"Oh wow, this is waaaaaay nicer than my kitchen back home! You've got a whole room for it! Y'know, mine's just the spot next to the sink where the oven would fit, and it's just on the other end of my chair and my baskets and the table that I eat at when it's not full of stuff. Wowies. Gosh this is... oh wow! Cabinets! You [i]are[/i] a Princess!" Yue dances around the kitchen just to revel in how much space she's got to work in. Sure, compared with the craziness of the rest of this place and that big open dueling whatever ground that's so desperately crying out for a makeover this place is downright cozy, but at the same time how could she not be excited? She could cook in here with three bowls of ingredients at once! And still have room for a cutting board! She can [i]move[/i] her [i]arms[/i] without [i]knocking stuff over![/i] If she was, like, five or six wishes deep into some particularly wild Cyanis deals, this is exactly the place she'd end up. She turns and offers Qiu the sincerest smile the would-be conqueror has perhaps seen in her entire life, maybe probably. It's not a friendly smile, at least not exactly, and not a familiar one either. There's no seduction to it, not even the accidental kind that comes from natural confidence. It's not even an especially [i]pretty[/i] smile, as these things go, unless you've got a thing for very plain and scrawny girls in the middle of realizing they're caught between needing to make something special for a very important person and needing to make that special thing [i]with the special person's ingredients[/i] so they can't use up any of the important or expensive stuff or they'll be a rude bad guest and a terrible person. And, like, if that's your deal? If you're all spun up thinking about that? Then, hooooooo, you probably need a minute right now, because Yue. Just, Yue. And that's it, right? That's the thing that makes this such a rare and special smile. There's a certain magic in being so over your head and smiling anyway because you found a tiny thing to be happy about. And then an even bigger thing after that. And then, oh gosh yes! Her smile turns as dazzling as a jar full of sunlight and she goes frantically digging through her bag to find a tiny pouch filled with dried out peppers she's not entirely sure she knows the name of, come to think of it. "Kay then, I see your flour and your sugar there and... no wait, over there, but where's your knives? I need about two of 'em and, uh, how's your chocolate situation? Your eggs? Your fats? Ooooooooh, ok! Ok! You're gonna love this! Probably! You don't mind spice, right? 'Cause these are... oh yeah, a glove would be super... oh! No wait never mind, I've got one here. Ehehe!" Whatever her deficiencies in swordplay might be, Yue is a talent with a knife. Her strokes are simple but powerful, and radiate so much confidence that if you didn't know better you might think she was the one with a bunch of sunshards to her name. She dices the peppers into a fine mince before she flips the knife around to crush the result into a powder with the handle, smiling in complete obliviousness to the danger of the blade now pointed at her face. She flips it back and sets it gently in the sink as she grabs a fresh one to start cutting butter and chocolate into easily meltable cubes. Swift and precise, the work of a master. She stirs them together over boiling water, humming while she works the whisk with the kind of quiet grace you only pick up with hundreds of hours of practice, the sort that's so baked into you that it disguises how much work went into getting there. She grabs the warm bowl and pours it into a well of dry ingredients on the counter. This is not a time for tools, fancy or otherwise. Yue is a master, and a master is all the help she requires. She twirls the sleeves of her dress around her upper arms and ties them into delicate bindings to keep the whole thing clean. She gingerly plucks the glove off her hand and gently drops it next to the knife in the sink before washing them along with her hands. And then she goes to work. There is deep power in the way she works her hands. Yue stands on her tiptoes to maximize her leverage over the forming dough. There is artistry in the way her hands twirl. There is precision in the way her body moves with every roll and motion. Put a sword in her hands, and the power of her hips as she rolls them could cleave mountains in half. She scoops and rolls her dough into little balls with the sheer arrogance of someone who doesn't bother to measure it. And then she spots the fruits sitting on the far end of the counter. "Oh. Oh gosh. Oh gosh gosh gosh! Do you have any idea how hard it is these days to find someone who keeps shānzhā? Ohhhhh my goodness, ok ok ok ok, no no, I... oh gosh. This is a cheat day. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but we have to. Today's a cheat... do you, er, do you diet? Or cheat? Y'know what, I don't care, today you do. We're... ok, sugar sugar sugar, need some skewers, ohhhhhhh gosh it has been for[i]ever[/i] since I could make tanghulu! C'mon, we're stuck waiting for your oven to heat itself right anyway! Eeeeee!" And there is a universe's worth of love in the way she moves her knife, now. In the way she harvests the seeds and sets them so delicately to the side. In how she fills the fruits back up with sweet paste and sticks them on a set of needles. She vibrates with excitement as she dips and holds them in the molten sugar mixture. Her smile this time is pride as she offers the first crunchy hawthorn treat to her hostess. "Um, but... s-so anyway, I guess we're just about... I mean, the sweets are kinda just a conversation starter, right? Cause, we... mmmm. Hhhi ffhnk hhoove... oh gosh, sorry! But, like, I... I really don't understand what it is you've heard about me. Have you got any idea how much you scared poor Kat with all this nonsense? What gives?" Yue folds her arms across her modest chest for exactly one second before realizing how completely messy they are and also how completely precious her dress is for her to be touching it like she is. She unfolds with awkward and astonishing haste and settles for awkwardly dangling them away from her body, instead.