Life within the Lunar Palace never had an idle moment.

Either we spent it in play, or in work.

Most of the time, mine was to prepare the herbs according to my sister’s instructions.

‘Put this on the kettle, Yu’er.’

‘Separate these with the winnower.’

‘Grind this, please.’

This was how I had spent the most of my time up here, when I was not playing or being taught something. And while I would have dearly preferred to play some more out in the snow, I understood that it was very important work that needed to be taken seriously.

‘Mix these together for me, Yu’er.’

‘By what ratio?’ I asked as I took the pots of powder into my arms.

‘Silver’, she said without lifting her gaze from the shiny jewel tablet within her hand. ‘With a sprinkle from the purple pot as base.’

And I nodded.

If you were wondering how much is a sprinkle, well let me tell you.

It’s exactly how much a Sprinkle Spoon can hold in one scoop! It’s a magical device my sister designed to precisely measure how much she meant by ‘a sprinkle’. There was also a Spoonful Spoon, a Handful Glove, a Cupful Ladle, and loads others!

I simply dumped the ingredients into the Silver Mixer, and waited between the Bronze and Golden ones, until they were all blended together.

We had a lot of equipment in the Lunar Palace. There were flasks and vials and pots and bottles of all shapes and sizes, and grinders and mixers by the dozen! Even if one simply said ‘knife’, my conditioned first instinct is to ask, ‘Which one?’, as they were every one of them diversely specified to their different tasks—one of which was to trim and shave my fur…

...Sends shivers down my spine to think of it.

—Anyway, most of the tools and apparatuses in the Palace had been personally created by my sister herself! She was oh-so-very particular with her work that hardly anybody was able to match her standards.

Her unintentional motto, ‘Better to make it than to break it’, had made all the inventor gods cry. Especially the male ones.

In fact, if someone asked me if there was anything within the Palace that she didn’t have a hand in creating…

… I could only think of one.

‘They're mixed enough, Yu’er’, she called out to me warmly. ‘Come and sort out the snow.’

Oh goodie, snow!

I tidied up the workplace as soon as I could and arrived at her side by the table where she sat, ignoring the sound of pots falling over upon their tables.

She tipped over a bucket onto the table, and there it was…

...Pristine. White. Goodness.

I seated myself comfortably, and we both absorbed ourselves in separating the tiny white crystals.

We had to separate them by their forms, as there were many types of snowflakes. The two main types are the plates and the columns, but these could be further divided into things such as flowers, and even crazy things like wheel-axles!

…Why were we sorting them? To use them with the herbs, of course!

Yes! Snow is an ingredient too! Isn’t it just the best?!

…You see, snow in the Lunar Palace isn’t really snow like you know it in the Human World. It doesn’t melt, and isn’t even cold! Lunar snow is actually like the stone blocks of the Palace—condensed, crystallized light falling from the White Above.

We had to sort through the crystals, because some of them had structures that could be used in a lot more recipes than others, while others could barely be used in one or two. We called this, the degree of perfection of each crystal.

It was strange, really, to think that even though every single snowflake was unique, some were still inherently better than others. But the fact was that some were good for nothing, and some for everything. It was like people, I thought, and suppressed a giddy smile at my sister sitting right before me.

‘No one is good at everything, Yu’er’, she said suddenly in a strict voice.

I squeaked. ‘How did you know what it was I was thinking about?!’

She gave me a knowing smile. ‘I can tell by the way your ears and whiskers twitch.’

Now that was just unfair.

‘But you can do everything, Sister!’ I objected. ‘You can make everything for yourself and everyone in the heavens adore you! You’re perfect, Sister!’

‘Yu’er’, she said decisively, and I stopped.

It was then that she let out a melancholy sigh.

‘I have told you, Little One,’ she began warmly after a little pause, ‘nothing in this world is perfect, no matter how we might like to describe these snow crystals. Me, I can do several things better than most others, but that doesn’t make me better than any of them. We all… have our unique function within the cosmos, that we, and only we, can perform, and can bring the greatest value to the world.’

She scooted over to take me into her arms.

‘I have found my function, and someday you will find yours.’

I silently nodded, still taking in everything that she had said.

‘...But isn’t my function to be here, beside you?’ I asked her meekly.

And she smiled.

‘That’s something you’re going to have to find out for yourself!’ she said as she tickled me senseless.

‘Nooo!’ I squeaked powerlessly. ‘Yield—ahaha—I yield!’

As I giggled exuberantly within her arms, I decided to myself that staying beside her was really what I wanted to do. I belonged to the Lunar Palace, and to Her.

Suddenly, she released me and stood up.

‘It’s time to make some cakes!’ she said.

And I roared in excitement.

It was my favourite part of the day!

Not eating cakes—though that’s definitely yum too!

It’s making them that’s my favourite thing to do.

We came before a blackstone mortar, and prepared it for use.

Now the more astute of you might have already thought, if the snow doesn’t melt, what’s to keep it from piling up and swallowing everybody alive?

The main reason would be that it is regularly taken up as nutrients by the lunar plantlife, those flowers and herbs that we use as our ingredients.

The other reason was...

‘Ready when you are’, Sister said as she poured the white snow into the depths of the dark mortar.

‘Anytime!’ I cried and took my weapon of choice out of the corner of the room.

The Sixth-g Mallet!

It was another of my sister's inventions, a huge mallet that even someone as little as me could carry with little to no effort.

...And I still haven’t been taught why the number 6 is appearing again yet.

—Anyways! I always felt strong holding the handle of this thing.

We both got into our positions.

‘...Go!’ she declared.

And I began pounding the white material inside the mortar like it was my mortal enemy.

Sister added in the herbal mixture along with her magic between each of my strikes, and before long the snow had risen into a fluffy, bouncy substance.

She took it out, and we made another batch.

You might be wondering why we had to make it into cakes.

‘...It’s so humans can absorb them more easily’, my sister explained as we were taking a break, chewing on the cakes we molded out of the fluffy product of our hard work. ‘Down on Earth they would call these rice cakes.’

‘What’s wice?’ I asked with a full mouth.

Sister chuckled. ‘Rice is a sort of white grain that a majority of humans enjoy eating.’

I swallowed up my piece of the snacks, and held myself from burping. ‘White is good’, I nodded eagerly.

Which merely made her laugh even more. ‘Actually, the red ones taste even better.’

‘How do you know all these things, anyway?’ I asked her.

And she paused, staring affectionately at the black mortar before us.

Remember when I said that there was one thing that my sister didn’t make within the whole of the Lunar Palace?

Well that thing was this mortar.

‘Someone told me’, she smiled and said at last.

We drank up our tea, and made several more batches of rice cakes, before stopping for the day.

That was when the call arrived.