User blog:Leea/The Tale of Voronwe, Chapter 20

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4th Era 100, 30th of First Seed, Summerset Isle
As Curwe stepped in the door, she remembered the rising bread in the kitchen. Alerting Balasian by quickly sprinting, he followed her, shouting, "What is it?!"

He found her staring at the countertop. "The bread!" She called, frustrated. "I completely forgot about it! It spread all over the counter!"

Indeed it had. It was already beginning to dry in its spread out state.

"Well, I'd rather have that kind of surprise than another one, like Markadil wasn't alone after all." Balasain remarked wryly. He laid a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. "We can slice that...thing up and bake it after we clean up." He held up his hands and pointed to hers, as well. There was dirt encrusted under their fingernails and dusted on their skin, as well as some droplets of Markadil's blood. "You wouldn't want this in the bread, would you? I know I wouldn't."

She sighed and rubbed her forehead, leaving a dark smudge. "Yeah, yeah. I know. You're right."

Her dim face grew brighter when he moved close and whispered in her ear, "Let's clean each other up." As he leaned back, he eyed her mischeviously.

She returned the expression. "The only cleaning chore I'd ever look forward to."

He threw back his head and laughed.

* * *

Slicing through the half-dried bread was awkward, at best: It was hard on the outside and gooey on the inside. Balasian asked if it would just be better to knead the dough and then cut it, but Curwe rejected the idea, saying that, "There would be little shards of hard crust mixed in with the regular bread, and you'd likely encounter one when you least expected it. Better to just leave it as is; you could always peel off the outiside to get at the inside if you didn't like it."

"Hmm. Good point."

While the mishapen "loaves" of bread baked, Balasian helped Curwe clean up the mess in the living room created by the fight with the assassin.

"I've been meaning to ask..." Curwe began.

He looked up from the floor, where he was on his hands and knees scraping up ashes that had spilled from the grate. Yes?"

"Well, you know more about my family than I know about yours."

He smiled out of the corner of his mouth. "Yeah," he replied, considering. "I guess you're right. Ask away."

"Were you from a prominent family? I only ask this because it seems that you always had...well...prestigious positions in your homeland."

He smiled up at her warmly. "Those were nothing compared to the promotion I recieved by coming here to you." His smile grew as he watched her blush. "But, no. I was not of any noble family or anything. My family is of modest means, though it was often said around the isle that not many families had as many members as we did."

Replacing the poker in its accustomed place, Curwe straightened and brushed her hands over the fireplace. "So you were part of a large family. Did you all live under one roof?"

Pushing the pile of ashes into the grate, he got up from the floor and clapped his hands over the hearth to remove the dust. Staring at the dead grate, her question brought back so many memories.

He felt with equal measure both fondness and bitterness for his family. He had been quite close to his grandfather, but he had been taken from the world in a rather suspicious "accident," as the authorities had put it. He knew it to be otherwise, however. He was likely killed by the Sea Serpents, perhaps even Markadil himself. It was the real starting point for his thoughts of rebellion. His grandfather had been the one who told him (when he was a child sitting on his knee) about the world as a whole. How Elves were just another life form of Mundus. He remembered asking in his child's voice that wasn't it true that Elves were better, because they lived longer than anyone else? His grandfather replied with what was later revealed as the truth, through simple deductive reasoning: Just because some life forms live longer than others does not make them better than those that live shorter lives. We were all the same on the inside; same desires, hopes, dreams, that carried us through our lives regardless if our soul was born into a Elven, human, or beasfolk body.

Those lessons had stayed with him.

He cleared his throat. "No, we weren't like the Dirennis, where we all lived under the same roof. We lived all across the isle, but kept close contact with each other."

"Didn't any of them try to stop your execution?"

He brought his eyes to hers, sadness in their depths. "Some did, but much of my family has always been ardent supporters of the King. Some cheered my capture and...almost...execution."

"Oh," she replied, shock setting into her features.

Balasian took her into his arms, hugging her close, leaning his cheek on the top of her head. "Its okay. They are not a part of my life any more. This - you - is my new life."

She hugged him closer yet. "We've gone through a lot of clothes today. I think I might have left ash prints on your shirt," she replied with a painful little laugh.

He laughed softly against her hair, which tickled his nose. "Indeed." Gently pushing her away, he squeezed her waist. "Let's wash our hands before we check on that bread."

* * *

The bread was done, in all its weird glory. Hard on the outside, chewy on the inside.

"Too bad we didn't have any soup to go with this," Balasian remarked. "Then I wouldn't have to wonder if I was going to chip a tooth on the outside."

Curwe leaned over the table and smacked the crust out of his hand, it clattering onto the plate beneath. "Just leave it. We can save it for later to go with soups. I'll put it in a jar in the cellar. Our very own hardtack."

"I've never had hardtack, you know."

She looked up from her plate in surprise. "No? Even such a seafaring people as the Sea Elves, and you've never had hardtack?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Like I said previously: Not eveyone is the same. No, I've never had hardtack before."

She made a face at him in reply. "You aren't missing out on any great cuisine. Its hard, mosty tasteless - due to lack of oils and salt, which would make it moist - and takes forever to soak into an edible softness."

He stared at his plate before replying. "This hardtack will be different, though," he said, softly.

"What makes you say that?" Curwe asked, puzzled.

Balasian smiled thoughtfully. "I will remember you when eating it."

Her confusion deepened, so he explained further. "I will remember you because we had made this bread together, then you saved my life, for a second time."

Her frown and confusion vanished, replaced by a blush of pleasure. "Yes," she replied. "That would be better - much better - than conventional hardtack."

Each matched the other's wide smile, ready for a future together without assassins.