My Crazy Fake (I Wish It Were Real) Life

We Eat Cookies and Discuss Psychological Things

Asgard's kitchens were terribly hot. Instead of gas stoves, there were flaming furnaces which burned all night to be heated in the morning. It was very hard to bake cookies in an open fire. And that, of course, was what I was doing. Cookies were the only dessert I could make, not very Asgardian. So far, I had made three dozen cookies and I wasn't even beginning to run out of supplies. I wiped sweat off my brow and mumbled quietly to myself.
"Don't we have servants to do this?" I turned to see Loki leaning against the doorway with his arms folded.
I scrubbed flour off of my hands onto my dress and sighed. "I just wanted to think."
"I thought you read when you wanted to think." Loki took a few more steps closer to me.
"That's what I'm thinking about."
"Ah, I see. Now what's bothering you?"
"What do you mean? I'm not bothered by anything."
"Let's make a list, shall we?" Loki grinned. "You're up in the middle of the night, you are working in a sweltering kitchen, you didn't wake me when you woke up, you made more of these sweets than you knew we could eat, and you're baking. You don't like baking."
I smiled. "You know me fairly well."
"I'd like to say I do. We're married. So... What book could you possibly be puzzling over?"
"I'm reading The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson." Loki frowned. "He's from Midgard. It is a very good book with more than its fair share of pages."
"Yes?"
"Well, he includes some very interesting concepts and themes. For example, the hierarchy is organized by eye color."
"So, we would be in the same class?"
"Yes, thankfully. In fact, we'd be in the highest level. Lighteyes and Darkeyes are separate. But the thing I'm puzzling over is endurance."
"Go on." Loki looked over my shoulder at the sheets of cookies. "Mind if I try one?"
"No, no. Go ahead. Well anyway, Kaladin is a Darkeyes, and is hitting some, uh, hard times. His brother died, he let his squadron down, he was captured and enslaved and then sold as a bridgeman, the most dangerous job in the war. And yet, he didn't give up, encouraged Bridge 4 not to give up, and actually improved their survival chances. You probably have no idea what I'm talking about."
"Not at all," Loki said as he bit into his second cookie. "But, I'm trying to understand."
"What makes a man want to continue on after all that? Why do we give up after failing such a simple task while those who have gone through the worst keep trying? What gives those sad people a will to live?"
"The possibility of tasting your... these things," Loki said dreamily.
"They can't be that good," I smirked.
"What are you planning on doing with all these, eat them? I guess Axel could have some."
"I am not giving sugar to our son yet, he doesn't even need to know what sugar is. Let alone three dozen cookies."
"It would be two and a half dozen by now."
"Actually, I think you were right."
"I'm always right."
"Except when you're not," I corrected. "I think you were right about finding the simple joys and pleasures in life. When you're living on the brink of death, what would you give to feel the sun on your back one last time? Or to taste something sweet, or to smell the ocean, or to see your family, or to sleep on a bed, or to hear bells ringing?"
Loki looked as if he was contemplating life. "I would give... Anything, I suppose. If the promise after the pain were to witness something so different, so... Kind."