"I love these so much!" 

Alina sets her fork down, beaming like the dawn. She glances briefly around the table and, uh oh, there's Momma making one of those 'I know you mean well, but...' faces, and Jess (who is very clearly in the middle of trying to swallow a bit of appleberry lembanana) is actively trying to get her foot far enough under the table to kick her in the shin. And Euphie is, well... it's tough to get a read on Euphie. Nervous excited frantic desperate hopeful hurt betrayed. If she's anything, she's a wild animal that's gotten too used to being chased off by villagers, and now that her leg's caught in a trap she doesn't know what to do about the person reaching toward her with the upturned hand and the gentle whispers. Alina picks the fork back up and waves it enthusiastically.

"No, I mean it! Of course the pancakes themselves are warm and fluffy and wonderful, that goes without saying, but there's also these little pockets of, mmmm... I'm not sure what? But it's like these little gooey bombs of sweetness and I want to learn to make mine like this someday!"

That's something of a lie, of course. Alina's been around kitchens long enough to know that what she's tasting are little pockets of uncooked batter. There's too much fruit in here, and the excess juices and imbalanced mixing meant they cooked unevenly, and the outside lied to Euphie about how done they really were. But, it turns out? Warm, uncooked pancake batter is [i]delicious[/i]. And when it's just in little pockets like this... oh gosh. Maybe this is how they [i]should[/i] be made.

"Plus, they're fun! They're so fun, actually. Like a game! I never know what the flavor is going to be until I put it in my mouth! For instance... mmph! Thish? Rhh strrbrrh ish shoooo good! But it's even better when I find a gross one, because now there's strategy! Can you guess which forkful is which? Do you spread it out and hope to end with a good bite? Do you try to find all the penalty bites at once? Are you a coward who covers the entire plate with syrup, [i]Jessamine?[/i] I've never had anything like this before."

When she smiles at Eupheria, it's with the same look in her eyes she had when she complimented the Wicked Queen's puppetry. And maybe that's enough to get the wild animal to let the wandering princess get close enough to free her from the trap.