The Bonfire: Come hang out!

There once was a group of Tar Valon and White Tower folk, relaxing around a bonfire on a lovely night. The moon was up, the stars were winking, and the temperature was just cool enough to make the heat from the flames welcome. Everyone was perfectly content; the atmosphere and company could not have been better. If things had no been so perfect, perhaps they would have been a bit more alert.

A fist of bestial Trollocs, led by a Myrddraal in his black, serpentine armor, had crept south from the Blight to wreak havoc on the White Tower itself. They were under strict orders to ignore the tempting targets along the way; it was crucial the alarm was not raised until the Shadowspawn were inside the city itself. Due to the Myrddraal's diligent lashings and harsh control of the Trollocs, their approach was still unnoticed.

As everyone knows, the one thing Trollocs cannot resist is an easy meal. As they stealthily approached Tar Valon, their attention was drawn to a bright bonfire. It was surrounded by laughing and chatting humans; they were completely unaware of the sneaking beasts, lulled by their peaceful happiness. The Myrddraal realized a moment too late what was happening with his troops; by then, it was beyond his control. The Trollocs were overcome by ravenous blood-lust, seeing their favorite meal, with a perfect cook-fire already burning bright.

And so they charged...

It was winter's heart.

Well, not quite. It was the beginning of February. More towards the end of Winter, but it snowed later that month, so we'll go with winter's heart.

A hardworking college student was currently slaving over the oven, having abandoned her efforts to edit a particularly arduous paper. There was a Psychology club event running the next day, and they needed someone to cover deserts. Someone had to step up and be confectionery hero, and so Illyria was determined to stand apart and rescue the group from death by lofthouse icing. She was currently on her fourth batch of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and there was a bowl of chocolate chip dough waiting in the fridge. Everything was going well - there was a very strict system for making sure each cookie turned out perfectly pretty and chewy.

But somewhere in the system, she had made a mistake. She'd washed her hands after rolling sticky delicious dough into vague cookie shapes, but dried them on the potholder instead of the towel. And Illyria was unfortunately ignorant about the basic laws of chemistry, so when she felt that her pot-holder was slightly damp, the significance was lost on her.

She opened the oven, reached for her cookie tray, and immediately shrieked a curse word that isn't appropriate for public forums. In her haste to retreat, her forearm dragged along the oven door, which left a particularly nasty welt and let more swear words loose into the night. She iced it for hours, and continued to bake - her arm protested each time it was exposed to the heat, but Light burn her, she was going to finish the cookies and be a confectionery hero - and she was! She finished all her cookies and even organized them in a pretty basket, all ready to go for the club party.

It would have been victory, albeit one with battle scars, if she had not left the basket on the kitchen counter that morning, with all 60 cookies waiting patiently.