She walked into the N&M Bakery, her nose filled with smells of fresh baked goods such as bread, cake, and cookies as she walked to the front counter and sat down on a stool. “Welcome back, I'm guessing you’re wanting your usual order of slightly sweetened black tea blend with extra caffeine and some of our strawbumble bee cupcakes?” asked Nathanael, smiling brightly at her as she  nodded confirming her order.

“Coming right up, would you like to hear about our latest adventure as you enjoy your order? Well, last adventure that I went  on because Mathew accidentally broke our portion scoop when he was making his white as an angel’s wings vanilla cupcakes, so he is going to the store to buy portion scoops,” said Nathanael handing her the cup of slightly sweetened black tea blend with her two strawbumble bee cupcakes, one on a saucer to eat now and one packed up nicely for later. She nodded as she sipped the tea It was cool as she had put a couple of ice cubes in it.

Nathanael smiled. “So I was on the popping planet so I could get some of their special popping chocolate, but I knew that it was going to be difficult because to get to the plant that grows the popping chocolate I would have to somehow get past the Paranoid Popping Penguin! Now the penguin got its name from when they are little they are with their parents for a while until they pop out of existence and are only ever left with a popping chocolate plant from their parents. So out of shock they always protect that popping chocolate plant with their life.

“I eventually did get the plant using my masterful deception skills and really awesome puppets. How, do you ask, I used my deception skills and really awesome puppets? Weeeeeeeell, I made adult sized Paranoid Popping Penguin puppets. Also, I have their language on a recorder so I could pretend I was their parents, so they would abandon the popping chocolate plant for even just a minute. Except I made the mistake of forgetting that the plant makes a loud popping noise when it was being picked, so when the penguin realized that they had been lied to with puppets and recordings, it got really hostile.

“So it then ran at me to try and get the popping chocolate back. Naturally, I ran away because any of the monsters or guardians of the ingredients I tell you about all could easily have made it so me or my brother would be out of commission for a while, at least, so we couldn’t go out on any more special ingredient runs. We would only be able to go to the boring grocery store for ingredients like normal chocolate chips, but those don’t make an amazing popping sound when you eat them.

“So back to the story. I was running away from the paranoid popping penguin and I have the popping chocolate in my arms. Well in my cooling backpack that I didn’t have any time to actually put it back on my back and carry it that way. Eventually, after a lot of running, I found our ship again and quickly ran to it faster than I was running before. But, as I was getting into the ship, the Paranoid Popping Penguin took one bite and my leg came off. I screamed so loud when that happened because, well... my leg was gone but it also killed the penguin popping it.

“I eventually got to a space hospital and was checked into the emergency room. They couldn't find a replacement human leg, so they got in touch with a technological company. They then gave me a decision to either have me live the rest of my life without one of my legs and have to go through a lot of physical therapy and learn how to live without my leg, or pay to get a new robot leg and have to go through less physical therapy,” said Nathanael, smiling at her as she got frosting on her face from the cupcake she was eating.

She was quite interested in the stories that Nathanael and Mathew told her when she went to their bakery. She made a hand gesture to Nathanael telling him to continue the story as she wanted to know what decision he made about his leg. Nathanael smiled and walked out from behind the counter so that she was able to see his leg. She was surprised but not surprised at the same time.

She saw that Nathanael chose the robot leg option and that the robot leg he got was quite interesting and had all sorts of designing with grooves in it. She was guessing that it was somewhat customized as it had the words N&M bakery on it. She realized the N&M bakery on it was probably if he ever for some reason lost it, they would be able to return it. “It would be pretty hard to bake or go places without a leg. So, yeah, I chose the robot leg,” said Nathanael, swinging his robot leg to show that it was a part of him.

“After coming back, Mathew was pretty upset at me because the hospital called him because he is my emergency contact, being my twin brother and all. He was worried because I went through all of that just so he could make some cool chocolate cake for the bakery,” said Nathanael as he went back behind the counter and to get a slice of the popping chocolate cake to give to her.

“Here, try some of it,” said Nathanael, smiling. She tried the cake. It popped with chocolatety flavor in her mouth and was very rich. “It was great Nathanael. Thank you,” she said as she smiled brightly.

“I'm glad you like it. Anything to see you smile, Lilith,” said Nathanael, smiling at Lilith happily.