Cookies Are Forever

Jamie, her new shoes, and her satchel, were headed for the Friction building. She had bought her prized Dada Sprewells from eBay, and had them delivered to a random address where she knew the delivery guy would leave the box in the lobby of the apartment building. Then it was just a matter of waiting around the area for a week, and then finding a way into the lobby. The moment she pulled them out of the box, though, she knew it was worth it. Her and her new shoes were ready for anything.

Except it was getting pretty cold out, and after having bought the shoes she didn't have enough money left for a winter coat. This presented a very clear problem to someone who made most of her living as a street performer. She needed a place that was warm, with enough foot traffic, where they wouldn't kick her out. She decided to leave her little folding card table behind, because three card monte was strictly an outdoors gig, but she brought her yo-yo's. She had the rest of the essentials in her backpack: chips, toothbrush, deck of cards, Batman.

Her eyes darted all around the big, open lobby as she cautiously pushed through the doors. She gravitated toward the outer edges of the room and kept one hand on the flap of her satchel. The first thing she spotted: security guards. Well, one of them. What were the odds that Friction had security? She'd never seen them do anything before. But there he was, a Japanese guy in his mid thirties with a uniform and a tie and a walkie-talkie.

She froze in place for at least a minute before she decided that he wasn't really watching her. Slowly, she began to creep around the perimeter, until the next sight stopped her dead in her tracks.

Cookies.

She could even smell them. They were fresh! Actual cookies that didn't come from a vending machine. Also, there was some blonde idiot standing next to the table. Jamie quickly sidled up to her and pulled both yo-yo's out of her satchel and held them in her left hand.

"Hey," she said to the blonde. "Do you... want to see a trick? W-What's your name?"

Sylva stood at attention in the corner of the main lobby, her cookies flying off the plate! If she were selling them, she'd undoubtedly be raking in the big cash... although it was debatable as to whether people would be so eager to accept them if they had a price tag on them. Her best customers, so to speak, the ones who didn't give her a second look and just hurriedly grabbed a cookie off the plate, like they were too busy to stop and say something. The Talent themselves were especially bad about it; Asper was around seventy percent sure they thought she had been paid by the AFW to hand these things out, or something. The staff, at least, was a little more polite about it!

But Sylva wasn't doing this for praise. Well... if she was being honest, ultimately, some praise would be nice, but the cookie thing was just the first stepping stone in a much larger strategy. A first move, an ice breaker with the AFW community as a whole. Did she expect to be fawned over on the first day? No, of course not. That'd be silly, and kind of hopelessly romantic! It would've been nice, but...

Asper dispelled the thoughts with a shake of her head. She was getting way too absorbed in herself and she was feeling, when really, ultimately, she was doing this for other people. She wasn't going to spend her entire trip here engaged in endless introspection. She wasn't going to try and pick herself apart, then try and justify herself again. Instead, she was just going to give out some--WHEN DID THAT PERSON GET THERE DEAR LORD

Having been wrapped up in her own mind, she had completely failed to notice the approach of Jamie. The blonde haired, cookie bearing girl flinched, eyes widening, as she practically flattened herself against the wall. She gasped, the noise nearly inaudible as it was deep, before expelling it in a relieved burst of air. "Oh, my Lord, you scared the stuffing out of me! I'm so sorry, I'm..." She swallowed, trying to decide whether to laugh nervously or just stand there awkwardly. "You must think I'm a... sorry, anyway, um. I'm Sylva Asper. I'm new here! Wrestler, kawaii division... and, what sort of trick are we talking about, here?"

Jamie fidgeted. "Sylva... Asper? How do you even..." Her usual party trick of writing people's names in the air with her yo-yo's was shot down before it got off the ground. For one, S's were really hard. And how do you even spell that?

"Well," she situated the yo-yo strings on her fingers and prepared to brag. "I don't mean to brag, but I'm probably the best yo-yo'er ever. There were people in Boston that were looking for me because they wanted me to do stuff, but I ditched them and went to New York. And then Pennsylvania, which was stupid. Don't go to Pennsylvania. Wait, where are you from? You're not Japanese. Watch this..."

Jamie kept one one yo-yo palmed and flung the other out, bounced it up high, and then began to use her fingers to weave the string into an ever changing loom that the yo-yo bounced and rolled through, creating different patterns in the air.

She didn't waste any time, once Sylva was distracted, she switched to a few one-handed tricks and with her free hand deftly slid a cookie from the tray into her open satchel.

"What do you think?" She grinned, sure that Sylva would be more blown away than anyone had ever been in their lifes.

"Sylva Asper, Ess why ell vee a, a ess..." Asper trailed off as Jamie continued, watching the girl chat about her yo-yo skills. She seemed pleasant enough, although Sylva wasn't sure if she believed her about her rad yo-yo skills... not that that really mattered, honestly! The young woman shook her head lightly, trying to knock all the distrusting little thoughts niggling around back there. Her yo-yo'ing skills, and how much she had been scouted for it, was totally irrelevant, and she should be focusing on her as a person. A person. Or... something, she wasn't sure anymore, she was definitely overthinking this, and holy toledo the girl was doing something again...

Sylva's eyebrows practically shot off her face as she stared at Jamie's yo-yo moves, looking at the dancing toy with surprise, slowly beginning to nod in an adequately impressed manner. "Wow. Those are some pretty great yo yo, erm, skills." If you liked something about someone, compliment them on it; that was like rule number one of winning friends and influencing people. "I wish I was talented as you are, miss... oh, I'm sorry, I don't believe I ever got your name? Why don't you have a cookie? They're home baked, and pretty darn delicious, if I say so myself! Unless you have a chocolate allergy. It'd be a better idea to skip these particular cookies then..."

Sylva slid the plate of cookies a little closer.

Jamie tried to play it cool, but she couldn't conceal her giddiness. She grabbed a cookie off the plate and greedily devoured it.

"That stupid, you can't be allergic to chocolate!" Jamie guffawed, with her mouth still full of cookie. She swallowed hard, dusted off her hand on her skirt, and readied both yo-yo's. In the air in front of her, with letters nearly as tall as her, she began spelling out her name. She started the second letter after the first, the third began during the second, the forth during the third, and with each new letter she moved to the side like the carriage on a typewriter.

J-A-M-I-E, and then at the end she added a slow V that brought her back to her starting position, letting one yo-yo dip down and bringing it lazily back up while her other hand slid another cookie into her satchel.

"I'm Jamie. I'm in Friction too, but I'm not a wrestler."

"I'm pretty sure you can be..." Sylva says quietly, her eyebrows raising almost comically high as Jamie pretty much ate the cookie in one bite. "It's good, right? Not, like, secret family recipe good..." Asper had actually printed the recipe off the internet this morning. "...And I could've gotten higher quality ingredients..." It's not like she was rich or anything, so she had mostly looked for the older stuff on sale at the grocery store--still good, though! As long as they were eaten within the week! "...but as far as cookies go, I've strived to make these above average! I mean, I definitely want to make a good impression on everyone here, and all..."

Her train of thought was abruptly derailed as Jamie started her next yo yo trick, though! "Oh, are you making letters?" Sylva leaned forward, grinning. "Jay, eh, em, ai, ee... Jamie? Alright, that is really cool. Props!" This Jamie girl was actually really neat! She had cool tricks, she was personable, she appreciated the cookies... "You, like... a performer at the shows, then? Come out during one of the Talents entrances, during your yo-yo thing? Wow the crowds and stuff?"

"Nooooo!" Jamie protested. "Well, yeah, but I'm really a ninja. No one can beat me."

Of course, Jamie hadn't had a match in a long time, not since her horrible traumatic experience against that giant homo. But she didn't even consider that a loss because of how bad the other girl cheated. So not counting that, she was undefeated.

"I'm undefeated, too. I'm probably going to be champ soon. Why do you have cookies... for everybody?" She scratched her head with a yo-yo. "But... then there's less cookies fpr you!"

"Yeah, you look like the kinda girl who'd be undefeated." Sylva agreed, nodding. She was slowly starting to trust the girl. She seemed pretty ninja-ish, after all--she had snuck up on her, hadn't she? And she had a sort of, like, tough street atmosphere. She was cool. Even if Jamie was a mite shorter than Sylva was, she seemed like the kind of girl who could probably take down girls bigger than her. "I wouldn't want to mess with you, at least!"

The kawaii raised her eyebrows again at Jamie's words, surprised at them. They reminded her of things a ten year old would say, not an adult woman. "Well, if I ate all these cookies, I'd balloon up like... I dunno, I'd just get so chubby they'd kick me out of the kawaii league. I don't even like cookies that much, to be honest! They're strictly OK." Sylva could cook a dozen recipes of cookie, but she hardly ever ate any. Appetite like a bird. "I baked these just to give them to people. I, um, well... I didn't really come here to fight anybody. I joined the AFW mostly because they give room and board if you sign a few waivers. See, once, I read a documentary that said..." Asper leaned forward, looking around, and dropping her voice a few decibels. "...A lot of unsavory things happen around here. You know... ambushes, and rapes, and all those terrible things... so, I came here to try and offer some... I don't know, friendship, a shoulder to lean on, someone to care, for the poor, unfortunate girls who recieved that sort of thing."

"Now, now, I know what you're thinking!" Sylva said, suddenly animated! "You're thinking I'm a stupid, naive girl who has no idea what she's getting herself into! But, that's not what I am at all. I'm going to be careful. I know that everyone is a victim, and every victim can be a villain themselves. And I know not to trust anyone enough to let them lead me into a dimly lit locker room! Or even be in any dimly lit locker room in the first place! My apartment has six locks, a deadbolt, and three peep holes, and I'm totally going to go buy pepper spray later tonight. So, as you can see, I'm not dumb. I just care!"

Jamie lowered her eyebrows suspiciously. Who just made cookies to give to people for no reason? Were they poisoned? She eyed her satchel as if it might have contained a live, sleeping wolverine.

Then, to make matters worse, friendship? She probably would like to care for the poor unfortunate girls, just so she could kick 'em when they're down! What a disaster! Jamie knew her type entirely too well. She was evil. PURE EVIL. Jamie needed a plan. She couldn't just walk away now, with a half dozen of the girl's evil cookies! Hmmmmm...

She tried her very best to act natural, and the result was a bizarre facsimile of the way she thought people acted when they weren't acting. "Okay, so..." she said. "Well, the lockers are over there," she pointed, and when Sylva's attention followed her finger she slid another cookie into her satchel without looking. "And... wait, what did you say?!"

PEPPER SPRAY?! THIS WAS A CATASTROPHE! This girl was armed to the teeth and bribing everyone with cookies just to convince them that she was some harmless little friend-bot, when really she was a vicious, pepper spray-spraying killing machine! Jamie had been pepper sprayed once before, by that stupid idiot fake lawyer. She narrowed her eyes and resolved to never be sprayed with pepper again!

"You sound like you're pretty smart." The facial expression that resulted from her narrowed, suspicious eyes and her clenched-down smile was mildly unsettling. But the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. The beginnings of a plan began to spout up in her mind, and as it did a broad, grinch-like grin spread across her face, which only made things worse.

"So, these cookies. Everyone will like you, right? Because of the cookies."

Things had taken a turn for the uncomfortable. Upon hearing Sylva's story, her eyebrows had lowered, her eyes had narrowed... Asper had expected laughter, maybe a little bit of derision, but suspicion? Hostility? Maybe she was just reading Jamie's face wrong...

Sylva glanced where Jamie pointed, just a quick peek, before focusing on Jamie's face again, a worried frown plastered over her face. The young woman was suddenly pale; she didn't look very pretty when she was anxious. Her expression was plaintive and questioning; why were you looking like that, of all things, it asked?

Her horrified visage shifted when Jamie started talking again, however, into one more of confusion than nervousness. Jamie didn't look suspicious as much as she looked... weird. Sort of... weirdly casual, but not really casual? It was like in a sitcom where everyone would try to act natural, and just fail at it, except maybe not as obvious as that. It was certainly very, very weird.

But hey! Jamie said she sounded smart! So, ignoring the weird body language--probably just overthinking it, as usual!--she had totally come out ahead and impressed the legit wrestler! "Well, thank you! I, um, it's not the worst plan in the world, isn't it?" Sylva asked, a big smile sneaking onto her face.

"Hopefully, hopefully everyone will like me. I mean, I'm sure I'm not going to make that many allies with cookies... I'll be honest, I've been half worried I'll get my table flipped and my face punched every time one of the bigger girls walks by. But so far, most of them have been smiling... and the janitors and the security guards, they really seem to appreciate the gestures."