** Cream’s perspective **

“This new lady scares me,” Hopper told me, the special helper bun for our Lady’s lady. “She says so many mean things and it’s making me nervous. I can’t even swing my metal tool for trees! I just want to hide with Grace.”

Hopper was unique in that he was trying his best to learn all the people words for things. It was a very noble effort, especially for a bun to try understanding such enigmatic beings as people.

“She would protect you… meanwhile our Lady is being very annoying to the angry new lady. It is like she is charging her, only to veer off at the last second,” I said, shaking myself as a preyfear rippled through my fur.

“I think that the new angry lady is our Lady’s creator, like how our Lady created us,” Hopper said, tilting his head to look at me out of one eye. Hopper was fast becoming a source of great wisdom for us in understanding the people.

“Your work in understanding the people is so admirable Hopper,” I told him gratefully, giving a hop of appreciation.

Before either of us could continue our talk, Black was rushing up, head bowed low. “Come quick, come quick! We must burn food for the people, they are hungry! We can’t make the grumpy lady dislike us so soon!”

That got us moving, and I sent out a call through the betweenthoughts to gather the buns we needed for the task. We raced past the people as they slowly hopped their way up the tree, causing the grumpy lady to yell lots. By the time we made it to the burning room, two paws of buns were there and ready. We were good buns, the best buns.

Black immediately began giving orders. “We’re going to do recipe uh… thirteen paws and one finger. The quiet one was happy when he told the big hairy one about it, called it recipe sixty six or something. Anyway, we need to make the fire warmer again, it’s running low!”

“On it!” Sprinkles squeaked eagerly, getting the metal poking thing and throwing more chopped tree on the fire. Sprinkles was slightly alarming sometimes with how eagerly she groomed the fire when it was her turn to do so.

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“Cream, I need the treats chopped into smaller treats, quickly!” Black called, and off i went to do my duty. I gathered many different treats, especially the ones the people liked a lot. We had learned that people did not like dry grass very much, so we used the carrots and the funny bulbous roots with the fire. There were so many types of treats, it was hard to remember all the names, only the colours and smells. We called Carrots orangesweetearth because that just made more sense.

I used the flat metal claw to chop the treats into smaller treats, then rushed to get the crushed sneezy plant and the little white grains, then sprinkled it all over the small treats. With the small treats properly ruined I popped them onto a tray and then onto the big metal thing above the fire. It was a little sad watching the fire burn the treats, but then I remembered that the treats were already ruined by the sneezy plant and the white grains.

Turning to look at the bustle that was happening in the burning room, I was just in time to see the people crowd into the room.

“What in the wide ring is going on in here?” the grumpy lady exclaimed, looking shocked. I think it was shocked. People feelings were hard to figure out sometimes.

“Oh… damn,” the big hairy man said, making the really deep laugh that tickled our ears. “I really did teach them well, huh? They even put salt and pepper on the veggies.”

That was me! I put the salt and the pepper on the veg-ees!

“Dang, you really did,” our lady said with the funny high pitched laugh that made our fur tingle. “They’re so cute. You’re all such good buns, thank you!”

That was cause for binkies all around, so I did that, zooming around the cooking stone once out of happiness. We were good buns! Oh! I wonder if I could get some grooms from our lady! I rushed over and stood up on my hind paws, nudging her hand with my nose in question.

Our lady laughed and her hand came down to stroke gently between my ears. It felt so lovely. “I have no idea how I’m going to give you all the pats you deserve,” she continued. “Such good buns!”

“I have never seen tenders do this much, nor have I seen tenders that display this much intelligence,” the grumpy lady said, not sounding very grumpy. She was bending down to look at me, which was scary so I hopped to put our lady between us for protection.

“Stop scaring Cream with your wrinkly old mug, Esra,” our lady said, doing the verbal charging thing again. I really wished she’d stop antagonising the grumpy lady.

“I’ll have you know that this wrinkly old mug has seen kings bow and scrape before it, in the hopes that they might take it to bed, thank you very much,” the grumpy lady said, which prompted a round of choking sounds from our lady. Was she in trouble? What was wrong?

“That is so gross, none of us needed to know that,” our lady said in a high pitched voice. “Come on, let’s go find a place to eat all this.”

Before she left, our lady snuck in a little grooming for Black and Sprinkles too. She was very nice to us, although I think we might need to talk to her at some point about pats for the buns that didn’t get seen by her very much.