Chapter Text
It was a wonderful and awful day when they found, amid some boxes of roadside jetsam, a tin of genuine Mechanicsburg gingerbread trilobites, the distinctive lines chased right on the box.
It was hard to even unseal the tin. It was hard to even brace themselves to face the scent before they could unseal the tin. The tantalizing torment they were in for wasn't hope, of course, but it was almost as rough.
"You know," Dimo said quietly as the five of them were staring at it. "I has heard it said that the reason ginger and cinnamon smell so good is because they is actually hurting the inside of you nose a little. In a good way."
Oggie laughed. "Even noses like a good fight."
Maxim grinned. "No wonder Mechanicsburg makes the best."
"So is we opening this or what?" Jenka asked.
Maxim braced his ungauntled hand against the tin and used the gauntleted one to pry it open. It soon became clear that however long the tin had been away from Mechanicsburg, the air of its bakeries had still been trapped inside. The scent hit, and not long after that, the sniffling started.
"Sure does pick a fight with the nose right away," Dimo said softly as Oggie grabbed a handkerchief.
"Sure does," Maxim agreed. They all had their pride.
When everyone had regained their composure, they each took one trilobite almost reverently. Teeth like theirs -- well, besides Jenka -- piercing into these sort of cookies ... well, it was always a funny thing, but this was the kind of funny where you could end up crying, so they had to be careful. They also just went ahead and tossed Fuest's right into his mouth. The cookies wouldn't last long, but he deserved, too.
The cookies crumbled. They all ate slowly. They did not wash it down with anything. The wanted the taste to linger. The nostalgia ached, and they wanted it to be torture.