Guarded Love (COMPLETED)

We'll Always Have The Kennels

"Didn't expect to find your armored butt dusting up my chairs this late into the morning," Renata chuckled. She stepped confidently across the stone floors, only the occasional knock of her wooden leg striking through the shoe breaking up her gait. Even the uneven and seemingly booby trapped floor covered in crates of produce didn't slow the cook down much.

Reiss slid her breakfast away and attempted to smile while the cook eyed up what was left and asked, "Not a fan of the eggs?"

"I fear they've gone off," Reiss admitted, trying to dig into her neck muscles. In truth, despite the sun having been up for a few hours, she was awake for even longer. The day began with a goodbye the King seemed to try to stretch out for as long as possible, followed by him dismissing her for the day because "I'm going to be trapped in a tiny room having every single problem in Ferelden shouted at me and for your own sake run, run as far as you can."

She could have headed out to the alienage, found Lunet, or walked around outside the palace walls for awhile to try to get her lost bearings back, but instead Reiss threw her all into the bottles the Hero of Ferelden left for her. All of which she had no idea what to do with. The Inquisition never thought her of the right mind to learn about poisons, saving all that talk for their rogues and spies, and anywhere else Reiss served was going to try to keep a knife-ear as far as possible from something they could easily slip into a hated overseer's mug.

By dawn's light, she flagged down one of the accursed alchemists and asked if he could name off what was in each bottle. Barely glancing at them, the man shrugged and admitted that a few colors could be guessed at but in truth he had no way of knowing as each person's equipment would create differing levels of opacity and discoloration. She suspected that he was acting indifferent to her because of the ears, but also got the sense that Lady Amell was accurate and all the alchemists in Denerim couldn't find their butts in the middle of an ass storm.

Before setting out, the Hero was kind enough to organize the bottles based upon her idea of what was in each, but there were seven that she had no guess to bearing a chalk question mark. While Reiss couldn't easily slop seven bottles around on her person without people wondering, she had a different idea and took small samples upon a piece of vellum. Seven shades of wet tan to slightly-yellow wet dried upon the parchment but offered her no better ideas of what she was looking for.

By the time she threw in the towel, her stomach was famished, and the official breaking of the fast was long over. Luckily, Reiss knew how to sneak into the kitchens and gather her own food.

At her displeasure of the eggs, Renata yanked up the plate and gave a good whiff. "Whew, rather pungent," she said, causing Reiss to nod along. She hadn't even managed to get a forkful to her mouth before letting the entire mess clatter back to the plate. "Wait," the cook paused and drew the eggs deeper to her nose. "Maker take that little shit. The produce ain't gone over, Philipe's gettin' fancy and done tossed that fetid Orlesian cheese into the mix."

"You can tell?" Reiss was shocked. All she got was a sulphuric smell -- like the ripe end of a demon -- that pounded out all of her other senses until she got fresh air.

"Oh, aye, it's a subtle note under the...gah, horror. A nuttiness most miss unless they know what they're looking for," Renata smiled at her. Yanking the plate up, she scraped the eggs not into a slop bucket, but the very fire itself to send them back to the void from whence they came.

"I couldn't smell anything like that," Reiss said.

That earned her a proud shrug from the woman, "Got me a good nose. 'Bout the only reason anyone would put up with a gimpy cook shuffling back and forth in their kitchens. Helps me to notice when stuff's going to turn foul before it does. Almost none ever get sick on ol' Renata's cooking!" She tapped her wooden leg with the ol' shave and a haircut routine and returned to plucking up the recently received cargo to put to use for the castle's supper.