I groan and rub my eyes as I hunch over. Barely any light, but it still managed to wake me. I stretch, for a moment, naked in my tent and glad of the privacy; cup my own breast and feel...
It's not that it's a turn-on; it's that I feel sexy, and less sexy even than correct.
I sigh, and put on my clothes, and exit the tent while still yawning, emerging into a clearing half-concealed by bushes and trees off to the side of the road. The path is marked Orocorn Road by the hand of a milestone marked with Sylphan's countenance; behind us the road leads to Viacruz, and forward along it we will, eventually, find Vinyado.
Tayeb insisted on bringing a couple of live chickens with us, which seemed like the height of crazy back in town; but this morning, I'm thanking and blessing him for his foresight as Ace, in her arming jacket, cracks fresh eggs into a bowl.
"Good morning!" Ace sing-songs at me.
I mumble something like "ghumrnan" in return and start gathering firewood.
I wouldn't have taken Ace as a morning person, but once we were on the road, she started sleeping earlier - when it got dark - and waking earlier too, and adjusting faster than the others. Her life in sports meant early morning drills before the pivot to streaming and casting, I figure. But it did mean she cooked in the morning, and Tayeb's planning meant she had eggs to do it with, and I'm willing to put up with any amount of malicious cheer for that upside.
There's a fair amount of dry scrub, this time of year - so close to the turn from summer to the harvest - and I bring it over and to the fire, just as a very groggy Hikaru in just his cream-colored under-robe mumbles his thanks, and yells one syllable as he snaps his fingers at a firepit full of kindling. A spark leaps from his fingertip and into the pit, starting the fire.
"I never get tired of that," I say.
"Has its uses," he grunts. "Like coffee. Nine double-sized cups."
"Ten," I say, tossing a lump of incense into the fire. "I promised someone. We owe her."
He tilts his head, but nods. "Of course. It might help."
I put logs on the fire, looking back at Ace. She whisks the eggs with some water and salt, some herbs and honey.
"What did you have in mind?" I ask.
"The bread we brought's getting stale, so I figured we dunk it before it goes bad," Ace says.
"Torrijas?" pipes up a cheerful, girlish voice. "What's the occasion?"
Ace caws laughter, and grabs some of our seemingly inexhaustible marmalade supplies. "The occasion is I want to use up this bread, Shadi. Break out the cinnamon and we make it a party."
"Hell yeah, should go great with some venison steaks," says Sekhmet from out of nowhere.
Emerging from the forest, they roll a whole-ass buck off of their shoulders and drop it on the ground before us, crouching and taking out a knife. I couldn't keep my eyes off the spectacle; I hadn't actually... seen my meat die, at all, back home. Behind her, the guide Tayeb had us hire does the same, scoring and peeling away buckskin.
Our guide is named Siobahn Greenwood - pronounced, roughly, "Sharon." A pixie, and therefore short, she tended to wiry sleekness where Hikaru was more relaxed, maybe even fatter; she wears blond hair in a single utilitarian braid, and has blue butterfly wings over a lincoln green tunic with leather or buckskin bracers, and boots in varying shades of tan and brown. Her face has fewer of the lines on his, too, and those eyes are still very big in proportion to her head; but there's enough that I can tell she's at least 20, if not in her late twenties.
"Asshole had resolve, I'll give it that," she says, her face sporting a pixie's characteristically fanged grin. "Tanked my first shot like a champ. Took a fully charged, feinted Sniper Shot to take it down."
"Speaking of tanking, never let her talk me into pulling aggro on one of her hunting expeditions again," Sekhmet says, laughing. "Tried to chase it, fucker nearly gored me and ended up chasing me. If it weren't for her lucky shot -"
"Luck nothing," Siobahn says, as she peels away a whole side of hide, destined to be sold as shoes or gloves at our destination. "The math was in favor. The one shot should have wounded and slowed it down, and I thought I'd need another - that crit was clutch, never abbreviate Ranger as RNG to my face again."
"Yo who needs cooking fat," Sekhmet says, "trade cooking fat and meat for all the salt you got."
"Allow me to help, friends," Tayeb says - more seriously than usual - as he grabs a jar from its place in his cart, where he was sleeping. His mule, Buraq, was likewise dozing in front of the cart.
Alesha walks up to the cart, and, wordlessly but with a nod to Tayeb, extends her arms. Tayeb returned the gesture, and passed her two - evidently heavy - jars.
And thus, with our morning tasks clearly arranged, we set out to finish them.
Breakfast was both hearty and delicious. Ace fried fatty pieces of venison 'bacon' in a large paella pan, to grease it properly, then fried more eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms - gathered wild, but Ace's least blessing of Scherzo positively identified them all as safe to eat - and finally, what no one here was calling 'french toast' on pain of explaining what France was to Tayeb Rahman ben Kosmas and his daughter. Rather than plain pain perdu, Ace had actually made jam sandwiches - both marmalade and raspberry - dunked in the egg batter and fried, which tasted so incredible that we kicked ourselves for not thinking of it.
"Okay, where the hell did you pick up that trick?" Sekhmet asked.
Ace shrugged, trying not to grin from ear to ear with mixed success. "There was this one cafe back home that made them this way," she says. "I got them with an omelette and a glass of milk tea."
"Like that one Yaoinese teashop in Viacruz," Siobahn says. "Huh."
Ace blinks. "Okay, first off: never call stuff from the Yao 'yaoi-nese' again. Second, there's a cha chaan teng-ass place there?"
Sekhmet laughs. "The history here is so fucked. Everything's flipped turnways and I love it."
"I imagine it's like tasting an Avalonese attempt at tagine," Tayeb adds, brushing a crumb out of his mustache. "So close, and clearly well intentioned, but it would never come out the way Mother made it without the herbs Mother grew."
"You know, that's exactly what it's like for us," Alesha said. "Grandma, bless her, always complained about the bagels in Oakland; I looked into it, and it turns out the water hasn't got the same minerals in it. It's impossible to make it right, no matter how hard you try."
Siobahn slapped a hand to her temple. "Sonova - that's why the bretzels suck in Viacruz too!"
At this point, none of us were really hiding talk about being from somewhere else from the Rahmans, Tayeb and Shadi. They could believe it or not - and I were sure that Tayeb believed it, since it explained the odd gaps in the party's cultural literacy here, which made it easier for him to teach us all. None of us were risking letting all of Mundus know, and we less told the Contessa then were forced to admit it. But with Tayeb and Shadi, we could breathe a little.
Tayeb wipes something he noticed from Shadi's cheek, over halfhearted spluttered protest, and turned to us. "This was a lovely way to break our fast - thank you, Ace, and our hunters, and all. But it's best for us to finish soon, dress for trouble - may the gods forbid it - and pack. We have wheels and wheels and more ahead, and only so much daylight. Quench the fire, and let us prepare."
"Let me," I say, pouring more coffee into my drinking bowl - along with a little salt.
He nods.
I take a deep breath.
And pray:
"You, Flamma, who lit our way, whose child needed our help, and who we must now take with us; stay your wrath, so we will satisfy your curiosity. Run not through these fields with your tail aflame, stay your paw from the innocent. We carry you in our burning souls, and the promises we made in fire, and promise that our curiosity and the journey to satisfy it will bring you back ere the evening. We do not smother you; we quench you, in the product of the alchemy you taught us."
And I invert Flamma's cup of coffee over the flames. It sputters, then - as if satisfied - dies in a cloud of sweet smelling steam.
Sekhmet looks on, fascinated, and the Rahmans along with Hikaru and Sio have splayed their hands discreetly on their knees; but Alesha's look is more... pained.
"Water if god wills it," she sighs. "Ace, I'll help you with your armor, then help me with mine."
"On it," Ace says. "Deeds, start taking down the tents?"
"And I'll take down the wards," Hikaru says.
It does not take long before us eight and our train are on the road, walking alongside the wagons at a brisk pace.
Eyes forward, ears swiveling if we had 'em, looking for trouble we knew would come the exact moment after we passed a broken milestone.
