Sugar, Spice, and Everything... (Free for all)

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In spite of some minor annoyances, the class itself seemed to be shaping up rather well. At least it was, until while she was giving the Table of Contents the once over so she could flip to the recipe with little delay, she heard a tear. Naturally, strange, vaguely violent sounds, rarely meant anything good or even innocuous in her world, so Della shot her gaze back to the front of the room, just in time to see Snow crumple a page from the cookbook and toss it in the trash. Then the woman plastered on the sort of smile that Della could imagine a serial killer painting on just before they lured you away from your friends and disemboweled you.

Oh no, even Snow White is psychotic in this world, she realized, trying to not look too horrified at the seemingly uncalled for violence against the poor cookbook. Probably should have realized it sooner. I mean, she married a dude who kissed her when he thought she was dead. What kind of a creep does that and what kind of self respecting woman accepts said creep's marriage proposal? Oh wait, I'm living in a world where Bella and Edward are people's OTP...I really hope that there aren't roots of that in this woman.

Okay, so clearly her thought process was going off on a major tangent, and Della decided to slap it away so she could manage to not fail at making a goddamn mudpie. She glanced back at the cookbook, perhaps a bit shaken, then she scanned the pages for the recipe in question...only to find what came before it.

"Ohhhh, that's probably why," she muttered, perhaps feeling the slightest bit bad for thinking that her teacher was having a psychotic break. Asking her to handle apples was probably the equivalent of someone asking the Wicked Witch of the West to handle water, or just a normal person with peanut allergies to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Still, you'd think the poster child for fairy tale innocence would have better impulse control.

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Giselle decided that she really enjoyed this class. It was lovely! Everything about it was simply lovely! And Snow was so nice! She couldn’t wait to get to the actual cooking part of class because that was best part! She loved cooking! And this class looked like it was going to be just so much fun!

But then something happened. Snow was telling them what recipe to turn to but then she didn’t finish so Giselle looked up to see what was wrong. Sometimes that happened with one of her animal friends and they were too afraid to finish talking because suddenly there was an ogre nearby. Giselle didn’t think there were any ogres here, but she couldn’t be sure. So she looked up to make sure there were no ogres and was quite relieved when she saw that there weren’t any ogres. Instead, Snow was ripping out a page in her book.

Giselle was quite shocked! She didn’t understand why someone would do that! The poor book! But maybe they were supposed to do that too! Giselle really wasn’t sure though. She leaned over to Della and whispered, “Are we supposed to do that too?”

But then Snow seemed alright and she moved on to mudpies. Giselle really didn’t know what to do still. The class had started out so well and now she wasn’t sure. If only she had Pip to tell her what to do. He was always good with advice.

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There were a few whispers amongst themselves, but otherwise the class was still silent. Her smile fading to one of a more controlled level, Snow held up a large saucepan.

“Like I said, this recipe involves no actual baking. We just heat the ingredients in a pot on the stovetop, mix it all up, and then drop the cookies onto some wax paper to cool, that’s all there is to it!”

So perhaps she was still being overly chipper, but besides Giselle, few of the other students seemed very engaged in this class thus far. Another reason to start with an easy recipe.

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Just when Della was having her "Oh no, she's insane" moment, she vaguely heard someone whisper a question that was, to say the very least, one of the dumbest ones she had ever heard. "Are we supposed to do that too?" Giselle had said. Seriously? She really thought there was a possibility that was acceptable and normal behavior. Surely it could be understood why Della's patience was wearing thin, right? She slowly turned her gaze towards Giselle, the most deadpan of deadpan expressions on her face, but then Snow was beginning to give them instructions and Della's scathing remarks (not that she was entirely sure of what to say; she was sort of feeling like her brain was melting, to be honest) were just going to have to wait.

She let out a sigh and after giving the list of ingredients the once over (not that she thought it was rocket science), she was gathering up whatever they had around...and then she noticed how confused the other girl looked. She wasn't even sure why she cared; Giselle seemed precisely like the sort of person she'd want to avoid...er, well, one of the two types she'd avoid. Giselle obviously didn't appear to be a total psycho that could possibly be working for Redd (not that the option was entirely ruled out; that was why Della never went unarmed at this school). Still, she let out a sigh, figuring out what exactly was bugging her pretty easily and whispered (because God forbid Snow hear this):

"It's because the recipe that page she ripped out had apples in it."

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Giselle began to gather supplies to make the mudpies. It really wasn’t too difficult of a recipe, but Giselle wasn’t really used to having a recipe written down for her. When she cooked, her forest animal friends usually helped her out and gave her directions as she went about cooking. And some things she remembered how to make because she made them so many times.

But then Della was speaking to her and Giselle was confused again. Why didn’t Snow like apples? Apples were lovely. When they had been chilled they were nice and crisp to bite into. And apple pie was simply lovely. Apple bread was also wonderful. She couldn’t understand why someone would tear out a recipe just because it had apples in it. She looked at Della with a perplexed expression. “I don’t understand,” she told the other girl. “I love apples.”

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Dear God, this girl was like a six year old, wasn't she? All wide eyed and confused at anything remotely foreign, especially someone getting so angry over something that she loved and...something inside Della made her stop. Perhaps it was partially because the other girl looked so damn innocent. It almost felt wrong to be judging her so harshly, even though that was as natural for Della as breathing. This is why I should probably never have kids, she couldn't help but think.

Still, she managed to keep her voice level, almost gentle. "Let's just say that I'm pretty sure she has a good reason for it," she said. Yes, it was a cryptic way of explaining things, but she somehow didn't think that Snow would ever want a total stranger telling her life story to another total stranger. Hell, just the thought of something like that happening to her made her blood boil. "It's a long story."

Already, Della was regretting this. She could have just left Giselle to her confusion. Something told her that it wasn't a foreign feeling for her fellow redhead and besides, why was any of this any of Della's business, either Snow's outburst or Giselle's confusion over said outburst. Why did she always feel the need to...she couldn't quite describe it, but it seemed like she always felt like talking to people who annoyed her, even though it would be far better for her sanity if she just kept her mouth shut. Gods only knew what sort of questions she'd be pestered with now. Ugh, this girl would probably think they were going to be very best friends just because Della was talking to her now. Great. Just great. This was exactly what she needed, yep.

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Giselle definitely had a child-like innocence, but having grown up with only animals for friends in the middle of a rather lonely forest. Not that Giselle was ever lonely of course, but there were just no other people that lived in the forest. She had no knowledge of other people and what made them tick. She had had no human companion until she met Edward and that had only been for a day. She could read animals much better than she could read people, but even then she always thought the best in everyone.

Giselle nodded at Della’s explanation that didn’t seem to explain anything at all. She frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked. “I still don’t understand. How could it be a very long story?” It just didn’t make any sense to Giselle. It still seemed like a very strange thing to do with very little explanation of why. She just didn’t understand why people did things sometime. Tintagel was a very strange place and she just didn’t know what to make of things. Maybe she should talk to Bartok about it. She was sure he might be able to explain things. He was very good at explaining things. He would be able to help her.

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Glancing around the class again, it appeared that her little transgression was already mostly forgotten, and a few of the students even seemed to be taking a bit of initiative and measuring out the first ingredients. Others just stared at her like they didn’t know where to start, or stared at the clock wondering why it ticked so slow.

“Everything but the oats and coconut can go right in the saucepan. Chop up the shortening into smaller pieces so it will melt quicker, and when it comes to the cocoa make sure you sift it, otherwise it will be lumpy.”

Making her rounds of the stations, she stopped right in front of Della and Giselle, who were too busy talking to actually do their work. “Is there a problem, ladies?”