Welcome to Gaia! ::

Yuna's ears shifted as she curiously eyed the mixing bowl. She didn't know what any of the ingredients Brian named looked like, or what mixing was, but when he asked if she could do it, all she said was "Okay."

Fortunately, I made my way into the kitchen as this was going on. "Serena's had her diaper changed. She calmed down after that, but I'm going to keep this on me in case she gets hungry soon," I explained, motioning to the full bottle in my pocket, its n****e pointed upward to prevent spillage. I looked over to Yuna, and felt a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty coming from her emotional state. I didn't catch what Brian said, but I could kind of figure out what Yuna wanted. "When the time comes, do you want me to show you how that's done, or do you think you can handle it?" I asked gently. Yuna seemed to think about it for a bit before she looked up at me. "Show me," she asked. I nodded, patted Yuna's head as gently as I could, then turned to focus on the work at hand. "So, what needs to be done?" I asked Brian.

I sent a thought to Rala through the Betyl Stone as I apprached. "Normally, I mix all kinds of berries into the batter to make each pancake a mystery, to make it interesting. But because Yuna is young and growing, I focused mainly on sweeter berries for her last time I made them. We're going to need to make a smaller batch for Yuna's sake," I warned Brian.

As I began sorting through ingredients to prepare working on the pancakes that'd be made for the adult hybrids, a thought crossed my mind that stopped me in my tracks. "I wonder if we can make a dish out of a poffin... I'm sure that'd make things more interesting for Deo," I mused aloud. With that said, I went back to work, and Rala came out into the kitchen with a gurgling baby in her arms and Indie walking by her side.

"That sounds nice," Rala spoke up telepathically. Indie cheered in Pokespeech at the offer of food. I, meanwhile, focused on making the batter for the pancakes; putting the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. I then began mixing on my own for a couple of seconds before I remembered Yuna wanted me to show her how to do it. Bringing the bowl I was working with over to her, I leaned it to the side a bit to help her see how I mixed the ingredients together through intense stirring. Once she had decided she'd seen enough, she climbed up on the table, sitting on her knees. I handed her what I was mixing with, and held the bowl so that she wouldn't lose control of it..

Yuna struggled to mix the batter. Her attempt was a bit sloppy and slow, but despite the difficulty she had with it, Yuna smiled and giggled as she stirred the ingredients, slowly getting better at it over time. Then she slipped and almost fell off the table, but I caught her, pulled her up, and sat her back down on the chair. "You're okay," I cooed to her to soothe her, in case she'd gotten scared. It didn't seem like she hurt herself, so she was fine there. Yuna started to tear up, but my efforts to calm her worked. "Tanks, Daddy," she sniffed. I offered her the opportunity to try again, but she decided against it, so I finished stiring for her and set the bowl aside when I was done. "This bowl's ready for the milk and eggs," I told Brian. I usually waited until the batter was ready to be poured before adding in melted butter, but I trusted Brian to handle it.

As Brian finished setting up the pancakes and started working on muffins for Rala and Indie, I began planning out other times of meals. We had plenty of humans in the team, and breakfast foods wouldn't sate all of them. After a moment of looking over the ingredients and contemplating, I called upon my Poryphone, which leapt out of my duffel bag and floated over to my side. I had it look up recipes for a variety of foods before I settled on and started preparing for making steaks.

Yuna watched me doing this, and when it became clear what I had settled on, she spoke up. "You not gonna flip the flappies, daddy?" she asked out of curiosity. "I will," I replied. "When they're ready to be flipped. But we've got a lot of people to feed and not all of them will want flapjacks with berries in them," I explained with a smile. Yuna nodded at this, and continued watching curiously.

Once I had everything I needed to start cooking the steak, I shifted focus to the pancakes and set one of the sections of the stovetop to cook them. Grabbing a pan, I set it down on the warm stovetop section and put a portion of butter on it so it could melt; as the melted butter would not only prevent the pancakes from sticking, but also add a bit of flavor into it. Grabbing the bowl with the pancake ingredients, I added a small portion of vanilla extract into the bowl, then stirred it heavily. Then, I took a small bowl and poured a portion of the batter into it.

At that point, I took the berries Brian had laid out and began cutting them up. In the smaller bowl, I took sweeter berries, diced them, and poured them in. For the larger bowl, I diced a variety of berries and sprinkled the chunks of berry in randomly. Once that was done, I set the remainder of berries aside, took the two bowls, and sat them down on the table, letting Yuna stir the smaller bowl. Thanks to the bowl's size, she was able to stir it while sitting in her chair. Her stirring was slow, as before, but that was good because it meant none of the batter spilled. Once both bowls were stirred as needed, I carefully patted Yuna's head as a show of gratitude for her help, then took the bowls and moved to the pan I'd allowed to heat. The melted butter gave off a sweet smell - which was good; it meant the butter had not burned yet. I worked with the smaller bowl of batter first; pouring it out onto the pan in sections to make small yet moderately thick pancakes. As each pancake finished, I moved it onto a plate. Once the small bowl of batter was empty, I took the plate I had set those pancakes on, decorated it with small portions of butter and syrup, and placed the plate, a butterknife, and a fork before Yuna. "Don't worry if you can't eat it all. Just eat until you're full," I told her. She didn't respond verbally, instead cutting out a chunk of pancake and eating it immediately, smiling happily as she tasted of it. "Yummy!" she cheered.

With Yuna tended to, I focused on the larger bowl of pancake batter. Meanwhile, as Brian presented the muffins to Rala and Indie, they'd lift off the plate seemingly on their own. It was Rala's doing, manipulating Psychic-type energy to take hold of the muffins. She moved one before Indie, who was able to take it with her hands and eat it liberally. The other floated before Rala, who had to use Psychic-energy to move it to her mouth to eat, as her hands and arms were busy holding Serena. Because of this, Indie finished her muffin first. When she realized Rala was still taking bites out of her muffin, she smiled and spread her arms wide, offering to hold the hybrid baby. Rala took the smaller Psychic-type Pokemon up on her offer, and passed Serena to Inidie so she could focus on her muffin. This is wonderful, thank you, Rala said telepathically to Brian once she was able to liberally enjoy her muffin.

After some time, I finished the larger bowl of batter, and set the large quantity of mystery berry pancakes on two large plates. With them done, I headed over to the sink, washing the pan thoroughly and using a towel to dry it once it was clean. Now dry and clean, I was able to use that pan to start working on the steaks, and I moved the ingredients over to the counter to begin preparing the meat.

Before I could begin actually cooking the steaks, I heard a small voice speak out. All the yummy smells coming from the kitchen must have spurred her on to voice her own need for sustenance. As I heard this, I moved to get across the kitchen so i could pick her up. "Daddy-" Yuna spoke up. "I hear her," I assured Yuna with a quick headpat, who went right back to enjoying her food. Walking up to Indie, I picked Serena up with one arm, and took the bottle I prepared for her out of my pocket with the other. I then held the bottle up to Serena and let her drink of it, silencing her non-verbal blurbs as she hadn't actually started crying yet.

With Serena in my arms, I nodded to Rala and Indie. "You two go on ahead," I told them. Smiling, they happily walked over to where the muffins were being stored and helped themselves. I took a seat where they had been sitting. "I'm not going to be of use for a bit," I warned Brian. Hearing this, Yuna spoke up. "I can hold Sissy for ya, Daddy," I looked to her, then to her plate, that was about two-thirds full. "I appreciate that, but you should finish eating, first," I suggested. Looking at her plate, Yuna nodded and started eating a little too quickly, and ended up coughing. Hearing this, Rala quickly poured a glass of milk for Yuna and used Psychic-type energy to levitate the glass until it sat beside Yuna's plate, having not spilled a drop. "Hey, slow down," I said gently to her. Having not been able to spend much time with Serena while being held captive by SWIPE, usually only hearing her cries from a distance, Yuna was usually quick to be close to her younger sister whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Upon seeing the glass of milk, Yuna drank deeply, clearing her throat. Once she could breathe, she sat the glass down and looked to Rala. 'Tanks, Rala," before looking to me. "Sowwy, Daddy," she apologized. Rala curtsied to Yuna, and I smiled at the child. "It's okay. We've got plenty of cooking to do, still, so you'll have plenty of time to spend with your sister. Just take your time with your food, okay?" Yuna nodded and went back to eating.

"Yeah, that sounds good," I told Brian. Rala didn't speak up - the muffins that were made were enough for Rala and Indie. It took a bit longer for Serena to finish drinking, but once she'd had enough, she pushed the bottle with one hand, and I removed it from her mouth. With that done, I held Serena over my shoulder, performing a mixture of gentle pats and gentle rubs on her back. After a minute, she let out a loud burp that lasted a few seconds. "Good girl," I cooed. I held her like that for a moment as I watched Yuna, who had begun to eat very slowly. There were only a fifth of the pancakes left on her plate. "Getting full?" I asked.

"Uh huh," she admitted, holding her stomach. "Come here," I offered. Hopping off the chair - and landing on her feet, thankfully - she walked up to me and I passed Serena onto her. This was far from the first time Yuna held her baby sister, and she didn't need instruction on how to hold her. Once my hands were free, I got up and headed to the stovetop. I put another portion of butter on the pan and let that melt as I laid a sheet of cooking paper out on a counter. After perusing the recipe I'd looked up on my Poryphone, I laid out slabs of Tauros meat, took a tenderizer, and began working on tenderizing the meat. Watching me slam the tenderizer into the meat, Yuna began to shrink. "Daddy, why you mad at da food?" she asked, her fear evident in her voice. Looking to her, I couldn't help but smirk. "Honey, I have to do this to make the meat easier for everyone to chew. I promise I'm not angry, okay?" I explained calmly. Yuna didn't seem convinced, but she nodded all the same. "Okay, Daddy," she said worriedly. Noticing her older sister's wavering emotions, Serena began expressing her discomfort in the only way she knew how. Picking up on this immediately, Yuna began rocking back and forth in an effort to calm her baby sister. "It's okay, Sissy. Daddy's not angy. He pwomised." After a moment, Yuna decided that listening to me tenderizing the meat wasn't good for either of them, and she walked away, taking her sister with her back to the communal barracks we all slept in.

When I realized they were gone, I looked over to Rala and Indie, who were enjoying the last of the muffins Brian made. They looked up at me, noticed Yuna and Serena weren't in the room, and Indie walked after them to keep an eye on them. Rala, on the other hand, decided to stay with me for the time being. Once the meat was sufficiently tender, I took one and moved it to the pan with the melted butter and began pan-searing them I'd cook the first few medium-rare, and begin cooking them for longer the more of them I cooked, to make sure everyone would have stake at the level they liked it cooked.