#and perhaps they did turn around and pitch the leak to seem quirky

[daisiesonafield-blog]

Maybe cut from the post was “marketing leak: Charli “leaks” list of “crazy” marketing PR stunts” 🧐

[skysplinter]

Draft: Kitchen Sink Drama

Vola rolled over onto her back, as though looking at the television from a different angle would somehow improve the dreck she was watching. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t.

‘Ugh,’ she mumbled to herself. ‘Can’t take much more of this.’

She was watching the annual cheese-rolling championship, or whatever it was supposed to be called. Some human thing, she supposed. Ever since the little nub-ears had started taking notice of their new visitors, they seemed to have gone out of their way to flood their media with “quirky human traditions” in order to educate their “newfound friends”.

Honestly, Vola hadn’t really taken much from it. She was becoming more and more aware that the humans around here were petty, passive-aggressive little bitches who liked pushing their culture onto everyone else they came across, but other than that, it wasn’t as though she was learning anything from her experience. Except that apparently chucking a hunk of brie down a grassy embankment was something these nerds enjoyed doing in their downtime.

Vola stared slack-jawed at the screen as her eyes glazed over, her brain cells almost leaking out of her ears as she watched a bearded guy in a stupid looking hat pluck a round of cheese out of a cowpat.

‘Seriously,’ she told herself. ‘I can’t take this any more.’

Her senses seemed to dull as the whole experience washed over her. At least a quarter of an hour passed without her even moving, until eventually her hands and feet started to get itchy. There was only so much not being able to take this any more that she could take, and she had just about reached her limits.

Vola sat up on the bed, stretched, and clumsily found the remote. Finally freeing herself from the mindless human “entertainment” with the click of a button, she resigned herself to the fact that she would probably benefit from getting dressed and finding a better way to amuse herself than to sit in front of the TV until the sun went down.

She chucked on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt she’d left on the floor that didn’t smell too bad, and headed out of her room to get herself some breakfast - or lunch, whichever one she felt like.

She found Cade busying himself in the kitchen. It wasn’t a shock to find him awake, but she was a little taken aback that he was still at their apartment during the daylight hours. Honestly, sometimes she got the feeling the guy never slept, let alone sit still for longer than five minutes at a time. He was always moving around, doing things and going places and meeting people and telling Vola, with the kind of ungodly energy he always seemed to have, that he only wished he could be in two places at once.

Groggily, Vola wondered if all halflings were like this, or if she’d simply drawn the short straw in getting a roommate.

‘Oh,’ said Cade from behind a mixing bowl easily the same size as him. He winked at her as he cracked an egg into whatever he was mixing together, and shot her a huge, cartoony grin that filled his entire face. ‘I was wondering if you ever got up before midday, you old slugabed. Just kidding, just kidding! Did you have a good night’s rest? Tried out those meditation tapes I loaned you yet?’

Vola tried to smile back, but her facial muscles were exhausted out of sheer pity for Cade’s overworked little mush. He had a habit of making her feel tired simply by how much effort he was putting into living. She had half a mind to go back to bed after watching him for only a few seconds.

‘Um,’ she eventually managed, any attempt to respond to his questions lost in the scramble to keep up with his relentless optimism. ‘Do you know if we’ve got any cereal?’

Cade’s great big smile fell flat. ‘It’s nearly eleven, Vol,’ he said. ‘I think you might have missed the boat if you wanted to have breakfast.’

‘Who said anything about breakfast? Cereal’s an anytime food,’ Vola shrugged. She lumbered over to the cupboards and started opening them at random. ‘So, do you know if we’ve got cereal? I’m in a Cheerios kinda mood, but I’ll take anything if we got it.’

She could almost feel him rolling his eyes at her. ‘I hope you’re at least going to put it in a bowl this time,’ he muttered. ‘I mean, far be it from me to tell you how to live your life or tell you how to eat your meals - and yes, I’m quite aware that eating cereal straight out of the box saves on washing up - but honestly, did you really have to pour milk in there too…?’

It was at about this time in pretty much every conversation she’d ever had with Cade that she just started tuning out his little nasal rants. This morning was no exception to the rule. She only wished he had been more helpful in her quest for Cheerios before the inevitable had to happen.

A few minutes later, once she had found something to eat, and once Cade’s high-pitched mothering had faded away and had instead been replaced with the occasional hummed chorus of a song which sounded a little bit like “Walking on Sunshine” by one of those chirpy pop bands he liked so much, Vola decided that it was okay to start talking to the little nerd again. She pulled up a stool next to Cade as he poured sugar into his mixing bowl. ‘So,’ she said, shoving a handful of Chex into her mouth, ‘What’re you up to anyway? You never said.’

‘Ah,’ he said, back to his usual cheery self. ‘Well, you see, I’m trying my hand at baking! It’s something my mother was always insistent I give a try, but unfortunately I never really kept it up after leaving home. I just thought I’d, you know, have a bash at it again.’

‘Huh. That’s… cool.’ Vola looked into the bowl, then at the large book at the halfling’s side. She presumed that it was a recipe book, but it was written in that funny rounded human script she hadn’t bothered to learn how to read yet. ‘Can I have some when you’re done making it?’

Cade made that long, theatrical noise with his nostrils that he did whenever he really wanted to say no but couldn’t think of a polite way to put it. ‘It, erm… It’s… Well, technically it’s intended for someone else, but I suppose you can have a little bit. Perhaps. If you behave. I mean, you can start by putting that cereal in a bowl like I asked…’

She beamed at him, turned the box upside down and shook a fine dust of Chex crumbs all over the floor. ‘Too late,’ she snorted.

‘I still don’t know how you can eat that much so quickly.’ He shook his head in disbelief, his little nose wrinkling as he tried to distract himself by stirring his mixture with a wooden spoon easily as thick and as long as his arm. ‘Perhaps it’s not safe to let you have any of this cake; no doubt you’ll scoff the whole lot before I’ve even had chance to pry it out of its baking tin.’

‘Hey! I resent that! And anyway, it only looks like I’m eating a lot because - number one, you’re about the size of a tin of peaches and eat like a bird on a crash diet, so naturally anything I’m eating is going to look huge in comparison,’ she said, ‘and number two, humans have no idea how to package food in orc-sized portions. Seriously, you tiny people are all alike: halflings, humans, elves… maybe not dwarves, they know their way around a healthy-sized meal…’

Vola looked up, noticing that Cade had stopped stirring the mixture. He was looking a little pale.

‘Um. You okay there, bud?’ She prodded him gently in the arm.

He shook himself, as though he was awakening from a particularly worrying daydream. ‘What? Oh, yes. Fine, perfectly fine. I just need more flour. And, erm, butter. And probably eggs too. And probably - oh, rats.’

‘Rats?’ Vola scratched her head. ‘I didn’t know you could make rat cake.’

‘Oh please, don’t be facetious, Vol,’ Cade huffed. He hopped down from his seat and paced around in a little circle. ‘I’m really not in the mood. I’m going to have to go out and get more ingredients, aren’t I? Oh no, I really haven’t thought this through. Damn, damn…’ He slapped his leg as though it was briefly on fire before, in his characteristic whirlwind of energy, he jabbed a finger in the air. ‘That’s it,’ he decided. ‘I’m going out. I’ll get double the ingredients, come back, wash out the bowl, start the recipe again - and by Yondalla’s braid! I’ll probably be too late to catch him. I’ve ruined the whole day, haven’t I? Vola, what am I going to do? Everything’s ruined, isn’t it? What am I to do?!’

Living with Cade these past few weeks had been an adventure. For someone who barely reached her kneecap, the little guy seemed to be filled to overflowing with more emotional twists and turns than a Rubik’s cube with a bad sense of direction. He’d just gone from being uproariously ecstatic to the deepest, wailing depths of inconsolable despair in a few minutes, and here she was still trying to pretend that she knew what facetious meant.

‘Um,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to… help? At all? I mean, I could just go and… I dunno, buy you some more stuff to make your cake with or something?’

Cade’s whole face lit up, his misery melting away in seconds. ‘Right, I’ll need another bag of all-purpose flour, some unsalted butter, another carton of eggs… and maybe another bag of sugar, just to be on the safe side. White, granulated,’ he clarified, as though she didn’t know what sugar was. ‘I’ve got enough of the other ingredients. Thank you, Vol, you’re a peach!’

‘Yeah, I guess I’m not too bad,’ Vola grinned. At least running errands was better than watching some dudes throwing cheese down a hill all day.