Author's Note
You'll have to excuse my tardiness with updates. I still haven't recovered from my 'intoxication' quotation-fingers and am not yet capable of resuming my one-chapter-a-day basis for my stories and books for extended periods of time.
Cooking with clarity
Caramel Apple was happy. He was finally going to get tutelage by the famous Goldenware herself! He trotted through the inclined streets of Canterlot, took his permission slip out of his saddle bags before approaching the massive gates of Canterlot castle, and presented it to the guards that let him pass into the green, tailored yard. Caramel's golden brown coat and candy-blue mane and tail were all combed and cleaned, ready to present himself to his tutor in question. He took in a deep breath, straightened himself up and had no time to knock on the single, massive golden door as another pony opened it up before he had a chance to do so himself. The pony looked very snooty, with his gray muzzle stuck up in the air and his pink hair combed back. The two were quite becoming of each other.
"Ah, finally. A pony of standard," the old butler 'cheered'.
"I'm from one of the finest institutes of cookery, sir, and I have come here for tutelage, as per my teacher's demands."
Caramel levitated a note from his bag and passed it to the elderly pony before. After reading it, he cringed unnoticeably and nodded.
"Okay then. Miss...Goldenware is waiting for you in the royal kitchens. Follow me."
Apple noticed the 'tang' in the elderly stallion's voice on the mention of one of the greatest chefs of all time. The guards in the immense, temple-like entrance were all sporting a wide array of grief ridden expressions, while others were pitying the pony.
"They must think I'm not good enough for her." He clenched his courage and became more determined than ever. "I'll be the first to ever go a week with her. I'll do it!"
The butler stopped at the entrance of the corridor holding the kitchen's entrance, and Caramel didn't notice until the old stallion yelled at him from several hundred feet away.
"Okay! You're right there!"
The pony jerked his head twice: Once to his side then to the back. "hat are you doing all the cay over there?" he yelled.
"I'm quite fine over here, thank you! The door is to your right."
Caramel cocked an eyebrow at the bizarre behavior but still turned to see the door in question. It was about three ponies in height and two ponies in width, but it was just a bland, tan colored piece of wood.
"That's bizarrely inconspicuous," he mumbled to himself. "Thank you for your he..." Caramel's yells died out when he noticed the stallion had left already. "Riiiight..." the pony stretched with his vocal whilst slowly pushing the door open.
Immediately were his nostrils assaulted by the sweet, sugary smells of cinnamon and strawberry. In the middle of the immense kitchen sat a large row of cooking plates and ovens whilst the sides were lined with spice racks, shelves, drawers, and cabinets; all filled to the brim with cooking ingredients and food held in bags, bottles, or cans.
Caramel took in a deep breath. "Wow. This place smells divine," he commented.
"Huh? Who is it?" a female voice asked.
"Miss Goldenware?" the stallion asked.
"Yes. Who are you?"
Caramel looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the famed chef. "Well, I, uh, came here under apprenticeship."
"Another one?"
"Yes. I won't be like the others who left. I will stay under your tutelage for a whole week, this I promise!"
The mare's head popped out from between two bottles of spices on the spice rack, making the stallion scream and fly back a few feet.
"I sure hope so," she said. "I don't understand why you all keep running away." She put her head on her foreleg and sighed. "It's like you don't like me." Caramel blinked a few times. "Hold on then. I'll be there in a minute."
She receded into the battles, and barely a second later, appeared behind the stallion whilst tieing up her cook's apron around her belly.
"W-wait, but you, how..." Caramel started.
"It's alright, dear. You were very patient." She rewarded the stallion with a pat on the back and trotted off to get some plastic bowls in a cabinet further away.
Goldenware was, as her name suggested, and as we all anticipated and expected, emerald green. Her coat was a shining emerald green and her mane and tail were jungle green. Her cutie mark looked like a spoon being telekinetically bent.
"I'm glad you came so early. We're going to make Celestia's morning cake."
The stallion levitated his saddlebags onto a drawer and tapped his chin. "I did hear that the princess of the sun had a rather large sweet tooth." He took an apron and put it on himself and scanned the surroundings. "What are we making?"
"A fivce-layered cake!"
"Fivce?"
The stallion's question was met with a dictionary to his face, making him yell in pain and clutch his muzzle.
"There. Y'all best edumacate yerselves."
"That really hurt!"
"First, we need some flower."
The stallion grumbled and looked around the area for some semblance of flour, but found none. "Um, where's your flour?" he asked.
"Right here." The mare was holding twenty roses in her hoof and looking at the stallion with a nonplussed expression and wide eyes.
Golden looked between the mare and flowers she was holding, his eyes bouncing back and forth incessantly. Finally, he took the courage to speak. "Uhhh, those a--"
He stopped speaking when the flowers spontaneously burst into white clouds of flour, their landing spraying some dust all over the mare's face and even her eyes, but she didn't flinch and continued staring at the stallion intently.
"Maybe this is just a test," he tried convincing himself. "I'll show her!" he thought angrily.
"How did you do that with the flowers?"
"Because I asked for flower."
"No, you asked for flour."
She walked to the left, outside of the stallion's viewpoint, then appeared walking to his right and grabbed him. She pulled something from above and showed it to him.
"First, we need some flower."
"See? I said 'flower', not 'flour'."
"How did--"
"THE DIALOGUE BOXES NEVER LIE, CANDIED PEAR!"
"That's not even CLOSE to my name!"
She clapped her hooves together and rushed back to the bowl. She poured some milk in and started mixing it all up. She reached to the right and tapped the table several times, then groaned in annoyance.
"Could you hand me the tiny piece of paper on the oven there?"
Caramel looked around and spotted what was requested. "You mean this tiny thing barely two centimeters in length?"
"Yeah, that."
He handed it over and scratched the back of his head. "What is it? Some kind of rare type of sugar?"
"No. It's the list of what I need for this cake. I make so many different kinds that I need the recipes on hoof."
The stallion rolled his eyes and turned around. "I'll go get the magnifying glass."
"Oh, there's no need for that," the mare assured. "I just have to unfold it."
"Unfold it?"
She calmly and carefully touched the very edge of the paper that exploded onto the entirety of the room, and all that was left was paper and the lumps underneath it.
"Ah, there we go," Goldenware's lump bounced. "Just what I needed. Some bouncing betties."
"What's that?" Caramel's lump bounced.
"A special, spicy fruit that rings out the sweetness in everything if mixed correctly." Goldenware fumbled underneath the 'list' and grabbed fruits from a nearby basket. "Now, what you want to do is carefully remove the stem above by twisting it twice, counter-clockwise. Now, every pastry dish you make using these requires different quantities of--"
The guards at each end of the hall outside jumped when a loud explosion echoed through the castle walls. In the kitchen, black smoke dissipated, leaving behind a mess of charred furniture, walls, and ponies.
Caramel coughed out a cloud of soot. "Ah. So if you don't twist them right, they explode." He 'pointed' at the mare. "Right-o."
Goldenware pouted at the scene laid before her. "Oh, now I have to clean this up," she complained.
"A-and it will be some time before--"
The mare's forelegs stretched illogically like taffy, grabbed hold of the borders, then flipped the image around, and everything was clean again. Caramel toppled over and fell onto the floor, followed by a need to vomit. Goldenware patted her hooves together and smiled with satisfaction.
"There we go. All clean."
"Wh-whhat thhowdi, but the room just..." Apple babbled.
"Now, what else is there?"
"No, really," Caramel insisted. "How did you do this?"
"With the magic of cooking!" Goldenware answered with a sprinkle of sprinkles in the air.
Caramel cough when they reached him. "That didn't even make sense! What happened to the room? And then the ash disappeared."
"Hmmm, I need something sparkly and colorful to give an appearance to the cake other than 'pure white' cream."
"Then take some food coloring!"
"I have a better!" Golden shouted with a hoof raised. "I just need to reach into the next scene here." Her foreleg reached to said scene where Celestia was talking with a pony from who knows where, grabbed her mane, then ripped out some strands. Celestia howled in pain and clutched her head. "There we go," Goldenware smiled gleefully.
"What did you do?!"
"And it's done!" she proudly stated.
"Huh? But you didn't even cook it or perform the next steps!" Caramel complained.
"I was sure I was forgetting something...Oh well. I can worry about that later."
She lifted a massive metal plate and placed it on the line of ovens and stoves. Upon it was a teeny tiny speck of dough, barely even big enough to fit an infant dragon's pinkie claw.
"What in the world is this?"
"It's a cake," Goldenware whispered. She put herself at eye level with it and carefully held a two millimeter syringe in her right hoof. "Careful," she mumbled.
"What? What's going on?"
"CAREFULLLLL," she spoke louder.
"Wh-wh-what's going on? The room is shaking!"
"CAREFUL!" Goldenware yelled to herself from atop a tennis referee's seat.
Caramel pointed to the sudden appearance and yelled. Goldenware carefully let just a teensy bit of water of drop onto the 'cake', then pulled away when nothing happened. The stallion braced himself for whatever was to come, but slowly relaxed when nothing happened.
"Huh. I was certain this was going to--"
He was silenced by the expansion of the cake bursting through twelve separate rooms on the first floor then rising up to pierce the tallest tower's roof and hang even further above. Caramel looked around and noticed he was now in the dark, sweet entrails of the cake.
"What is this? What's going on?"
A light blinded the young apprentice momentarily, but when his eyes readjusted to the brightness, he saw that the source came from a disheveled and skeletal Goldenware holding an oil lamp.
"Who are you? Am I finally being rescued? I've starved for five years!"
Caramel had a despondent expression etched on his face. "You could've eaten the cake," he said.
There was a long, awkward pause until the mare finally answered. "Oh yeah..." she realized. "Well, too late for that now."
When they finally dug their way out of the cake, Caramel got to have a better look at the abomination the 'greatest' cook in Equestria made.
"What is this?!" He bellowed. "There's no way this thing is five layers!"
"Sure it is. One," she started.
She galloped all the way to the twentieth floor then yelled 'Two'. At the thirty-seventh, she yelled 'three', then under the opening near the roof, she yelled 'four'.
"I can't count the fifth because it went too high," she yelled through the cracks of the floors.
"THAT'S NOT HOW YOU MAKE A CAKE!"
"Sure it is," she stated next to the stallion. Caramel jumped back and hit a plant filled with gigantic, angry carnivorous plants glaring at him hungrily. "Now you'll see how to make a salad." She was wearing full body armor and wielding a massive blade in her hoof.
Caramel rushed through the corridors to get out of the castle and was unhindered by the guards who casually stepped aside nor was he bothered by the butler character who had been waiting patiently at the entrance with his hoof on the handle. The butler, still proud in expression, looked in the corner of his eyes to see Goldenware on the floor, reaching out to the stallion and crying. The stallion and the guards weren't amused in the slightest. In fact, they were quite tired of the whole charade with the chef.
"Whyyyyy?! I loveded you, piggy! I loveded youuuuu!"
"Uffff," the butler groaned. "Why can't I die faster and be rid of her."
"But she would probably follow you soon after, sir," a guard commented.
"Don't...Don't ruin my dreams, guard."
