[closed] do you know the muffin man?

[lordof]

CHARACTERS: bEST BUDDIES mairon and merry brandybuck (lordof and bemerry)
LOCATION: a kitchen! a kitchen.
WARNINGS: cavities, perhaps.
SUMMARY: mairon still has to receive his gift from merry's birthday (yeah, weird hobbit habits) and muffins are involved. they are not evil. neither is the dragon. (promise.)
NOTES: n/a

He doesn't need to eat. He doesn't require nourishment, not in this manner. Or in any manner at all. Surely food was not the reason why Merry would invite him to a kitchen.

(But Meriadoc is a Hobbit. And if there is anything Mairon has learned of Hobbits thus far, it's food.)

Mairon tells his master that he will be taking a trip to the kitchens, to meet with a friend he has not seen in… it seems only weeks to him. Only since the last cycle. But he slept through that one, apparently, so it must be at least one month.

(It's still an odd notion he can't quite swallow.)

Glaurung has made a nest of the hair pulled over his shoulder by the time he reaches the appropriate kitchen. He's barely grown an inch since he arrived, still smooth and soft-skin scaled and tender-horned, still unable to do more than puff sparks into the air. The hair itself is as little-kempt and unruly as always; nothing to suggest that his and Melkor's reunion has been spent a little too much in bed.

Mairon has a hand over the young dragon's head when he approaches, rapping briefly with his knuckles at the doorway to announce his arrival.

"Meriadoc?"

Comments

[bemerry]

Even with the tensions, Meriadoc is genuinely happy to see Mairon, mentally brushing off the twinge that the other's presence gives his arm, and filling his thoughts full of hop instead. He is carefully balancing a muffin tray in two oven-mitt hands, however, so he calls out towards Mairon with a smile as he works to set the pan down.

"Come on in, and lend me a hand."

As soon as he sets the pan down he pulls out another bowl of mixed ingredients, passing it up towards Mairon. "If you could stir this, please? I know that you don't really need to eat, but I thought you might like some goodies just for the enjoyment of the taste. And since those form the party were spoilt by the time you..." He trails off, but the implied 'came out of your coma' is very clear.

"At any rate, I still need to give you my birthday present, since I hadn't been able to, earlier."

[lordof]

Oddly enough, it makes Mairon... well. Not happy, not certainly genuinely, but. Touched, perhaps. Curious and calmed, to see Meriadoc so enlightened by his presence. It's easy to forget sometimes, their circumstances.

Suddenly being handed a bowl of things to stir around definitely puts a blank sort of expression on his face, though. But he does as asked, wordlessly accepting the bowl and setting it down on whatever free space remains of the counter, stirring it with a spatula. At least, he thinks it's a spatula. He's only walked through Numenor's kitchens every now and then in the past... 50 years.

"..So you decided to bake just for the occasion?" He sounds both incredulous and mildly amused. And swats the wyrmling on the nose when the tries to stick his head in the bowl. "Well. At least one of us is looking forward to a treat."

[bemerry]

"Of course! It'd hardly be fair to give you a birthday present if you hadn't got the birthday food to go with!" Merry's voice floats over his shoulder from where he has hunched over a bag of supplies, digging around looking for something.

"Here it is!" He comes back to the counter, sidling up next to Mairon and offering up a thick wooden band, carved with designs and decorations. "I thought you might like a nice bracelet cuff, since you don't seem the type to be using spoons that often."

It's clearly handmade, and personal. While it lacks the more readily 'evil' motifs, there is a pattern much like his large snake form that weaves around the edges, while a simpler relief that looks alike a wolf's head makes its appearance on the cuff.

"I can take that back now," his hands going out towards the batter and spatula he'd passed to the Maia. "If little Glaurung is hungry, the muffins in the pan on the cooling counter just came out, and I doubt he'd be bothered that they are a mite warm, still."

[lordof]

"So if I do not eat the food," he begins, handing the bowl back to the Hobbit and scooping the dragon up to place him on the table, "does that mean Glaurung will have to wear your gift?"

The dragon in question gives an indignant sort of squawk, backing away from the proffered bracelet with a hiss.. and promptly going right off the table. While Mairon holds back a laugh he takes the carved wood from Meriadoc's hands, holding it up to the light for better inspection. He's more accustomed to metals, gold and silver and mithril, even iron. More accustomed to details, intricacies, lacework threading and etching. Eregion had plenty of those.

But wood, carved thick and bold, serpent and wolf.. it doesn't look much out of place around his wrist. Even though he has as much use for it as he would a spoon.

"..Thank you, Meriadoc. For this." He smiles, and Glaurung trills in agreement from waist-level, having crawled up Mairon's pant leg. "And-- for the muffins, I am sure. Glaurung says thank you as well."

[bemerry]

Merry laughs as well, as Glaurung falls and then scrambles up Mairon's pant leg. He outstretches a hand, tentative, to pet the dragon as he had months before, when they had curled up to sleep. But he will let Glaurung decide if such a touch is wanted.

"I am glad you like it. I was unsure of what I could give you, give what little I had to work with."

His smile is bright as he turns it up to Mairon, before turning back to his work with a slight twinge of pain from the other's presence. He finishes mixing, pouring the batter into muffin-tins, and setting those in the oven just recently vacated.

He closes it and sets a timer for twenty minutes.

"How have things been, with you? It has been some time since we could meet."

[lordof]

If dragons could go cross-eyed, Glaurung would be, watching Meriadoc's hand come closer and closer. He doesn't reject it, though he stares at the Hobbit steadily with a soft trilling sound. Almost like a purr, but not quite. After another moment, he claws his way back up to Mairon's shoulder, perching like a bird.

"I am still finding this practice strange, the giving of gifts on one's birth-date. Or even the receiving of one." He shakes his head briefly with a smile, and leans over a bit to see if there's anything that needs helping with.

The question gives him pause. Glaurung even turns to look at him, as though to ask if anything is wrong.

"..My apologies, Meriadoc, that we could not meet sooner." His smile is small, a little fond, a little distant. "Melkor has been little keen to let me out of his sight since we woke, with good reason. And i have been little keen to let him alone in the state that he was."