"Iris, why did you ask me to conjure so much water." Kia asked while she sat back up all the while the sound of her meal bubbling started to tease her ears. 

 

"That's because I am making soup," Iris responded, feeling cold arms wrapping themselves around her neck from behind. "Something wrong?"

 

"Flavoured water." Kia calmly commented as she watched the light vegetable soup the risen had made with a skeptical eye.

 

"With boiled vegetables and small slices of meat for additional flavour." Iris felt her back being watched as she was filling the girl's bowl.

 

  Turning around, she spotted a pair of grey eyes watching them from behind a white and blue mask. Fear suddenly appear in the human's eyes as they were met by the her gaze. A muffled yelp sounded from the human direction as she disappeared behind the driver's bench. A different pair of ashen eyes curiously popped up and stared at the bowl in Iris's hand.

 

  The elf motioned the peeking humans to come over, she would rather have the humans on her good side. It would be easier for her to hide their undead nature if the humans viewed her as a somewhat trustworthy person rather than a dangerous outsider who had to be constantly watched. The two young humans looked at each other before they disappeared again. Iris heard hushed whispers exchanged between the siblings and the wooden cart creaking before the older sister jumped out of the wagon while being sheepishly followed by her brother Iris had knocked out yesterday. The elf couldn't understand why but the sight of the poorly concealed knife on the sister's ankle was somehow humorous to her.

 

"Hello," Iris welcomed the siblings while deliberately shifting the impatient necromancer perched on her shoulder to her other side away from the armed humans before giving her a steaming bowl. "Would you like some?" She offered the humans.

 

"Iris?!" The magically gifted undead's spoon froze in the air as her colourful eyes stared at the risen with disbelief and utter shock.

 

"Hmm?" The elf turned her head to the starving mage frozen in shock, she poked the ice-cold statue on her small nose but the necromancer remained still. "That's new." 

 

*Cough* *Cough* *Cough*

 

  Iris turned again toward the coughing boy and saw that the two human siblings were standing directly across her. 

 

"Could you give him some?" The young woman behind the white mask asked.

 

"Are you not going to eat?" Iris said as she handed the wooden bowl to the hesitantly approaching boy.

 

"No." The two siblings sat down simultaneously with the boy sitting strangely far away from the small campfire while the sister sat down between her brother and the still-frozen girl. Iris pondered if the local rules of hospitality were somewhat similair to what she was familiar with given that the two seemed obligated to stay closer, keeping her company.

 

  Iris poured herself a portion of the light soup inside the bowl she had borrowed from the humans. As she started to scoop up the delicate pieces of vegetables floating in the soap leaving the thin soup for last, a habit she had since she could remember, she eyed the human woman with black spindly tattoos peeking from under her cuff like a turbulent river reaching the wide open ocean and suddenly stopping. 

 

  The human's grey eyes behind the bone-white mask watched with both worry and confusion the unnaturally fair girl's partially veiled face slowly recovering from her shock. The dark brown-haired human's gaze couldn't escape from the lilac colour eyes of the damestar raven who had mastered the subtle art of secretly observing people while keeping her head low during her long heroic servitude. The woman's tattoed hand absentmindedly reached the short necromancer.

 

"What is your name?" Iris's cold, emotionless voice caused the human fingers reaching for Kia's mantle to cease.

 

"Y-you can call me Nu," The human stuttered. "And this is Ba."

 

"My name is Iris and she is Siri." 

 

"How do you know my language, I-Iris? Did you meet some of my people before?" 

 

  Iris opened her mouth to answer Nu's question but a low rumble suddenly interrupted her. She looked at Kia beside her, who shook her head.

 

"Are you sure you don't want to eat?" Iris asked as she watched Nu's body shrink from embarrassment.

 

"...Sure but only because I haven't eaten today." The human glanced at Kia again as the elf gave her a bowl of soup. 

 

  Nu's body shrank even as her eyes met Iris's gaze causing her to shuffle a little bit away from the petite girl, who happily munched on the vegetables in her mouth while being unaware of what was happening around her. 

Iris watched as Nu placed her mask on top of her head like some sort of hat. Under the smooth mask a freckled face in the colour of fresh olives appeared. As expected of siblings, the two resembled each other very much with both of them having freckled faces, grey eyes and dark brown hair with Ba's hair being slightly darker than his sister's. Nu's small nose had a hawkish curve to it, ending in a small yet blunt point. Iris noticed white flakes of dead skin littering the boy's dense hair and shoulders giving him a somewhat sickly and ungroomed look.

 

  Silence fell onto the caravan with only the sounds of nearby terror birds interrupting the silence. The young humans silently ate their portions without showing much emotion, unlike her favourite undead whose overly expressive face radiated the feeling of pure bliss. 

Iris didn't hold against them their lack of visible adoration for her cooking skills, she herself didn't think of herself as the best cook and the soup was in dire need of some spices. She didn't add Dark Shafts nor Gift's Crimsons since the former was far too domineering for such a light dish and adding the indescribable subtle taste of the latter into the soup felt like a waste.

 

"More?" Kia asked as she presented the sitting risen with a pristinely clean bowl with no evidence of the food once inside. 

 

"No." The elf and the tyrant of the ladle replied to the petite mage.

 

"Nya?!" 

 

"Fine, you can have some." Iris marvelled at the girl whose eyes flared up with brilliant light once more appearing like gems glimmering in pitch darkness. "Adorable~" She whispered to the doll's ear.

 

"You haven't answered my first question." Nu said with a feeling of urgency behind it while she set the almost empty bowl on the grass beside herself.

 

"I didn't," Iris quickly answered. "It is my first time being here."

 

"Then how do you understand us?" 

 

"I just do." The risen shrugged, causing Nu's grey eyes to narrow in suspicion.

 

"Did you have someone teach you?" 

 

"No."

 

  The human mulled over the elf's answer. Ba stopped sipping on the bowl in his arms to watch his sister. Perhaps due to their mask the human had very little control over their expressions with Iris being to read the worry in the boy's ashen eyes and the dissatisfaction in the other human's face. 

 

  The tall hoplite took her chance to quickly finish her remaining meal and as she lifted her last spoon to her mouth, the grass rustled from behind Nu.

 

*Clack* 

 

  A bird with greying feathers snapped its beak in greeting as it emerged from the dense grass and rubbed its large head against the frustrated human. The woman scratched the great feathered creature behind its skull causing it, to tuck its long scally legs under its body and rest its head on the human lap.

 

"I haven't seen you with any luggage, do you have any?" Nu asked while she watched the fire roar upwards as Iris fuelled the fire with the blades of grass constantly brought by Kia's construct to her side.

 

  The risen sighed internally as brought up her hand to massage her temple. In their travels, through the empty grassland, Kia had hidden her backpack in her inventory and Iris had forgotten to remind her of it. An urge to stand up and leave the humans appeared in her mind but she already agreed to escort them back to their destination and she couldn't just break her word like that. 

 

"Siri can use inventory roughly the size of a large backpack." She figured telling the human a believable half-truth would stop Nu from doubting the elf more and allow Kia to use her inventory openly without worrying too much. 

 

  Yet even after significantly underselling Kia's ability which still somehow left the girl looking rather powerful regarding her inventory capacity which should have awed anyone into silence, especially people working with cargo but the ashen eyes of the woman flared up with sudden enlightenment before the shine morphed into immense disgust aimed toward the confused elf.