Chapter 3 – Sweet Wonders for Small Hands

  The morning at Café Ashborne began as it always did: with the hiss of the ovens, the hum of the tram-lines outside, and the soft patter of footsteps echoing across the creaking wooden floorboards.

  Lucien Vale Ashborne stood behind the counter, sliding a tray of honey-spice bread into its display case. The bread, golden and fragrant, had already begun drawing attention after yesterday’s promotion. The chalkboard sign by the door was smudged faintly from the evening rain, but the neat letters still read:

  New Seasonal Varieties – Honey-Spice Bread & Frostwane Spiced Milk. Ask for a taste!

  Regulars shuffled in as the first rays of pale Frostwane light filtered through the windows. The tram-yard workers laughed louder than the clatter of their mugs. The elderly man unfolded his paper and muttered at the obituaries again. Two academy students rehearsed their lines while juggling cups of coffee. The café breathed with its own steady rhythm, a rhythm that had grown just a little lighter, a little brighter, since the new recipes had appeared.

  Alina, perched on her usual stool by the counter, swung her legs impatiently. Her little fingers clutched a pencil, scribbling on a crumpled sheet of paper. Finally, she slammed it down with the dramatic air only a six-year-old could manage.

  “Boring,” she declared.

  Lucien raised an eyebrow, wiping flour from his hands. “What’s boring?”

  “The menu,” she said with a pout. “It’s all bread and milk and boring coffee. Kids want fun food. Something colorful! Something sweet!” She jabbed the paper with her finger, revealing a wobbly drawing of round buns splashed with rainbow scribbles. “Like this.”

  Her words drew a chuckle from Cerys, who was serving pastries to the tram workers. “Lucien, you might have a little competitor in the kitchen already.”

  Lucien ruffled Alina’s hair, though her demand lingered in his mind. Fun food. Sweet food. Children’s food.

  When the morning rush eased, he slipped quietly into the kitchen. His heart still raced whenever he thought of the Archive—its shelves of light, its endless promise. Yesterday had proved it wasn’t a dream. The bread, the spiced milk—they had worked exactly as written. The laughter of satisfied customers had been proof enough.

  So, he closed his eyes and thought, open.

  The shimmer appeared instantly.

  — Earth Cultural Archive —

  The shelves of light stretched away, infinite and silent. His thoughts directed him now: Recipes → Children’s Specials.

  A flood of glowing titles shifted into place. Some bore names he recognized—cupcakes, candy, jelly. Others were entirely new, localized creations: treats shaped by Caelora’s fruits, spices, and traditions. His gaze snagged on one that pulsed a little brighter, as though waiting for him to notice.

  Rainbow Sweet Buns (Localized).

  He opened it. The glowing script unfolded before him: soft buns glazed with fruit-based syrups, each hue drawn from natural ingredients—sunberry for red, duskfruit for blue, citrus-gleam for yellow. Affordable, simple, and designed to delight children.

  Lucien’s lips curved into the smallest smile. Perfect.

  ---

  He gathered the ingredients quickly, checking the substitutions carefully. The Archive had already done the work of adapting foreign measures into Caeloran standards. He kneaded the dough by hand, his fingers moving with more confidence than the day before. The air filled with the yeasty warmth of rising bread, tinged with the sharp-sweet tang of simmering fruit syrups.

  Alina wandered into the kitchen at the smell, curiosity in her eyes. “What’s that?”

  “An experiment,” Lucien said, trying to sound casual. “Want to help?”

  Her eyes lit up instantly. “Yes!”

  He let her brush the first layer of syrup over the buns once they cooled, her little hands clumsy but careful. She giggled as the red and yellow glaze smeared together into streaks of orange. “It looks like a sunset!”

  Lucien laughed quietly. “Exactly. Just… maybe don’t lick the brush.”

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  When the tray was finished, the buns glistened like jewels. Alina clapped her hands. “They’re so pretty! Can I eat one now?”

  “Not yet,” Lucien said, though the sight tugged at his heart. “We’ll try them out together.”

  When the buns cooled, Lucien set the tray out on the counter, the colors glistening like jewels under the lamps. Alina was the first to snatch one, taking a bite so dramatic that syrup smeared across her cheeks.

  “It’s perfect!” she shouted, crumbs flying. Her voice carried through the café, loud enough for every customer to hear.

  Two children at a nearby table turned instantly, wide-eyed. Alina waved them over with both hands, insisting they try. Their hesitant bites quickly turned into giggles and sticky-fingered delight. Soon their mother ordered a full plate, snapping a holo-pic on her wristlink before sending a message to a friend.

  Lucien seized the moment. He strode to the entrance and chalked neatly beneath yesterday’s offerings:

  Children’s Special – Rainbow Sweet Buns (12 Shards a piece).

  He priced them carefully—less than the premium honey-spice bread but higher than the plain loaves. Affordable enough that parents could treat their children without hesitation, yet special enough to feel like something worth coming back for.

  Word spread faster than Lucien expected. By afternoon, curious families were drifting in, some just to see the “rainbow buns” they’d heard about. Parents lingered, laughing as children squealed over the colors. The café felt alive again, humming with energy it hadn’t seen in months. Laughter rang louder, families lingered longer. Coins of digital credit flickered into the café’s account at a pace faster than usual. Not enough to erase their debts, but enough to feel like the tide had shifted, however slightly.

  From the corner, Lucien caught sight of the rival bakery boy again, staring at the colorful tray with narrowed eyes before slipping outside. Lucien’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. The boy had been here yesterday too, word was spreading in more ways than one. Let him watch. Let him report. Café Ashborne wasn’t going to bow out quietly.

  The afternoon stretched on, and the rainbow buns seemed to vanish as quickly as Lucien could plate them. A boy no older than eight tugged at his mother’s sleeve after his first bite, whispering loudly enough for half the café to hear: “It tastes like eating a rainbow!” Another child, cheeks sticky with glaze, tried to sneak an extra bun into his pocket before his mother caught him, scolding gently but laughing all the same.

  One father, still in his worker’s uniform, leaned across to Cerys as he paid. “I haven’t seen her eat this eagerly in weeks,” he said, nodding toward his daughter, who was still licking syrup from her fingers. “You’ve done something special here.”

  The café’s usual murmur had shifted into something warmer, brighter. The buns weren’t just food—they were joy, disguised as sugar and color. And that joy was contagious.

  Lucien slipped behind the counter during a lull and pulled up the café’s balance on the wristlink terminal. Numbers danced across the display. He began calculating automatically: if they sold twenty rainbow buns a day at twelve Shards, that was two hundred forty Shards. Multiply that by a week, by a month… The totals weren’t enough to erase the debts, but they were higher than anything the café had seen in months.

  Hope pricked at him, sharp and dangerous. What if this was only a passing fad? What if tomorrow, the crowd didn’t come back? He clenched the edge of the counter, forcing his breathing steady.

  Alina suddenly popped up beside him, her chin barely clearing the ledge. “Don’t worry, Lucien,” she said brightly. “If nobody else eats them, I’ll eat them all myself!”

  Lucien laughed despite himself, tapping her nose with a flour-dusted finger. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  ---

  That night, the café was quiet, dishes drying on the racks while the last embers of the oven glowed faintly. Darius wiped his hands on a cloth, eyeing the day’s earnings on the wristlink terminal. For once, his frown had softened.

  “Good turnout,” he admitted, his voice gruff but lighter.

  Cerys leaned against the counter, her smile tired but genuine. “It feels different, doesn’t it? Like the air’s lighter in here.”

  Lucien only nodded, his chest tight. He wanted to tell them everything—about the Archive, about the impossible shelves—but he stayed silent. Everyone already thought of him as gifted, the boy who had earned his scholarship to MICF on sheer talent, a prodigy with stories and performance. Now they would simply believe that same spark extended to recipes and baking. Let them think it was natural genius. Perhaps, in time, it truly would be.

  From the back room, Alina’s soft singing drifted, her small voice humming a tune as she fell asleep. It carried through the café like a promise.

  When the last of the chairs were stacked and the shutters drawn, Lucien stepped outside into the chill. Frost clung to the tram rails, glimmering under neon lights. Marilon at night was a city of contrasts—towering glass spires burning with color, ancient stone alleys fading into shadow. Lanterns flickered in preparation for the coming Wintergate Festival, laughter echoing faintly from distant squares.

  Lucien drew a slow breath, the cold burning in his chest. For a moment, he let the city’s noise wash over him—vivid, alive, relentless. Then he turned back inside, locking the door behind him. The Archive awaited, and with it, a different kind of noise.

  Later, when the café had gone still and only the hum of the city trams echoed faintly outside, Lucien opened the Archive once more. The shelves stretched into infinity, waiting. This time, instead of recipes, his weary mind pulled him toward something different. Something lighter.

  He thought: Film.

  The shelves shifted instantly, titles shimmering into place. His eyes caught one glowing faintly brighter than the rest—

  Home Alone (Localized).

  Curiosity tugged at him. He opened it.

  The café around him blurred, replaced by a projection that filled his vision like a dream. But it wasn’t the Earth he imagined—it was Marilon. The familiar streets were dusted with frost, the trams silent under the snow. The protagonist wasn’t a boy in some distant Earth suburb, but a Caeloran child, sharp-eyed and mischievous, left alone in a tall townhouse while his family departed for a Wintergate Festival trip.

  Lucien watched, spellbound, as the boy turned his home into a fortress of tricks and traps. Holo-alarms disguised as toys. Spiced-oil slicks across polished floors. Steam vents rigged to blast scalding milk into the faces of two hapless burglars who looked like they’d wandered straight out of Marilon’s alleys.

  The film unfolded in a cascade of absurdity. The Caeloran boy smirked as he laid trap after trap, every one more ridiculous than the last. A glittering children’s top, enchanted with minor sparks, spun wildly across the floor until it struck a burglar’s boot, sending him sprawling into a pile of laundry. Another stumbled straight into a contraption of pots and pans strung together like a musician’s nightmare; the resulting cacophony rattled the entire townhouse.

  Lucien’s shoulders shook as he watched. It reminded him of Alina hiding sugar cubes under the cushions last week, or the time he himself had rigged a bucket of water over Kaelen’s dorm door at MICF. Simple pranks, harmless and joyful.

  The burglars on-screen screamed and cursed as they slipped, tripped, and tumbled, but the boy only grinned wider, triumphant in his small, chaotic kingdom.

  Lucien laughed—really laughed—when one burglar slipped headlong into a pile of flour sacks, emerging like a ghost, while the other tripped over a line of dangling pots that clanged like a stage comedy.

  It was ridiculous. It was joyous. It was… perfect.

  When the credits finally rolled, Lucien closed the Archive, still smiling. The laughter still echoed in his chest, but reality pressed back in. What he had seen was the Archive’s projection, seamless and complete, as though the story had been made for Caelora itself. To bring such a film into reality—a full production with actors, sets, and costs—it was far beyond him right now.”

  He glanced around the quiet café, the shelves fading back into the darkness of the Archive. He couldn’t pull the film into the real world—not yet, maybe not ever. The Archive was a vault of wonders, but for now, those wonders lived only behind its doors.

  Still, he couldn’t shake the thought of Alina’s laughter echoing through a crowded theater, just like his own had tonight. One day, he promised himself. One day, he would give her that.”

  But, for now, he had to start small. With bread. With drinks. With stories he could handle alone.

  He leaned back, whispering into the silence: “One step at a time.”

  But the promise lingered. If even this was possible, if these shelves could hand him not just recipes but entire worlds of laughter and wonder… then maybe one day, this would be more than survival.

  Maybe one day, it would be the spark of something greater.