Reyna (reynaway) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2016-12-15 21:55:00 |
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Although Reyna had learned to cook and bake from a very young age, she’d never seen herself as the domestic type. She could do it, sure - and even enjoyed it to some extent - but her interests lay in the physical realm: battle; weaponry; sports. Except now, when sports and domesticity came together in the form of a bake sale that she was involved in. The kitchen was filled with the smell of gingerbread in the oven even as Reyna continued working on her next batch of cookies: shortbread, which used much, much more butter than Reyna had anticipated. She’d used up the entire butter stash in the house; she would have to find more. In the meantime, she pushed her hair out of her face as she rolled the dough, leaving a streak of flour on her forehead. *** “Well it smells good in here.” Methos wasn’t used to people baking in the house because for the most part all of them tended to go their own way and do their own thing. And he hated to bake because he still liked to use a real oven with a wood fire and hot coals but everything was electricity or gas now. So he’d rather just not bake and buy whatever he wanted. “What brought all this on?” *** “Bake sale for the volleyball team,” Reyna explained. “We’re trying to get new nets. I have the feeling the ones we’re using were bought back when the school was first built.” Which would explain the sagging and generally grunginess. With the dough rolled, she dug around for the cookie cutter. “Which means you have to help me save these from Percy.” *** “I’m always up for a challenge.” Methos wasn’t sure that she wasn’t going to need help from all three of the men in the house. “I’m surprised you didn’t just buy the materials and weave new nets. Weaving seems easier than baking to be honest.” Methos leaned against the counter and pointed at his forehead. “You are wearing your ingredients by the way. Right about here.” *** “Maybe for someone who was around when weaving was invented,” Reyna said wryly. “I'm sure no one on the team knows how to weave.” At his remark, she looked at him questioningly and made an attempt to rub off the flour. She only succeeded in leaving a larger streak on her forehead, but she shrugged; she wasn't really concerned about how she looked. “You're going to come to our bake sale and buy lots of cookies, right?” *** “You can’t just sell them to us before you take them to the school?” Methos chuckled at the attempt to make herself cleaner and the result it had. She didn’t look a bit the warrior at the moment other than the determined look on her face. “You know MacLeod won’t want to let the cookies out of his sight long enough for you to take them to school.” *** “If I do that, you’d have no incentive to come down to the bake sale and buy everything else,” Reyna pointed out. Just because she was a warrior didn’t mean she didn’t understand the principles of cross-selling. She eyed him consideringly as she held her cookie cutter. The way she wielded it, it could very well be a weapon. “Can I count on your protection, or will I have to safeguard the cookies from you too?” *** “Oh please.” Methos rolled his eyes but he was obviously amused. “If I wanted the cookies you would never know what happened to them. I’m the one that likes to do things in the less flashy and obvious ways. Hiding in plain sight and all that.” He trusted that Reyna wouldn’t be attacking him with the cookie cutter. He wasn’t being overtly covetous of her baked goods. “How are you and Percy getting on with MacLeod?” *** It was true. Percy and Duncan weren't the subtle type, but Methos was more Wiley. Reyna would have to keep an eye on him if he ever did want her cookies. “We’re doing fine,” she said as she started cutting cookies with rapid precision. “He's friendly enough. You've known him for a long time, haven't you?” *** “I’ve known him longer than he’s known me. He’s from earlier than I came from.” Methos was glad that she and Percy were doing okay with MacLeod. He liked the other immortal despite his stubborn tendencies. There weren’t many immortals that he cared to spend much time around. “There are a lot of things coming for him that he doesn’t know about.” *** “Are you going to tell him?” Reyna asked, looking up from her cookie cutting to gauge his response. It was a delicate situation, she knew. She herself would want to know what was in store for her, but she knew some people wouldn’t want to know about a future they couldn’t do anything about here. Duncan struck her as someone who would want to know, though. *** “No.” Methos said it flatly and didn’t look away from Reyna. MacLeod could want to know all he wanted but Methos wasn’t going to enlighten him. There was a limit to how many times he wanted to live through that conversation about his past. “MacLeod might be a warrior but he’s still an idealist.” *** “What disappoints him?” Reyna asked. She didn’t ask who disappoints him in his future; it was implied. Situations don’t disappoint as much as people did. And given Methos’ short reply, she wondered if he was involved. *** Methos snorted softly. “A lot of things disappoint him. He lives in a world where chivalry is a thing and the good guys always wear white hats to his standards.” His smile was definitely on the sarcastic side. “Let’s just say I’m one of the ones that doesn’t measure up.” *** Reyna had figured as much. It didn't change her opinion of either of them, though; it just solidified what she knew. Methos had always been very practical, and Duncan… “It's remarkable he's managed to keep his idealism this long.” Even Reyna, at only sixteen, knew that the world was a place of grey. *** “He honestly belongs in a Disney movie where the good guys always win and the bad guys get some horrible death that is ironic to their actions.” It was good to have someone like MacLeod around, he really did try to make everything a better place but at the same time the lack of realism was the perfect weapon to hurt him with. “But those don’t exist outside of that girl Ella’s home.” Methos survived. It was what he did. And MacLeod would never know how much more Methos loathed himself for his time with the Horsemen then anyone else ever could. And that included Cassandra. But he still wasn’t ready to lay down and die over it. He grew up, he moved on. “At any rate puncturing his idealism never goes well so I’ll let it lie.” *** “How did he get this far without losing his idealism?” Reyna asked curiously. She didn't know how old he was, but he had to be older than her. And she'd lost her innocence a long time ago. *** “It’s just who MacLeod is.” Methos shrugged. He’d lost the good once by taking on too many dark quickenings but had been able to cleanse himself of that dark influence. He was a good man. “He’s a good person but it makes him too rigid. He needs people with more flexibility to help him sometimes.” *** That was where Methos came in, Reyna supposed. She wasn't ignorant of Methos’s past, and while she fully understood it for how ruinous it was, she also knew that Methos had learned from his experiences and was trying to atone for what he'd done. He was what Duncan needed, even if Duncan may not appreciate it at the moment. She nudged her first plate of cookies towards him. “Have a cookie.” *** Methos took a cookie and grinned before taking a bite. “See, I don’t need to be straightforward to get cookies.” They were very good cookies too. Definitely worth being the first one to taste them. “I’ll make sure that MacLeod and Percy come to the school and buy enough to help you get the new nets.” *** |