Cooking Skills

[🎶 Into The Black – CHROMATICS.]

ELDORIA'S STUNNING FLAG, a print of a pale falcon with a golden eye, billowed on an ice mount several days later. It had been planted forthwith at the end of the battle and the vanquish of the Giants. All the territories of the deep North were claimed back under the Empire's great shadow. Rumbrun was no more, but the fey Queen let it keep its name—a mock remembrance.

Giselle, Rafel, Aya Naamah and Cora, the lieutenant Ser Romulus, Yemaya, and a few others stayed behind to reinforce the wards on the demolished ancient pillars of ice. There were no walls to keep back evil, no Nephilim to keep back either. Still, Giselle ordered a union of her Wiccan coven and Cora's Laveyan one to touch up the protective glyphs.

The sister witches, with a voice as one, carved up the tundra in leylines as one big slice of magical haven invulnerable to blood sorceries and crafts of the grim occult. If any such mutated horde like the spawn of the Titans recently conquered were to arise in the vast uninhabited lands of snow, the Regent at such time would have more a fighting chance than Giselle got.

The Queen prepared for the future. Because one thing was certain,

"Evil never truly dies."

Veracious words out from Rafel's mouth and deep into her heart.

The surviving Giants of the battle had journeyed back south with the legions some four days ago, in chains. Rafel had watched the long line of the troops winding like a river as they marched around the high Alps. They were completely vanished into the silvery panorama by dusk that same day. And now, nearly a week since the war, only he and a small company of the Queen's most trusted circle remained along the tundra.

They had made camp from the unburned beams of the Nephilims tents. Or at least what remained of it. Rafel could still hear the fires raging that terrible night and the choking screaming whenever the wind picked up. The vale of Magvath beyond was shrouded in a hex. An intentional sorcery made by Cora to keep the stench of the hundreds of rotting corpses, man and giant, from entering their camp.

At the moment, it was early evening.

The snows that had begun that morning had pulled up and now the air was clear. The skies had a washed glow and a rosy sun spilled through. Not bright but fresh off a blue firmament. The white hills of the tundra roundabout stretched for miles into sleepy blue horizon. The panorama was beatific. The view, enchanting.

Rafel sat on an old metal chair outside a large tent. One of the four in the camp.

He read silently from an old, withered tome he found in the ashes after the battle. It was in the single box collection he had recovered from Ekron's only possession. Somehow, the dead Chieftain did love books. Rafel turned the yellowed, decaying pages with intrigue. Cora had fashioned reading glasses for him from bristles and glass.

Rafel lifted his eyes a moment to scan the white plains.

'The witches should be returning anytime soon,' he mused. 'Reinforcements of arcane wards this ancient is no joke. They have taken a whole day amongst the icestone pillars.'

He looked from the sweet fair outlands to the slow burning fire he had going. A three-stand coal pot—another recovery from Ekron's iron box, frothed the aroma of broth into the air. Rafel was cooking. But not just for himself. For their entire little camp. Between himself, his women, the Queen and her Lieutenant, and Yemaya, they were all in total less than ten souls left behind.

'The armies must have reached the Capitol by now.'

Frostholm was the first to get word of the victories won by Her Majesty's Legions. The Lord of the city quickly dispatched riders with a small feast for the marching host. And at night, surreptitiously, whores also. The soldiers indulged to the fullest before continuing on their way. Their chained prisoners got nothing of their surplus.

The blue Nephilims were pulled dry and soiled in blood by the great manacles dropping down from their wrists that binded them one to another, and then to the 30ft hairy mammoths that kept them from scampering for the hills. Wagons full of gold, silver, and several other piles of rich plunder the Giants had before captured from the fallen cities of Persepolis, Ashtapur, and Castamere were dragged behind by the Queen's Royal cavalry.

The Eldorians had recovered every single ingot of the lost loot.

If the Giants were lucky, all they would face in the Capitol would be swift hangings. If they weren't, Dragons and a cheering crowd would be involved.

Just like the billowing flag staked beside Rafel's tent, several more in the gilded Eldorian Fae colors breezed northward from monuments erected in honor of the fallen cities. It'd be some time but even the ruins of Castamere would see rain again.

Rafel gathered his thoughts and focused when he saw an approaching group in the distance.

Giselle's golden hair flowing out behind her, like rolls of hay on a barn floor, was a marker.

He closed the book.

"They're back."

This far out in the tundra, the Queen seemed more like a farm girl rather than a Fae with the combined power of Sol and Athena. The company of witches with her were fresh faced and smiling when they pulled near. Rafel noticed Corazón and the lieutenant, Romulus wielding a giant bunch of purple grapes on a stick, shoulder to shoulder.

Cora had her sleeves rolled up. Her skin was a softer shade to Ser Romulus' tan. But the strength inherent was equal.

Aya Naamah dragged a white bison behind them. It left a long trail of wet blood from the gash in it's open neck. Albino bisons were a rarity.

The entire company bowed as they reached Rafel. He also stood up from his seat in regard. He hadn't failed to notice that everyone had defied him since he felled the six-toed Ekron in battle. Ser Romulus still insisted on calling him Sir. Rafel looked to the beautiful commune.

Giselle smiled full at him. Without the shadow of her powders, he could see her full blush rouge up her cheeks.

"Ah, you cooked for us, Your Grace?" The Queen flirted.

They were but a little company and everyone among was freer and informal now that the mighty legions were gone back. Cora and Romulus lowered the grape bunch and Aya promptly dropped the bison. The animal was twice her size and three times her weight. Yet, she handled it like a satchel of oranges. She disappeared to fetch a dagger to begin the skinning.

Rafel slid Cora his chair. She thanked him brightly and wiped at her brow as she plunked onto it. Romulus himself settled down right on the light snows at her feet. Rafel watched Giselle hold back her blond hair and open the boiling pot.

Steam poured out as she lifted the lid and a delicious aroma wafted into the air.

"Woah, Rafel. This smells amazing." Giselle complimented.

Rafel would blush, but his skin was epically pale.

She grabbed a scoop and dipped into the broth for a taste while the others oohed and ahhed at the aroma. Aya returned with the cleaving knife and sat like Romulus in snow. She crossed her legs and began with the bison's albino head. She winked at Rafel when she smelled the aroma from the stew.

"Lord Master does many things impeccably," she offered. She left her words at that but everyone went pink.

Many things was... many things.

"Gods! Tastes like heaven."

Giselle had just lowered her open palm and licked at her lips. She dipped in the ladle again to draw another scoop. Instantly, everyone stretched out their hands for a taste. They were so liberal, like little kids.

"By the Martyr, where did you learn to cook like this?" Yemaya said herself. She stood beside Giselle and peered up from her palm, licked clean to Rafel and back again. "Even my harem struggle with a good porridge. And I have four girlfriends!" Yemaya joked.

The others laughed, tasting and complimenting in their own way.

Rafel didn't fail to notice the water queen artfully kept talk of her male lover, Gawain, who had been felled in the battle from her lips. He let it slide. She deserved to mourn, but not at the moment. Gawain had being carried back in stasis of a summoned [Rare] Cryo block on the chariots of the Atlanteans back to the sea.

Rafel couldn't even imagine the scenario of him losing one of his.

Giselle gingerly covered the pot and left the broth to brew some more. She said,

"Between the beef, the grapevine, and Lord Rafel's excellent bouillon, I say we have enough for a good meal and wine indulgence tonight!"

"Fuck yes. I've been needing a hot meal." Cora chirped.

Everyone laughed. This time, including Rafel.

The sun set on the Alps, making the white mountains into a prism and splashing a kaleidoscope of natural colors on the little, flourishing company. For that brief moment of time, no one thought about the valley of a thousand decomposing bodies shielded from sight and breath by magic, just thirty feet away.

Back in the Capitol, a fucking trip away, people were calling the battle of Nephilims by a name that would still skitter hearts generations to come, they were calling it, SKYFALL.