A Frosting of a Problem [Rhys]

[vasilia abigail fortescue]

rhys alexander greyback
December 20, 2025

Vasilia LOVED the holidays. Though, she'd had a very late start to all the work that came with them. Getting sick last month had delayed her plans quite a bit. Now though, she was catching up. Though, she still had to decorate the pub, all the while working out the menu for the big party coming up. Vas had been hired to help cater. Unfortunately, the recipes weren't necessarily her favorite, it's what the party planner had requested. Whatever. She'd spent the morning just running through the recipes. YAWN. boring. No creativity or fun to it. But, she supposed she understood. They needed something that could be done consistently, for hours, and also made in bulk. Now that she'd done all that though, curiosity got the better of her. So, she'd shot a text to Rhys, reading "want free food? experimenting at the hound. need a second opinion.". No doubt he'd come. He loved food, which worked in her favor. She loved making food, he loved eating food. Perfect taste tester. She would have asked Ilija or Felix, but Felix was working today and Ilija couldn't eat most the stuff because of his allergy. So, after heavily tweaking the recipes, she'd cooked up quite a bit of food. Not all of it was necessarily cooked, as not all of it had to be cooked. Though, there was still a tray in the oven, and some resting on the counter. 

Deciding that the kitchen had gotten a bit hot after all her cooking, she'd brought out the tray of sugar cookies she'd taken out of the oven not to long ago (enough that they were cool enough to decorate though), along with several types of frosting. She'd set up quite the decorating station at a booth in a corner with a scrutinizing look as she stared at the different bowls of frosting and a spoon in her mouth. Obviously, she was having quite the dilemma. If it wasn't for the spoon, someone might think it was even a serious dilemma because of how her eyebrows were furrowed. But no. This dilemma was over frosting. 

[rhys alexander greyback]

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December 20, 2025
vasilia abigail fortescue

Rhys had been trying to lay low since that fight with Deva, since he’d drank so much, he hadn’t been able to remember really anything. The next morning had been significantly better experience and he’d left in much better spirits than where he had started. That might have not been saying much but typically when Rhys fell in some hole he stayed there for a while until he was forced back out in the light for some reason. This time had been…different. Maria had asked him where he had been and he told her about Deva, at least at a high level and that he’d gone to drink. That seemed to satisfy her and he moved on from it as best he could. These things took time, so kept himself busy with last minute Christmas gift shopping and searching and he’d been called to work as well. Luckily portkeys and apparating made traveling not all that bad though it made syncing back with whatever time zone he was in a bit of a hassle, as if his sleep didn’t already suffer enough.

He’d received a text and he didn’t notice at all how he’d smiled a bit when he saw who it was from. ’want free food?’ For Rhys that was always a question anyone who knew him should have known the answer to, of course he did and especially if she was cooking it. He entered the pub and looked around for her, which took him a moment as he had to walk further in. It wasn’t crowded as he was used to and he found Vasilia in a deep concentration, a spoon in her mouth but clearly something on her mind. It was a bit of a funny sight, so he couldn’t help but smile some. The table she was looking at had cookies on them and his eyes lit up, from the smell he could tell they were fresh. Still, she hadn’t noticed him, so he walked up and stood almost next to her and cleared his throat. ”Keep concentrating on them like that and they might actually burn.”

[vasilia abigail fortescue]

rhys alexander greyback
December 20, 2025

This was driving Vasilia NUTS. She didn't know what frosting she liked together. Because, who would settle for just ONE type of frosting on a cookie?! No, it was all about how flavors worked together. While there wasn't anything wrong with just one frosting, she was always reaching for bigger and better things. Always trying something new, and different. There was a cinnamon frosting, a peppermint frosting, a caramel, eggnog, lemon, cranberry. Those were one category. And she was trying to pair them with something from the second category. Aka, the boozy category. She had several types of frosting that had whiskey, liqueur, and rum.

She was so deep in her contemplations, that she didn't even hear the door of the pub open, or someone approach the table, it wasn't until she heard someone right next to her, clearing their throat, and mentioning something about burning that she jumped, the spoon dropping from her mouth and into her hands as she looked up with wide eyes. THough, her surprise turned into an immediate grin. "Ah-hah! There's the opinion I've been looking for!" Immediately she set the spoon down and grabbed a clean one (she had a huge stack of spoons on one side of the table... and another stack of used ones. Obviously she'd been debating quite a while. She scooped up a bit of frosting from one of the bowls onto the fresh spoon and held it out to him. Didn't even ask if he wanted to try it. "I can't decide. Should it be with something strong tasting, or soft?" She hadn't even told him what she'd handed him, though being the borderline alcohol he was, he'd probably taste the hint of rum in the frosting.

[rhys alexander greyback]

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December 20, 2025
vasilia abigail fortescue

The spoon that had been in her mouth fell though she caught it and she seemed shocked until she recognized it was him. There wasn’t a hello or anything as she put him straight to work, at this point not having some kind of introduction wasn’t abnormal. Before he could really blink there was a spoon with some frosting in his face, he grabbed it. There wasn’t any point in arguing with her, not that he would have this case, but he tasted the frosting. It was different than any frosting he had tasted but he hardly considered his tastes refined aside from what he’d learned traveling. And then…something familiar. Though he’d never had much of a sweet tooth, this was something he didn’t mind. ”Hm, well I like this one. I think something soft.” He commented, now looking at the stack of discarded spoons. ”How much frosting have you had?” That amount of sugar might explain her currently energetic approach.

Rhys looked back at the table, wonder exactly what she was planning with these cookies. ”What else you got?” She probably had a bunch of different things for him to try, it was interesting to watch her process. There had to be some method to it and her approach, much as Rhys did when he first entered an artifact site. One stopped and thought about what you had, what to do next and how to do it. From what she’d told him, it was much the same when it came to cooking. He’d liked the frosting he had tried and wondered what else she had made.

[vasilia abigail fortescue]

rhys alexander greyback
December 20, 2025

Rhys didn't complain or protest, instead just tasting the frosting, then gave his verdict. Vasilia nodded, agreeing. She shuffled a few of the bowls of frosting, then grabbed two new spoons, dipping them both in separate bowls. She was just about to hand them to him, when he asked his question. Vas stopped and looked up at him, blinking rather rapidly. "Um...." She thought. "A lot I guess." She answered honestly. And this was just the surface, she'd gone a lot more tasting in the kitchen. She was a very hands on cook. She tasted everything, every step of the way. "Why?" Of course, Vas didn't seem to comprehend that she miiiiiight be on a bit of a sugar rush right now.

Though, he still seemed willing, asking what else she had, and it immediately brought her back to her experimenting. She grinned, and slid over on the bench, making room for him to sit next to her. "Try this one and this one." She took the spoons she'd momentarily abandoned out of the frosting bowls and held them out for him. The first was lemon. A more "mellow" lemon though. Refreshing, mild. The other was eggnog. Sweet, with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. Also quite mild, but a smoother, and warmer taste then the lemon. Both very different. "I like it with the lemon, like a daiquiri. But the eggnog would balance out the sweetness of the rum, give it a bit more complexity." She thought about, then realized he probably had no idea what she was talking about. "I'm mixing them! Making... Christmas... cocktail cookies?" She had to think, not really sure what to call this unusual experiment until that moment.

[rhys alexander greyback]

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December 20, 2025
vasilia abigail fortescue

Her expression told Rhys that she had no idea the changes he had noticed from her usual more mellow self. She was always happy, but this energy was different. He shook his head, she seemed happy and he’d rather not interfere with that while she was in her element. ”No reason.” Rhys followed her to where she sat on a bench and tried to keep up with what she was asking him to try. Rhys took the first one and tried to recognize the flavor, it took him a moment as it was more subtle than he expected for that. ”Hm…that one was interesting….” He mumbled, and he took the second spoon from her and tasted that one. His faced showed some concentration which was different because he never really got into activities such as this. It was a completely different flavor that the other one, but he wasn’t sure what he had expected as everything he had tried had been from all different directions.

Rhys gave her an amused look as she finally decided to let him in on whatever she was working on and planning, he knew cookies had been involved and food but that had been it. She might as well have been jumping up and down in her seat which might have either been the sugar or her actual excitement over this little project of hers. Maybe it was amusement or even just that he enjoyed seeing people happy, there had been so much unhappiness in his own he was glad that others didn’t experience that. ”Oh, well is there a whiskey one?” He couldn’t help but ask. The concept wasn’t one he’d ever really thought about it, cookies were just cookies and you ate them, but alcohol inspired ones? Well, that was a something he could get on board with.

[vasilia abigail fortescue]

rhys alexander greyback
December 20, 2025

Vasilia waited for his verdict on the two flavors she'd t old him to try, though she was thoroughly unimpressed by his answer of "interesting". She pursed her lips. Interesting told her absolutely nothing. Interesting could be good, bad, or simply unable to decide if he liked it or not. "Well that's entirely unhelpful." She answered, though she still sounded happy. "Interesting how?" She continuing, hoping to coax out a more useful answer out of him.

Clearly though, they needed help on this decision. Lemon or eggnog. She took up a fresh spoon in one hand, and a cookie in the other, she scooped up a bit of the rum frosting and spread it onto the cookie. Then, on one end of the cookie she added the lemon frosting, the other end got eggnog. Only then, she held the cookie out for him. "Try it together. Which end do you like better?" As he mentioned whiskey though... she grinned. "Yeah. You're not allowed to try it till last." Because, she knew he'd strongly favor it. She needed to get him to help decide all the other flavors first before he got distracted by the whiskey frosting.

[rhys alexander greyback]

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December 20, 2025
vasilia abigail fortescue

Rhys noted that wasn’t the answer she was looking for and he racked his brain for something different to say but it was limited when it came to describing food. Either it was good, or it wasn’t in his book. ”Um—like I can taste the lemon but its subtle. Its nice.” He commented, usually anything lemon or citrus tended to have more of a sour taste he found so he generally avoided it but this wasn’t like that. Over the past few months, he’d learned more about food than he ever thought there was to learn but really it was him asking questions about what she had cooked and her happily giving him all the details. Plus, she seemed to like when he asked questions about it, just as much as she liked his stories about the food he’d tried when he traveled.

She still didn’t seem convinced so before he could respond further, she had taken a cookie and put samples of both frosting flavors on it, one at each end with the rum frosting also on it. And it seemed that there would be barriers to him trying the whiskey frosting, but only because she probably knew he couldn’t resist trying that one. So, Rhys took the cookie and bit into one side, the one with the lemon frosting. All combined was very different from just the frosting on its own. He nodded his head in obvious approval before biting from the other side, this one was way different because of the frosting but he always preferred cinnamon flavors he found and he nodded his head again, ”This one, I like the cinnamon.” He commented before finishing off the cookie. ”So how many more of these do I have to try before the whiskey one?”

[vasilia abigail fortescue]

rhys alexander greyback
December 20, 2025

Vasilia knew, in theory, that people didn't really know how to describe, and articulate food and flavors the way she did. Years of training had taught her how to describe textures and flavors. Though she appreciated Rhys' attempt to try and articulate his feelings it made her grin, fighting the urge to laugh. "You can just say if you like it or not," she offered. She wouldn't make him struggle to describe it.

It seemed that combining the flavors for him was the push he needed. While she might be able to consider how flavors and textures would go together without necessarily tasting them together, she had to reminder herself that she was culinary trained. But again, she got the answer she needed. She nodded, satisfied with the answer and immediately pushed the two bowls out of her frosting line up she had, and off to the side. She also now knew that he'd respond better to trying the flavors together, instead of solo. "Two. Tequila, and vodka. Then whiskey."

She reached for a cookie. This time, she spread the tequila frosting on both sides. Then, she added peppermint to one side, and cranberry on the other. The peppermint would have a stronger bite to it, as peppermint always did, while the cranberry would be softer. Two very different sides of christmas. Then, held it out to him to try. "That's peppermint, and that's cranberry," she explained before he tried it.

[rhys alexander greyback]

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wish i knew what you were looking for

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December 20, 2025
vasilia abigail fortescue

She seemed a bit amused by his attempts to describe what he was doing and he caught that but didn’t comment on it, she could have her fun at his expense. ”I like it.” He said a bit sarcastically, but he did actually like it. With his most recent response to the frosting and cookie combinations she seemed to jump on the next set of test samples for him. It was not quite the adventure that he was used to being on, this one was purely food related and he was used to a lot more risk to himself. For example, running into a cave not having any idea of what would pop up for him. The two bowls with the original samples were pushed aside and he tried to keep in mind his new journey to get to the whiskey he was so curious about.

Vodka he wasn’t sure about, but he did like tequila on occasion, he’d spent time in Mexico for work and had his fair share of tequila while there. The cookie had, what he assumed was, tequila frosting and she told him one side was peppermint and the other side was cranberry. In his head it wasn’t a combination he would have thought of, but he knew his knowledge was lacking in this area. Rhys took a bite and immediately got a minty flavor. He made a bit of a face but finished that bite and went to the other side. This one was completely different, but he recognized the cranberry flavor. Not one of his favorites overall but he liked it better than the mint. ”I like the cranberry more.” He said as he finished off the cookie, regardless of the remaining mint frosting on it. He looked at the remaining bowls, she made it look so easy all this work.

[vasilia abigail fortescue]

rhys alexander greyback
December 20, 2025

Vasilia didn't know why she wanted his opinion so much. As an aspiring chef, she should have been seeking the opinion of other chefs and food critics. They knew what they were doing when it came to food. And yet? For some reason it just made her really happy whenever Rhys tried her cooking. He always had such sincere reactions, and it was a great excuse to spend time with him. She knew he was rough around the edges, but he never acted that way around her. She grinned as he answered with a simple "I like it". That was good enough for her.

Rhys made a bit of a face as he tried the cookie and she couldn't help but laugh. Definitely weren't flavours he was enjoying. That was okay. People had different taste preferences. She reached for a third cookie, and like the others, prepared the frostings on it. This time it was the vodka. She'd made sure to use one of the purest vodka's she could. One that would have the cleanest taste. People didn't often think of it, but quality vodka was suppose to taste like... well nothing. It was a flavor that you could do anything with. So, she chose Caramel for one side, and cinnamon for the other. Richer flavors that would completely mask what little vodka flavour there was. "Last one, then you can try the whiskey one," she promised with a smile as she held out the cook to him. Because really, she already knew that would be his favorite. He'd probably like it plain, no additional flavours. But she'd still make him try it with all the other frostings to see.

[rhys alexander greyback]

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wish i knew what you were looking for

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December 20, 2025
vasilia abigail fortescue

This holiday season had been drastically different from the few previous years. He wasn't accompanied by coworkers and still outnumbered by whiskey bottles in a small and sandy shack in a foreign country. He also wasn't still trying to deny the grief that had been sitting largely ignored in his heart and his mind and also pushing away the family that needed him as much as he needed them. He'd spent time with his sisters, wrapped presents, and was now trying different holiday cookie combinations. Rhys couldn't say he minded the changes. He felt alright all things considered in his life concerning Maria and impending fatherhood. Still, he also knew that his current company contributed to that. She smiled at his simple response, and he grinned slightly in return. It seemed to work out that he loved food, and she loved to cook.

Vasilia handed him a third cookie, and he bit into the first side, it was very sweet, but he didn't mind it. It wasn't his favorite so far. However, when he bit into the other side, he nodded his head. He liked that one much better--cinnamon, one of his favorites. "Cinnamon is one of my favorites." He admitted, but also to note which frosting he preferred on this cookie. He had been informed that whiskey would be the final test, and he was interested in whiskey in this form--though he still preferred it in a glass, of course. "So the whiskey one?" He tried his best not to look so eager. If you had asked him years ago if he would ever sit down and be asked to try different cookie and frosting combinations, he might have laughed. But it was more fun than it looked.

[vasilia abigail fortescue]

rhys alexander greyback
December 20, 2025

Vasilia had never seen Rhys drink anything but whiskey. He stuck with what he liked, plain and simple. There were people like that. People that stuck with what they liked and didn't stray. Then there were people who tried everything. So, while he might not appreciate the other alcohol flavors, it was nice to see him get a little out of his comfort zone. Even more so when he admitted liking Cinnamon. She grinned. "Really?" That was useful information. Rhys liked cinnamon.

Though, he was very quick to jump to what he was looking forward to, the whiskey frosting. Vasilia laughed and reached for the bowl. She picked it up and set it in front of them, then held out a spoon to him. This was one flavor he'd be able to enjoy just plain, she suspected. Though she would make him try it with the other frostings as well, she'd give him a chance to savor it first. She was pretty proud of it too, to be honest. When making it she'd known that she had to get it absolutely perfect. Because Rhys would try it. Why did she not want to put a half hearted job into something she thought he might like? "Try it alone first. Then any of the other frostings you like. You're the whiskey expert."

[rhys alexander greyback]

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December 20, 2025
vasilia abigail fortescue

It probably wasn't something that Rhys would admit out loud, at least not right away and not in front of certain people. He was actually having fun. He was just being made to try different frosting combinations, but maybe it was the simplicity or maybe just the company. Rhys had not hesitated when she asked him to stop by. He didn't have any other plans. Maybe it was that he finally needed a break from his drinking this month. The past few weeks had been a bit of a mix of a blur of memories and hangovers. Rhys nodded his head absent-mindedly. He'd always preferred cinnamon in some capacity--ever since he was a boy. Though it was a faint memory now, he could faintly recall cookies that his mother used to make when he was very young--cinnamon.

It wasn't whiskey in a glass as per his usual, but it didn't leave him any less intrigued by what this frosting might be like. She seemed amused by his reaction, and she handed him the bowl with a spoon. Rhys was confused for a second as he had expected this tasting to go much like the previous ones. "Alright." He responded as he pulled the bowl a little closer to him, and he took the spoon and scooped a small amount of frosting from toward the side of the bowl. As Rhys tasted the frosting, leaving some still on the spoon, he looked away as if he was in thought. First, he was hit with a sweet flavor, as expected with frosting but then the after taste where he tasted the whiskey.

While Rhys didn't have a sweet tooth, he had to admit this combination of flavors was fantastic, and he was glad he got to try to frosting by itself. Nodding his head in approval, he ate the rest of the frosting from the spoon and looked at Vas. "This is amazing." There wasn't a fancy way to say it. It was just simply what he thought. Of course, nothing beat a real glass of whiskey, but it was amazing what Vas had done to transform something so simple into something quite delightful.

[vasilia abigail fortescue]

rhys alexander greyback
December 20, 2025

Vasilia was always so puzzled by people's inability to "get along" with Rhys. Her employees commented on it all the time. Sure, she knew he was rough around the edges. But she'd never had the struggled they voiced. Whenever he entered the Hound she was the one who served him. Because she just "got him" as the bartenders put it. She didn't know about that. But she chalked it up to them being friends. She didn't see the prickly side that everyone complained about. And in moments like these? She really didn't understand where they were coming from. Sure, he could be a bit standoffish if he didn't know you. But considering the pieces she'd been able to piece about his upbringing she didn't blame him. He didn't talk about it, but she wasn't blind. He wasn't a people person in the same way he was. But that didn't bother her. She smiled brightly as he tasted the frosting, though felt incredibly self conscious. What if he didn't like it? What if it wasn't right? She'd worked really hard to try to nail the flavor. And yet the doubt was there. For some reason she felt like it had to be perfect. For him.

Thought after a few extremely nervous seconds, he respond. "Really?" she answered, stunned by his answer. It was amazing? Was he sure? She'd fix it if it wasn't! It HAD to be perfect! She shifted on the bench beside him to face him more fully, with a stubborn look. "You're not just saying that to be nice, right? Because I can fix it if it isn't!"