She broke up two eggs she must have gotten from somewhere, carefully mixing them with flour, a bit of sugar, and honey, stirring the mixture into a paste with water.
She was clearly not skilled at this; flour was scattered everywhere, even sticking to her silver eyelashes.
She didn't have a proper oven, so she could only use a small iron pan placed over the fire, carefully controlling the heat, attempting to fry the rough shape of a 'cake.'
The process was clumsy yet earnest.
If the fire was too high, it risked burning; she frantically moved the pan away. If the fire was too low, she feared it wouldn't cook through, so she leaned in close, her ice-blue eyes staring intently at the batter slowly solidifying and swelling in the pan, a thin sheen of sweat even forming on her nose.
That Marine uniform, which should have symbolized oppression and pursuit, was now dusted with flour, its cuff slightly scorched by a spark, worn while performing such a domestic and even warm chore. It formed an extremely contradictory scene that Robin completely failed to understand.
A Marine soldier, using his first month's salary, to make a cake... for a high-value fugitive of the World Government... after she shivered in bed all day?
Where was the logic?
What was the purpose?
What about the trap?
The psychological defense Robin had constructed developed a deep crack uncontrollably before this absurd, warm, and glaring scene.
The heavy ice of suspicion remained thick, but beneath the ice layer, something began to violently shake.
The cake was finally done.
It couldn't be called beautiful; it was just a thick, golden-yellow round flatbread, slightly burnt at the edges, with the remaining honey drizzled over the top.
Seraphilia placed it on the only intact ceramic plate and pushed it onto the small wooden board in front of Robin.
"It might... not look much like a cake,"
she whispered, with a barely perceptible hint of awkwardness and anticipation in her tone. "Want to try some?"
Robin didn't move. Her gaze shifted from the simple 'cake' to Seraphilia's face, then to the uniform bearing the seagull emblem on her body, and finally back to the cake. Immense confusion enveloped her like a thick fog.
Finally, after a long silence and under Seraphilia's calm gaze, she extended a slightly trembling hand, broke off a tiny piece, and put it in her mouth.
Sweet. The pure sweetness of the honey mixed with the earthy aroma of flour and egg, and a hint of burnt, perfectly balanced bitterness. It was rough, but very real.
AI Model: gemini-3.0-flash
It was a taste of "celebration" and "sweetness" that she hadn't experienced since the destruction of Ohara.
A sudden surge of warmth rushed to her eyes, and tears instantly blurred her vision. She jerked her head down, not wanting the other to see, and broke off a large piece, stuffing it into her mouth almost as if punishing herself, using the act of chewing to mask the sob in her throat.
Seraphilia watched her eat, her ice-blue eyes softening slightly in the firelight. She didn't eat any herself, only taking a sip from a waterskin, her Adam's apple bobbing as if she too were thirsty.
That night, Robin suffered from insomnia. Seraphilia slept beside her, her breathing steady. The discarded uniform, folded on a stool at the foot of the bed, looked like a silent, threatening symbol in the darkness. Robin's heart was tormented, caught between ice and fire.
Trust was far from established, but pure hostility had begun to crumble, replaced by a deeper, more complex confusion and an almost masochistic desire for proof.
She needed to test, needed more evidence, to understand this incomprehensible Seraphilia.
Her probing shifted from passive observation to more active and precise "testing."
A few days later, Seraphilia returned from training and, as usual, used slightly warm clouds to dry Robin's washed long hair.
The warm, fluffy Cloud Mist enveloped her hair, so comfortable it made her drowsy.
Just as Seraphilia was fully focused on controlling the Cloud Mist, an idea suddenly struck Robin.
At Seraphilia's defenseless nape, the air rippled imperceptibly. A slender arm, instantly formed from countless cherry-blossom petals, reached out silently. With a hint of coolness, its fingertips lightly touched the most vulnerable vertebrae of Seraphilia's neck.
This was an extremely dangerous move.
For any warrior, this was a lethal provocation and a precursor to an attack.
If Robin wished, that hand could exert force in an instant and snap her neck.
Seraphilia's body stiffened.
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