Nyx is drooling again as Cai sets a plate with a thing called an omelet in front of her. She’d seen him crack open the eggs and mix the odd clear and yellow stuff inside. Yolk and albumen, he called it. He then cooked a meat called sausage, the smell of which caused her to drool by itself. Then he mixed shredded cheese into the eggs, some other things, and mixed it all up, and cooked it with the diced sausage folded inside just before finishing.

  “Here, just put some salsa on it if you want, and dig in.” Cai says as he places a bowl of some sort of red sauce filled with things she didn’t recognize.

  Nyx grabs her fork and gulps. How could something that came out of a chicken’s privates look and smell so good? On top of that, he’d put in the cheese, which smelled like feet. It boggled her mind that something like this came from those.

  Cai pours the salsa onto his own omelet and begins eating.

  Nyx copies him and then takes a bite.

  Instant purring.

  Nyx shovels the food into her mouth. She should hate it, but it’s so good!

  They eat, with the hum of the engines, the noises of the animals, and Nyx gorging herself as she purrs.

  Nyx’s ears twitch as she hears the clacking of Blackie’s metal booties approaching. Instinctively, she covers her food with an arm and growls at the animal as she continues to eat.

  Cai puts his fork down and pets the animal, who rubs against his legs and meows expectantly as he looks at Cai.

  Cai smiles, “Sorry, boy. It’s past your feeding time.” He turns to Nyx, “Want to try feeding them? The animals might feel more comfortable around you if you do.”

  Nyx glances and the cow and chickens, who seem to care less for her or Cai and just wander looking for whatever on the ground, though she notices the cow chewing on something even though she didn’t see it eat anything.

  She shakes her head, food splashing from her mouth as she talks, “Sparks no. Dum creepy thing.”

  Cai shrugs and then walks over to the animals’ rooms and opens a container.

  The cow whose name she’s forgotten runs over, making its weird groaning noise, and nuzzles an open container with a net over it just big enough for her to fit her head through, and eats as soon as Cai places some dried up plants inside.

  By this time, the chickens have joined Cai and the cow and are making their own weird happy noises as they wait for him to give them their own food, which he pours down a chute into their house. The chickens make more happy noises as they rush inside.

  Finally, Cai goes to the fridge and takes out a container filled with pureed meat and puts it into a bowl for Blackie.

  Nyx finishes her omelet and gets up and stretches, “Mya… Dum that was good.”

  She’s still purring and feels good, her swishing tail giving her away.

  Cai sits and looks at her, “If you’re still hungry, you can finish mine.”

  The smell tempted her, but her stomach still felt bloated from the oatmeal from earlier and the omelet left her feeling even more bloated, “Nah. I’m sparkin’ good.”

  Cai smiles and eats.

  While he does, she goes over and watches the animals eat, even trying some plants the cow is eating, which she immediately spits out.

  Blackie’s food smells amazing, but when she gets close to get a better look, he growls and she steps back, “Sparkin’ Blackie…” And growls as she realizes she did the same thing to it earlier.

  Cai finishes eating and takes their plates to the sink, “Hey, want to learn how to make cookies? I promised I’d teach you how to cook.”

  He washes the dishes while he talks.

  Nyx’s ears perk up, “Mya? Cookies? Dum right I wanna be tryin’ whatever the spark cookies are.”

  Cai gives her a look, “Okay. Let me wash these. And ‘mya’? Why’d you start saying that all of a sudden?”

  Nyx thinks to herself out loud, “I don’t know what yer bein’ talkin’ about. Mya? What the sparks is ‘mya’?”

  “Yeah. You’ve started making that noise when something interests you, or you’re feeling happy. It’s cute.”

  Nyx growls, “I’m not bein’ sparkin’ cute!”

  “If you say so.”

  Nyx pouts. But could she really be cute? A part of her doesn’t think it’s so bad if Cai thinks she’s cute.

  Cai dried the plates off and replaced them in a cupboard, “Can you get the last egg from the fridge? There should be a covered bowl in there too, with some yellow stuff inside. That’s butter. There’s another container with a brown and chunky paste in it called peanut butter. Can you get that too?”

  He enters some commands on his wrist computer, and a cabinet with an opaque glass front panel hums to life, and she sees something glowing orange inside. He then pulls out a bowl, a stick with a flat end that looks squishy, and several other containers.

  Nyx finds the butter, peanut butter, and the egg. After wrinkling her nose at the egg, she grabs it and the other things, “Got ‘em.”

  Cai pulls out some small tools from a drawer, “Okay. First, we need a half cup of butter.” He points to one of the small tools. It’s a handle attached to a small bowl and has ? printed on it.

  Nyx takes the tool and sniffs the butter. It has a creamy smell that reminds her of ?milk. She then scoops the butter. It’s hard, but soft enough that she can still scoop it.

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  Cai is standing next to her and watching closely. She wants to recoil at his closeness, but resists, “Like this?”

  Cai nods, “Yeah, let’s melt it so we can stir it in easier. While I do that, can you do that again with a ? cup of brown and white sugar each, and ? cup of peanut butter?”

  Cai takes the butter and places it in a smaller cupboard with a glass front, and it hums to life.

  Nyx does as she’s told, and Cai watches her, “Great! You’re already becoming a great baker!” He pats her head and stops as if he’d done something bad, “Crap! Sorry!”

  Nyx isn’t used to being touched. At least not in affectionate ways. She wants to recoil. To get angry. But… It feels nice. Even Wrench couldn’t praise her because he couldn’t speak. But he had patted her head like this, and every time it made her happy because she knew she’d done something good.

  She mutters, ‘Mya… it’s okay…”

  Cai steps back a bit, “You sure? You just reminded me of…” He clears his throat, “Anyway… uh…put in a pinch of salt and ? teaspoon of baking powder and soda each, then mix until everything is mixed together.”

  Nyx looks at his face. Would someone trying to deceive her make a face like the embarrassed one he made right now? And that head pat… He was good at pretending, or maybe he really was as nice as he acted?

  “Got it!” Nyx finds the baking stuff and the right size tool and adds them to the bowl. She then grabs the melted butter and adds that, and then takes the weird stick, “I gonna be usin’ this thing?”

  “That’s a spatula. Yeah, you use it for mixing dough.”

  Nyx mixes, but soon her arm gets tired, but she doesn’t want to look weak, so she pushes through her screaming muscles as she stirs by alternating which arm she uses.

  Cai stops her after about a minute, “That's good. Now crack the egg and be careful not to mix the shell in the dough.”

  Nyx scowls at the egg, “Goddum chicken shunk…”

  She’d watch Cai crack them open when making the omelettes and tried to do the same by tapping it on the corner of the counter.

  She did it too softly, so tried again a little harder until it cracked.

  She then reluctantly pressed her thumb through the crack.

  It was so cold and slimy, “Cai… I don’t wanna be sparkin’ doin’ this…”

  Cai just shrugs and watches her.

  Nyx’s ears fold back against her head in disgust and anger and pulls the shell apart. The contents spill into the dough, with only a single piece of shell falling in, which she picks out.

  Cai smiles proudly, “See, not hard. Wash your hands to get the egg off, and I’ll mix while you measure one and a quarter cups of flour.”

  Nyx tosses the eggshell into the sink and gladly washes her hands, once again marveling at how much water she’s being allowed to use, “Dum chicken shunk…”

  She dries her hand and finds the right measuring tools for the flour and adds it to the dough, “This is bein’ good?”

  Cai nods as she mixes, “The recipe actually says to sit in the fridge for a few hours, but I find it works fine if you don’t want to wait.”

  This time it’s much harder to mix, and she has to give up, “Goddum it, Cai. Can ya finish mixin’ this sparkin’ dough? My arms are feelin’ like the cap’n just beat me for takin’ too long to fix his bilge line.”

  Cai takes the spatula and stirs, “Sure thing. Can you check under the oven? The oven’s the thing with the glowing metal inside. There’s a flat cookie sheet in the drawer underneath.”

  Nyx easily finds it and pulls it out. Over the next few minutes, Cai shows her how to ball pieces of dough and then use a fork to flatten them, which also leaves a cute criss-cross pattern.

  Cai places them in the oven, “Okay! Just wait about twelve minutes, and they’re done!”

  Nyx looks into the bowl, “Why’d ya be leavin’ some sparkin’ dough?”

  Cai picks up a piece of dough, “Because the uncooked dough is delicious!”

  He pops it into his mouth and lets out a pleasant groan of approval.

  Nyx takes a piece, “Then why ya be cookin’ the dum stuff?”

  Cai shrugs, “I guess you don’t have to, but you can’t dip raw cookie dough in milk, and that’s even better.”

  Nyx sniffs the dough, then pops it into her mouth.

  She’s immediately hit by how sweet it is. And the other flavors that she’s unfamiliar with are hitting her in a way that pleases her taste buds.

  She purrs and eats more.

  Cai laughs, “Hey, save some room for when they’re cooked and fresh from the oven.”

  Nyx growls at him and hides the bowl with her body. She didn't care, and for the next few minutes she savored the sweet and savory cookie dough. Then, the smell from the oven hits her. It’s sweet and inviting. Intoxicating.

  Nyx presses her face against the glass and huffs at the smell, watching the cookies.

  Cai washes the things they used to make the cookies as he watches her in amusement.

  She hears Cai suppressing a laugh but doesn’t care. Though, is there a hint of sadness in his eyes?

  Nyx turns back to the oven, she needs to try the cooked cookies. Wants to dip them in milk and eat until she’s sick. She needs to.

  “Mya…”

  Cai lets a stifled laugh escape. “Just so you know, we used most of the sugar and peanut butter, so don’t expect more any time soon. It takes a lot of sugar beets to make sugar. And brown sugar is worse.”

  Nyx looks at him, her ears flattening at the news, “I’ll make more dum sugar.”

  Cai looks at the plants hanging overhead, “Don’t have enough room. Maybe once a month if we don’t use sugar for anything else. Peanut butter takes time too, but I have other kinds of cookies. Maybe sugar cookies with frosting next time? Don’t need brown sugar or peanut butter for those.”

  Nyx looks at the plants and it reminds her about how limited the Donati’s growing space is, “Yeah. I’ll take the dum sugar cookies.”

  Soon the timer goes off, and Cai hands her some insulated gloves, “Here, use these and get the cookies out. Then we have to wait for them to cool”

  Nyx puts them on and opens the oven. She’s blasted by hot air, but ignores it and takes out the cookie sheet, a bead of drool falling onto the sheet which hisses as it touches the hot metal. She then places it on the stove, her tail wagging in anticipation.

  “We have to be waitin’?”

  “They’re still cooking even though we took them out of the oven. And they’re hot, so you’ll burn your mouth.”

  He takes out a wire rack from under the oven and places it next to the cookie sheet. He then takes out another tool, “Here, use the spatula to move the cookies to the wire rack.”

  Nyx takes it and starts moving the cookies, though they’re crumbly and she has to be careful so they don’t fall apart.

  Cai is standing close to her again, “They’re not so crumbly if you put the dough in the fridge like you’re supposed to, but who wants to wait two hours?”

  Nyx nods in understanding, “Not me.”

  Nyx sniffs the cookies as she moves them, and decides she doesn’t want to wait and uses the spatula to shove a cookie into her mouth, “Gyaa! Goddum it! Hot!”

  Nyx spits out the cookie and starts blowing air over her tongue to cool it off.

  Cai is shaking his head, but is smiling, “I warned you.” He pulls out some milk from the fridge while she’s looking like an idiot with her burnt tongue sticking out of her mouth and pours a glass, “Here. This’ll help.”

  Nyx takes it and chugs it desperately, “Goddum I’m an idiot!”

  She pounds the cup onto the counter.

  Cai shrugs, “You’re just excited. Now you know better.” He gets a plate and moves some cookies onto it and then refills her cup. “Here, they’ll still be crumbly while they’re hot, but if you dip them in the milk, it’ll help cool them.”

  Nyx takes the plate and cup and moves to the table. As soon as the first milk-laden cookie enters her mouth, she remembers nothing else.

  Not even Cai as he recorded her.

  here. Though I use half the sugar.