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“Hm?” She blinks.
I repeat the question.
“I eat parboiled eggs.”
“That’s not what I asked. What you eat and what you like are different.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’m guessing. Tell me how you like your eggs.”
“Scrambled.”
“Plain?” I doubt it.
“With cheese, bacon, and mushroom.” She grabs a mushroom from the basket and tosses it at me.
I catch it and grab the other ingredients.
While breaking the eggshell on the edge of a mixing bowl, I continue the story. “Once I realized the male came from a different tribe and his murder could cause us problems, I gathered up the body and tried to prepare it for burial. Our tribal leader found me and ordered me to leave the male where I killed him. I argued, but an order is an order, and I obeyed.”
I scramble the eggs in a bowl and pour them into the skillet. The sizzling and the aroma remind me why the living prefer to eat cooked food. They get to combine different flavors and scents, creating meals to their liking, not just settling for whichever animal they managed to seize in the forest.
The living also socialize during meals.
And they court their lovers.
I’m trying to do all those things with Fleur now so that she’ll hate me a little less.
“That night, I couldn’t sleep. Not only because we returned empty-handed so I was hungry, but also because it was my first time ending a fae life, and I wanted to release the fae male into the afterlife. During the night, I returned to the body, but the male had gone. I followed tracks to his tribe, where I saw our tribal leader chatting with the elders of his tribe.”
“Uh-oh,” Fleur says.
I transfer the eggs onto a plate and serve her.
Even as her belly growls, she pushes the plate away.
“You asked me to court you,” I tell her.
“I changed my mind.”
“No, you haven’t. Eat.”
She huffs and looks away.
I scrub my face. “Please have a meal, for you haven’t eaten since yester breakfast.” I know because I watch her. What she eats, wears, how she sleeps and who she talks to. I know how she fucking breathes.
“I can’t accept your courting, Nottuza, not after what you’ve done.”
“You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“So tell me.”
“I’m trying, but you keep interrupting me.”
She blinks, then realizes I was making a joke. Smiling, she shakes her head. “Go on, General. What happened?”
“I was outnumbered so I ran back and told my mother, who didn’t believe me. She told the leader, and he sent his sons, Ledger and Leroy, after me. I ran away. You see, three different tribes were trying to settle on the same piece of land, and our leader set me up to make it look as if I’d started a tribal war so that the other two tribes would unite. Which they did, and slaughtered us all.”
