some say you can eat bread

"Ohhh, I could just eat 'er up." Nia rolled all the invisible Rs and unaccompanied Es in that comment, nearabout licking her lips with tongue darting over and around fangs. "Couldn't you?"

"Too many feathers for me, thanks," Dunban replied - more opined, from where he was reclined at the kitchen table, reading, while Melia bustled through her things, getting ready for a midmorning trip to the shops. "Even with the smaller headwings, I don't think I'd advise to chance it."

"So literal, Dunban!" Nia sighed, drumming her fingertips atop the table and at rest on the side of her face. But, now that he'd mentioned it...well, yeah, she could see the point. So soft and fluffy, in pastel colors, with those perfectly risen curls of silky-fine hair rounding out her silhouette; Melia was the most adorable pastry Nia'd ever laid eyes on.

Would you start with the cinnamon-roll curls or the croissant epaulettes? From the bottom in, or side to side; bite off the tips, or tear apart the ooey-gooey middle? Now Nia stopped to wonder if Melia's flaky crust should need any glaze, or whether it was sufficiently moist and tender all on its own. Maybe the glaze, gauzed between blues and pinks, tasted of oversweet sugar, or maybe of a gentle Earl Grey. The feathers, if eaten, should pose no threat, assuming they've been tended properly as a delicate garnish.

Would it be gold flake, or silver? Some white-chocolate coated almonds, marzipan, or dragées? To speak of chocolate, would there be a chocolate paste filling the interior, or would it be fruit-flavoured - oh, orange cream... 'Twould be raspberry, for Melia, most like. Love Raspberries, of course, never Hell Raspberries. In fact, come to think of it, of course Melia would be decorated with slices of Amethyst Melon, the beloved dessert fruit of the Mechonis. Maybe some Pure Cherry...? She should make a note to ask Sharla, for sure.

And were these quite indecent thoughts? Were they so embarrassing that, should Melia ask, Nia would stutter and stumble over any possible explanation of what it was she'd been thinking, and in such delicious, decorous detail? Dilemma Rock for your thoughts, that sort of thing. Since Melia was always quite eager to get rid of such objects, and ameliorate over-thinking-time, well, dilemmas.

"You'll remember the macarons, for Aegaeon?" came the entreaty from Dunban, breaking Nia out of her blissful reverie and saving her the awkward trouble. At first she turned to give him an odd look, as it was uncharacteristic for him to remember something like that himself. But, then she saw the slim, low-profile sticky note carefully affixed to the top of Dunban's right-side page, revealing to him upon the completion of exactly the number of chapters Aegaeon had expected that there was a duty yet to be fulfilled.

Or maybe Dunban had put it there himself, but Nia couldn't quite see him doing that either.

"We'll remember," Nia assured him, regardless. "I've got a list."

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Melia smile, wide-lipped and rosy-cheeked, at this declaration. Well, when she could concentrate, she'd put it to use! And Melia usually didn't know about these things because quite often she was one of the principal obstructions clouding Nia's chaotic mind. Oh, to just think about her, and think about her, and think about her...

With no further rejoinders from Dunban (he remained fully engrossed in his novel and hardly even managed a distracted wave good-bye), Nia and Melia exited the house into the residential district, padding along next to each other in a moment of relative quiet as the birds chirped, the bees buzzed, the trees whistled, and so on and so forth.

Melia reached for Nia's hand, casually - so casually that Nia almost thought it must have been an accident, but she took the offering nonetheless, and swallowed a giddy smile.

"You were lost in dreamland, there, weren't you, Nia?"

"Just waiting patiently for you," Nia simpered, to cover up her nervousness.

"Mhm...waiting for your chance to strike?"

"Wh- I w-- No, of course not!" But she didn't snatch her hand away.

In fact, Melia just squeezed a little tighter. "Well, dear, you are a cat, and I am a bird."

"S-so?"

"So I don't think I'm surprised that you've thought of stalking and eating me," she explained, so breezily.

Nia blinked. "You're awfully calm for someone who's under constant threat of being eaten."

"Well..." Melia seemed to consider this. "I suppose I couldn't think of a nicer way to go. Could you?"

Arrested for the voracious devouring of one High Entian Empress acting as mere Princess for the day, banished to a world with no friends and certainly no lovers, if any countrymen...oh, but yes, it would be worth it.

When they returned from the bakery, macarons in hand, Aegaeon had arrived and was conversing quietly with Dunban about something to do with science, or photosynthesis, or autolysis, or whichever.

"Ah, there she is." A rare moment of perceptiveness, from the Hero of the Homs. What, no good morning? "Aegaeon, take a look at Melia, there. You're a lover of sweets, right? Would you eat her?"

Oh, Nia knew she was turning an even more vivid purple than the frizzled feet of the macarons (which she took care not to drop, in her consternation).

Aegaeon, meanwhile, was thinking, hand on armored chin. He looked Melia over, pensive. She, unlike Nia, was not blushing, and instead stood firm with a strange sort of concentration against the inspection of her most edible, mouth-watering attributes.

"The feathers would prove difficult to digest," Aegaeon said at last. "The choking hazard is too great. No, I would not eat her."

"And that's why I like him," Dunban remarked with a triumphant nod. Even if the topic was criminally irreverent, Nia was glad to see that it got Dunban's boots off the table, so they could break bread and pastries together in peace.