Sprinkles for Jasper

     A Chocolate Pet running a bakery— depending on who you asked, it was either a little morbid (no more so than a not-Chocolate pet selling non-vegetarian food, Pixie always insisted!) or a little on the nose (the Grarrl running the Battle Magic shop hardly needed armour in the middle of Neopia Central, but no one gave him any grief for being ‘on the nose’!).

     Her favourite part was decorating her cakes and cookies. That’s why she liked the end of the year the best — between the Faerie Festival, Halloween, and the Day of Giving; she had plenty of custom orders to bake and spend time giving her own personal touch to.

     (She'd loved making the pumpkin spice Halloween cookies a little too much, and there was still a whole batch of them left— still fresh, thanks to a little trick with faerie dust.)

     That being said, this lull between Halloween and the Day of Giving did tend to get a little boring— save for a certain something.

     “A plain bagel and coffee, please.”

     Pixie looked up from her notebook, where she'd been sketching the drafts for her holiday cookie designs, to meet a pair of large, startlingly red eyes.

     She faltered for a second, entranced by the way the Halloween Vandagyre’s unblinking eyes glowed under the warm lights in her bakery; before managing to catch herself. “Coming right up!”

     The Vandagyre shyly put a punched card on the counter. “The coffee's free, I think? It's my tenth visit.” She had a soft, sweet voice.

     Pixie picked up the card with a smile, and then gasped in excitement when she saw the date in the corner. “It’s your birthday?”

     This was the something that kept her spirits up while she waited for the holiday season— birthdays. It was never the same birthday twice, after all. Not for the same number, or for the same person. Who didn't love being able to make something unique?

     “It is,” the Vandagyre said. “But just the bagel and coffee, please. Plain.”

     Pixie blinked. “Plain bagel. Okay. Fancy coffee, surely?”

     “Plain coffee.”

     Pixie blinked again. “Really? But it's your birthday!”

     “I'm sure,” the Vandagyre replied; still sweet, but firm.

     At Kauvara’s, all the interns seemed to already be mingling in their own groups.

     Jasper hovered near the door for a second, wondering if she should try and edge herself into one of the larger circles; but she lost her nerve and simply shuffled to her workstation, sipping on her coffee for comfort.

     When Jasper had gotten the offer for the internship with Kauvara in Neopia Central, she'd been over the moon. She loved the Haunted Woods— it was her home, after all— but she’d always been fascinated by the colourful things from the rest of Neopia that made their way into the local markets.

     She'd had rainbows on her lunchbox in school, and she'd asked for her tenth birthday cake to be pink. The shop had only managed maroon— it was the Haunted Woods after all— but the point was, Jasper had always thought of herself as someone a little atypical.

     And so she’d thought she'd actually fit in here.

     She'd been wrong.

     Neopia Central was used to Ghosts and Zombies, but apparently not Jasper and her glowing ruby red eyes. People stared everywhere she went, and just this morning she’d seen a young Gelert run into a lamp post because he’d been gawking at her.

     “Hey, Jasper! Is that from Miss Pixie’s bakery? I love that place!”

     Jasper looked up, and found Marin grinning at her. Marin was a Pastel Xweetok from Faerieland; and the closest thing Jasper had ever seen to a walking rainbow. Everything she wore either sparkled or glittered, and she always knew just what to say.

     Unlike Jasper, whose tongue was currently held hostage by the memory of their first meeting.

     (Marin, asking her what she was eating. Jasper, desperate for friends in this strange new city, saying chocolate scoaches! You can have some if you like! before she even knew what she was doing. Marin, eating a handful, and commenting on how skillfully they’d been moulded to look just like scoaches. Jasper, informing her that no, there were actual scoaches in her mouth.)

     (Marin, running to throw up in the bathroom.)

     (Jasper knew Marin didn’t hold the scoaches against her, and somehow that made her feel eternally awful about it.)

     She coughed. “Uhm, yeah.”

     Marin’s eyes brightened. “Have you tried her pumpkin spice cookies? The ones that look like jack-o-lanterns? I thought you’d like—” She stopped short. “Oh gosh, was that offensive? I mean, you’re from the Haunted Woods but maybe I shouldn’t just assume that you like—”

     “I saw them!” Jasper awkwardly cut her off. “There’s uhm, there’s still a batch left in the display.”

     Jasper had seen them, and she’d even considered buying them. But she’d gotten all up in her head about being a walking stereotype, and then she’d started wondering if not buying them would make it look like she was trying too hard to fit into Neopia Central, and if buying a fancy coffee would be trying too hard too. Like the time she’d looked in the mirror and considered buying contacts to cover up her glowing red eyes and immediately feeling terrible about it because those eyes were her mother’s eyes and didn’t she think those were the most gorgeous eyes in the world and—

     Marin interrupted her spiral by heroically making yet another attempt at carrying on the conversation. “Is that your rewards card?”

     Jasper looked down at her bag, where the corner of her card— the corner with Pixie’s heart-shaped logo— was sticking out of a notebook, just as Marin plucked it out. “Wait—”

     “How many spaces do you have left before your free—” And then, for the second time that day, “It’s your birthday?”

     Jasper swallowed. “Yeah.”

     Marin clapped her hands. “How fun! I wish you’d told me earlier, I would have gotten you a present! Are you celebrating after work?”

     “Not really,” Jasper said, smiling shyly. “I don’t really have anyone to celebrate with.”

     The Xweetok’s eyebrows knitted together, and she opened her mouth; but before she could say anything, Kauvara breezed through the door tossing out instructions (both verbal and physical). Marin scampered back to her workstation, glancing furtively at Jasper as she jotted down Kauvara’s words.

     Pixie loved her job… but maybe not enough to miss a Jazzmosis concert.

     “Anything will do!” Marin cried. “Come on, Miss Pixie! If I go back empty handed then it just looks like I gave Jasper more work for no reason! On her birthday.”

     The poor thing had come crashing in right as Pixie had finished wiping down her counters for the night; asking for a cake for her friend through gasps of breath. And really, Pixie was kidding herself— if it was up to her, she would get right back into the kitchen and fire up her oven. But her friends were waiting for her. And besides—

     “I would love to make a cake for you, but it would take me a couple of hours to bake and decorate it, Marin,” Pixie said, wringing her paws together. “And you said you'd only managed to stall your friend for thirty minutes at most.”

     The Pastel Xweetok’s face fell. “Oh, right.”

     “It's not ideal, but maybe you can pick something out from the display?” Pixie suggested hesitantly. “And I could add some icing to it to make it special, that wouldn't take me long.”

     Marin perked up at this. “Oh, that would be lovely!” She marched over to the display case, her tail swishing with purpose, and evaluated the contents with narrowed eyes.

     Pixie busied herself with prepping the icing. Not five minutes later, Marin returned— with a tray of jack-o-lantern cookies.

     “I'm gonna go with these.”

     Pixie rolled up her sleeve. “Now leave the rest to me,” she said with a grin. “Any special requests?”

     Marin tapped her chin thoughtfully.

     “Would you happen to have any rainbow sprinkles? I get the feeling Jasper would like that.”

     The End.