Elegant Rose let out a deep sigh and rubbed her temples with her front hooves, sitting down heavily in the cluttered kitchen. “Gosh, that took a while.”
 
Demeter glanced up from where she had been washing her paws in the kitchen sink and nodded, looking as exhausted as Rose felt. “Yeah… worth it though, I would say,” she chuckled.
 
Rose smiled and turned her gaze towards the veritable mountain of desserts on the other side of the room. Cupcakes, cookies piled high onto platter, muffins, and other sweet treats engulfed the bakery counter. She felt a brief surge of pride – her and Demeter had made all of those in the past few hours! – but shook her head and turned back to where she was cleaning up the remainder of the mess of the kitchen table.
 
Demeter began to hum slightly as she finished cleaning her paws and turned towards the dishes, cleaning them by hand with swift, practiced motions. Rose found herself stopping to watch, seeing the young draconequus’ tail idly swishing back and forth, humming sweet melodies that sounded familiar yet unfamiliar.
 
“Rosie? Something wrong?”
 
Rose snapped upright with a start, realizing with a tinge of embarrassment that she’d gotten caught staring. She smiled reassuringly and shook her head. “No, not at all! Just got distracted, is all.”
 
Demeter tilted her head slightly with a wry smirk but didn’t challenge her, instead simply turning back to her work. In a few more minutes, the room was almost as clean as it had been when the two had started baking.
 
“Well!” Rose announced, when both of them were done. “Thank you so much, Demeter!” She fixed the draconequus with a brilliant smile. “I couldn’t have done this without you.” With a rush of enthusiasm, she leaned forward and gave Demeter a light kiss on the cheek. Demeter blushed a brilliant crimson and shuffled her paws bashfully, feeling a goofy grin spread across her face.
 
“It was nice getting to work with you,” Demeter replied, still feeling herself blushing furiously. “I should be going – Mother will be expecting me soon.”
 
“Oh, definitely!” Rose nodded brightly. “It was nice seeing you.”
 
“You too!” Demeter agreed, taking two steps back before rearing onto her hind legs and snapping her left paw. With a burst of brilliant green magic, she vanished.