bite her cheek to keep from laughing. She leans against the granite counter and yawns, feigning nonchalance. The curiosity isn't fake, though: "Really, Ash, how on earth did you get it in your ears?"

He thinks about this for a moment, head cocked and gaze sent heavenwards. Then he shrugs. "I guess it's a skill."

Outside the closed kitchen door, she can hear Pikachu and Togekiss keeping Pachirisu from releasing a lack-of-Poffins-induced attack. She thinks it might be a good idea to hurry things up, but she agrees, "It is pretty impressive." And smirks. "Are you absolutely sure you don't need any help?"

"Hey!" Ash brandishes the mixing spoon, and Dawn yelps, dodges a glob of batter. It lands on the counter, next to the first batch, with a plop that tells Dawn that its consistency is completely wrong. Ash, of course, doesn't notice this, waving the spoon around to punctuate his words. "I can do this. I am gonna make" – and he returns to mixing, vigorously – "the best Poffins you've ever seen."

Dawn walks towards him and peers over his shoulder at the runny mess in the bowl, the second mix of two. She opens her mouth to comment and finds that laughter – finally – comes out instead. Ash glares at her, and, still giggling, she gives him a quick peck on his lips. Unsurprisingly, he tastes of flour.

Speaking of such. "Did you manage to get any of that" – she gestures, indicating his entire body – "into the bowl? Or is it all decorating you?"

"Not all of it's on me!"

"Right, I forgot about the flour on the floor." As well as on the counter. Dawn draws a smiley-face in it, then sneezes, sending the flour swirling. "And how could I forget the flour in the air?"

"Those aren't the only places you're forgetting," Ash says, hefting the bag and measuring another couple cups.

"You don't need that much flour for the recipe, sheesh. And where else have I forgotten?"

He nods, inclines his head at her skirt. "There."

Dawn looks down, pulls at the skirt's hem, and squints at it. "No, there's nothing –"

Which is when Ash pours the flour he was measuring over her head.

For a moment, it's still, quiet. The wind has ceased; there aren't any whispery leaves scraping against the house. The Pokémon are silent, and Dawn is frozen with shock, Ash with devious joy and slight apprehension. Even the flour particles in the air hang suspended, caught in shafts of weak sunlight.

Then Dawn very carefully raises a hand to her head, takes a pinch of flour from the mound, and flicks it into Ash's face. As he sneezes and blinks, she shakes more flour from her hair and crowns him with the first bowl and its contents. He yelps. She grins.

"Gotcha!"

"Not for long." He grabs the second bowl. With horror, Dawn realizes that this is the first batch he mixed. The food coloring-filled one. Red, to be precise.

Red has never been her colour.

She shrieks and runs – but doesn't get very far on account of the slippery floor. Ash glides over the sugar and baking soda with ease. And with the bowl.

Dawn glances around for something, anything, that might work as a counterattack. "Ash Ketchum, you'd better not even think about it!"

"Too late." He advances another step. The only thing that keeps Dawn safe from that horrible mixture is the flour on the floor that makes caution, and hence low speed, necessary. Finally she spots the eggs and takes two.

Ash pauses, but then he takes a step forward, and another. He looks like a ghost and walks with confidence. "You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?"

"Throw them."

"Oh, no need to worry – I won't. I'll just smush 'em into your hair if you come too close."

He sticks out his tongue at her and steps forward. Dawn brandishes the eggs and he ducks – too energetically. His eyes widen; he begins to slip.

Dawn lunges forward, catches him by the arms. One of the eggs breaks in her hand, soaking into his sleeve; the other falls to the floor, exploding in a burst of yolk.

But the eggs' demise is in vain: Ash's momentum is too much and they both go down. Dawn's head knocks against his collarbone; her elbow jabs his ribcage. The bowl flies straight up, and comes straight down, splattering its contents onto Dawn's back and spilling over her sides onto Ash's face and chest.

Eventually the flour settles, and there is no sound but for Pokémon grumbles and the wind. Dawn reluctantly sits up, groaning, and rolls her batter-soiled shoulders. "Ouch. You okay?"

Ash is staring at the ceiling with a smear of batter on his cheek and some on his lips. He blinks up at her, and Dawn, her cheeks heating up as she realizes her position, rolls off him, shakes his shoulder from her safer spot to his left. "Earth to Ash? Are you all right? I didn't break anything, right?" For a moment she actually worries that she has, and is checking his legs when he speaks.

"Dawn." He says her name with hushed excitement, bordering on reverence.

She crawls closer to Ash, leans over him. "Yes?"

He licks his lips. "The batter…"

"Yes?"

"It's" – he sneezes into his eggy sleeve – "it's actually…pretty good."

"No, it's not," she says automatically. "The consistency –"

He shakes his head. "The flavor."

"No, it's not," she says again. "You used too much sugar."

"Have you tasted it?"

"Ye – well," Dawn admits, "no, actually. I haven't."

"That's too bad."

"Is it really that good?"

Ash sighs happily and closes his eyes. A smile ghosts over his face. "Yeah."

Well, then, she can't possibly pass up on it. Dawn hunts around for the bowl, making tracks in the flour. It's in the corner, face-down, leaking red onto the floor. She picks it up hopefully, but it's bare and she frowns, rubs a finger over the surface and comes up with nothing. She knew the consistency was wrong; if it were right, there'd still be residue.

Grumpily, she crawls back to Ash. "There's none left."

"You could eat it off your shirt," he suggests.

Dawn crosses her arms. "I am not eating batter off my own shirt! Besides, it's dry. If it were of the right consistency…"

Ash shrugs. The beginnings of a flour angel appear beneath his shoulders. "Your loss."

"It's not really that good, is it?" she asks again, hopeful.

He crushes her hopes, though. "It's delicious." Then some appreciation, admiration, creeps into his voice, his gaze. "Your recipe is great, Dawn."

She smiles, leans over Ash, gives him an appraising look to which he responds with a raised eyebrow. And she kisses him deeply, holding him closer using his shirt. He makes a little sound in the back of his throat that makes her kiss him harder, and he wraps his arms around her waist, holding her.

After a time Dawn pulls back for a breath of flour-infused air, and Ash, face flushed and voice pleasingly breathless, says, "What was that for?"

She grins as he brushes her hair away from her face, and says, "Tasting." She stands, ignoring the hilarious look on his face, and glances at the door. "I think Pachirisu is going to kill us if we don't get a batch to him soon. How about you tidy up and I make the Poffins?"

She offers him a hand up and Ash takes it, stands. He goes to the closet for a broom and begins sweeping, sulkily, while Dawn re-gathers the ingredients. She's chopping up Pecha berries when Ash says, in a mock-accusatory voice, "You only love me for my Poffin batter."

"Can you blame me?" she says. "It's pretty good."

He stops sweeping, turns to look at her. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Despite the consistency?"

She sighs, but can't help smiling. "Yeah."

"Cool." Ash beams. "I'm glad you liked it."

Dawn mixes the berries into the bowl, adds sugar and a pinch of cinnamon. "It was so good, in fact, that maybe I'll taste it again later."

"But there isn't…" Ash trails off, then blinks. "Oh."

Dawn giggles, then puts the first batch in the oven to prevent a mutiny. From the sounds coming from beyond the door, they're going to need a lot of Poffins for that.

Boy, am I out of practice. It's nice to stretch the ol' writing muscles again on something that's not an essay.

Happy Pearlshipping Day, everyone!