Fairies were vegetarians. They mostly ate flowers and berries, with occasional nuts or pastries for variety.

Dawn had been enchanted at an early age by a particularly fancy cake, and the princess decided she absolutely had to learn how to make such a thing herself. The kitchen staff at the castle agreed to give her a few lessons. Dawn learned quickly and learned well, and consequently, those closest to her were often presented with a basket of royally-baked muffins or cookies.

Elves were not vegetarians. (Well, some were by personal choice or medical necessity.) In addition to crops of grains and vegetables and fruits, they raised fish, insects, and mice as food.

After Sunny and Dawn started dating, Dawn wanted to surprise him with something extra special. She knew his favourite food was minnow fillets … but no one in the fairies' castle knew how to cook meat, and she didn't want to ask someone from the elves' village to teach her in case Sunny found out and the surprise was ruined.

So she asked a goblin.

Griselda had been a cook before falling in love and marrying into the royal family, and the former queen still mostly ran the kitchen of the Dark Forest castle. She was thrilled to have a chance to pass on her knowledge, even before she heard it was for romance.

"Is it supposed to smell like that?" Dawn wrinkled her nose.

"Yep. That means it's cooking."

"How do you know when it's done?"

"Most meat changes colour to white or brown. After a while, you get a feel for how long it'll take based off how much you're cooking and what it used to be. Fish doesn't take nearly as long as, say, rat, unless the fish is a lot bigger." Griselda started tidying away her jars of spices. "Just turn the timer-glass over when the sand runs out. After three turns, we'll take a look."

Sunny declared them the best minnow fillets he'd ever tasted.

After that, it became a tradition. Once a week, Dawn would fly into the Dark Forest, or Griselda would ride a dragonfly into the Fairy Kingdom, and they would cook something together.

"You'll want to stop stirring before the batter's completely smooth, or the muffins won't rise as well."

"What's that clicking sound I keep hearing?"

Dawn twitched her ears – as a kid, she and Marianne had learned how to move each ear independently from a boy Marianne played sword-fighting with – and mentally sorted through the sound of the kitchen. Chatter and clatter and footsteps, metal-on-metal and metal-on-ceramic, crackling and occasional whooshing sounds from the fire –

"The clock?" She pointed to it. Griselda nodded.

"What is that?"

"Well, a brownie invented it. I don't know his name, or maybe her name – I can look it up. But a clock is basically a sundial, only you can use it indoors or at night or if it's cloudy. There's a little spring inside and it moves these gears and they move the hands – those little sticks on the front."

Griselda looked at Dawn like she was speaking nonsense.

"But what's it for? And what's a sundial?"

"Oh. Oh! It's how we tell time. A sundial is, um, where you face north and put a stick on the ground and where the shadow is tells you what time it is, and how much it moves tells you how much time has passed. I mean, you don't have to use a stick, usually it's a metal triangle thing – I can show you one later."

"Huh. I'd like to see that." Griselda gave the clock another suspicious look and went back to stirring the batter. "So, lumpy, but not too lumpy?"

"Right. I think it's ready to go in the cups now."

"Do you think these would still be good with a sweeter crust?" Dawn pressed a little too hard with the rolling pin and some of the dough stuck to it. "Like the kind we use for fruit tarts?"

"You should try making fruit tarts with this crust. Maybe then they won't be so sweet only fairies can eat them."

"Are they really?"

"Well, when I tried with sour cherries they weren't too bad," Griselda conceded. "But you'll never convince a goblin to give up meat pies. These ones are Stuff's favourite."

"That reminds me, I was wondering … when you were still looking for someone for Boggy, did you ever try to set him up with Stuff?"

"Nah, she wouldn't go for it. After that she just started saying 'no' every time I tried asking for help – even after falling for Thang, which you'd think would make her want love to be allowed in the Forest again."

Dawn giggled. "So, even if I hadn't already been a prisoner, Boggy would have locked me up for flirting with him?"

She'd forgiven him for kidnapping her after the potion wore off. Thinking of what she'd been like – trying to go back into the collapsing castle to be with him as he'd so bravely risked his life to give Marianne a chance to drag her out – she couldn't blame him for being furious about a love potion being out there somewhere.

Griselda made an amused noise in the back of her throat. "Probably."

"I have to ask," Griselda announced, after putting a tray of honey scones in the oven. "Berries and such … Plants aren't like meat. You won't get sick if you don't cook them."

"Unless you don't wash them, either." Dawn shrugged. "Sometimes they get kind of dirty. Especially tubers, which I guess is obvious, growing underground and all."

"But you don't have to cook plants. So, why do you?"

"Well, sometimes it changes the flavour, or the texture." Dawn shrugged again. "And most food is more filling when it's warm. Plus the baked stuff usually has eggs in it, and you have to cook eggs."

"Frog eggs or fish eggs you can eat raw."

"I'll … take your word for it."

"Want to come to the Forest with me?" Dawn invited her sister, popping by the Crown Princess' study on her way out. "You could see Boggy!"

"Nah, he told me he was spending this week along the north border, making sure everything's repaired from the river flooding. If I'm not going to stay more than a day to help out, I'd just be a distraction." Marianne gestured at a pile of paperwork on her desk. "So I thought I'd stay and be productive here. But I'm glad you're going. You and Griselda really seem to get along well."

"Yeah, she's awesome. Today we're making jerky! That's where you dry meat up and put spices on it so it lasts longer. She says it'll take a couple days to make it properly, so I'm staying the night. Yes, Dad knows," anticipating the question. "I bet if you came too, she'd teach you how to make some of Boggy's favourites, and you could surprise him when he comes back!"

"I'm pretty sure a fairy princess accidentally poisoning the Bog King would cause a war even if he lived, no matter how much he likes me."

"You could cut up ingredients and we could say you helped," Dawn offered.

"No, thanks. Bog's scared enough about these cooking classes without me joining in. I mentioned wedding cakes this one time, and he's convinced you're going to teach Griselda how to make one and you'll surprise us with it one day and try to get us married on the spot."

Dawn laughed. "That's just silly!"

"That's what I said!"

"Hey, Griselda, if we surprise Marianne and Boggy with a wedding cake, do you think we could get them to get married on the spot? Or at least engaged?"

So, this was supposed to be a pure friendship-fluff fic so aromantics wouldn't feel left out of the Valentine's Day celebrations … but I forgot when I decided which characters to write about that Dawn and Griselda would naturally end up talking about romance a lot. Sorry. Can it still count?