well, artemis wasn't great at cooking, but he had jumped on the chance to write an article about the bake sale in general.

get more people to join- hopefully. in all honesty, it had been a half-assed article, as he had been too distracted with other things to really make it sound nice. mostly mint frost and their most recent meeting; artemis wouldn't lie and say it didn't still sting a little, even with him trying to throw himself into any distractions he could. even if said distractions meant currently hunting down items for a bake sale to edit the article.

make it more appealing, he supposed.

estella was the one who found the closest stall, the liepard glancing at his trainer a few feet away and the treats in question until artemis arrived, hand instinctively reaching for one-

until he saw the price.

isn't that a bit much? artemis thought the point of bake sales were to be cheap so things would actually sell. he didn't bother hiding his disappointment as he scanned the rest of them, quickly noting the prices with a bit of disdain.

this certainly wouldn't go well for his advertisement, either. not if everything was overpriced.

the individual running the stall is pretty, sure, but her charm doesn't do much on him. maybe it's his own past of dealing with the business part of things, but the way she bats her eyelashes only serves to deepen his frown. between her and the liepard practically begging at his feet, though-

he gives in. a bit reluctantly, he signs out a pokemon friendly? and points at the treat he had been originally reaching for. he didn't want to give estella anything that was going to hurt him, after all. as he's waiting for an answer (one he hopes he'll get), he's already reaching into his bag to pull out the corresponding amount of money.

if nothing else, he can eat the treat instead of his pokemon. sure, it'd be a waste of the plan he did have, but at the very least he could update his article to advertise it in some way. if he liked it enough, that was.

and if he did, he was sure he could find a way to excuse it being seemingly overpriced in his article- outside of the usual reasoning, of course.

inwardly, artemis is telling estella that he should be glad artemis still has money; otherwise, the liepard would have had to deal with having no treat. something tells him that the woman working the stall wouldn't have lowered the prices, after all, even if he had asked as politely as he could. estella, attention now on the nickit, raised a paw to try to bat gently at the other pokemon. artemis made a note to keep an eye on them; while he doubted it'd turn into an actual fight, at least not on estella's part, he didn't know how the nickit would react to a larger cat pokemon doing what estella had.

and then- surprise surprise, the woman had offered a percentage off from the treat bundle. artemis only had the two pokemon, but...fuck it. they deserved a treat, and it wasn't like things like this happened every day. at least, not that artemis had seen, at least- so why not? nodding in response, he pulled the purchased treat into his bag and waited for the price of the treat bundle. once he was done here, he could find a place to share the treats and hopefully edit the article on the bake sale for the better.

the woman was patient enough, at least, even if artemis couldn't shake the feeling that the treats really were overpriced. but they were for a good cause, and...well, getting a bundle couldn't hurt anything. he'd have enough to make up for it soon enough, and he didn't mind helping out.

so, with what he hoped was enough in hand, he reached for one that he thought his pokemon would like. hopefully. he was a little biased, because the icing decorations were cute and they had caught his eye before the rest, but neither solaris or estella were picky.

and, surprisingly, the woman did offer him a discount. he supposed the day was just full of surprises. he was still going to give the rest, though. as a tip or something; and partially because estella seemed eager to play with the nickit, continuing his routine of trying to (gently) bat at the nickit. the sight of them, and the woman's words, is enough to coax a grin from him. it was enough of a distraction, even if it was sure to be brief.

sliding his money across, he moved to sign out a quick 'a tip'. he pauses, tempted to add something about the nickit, and then decides against it just as quickly.

the woman seemed worried at the extra money, and artemis was moving to sign a reassurance when she seemed to process that it was a tip. even if it hadn’t been for the donations, maybe it was better that artemis stayed unaware. summer could keep her extra money and potentially get more customers due to artemis’ article, and artemis-

artemis got to think he was doing something good. even if it wasn’t as good as he would originally hope, what he didn’t know wouldn’t kill him.

bundling the treats into his bag, and hoping they’d be okay on the way back to his apartment, he smiled back at summer before trying to get his liepard’s attention. estella didn’t seem too pleased at having to leave, but backed away from the nickit after a moment, leaving artemis to sign a final farewell to the woman before the two left.

‘thank you. have a good day.’

and then he was gone, already pulling up his phone to edit his article to make the sale sound better.