Sinfully Delicious

Dalliance

Ferya had never stayed awake through the night, before she started working for Lucifer but despite the exhaustion she felt as the sun rose every morning, her body settled into the routine with relative ease. It certainly helped that she had the freedom to experiment with more recipes and had access to any piece of baking or cooking equipment she could ever need. It allowed her to whittle away the slower moments with her creativity, knowing that no matter what happened, one of Lucifer's demons was out front watching the store.

They never helped out by standing behind the counter to serve anyone and there had been a blunt refusal to allow her to put up a bell on the door that she only understood when it was explained that about half the creatures in the world were sensitive to the grounding magic in bells and the other half's ears were too delicate to stand the noise. Still, she could spend her time in the kitchen knowing that no one was going to attempt to steal from the shop and if someone was waiting to be helped, she would be alerted through the vibrating bracelet.

Night four was different than previous, however.

Luckily she had been alerted to the potential of a busy night earlier by the dark-skinned female demon that called herself Urdu and had managed to keep her baking ahead of the crowd that swarmed into the shop at a steady throng after sundown. Even then, Ferya barely had time to restock the shelves between customers and had struggled to manage enough time to smile at Torix and Murchadh when they had come into the shop. The two Guardians had been subjected to a chorus of barks and dog-like howls that erupted from every demon in the place.

She blushed in empathy for the two Guards, neither of whom appeared bothered by the performance, though they didn't dally for more than a coffee before slipping back out the door and into the night.

"It's going to be another couple hours, I think. The full moon has everyone off the streets tonight." Gavin leaned against the counter in a lull between customers, giving her a wickedly playful smile. "How are you holding up?"

"I don't understand. I know that things are a little different during a full moon, but what would bring them here?" Ferya's eyes took in the group that had not left the shop for a few hours. Despite being demons and shape shifters and other night kin, they seemed rather subdued and respectful other than the incident with Torix and Murchadh.

"Witches use the power of the mother, of life, during the full moon. They like it. But you notice they're not here." Gavin's voice was low, but Ferya didn't think he was trying to avoid anyone hearing him, his tone was just thoughtful. "But otherwise, the moon, it's not the sun and its power is a lot different, but the light from it is a reflection of the sun. It doesn't drain us, but our control is a little less. Humans had myths about werewolves in the full moon, right? Well, we become less of ourselves if we fight it on our own. Too many full moons in solitude and you go crazy."

She frowned at the concept and reached up to tuck a piece of her hair out of her face as opposed to reaching out to touch Gavin in an attempt to comfort him. "Oh. That sounds awful. I'm sorry, I didn't realize that. So you comfort each other?"

"Darkness begets darkness." Gavin grinned to her, his eyes dancing with mirth. "We don't comfort one another, but as a group, we shelter one another from the effects, I suppose. Demons are good company, or large families and packs. But Lucifer is the best, just being in one of his sanctuaries allows us to be completely shielded from all of it."

"So everyone is here until the moon starts setting." She nodded then, understanding what he was telling her. "I suppose it was silly of me to take comfort in how much light the moon gives. It's actually more dangerous."

Gavin gave her a thoughtful look, as if surprised by what she had said. "Ferya, it's always more dangerous in the light. Life is the cruelest killer of them all." As suddenly as it left, the grin was back and he reached out to tug on that stray piece of her hair, which had already slipped out from behind her ear. "I came to offer help. I can see you're getting low, and I've watched you enough that I'm sure I can make a couple coffees. But I'll call you for the complicated things, if you want to go keep baking?"

She didn't know how to react to any of his words, blinking at him in confusion before she finally managed a mute nod. Without much delay, he vaulted over the counter and was grabbing one of the spare aprons, tying it around his waist and nodding towards the door that led to the kitchen.

Ferya stared dumbly at him for a few more moments before muttering her thanks, glancing at the shelves and hurrying into the back as she raced through her thoughts. Safety in the dark? That was counterintuitive to everything she had been raised to think and believe. Humans had been surviving in the daylight for as long as there had been humans, supposedly. Surely Gavin was speaking from his own experience without giving thought about what life was like for a human. She knew it wasn't much safer in the daytime, that there were hunters that were just as deadly, if not more so, in the light. Even some of the night hunters could be out in the day, though they didn't like it a whole bunch, like Gavin. She had seen them come into Vialen's shop countless times, wincing against some pain she had assumed came from the bright light..

The dark, well, the dark was impossible for a human. She could barely see out in the night and she didn't have any senses to make up for her blindness. Ferya paused her thoughts for a moment, looking down at the dough she was kneading before putting it in a bowl to rise and turning to start making another batch of cookies.

Sweat ran down her spine from the heat of the ovens as she danced between the counters, trying to ponder through the things she had learned that night, only to be drawn into contemplation of everything she had been thrown into in the last week. Her life had changed, and she still hadn't caught up with just how much. Lucifer's changes to the building had included even her apartment herself, telling her that his power was more than she could fathom. In a day, he had changed everything about her life, for nothing more than what appeared to be a flight of fancy.

She knew that it wasn't as simple as her being needed to run this shop and him deciding to be nice because she had asked him to. Ferya knew somewhere in her heart that there was something else waiting to be sprung on her, though she couldn't puzzle it out. And she had learned long ago that little people like her could rarely control the grander things in the world, so they were not really worth worrying about.

Even if this was for a moment, even if it was a dalliance of hope in a typically dreary existence of trying to survive, surely she could enjoy it while it lasted. It was that thought that settled her mind, bringing a smile to her lips as she opened up the ancient cookbook that was her only treasure from her grandmother, flipping it open to the long-forgotten recipe for scones.

She wasn't even sure if she could remember them properly anymore, their taste and texture near lost in the years since her grandmother had died and left her into a dangerous, changing world. There were probably other things she should be focusing on making other than things no one seemed to have heard of before.

Ferya didn't care. For a brief millisecond of a moment, her life was her own and she would bake scones because she had the freedom to do so. The shop served tea as well as coffee and even if they didn't sell, she could take them home with her in the morning.