I am the eggman, they are the eggmen

After Vivian disappeared from the lounge to head off to her date, everybody else took a moment to adjust to their own rewards.

Sylvia was the first to express her excitement.

“A do-over! That’s so great! What should I use it on?” She wondered. “Let’s see… I could use it to repeat a copy of someone’s transformation using Method Acting, but at that point, it would just be better to do a redo of Fuck the Voters, right?” She considered. “Using New Style a second time could be nice, but then there’s also getting another use out of Sneak Peek… hmm, there are so many different advantages that come with this boon, my mind’s racing!”

“Lucky you,” Rose said snootily, doing a very poor job of hiding her jealousy. While she didn’t much care for the boon that Sylvia specifically got, it was still better than the one she had to work with.

Really, there’s only one use for this thing, huh? She considered, biting her lip. If I don’t want to actually get pregnant, then I’ll have to tease Nick with the possibility of getting pregnant. I mean, I can definitely do that, it’s certainly not a problem, but if I do… haaah, talk about playing with fire!

She could see the appeal of playing on Nick’s breeding fetish. It was a line she’d edged close to in her previous encounters with him, particularly on her last night with him; playing at having a family had been very sweet.

But actually getting pregnant?

That was a slight bridge too far.

“What are you thinking about?”

Rose nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Holly?!” She turned to the nosy brunette and scowled. “Don’t just pop out like that!”

“You’re thinking about your boon, aren’t you?” Holly asked, a crooked smile crawling up her face. “Aren’t you?”

Rose scowled.

“…So what if I am?” She scoffed, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I’m certainly not the only one. You’re thinking about the one you received, right?”

“Mhm,” Holly nodded. “But mine’s probably not very useful. I’m way more excited about some of the ones the other girls got! Like Ella’s, which lets her be invisible, hehehe... or Gina’s special nail polish, or… the one you got.”

Rose sighed. Of course.

“I’m sure I can guess what you’re thinking,” she said in exasperation. “But you can just leave it alone, okay? I’m not interested in your opinion on the matter.”

Holly blinked. “…You sure about that?” She asked, tilting her head to the side. “Well… if you say so. But just so you know, you’ll never do better than Mary if you’re not willing to risk just as much as she is,” she pointed out. “Mary was willing to get pregnant. If you’re not, well… can you really say you’re the best fit for master?”

She pressed her lips together and tilted her head to the side in a doubtful look.

Rose just seethed behind her polite smile.

Kim had been listening in, and found herself rather amused by the whole discussion. But she had other things to focus on at the moment. “Hey, Dakota,” she called to the host.

“Hmm?” Dakota turned to her and raised her eyebrow.

“Any bounties coming up?” Kim inquired, eager to make use of her new boon.

Dakota smirked. “Not at the moment…”

“…Great. Well in that case, bring on breakfast, because I need to get to work. …And no, I’m not taking a Sick Day,” she quickly added.

If Dakota was disappointed by that, she didn’t say anything.

Mary gasped. “Oh, that’s right! I almost forgot! Breakfast!” She clasped her cheeks in surprise. “We were right in the middle of making it! Oh!”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Carly said with a shrug. “We can go down to the Banquet Hall and get something, you don’t have to cook for us.”

“Speak for yourself,” her sister said from the floor, where she was still hugging her pillow to her pillow-sized breasts. “I’d rather not get up if I don’t have to.”

Understandable.

“I’ll help cook,” Dani volunteered. She smiled at Carly. “You’re fine with that, right? Me cooking for you?”

Carly grinned back at her. “Well, when you put it like that, I can go for it.”

Dani went to join Mary in the kitchen, but she wasn’t the only one. Gina wanted to lend a hand as well.

“It was my party,” the punk girl pointed out. “The least I can do is help you guys prepare breakfast. I mean, it’s the right thing to do, yeah? And my transformations are encouraging me to do more ‘good girl’ stuff so what the heck?”

Mary raised her eyebrow. She wasn’t sure how much of this was actually Gina’s transformation at work and how much was the punk girl actually enjoying cooking, but she wasn’t going to ruin Gina’s façade if she didn’t have to.

Gina being more responsible was reason alone to be happy.

“Great, I’ll get started on the eggs then,” Gina said, heading over to the stove. “I can at least handle that. So long as nobody wants an omelet or anything like that. Let’s keep it simple, folks. Scrambling ‘em up is the way to go.”

“Hold on, let me handle the eggs,” Dani said, interjecting herself into the stove right beside Gina. “I make those myself all the time, even back home.” Eggs were one of very few things Dani knew how to prepare, even if she burned them on occasion. If the cooking challenge had been about making breakfast instead of dinner, she might have done okay.

“Make them yourself?” Gina snorted and rolled her eyes. “What, you mean you lay ‘em?” She nudged Dani in the arm, ruffling the tomboy’s feathers in more ways than one.

“No!” Dani said defensively, pulling her hand back. “Sunny side up. It’s the standard way to do it, you get the yolks and the whites.”

“Oh, and here I thought you just tossed ‘em in a blender and drank ‘em straight,” Gina chortled. “That’s how muscleheads eat their eggs, right?”

Dani wasn’t amused. “It’s better than scrambling them, that ruins the flavor.”

“Oh, hell no! Everybody loves scrambled eggs!” Gina wasn’t gonna take that. “Plus, it’s super easy to make!”

“Why is that a criteria?” Dani questioned.

“Because it obviously is, that’s why?” Gina said, rolling her eyes.

“Well maybe for you, but…”

Mary watched the two girls bicker and her eye twitched. Sometimes Dani and Gina could get along. Sometimes. This wasn’t one of those times.

“Okay, both of you, settle down!” She stepped between the two of them. “This is my kitchen right now, got that? If you can’t decide how to cook the eggs, then I’ll handle that. You two can go make toast or something instead.”

That was one of the harshest insults Mary could dish out, making toast.

“Come on, Mary, I don’t want to make toast!” Dani objected.

“Yeah, besides, you only like your eggs fertilized,” Gina pointed out.

“What’s THAT supposed to mean!?” Mary turned red and started waving her spatula around like a flail. “Gina!”

Holly doubled over with laughter and Rose tried to smile, but was finding it rather difficult given the topic of the joke.

“Can’t you guys just make different kinds of eggs?” Dawn pointed out. “I really don’t have a preference myself.”

“Yeah, I’m happy with whatever you want to make, Dani!” Carly nodded in agreement.

“I can help!” Morgana volunteered, just trying to lighten the burden on Mary however she could. “I can make, um… oh, I’m really good at making orange juice!”

Mary looked at the goth in surprise. “You would squeeze us orange juice yourself?” She asked, not expecting Morgana of all people to be comfortable with something so involved.

Morgana bit her lip. “Well… I can get it from the fridge and pour it, I mean…”

“Oh.”

“…Well, you all look like you’ve got this covered,” Dakota said, pressing her hands together and smirking in amusement. “I think I’ll be taking me leave now.”

“…Yeah, I think I’ll do the same,” Kim agreed. “No offense girls, I’m sure whatever you make is going to taste delicious, but I’m really hungry, and you two could be arguing for another hour, so… yeah. See ya later.”

She headed off to go pick up something from the Banquet Hall. As she left, though, she realized that Ella had disappeared in the commotion. Strange. Did she use her boon and turn invisible? Or just duck out when nobody was looking? …Oh well, not my problem.

No one else noticed her absence, not even Dawn. She was too tired from last night. Slumber parties took a lot out of her, evidently.

Mary took a step back from Dani and Gina to refocus. They’d managed to reach a compromise, with both girls sharing the stove to prepare their own style of eggs, which meant Mary had to handle the rest of the breakfast herself, unless she dragged Holly in. She was about to do that, but when she turned to her friend she saw someone else looming behind her.

“Nola?!”

“Hello there!” The pink-haired leprechaun waved at Mary with a cheery smile. “How may I be of assistance?”

“H-huh?” It took Mary a second to process what was going on. Then she remembered what she had won as a result of the audience vote. “Oh, that’s right… you’re going to follow my directions from now on, huh?”

“That’s right!” Nola said, nodding dutifully. “For the rest of the round, I am your humble servant! Think of me as your obedient brownie, here to follow every order you give, no matter what! Cooking breakfast? No problem! Shoulder rub? Just turn around! Want me to dispose of a body? Wouldn’t be my first! …That was a joke, by the way. I think you’ll come to find I’m quite a little jokester! That’s what everybody says. Especially Dakota. She’s always telling me I’m a total joke! I think she said I was as funny as a barrel of monkeys, or maybe it was that she thought it would be funny to put me in a barrel of monkeys? Whatever, there was a barrel and monkeys were inside it, and that’s the important thing. Ehehe! Aren’t I such a card? That’s why Dakota says I need to be dealt with, I think. Probably. Can’t imagine what else she’d mean by that! Oh, I’m not bothering you, am I? Some people say I can be really annoying because I always talk so much, but you don’t think I’m talking too much, do you, Mary? I really want us to start off on the right foot for our working relationship, don’t you feel the same way?”

“Uh…” Mary only had a few moments to respond while Nola paused to catch her breath, and she couldn’t even begin to start unpacking everything the motormouthed girl just finished saying. But when Nola opened her mouth to speak again, Mary had to stop her. “Wait, wait, hold up a second, I need to think.”

Nola, thankfully, closed her mouth and waited obediently.

“…You said you could help with breakfast?” Mary asked, deciding to put everything else Nola had said aside for now and focus on the important thing.

Nola’s face lit up and she nodded. “Mmhmm!” She said, making sure to keep her mouth closed. “Mmr cmmn dffnniddlee helb oof rrrkffsss!”

Mary sighed. “…You can open your mouth now,” she said dryly.

Nola’s lips popped open with a nice loud “pop”.

“Great!” She chirped. “I said, ‘I can definitely help with breakfast’! Just leave it to me!”

Mary nodded. Nola WAS technically a faerie in Dakota’s employ, so she would probably be able to make meals like the other faeries, right? It was worth a shot anyway.

“My specialty is coffee,” Nola said. “I know, I know, I’m a leprechaun, so you probably assumed I’d be making something with potatoes, right?”

“Actually, I was thinking cereal,” Carly called over to her. “You know, the kind with little marshmallows in it?”

Marley swatted her sister on the shin. “That’s not appropriate!” She chided her.

Nola’s mouth fell open. “Uh… no, that’s MY cereal, thank you very much!” She said defensively, earning a few giggles from Carly and Morgana while Dawn and Marley just rolled their eyes.

“Classic,” Sylvia sniggered, smirking.

Nola turned back to Mary and ignored the other girls. “…Right, so like I was saying, coffee! Dakota is always asking me for coffee! …Full confession though? I might not be as good at it as I think. See, she’s always saying ‘Nola, give me an irish coffee’ and so me, I’m thinking, ‘well, I’m a leprechaun, so any coffee I make is an irish coffee, right?’ only when I give her the coffee, she tastes it an then gives me this look that’s like ‘what the fuck is this?’ but she doesn’t ever say anything about it, so… what do you think? Maybe I should just make hash browns instead?”

“Uh…” Again, Nola was speaking way too fast for Mary to fully process what she was saying.

“Nola, little tip?” Gina called from the stove. “An irish coffee is an alcoholic beverage made with irish whiskey. Just saying.”

Nola blinked. “…Oh! Okay, yeah, that makes way more sense! No wonder she’s always asking me why I didn’t put any whiskey in it, duh!”

“…Yeah,” Mary said dryly. “Duh.”

If this was the level of help Nola could be counted on to provide as her assistant, it was basically like Mary didn’t win anything at all.

“…You said you could make hash browns? Good, go do that.”

“Right, right! Now, where did the hash go…” As Nola scurried off to go search the cupboards, Mary felt a shiver run down her spine.

She turned to Rose and smiled sweetly. “…You said you weren’t that thrilled with your boon, right? Wanna trade?”

“Uh… but Dakota said that this one wouldn’t actually affect you,” Rose pointed out.

“Yes, I am well aware of that.” This was about as close to an insult as the kindhearted Mary could actually get.

“Nola is a bit of an acquired taste,” Sylvia pointed out. “But she’s really sweet when you get to know her. And she loves to help!”

“I know,” Mary said, sighing. “It’s just… she’s really tiring me out, and the day just got started… hah…” She yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Don’t suppose you girls could lend a hand with cooking, then? Holly?”

“Hey, why not me?” Rose sniffed. “I’m an excellent cook! You know that! When it comes to pastries, I can even beat you, Mary!” Coming from Rose that was downright sweet, acknowledging, essentially, that Mary was a better chef than her when it came to everything else.

“…Pastries, huh…” Yes, Mary was well aware of Rose’s ability. But with Gina and Dani helping (for lack of a better word) she could only tolerate so much competitive energy in the kitchen. “Are you sure?” She asked.

Rose nodded eagerly. “Just one thing though,” she said, pulling out her bounty sheet and looking over it. “I need to earn some money first.”

“Oh?” Sylvia looked at her curiously. “How? What have you got… Oh! Are you going to use your boon, and get pregnant? That way you won’t only get VP for getting pregnant, but you’ll also get BP for it as well! And Daddy would be so happy!”

“What!? No, that’s not what I-! I’m not… gonna do that!” Rose said, her face hot.

Mary frowned. “…Wait, what did you say?”

“Hmm?” Sylvia looked at her. “I was saying Rose would really get some rewards if Daddy knocked her up. She says she wants you to acknowledge her skills as a pastry chef, so why not let Daddy put a bun in her oven and prove it, that’s what I say!”

“No, before that.” Mary shook her head quickly. “You said Rose would be getting VP if she got pregnant, right?”

Sylvia nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“…Well, I didn’t.”

Sylvia stared blankly at her. “…Come again?”

“Getting pregnant!” Mary’s face turned red. “If that’s worth Victory Points, I should have gotten some, right? But I didn’t! And I was first! So what’s the big deal, huh!?”

“True,” Holly pointed out. “Nick took Mary’s first time on their wedding, and I’m pretty sure that’s when he babied her up, so she should have gotten a nice creamy spurt full of VP up her cooch to go along with it.”

Mary turned an even brighter shade of embarrassed. “Can you please not put it like that?” She pleaded with her friend.

Holly stuck out her tongue playfully.

“Is… is that right?” Morgana stammered. “Did Mary not…? Um… Dawn, you would remember, right?” She aked.

Dawn blinked. She thought back on the wedding. “…Yeah, now that you mention it, she didn’t get any VP for that. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but those numbers don’t add up…”

“So what’s the big deal, Sylvia?” Mary put her hands on her hips and leaned forward, frowning. “You were the host back then! Showing a little bias?”

“Why do you even care?” Dani questioned from the stove. “I mean, you’re out of the game already, right?” She didn’t give one whit about getting VP for having Nick’s babies. It was just another source of points she’d never get.

“It’s the principle of the matter, that’s why! The unfairness!” Mary asserted.

“Technically it wouldn’t be unfair unless someone else gets pregnant and gets VP for it,” Sylvia pointed out.

Like that made it better.

“Sylvia!” Mary snapped.

“What!? Come on, there was a lot happening that day, lay off me!” Sylvia groaned. “I was in a really weird place! I mean, I wasn’t even thinking about people having babies and stuff when I came up with the rules, so I guess I just kind of… didn’t include it at the time? Or wait, maybe…”

“Oh, but NOW it’s important to you?” Rose asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well, I’m not the host now,” Sylvia bluntly pointed out.

Which was valid. But that didn’t sound right. She was still trying to remember what she was thinking about when she came up with the rules the first time. How had she determined the VP distribution again? I think it was… yeah!

“Oh, yeah, Dakota definitely would shell out major VP for someone getting knocked up,” Nola confirmed with a nod. “She’s super-stoked about it. At least that’s how it seems anyway. I mean if you ask me she probably wants Nick to get HER pregnant, too, but that probably won’t happen. So Sylvia might not have been thinking about it when SHE was coming up with VP rules, but Dakota…”

“Hey, wait, no, I distinctly remember not making any changes!” Sylvia shook her head firmly. “When I was making the VP template for this season, I just did a copy-paste! So if there wasn’t a VP reward for getting pregnant, it’s because Dakota didn’t want there to be! My hands are clean in this!”

Well, that was an interesting wrinkle. Mary wondered if she should ask Dakota, but if there was something else behind the other woman’s decision, maybe that wasn’t the best choice…

She sighed and shook her head.

“…Whatever, it’s not important,” she ultimately relented. “Can we please just make breakfast now? Please?”

That sounded like a good call.