The Vampire & Her Witch

”That’s even worse, that’s so much worse,” Talauia said, looking at Ollie in shock as he suggested inflicting the terrifyingly spicy sauce on the group’s youngest member. ”You know that it hurts and Frost Walkers eat most of their food raw! He doesn’t eat spicy things at all, why would you do this to him?”

”Is this like the knight’s ritual where you bond through pain and suffering?” Hauke asked, looking sideways at the strange dish. ”I’m supposed to do something that hurts so we become closer?”

”You don’t have to,” Ashlynn said as she moved on from the skewers to one of the rich, smokey sausages Virve had brought over. ”Ollie wanted a ’food adventure’ and he found one,” she teased. ”He just didn’t expect that his first adventure would be quite so painful.”

”I’m sorry, Hauke,” Ollie added quickly. ”I don’t want to pressure you...”

”It’s fine, I’ll try it,” the young Frost Walker lord said, his horn glittering a faintly embarrassed shade of lavender as he served himself a large spoonful of the ’painful’ sauce. ”I’m farther away from home than most of my clansmen go in their entire lives. I should try adventures or what’s the point of coming all this way to be Lady Ashlynn’s apprentice?”

Moments later, however, as he steadily chewed on a large bite of spicy beef, slathered in the chunky green sauce, he failed to show any sign of discomfort or displeasure at the taste. In fact, he seemed more confused than anything else.

”Did I pick the wrong one?” Hauke asked, blinking in surprise. ”It’s a little bitter but... it isn’t painful.”

”Aaah! That is so unfair,” Ollie cried. ”It doesn’t feel hot at all? Like your mouth is on fire?”

”No, not at all,” Hauke said as he sniffed the sauce, but unlike Ollie and the others, he seemed completely unbothered by it. ”But I think the sausages Virve has smell better,” he said, turning to look at her expectantly.

”I got a big one, just for you,” Virve said, passing over a thick sausage thicker than her thumb and as long as her large paw. ”The meat is raw when they start fermenting it so I thought it might suit you more. If you like it, I got two,” she added.

”Now I’m jealous,” Heila said from the side as she meticulously sliced through one of the smaller sausages, preparing a stack of bread, sausage and the crumbly blue cheese before nibbling on the rich, salty, creamy, savory and slightly funky combination of intense flavors. ”I can’t eat as much as everyone else, so how am I going to try everything?”

”Just eat like Nyri and the other vampires do,” Ashlynn offered helpfully. ”One bite of this, one bite of that, and keep going until you’ve run out of things before you start over. Practice for when you take Sir Ignatious out to dinner,” she added with a wink.

”Really, really?” Talauia said, looking at Heila with shining amethyst eyes as her wings hummed in the air behind her. ”So you really like Sir Ignatious? And not just because, not just because you let him feed on you in the High Pass?”

”What, what’s not to like?” Heila stammered, her face heating all the way to the tips of her ears. ”Sir Ignatious is a gentleman, and he’s really sweet and warm. All that fire and fury that the Inquisition burned into him... it wasn’t really ever his to begin with. So, now that he’s free and he can just be who he always should have been... He’s nice,” she said quietly, hiding behind the tankard of cider as she took several large gulps.

”I want to find something for him at the festival,” Heila said after she put down her tankard. ”He, he doesn’t really have many things in his chambers. Mistress Nyrielle never gave him a chance to collect his belongings after she brought him to the Vale so the only keepsakes he has of his old life are things that came from the Church,” she explained.

”And then, when he was with High Lord Hamdi... things were, were really hard for him,” she said, shuddering at the memory of the things she’d glimpsed in his memories when she healed him during the battle in the High Pass. ”That’s why, I want to help him to collect a few things that he can treasure, so that he always has a reminder that someone treasures him.”

”Heila, you really are growing sweet on him, aren’t you?” Virve said with a strange look in her eyes. The former Inquisitor made many people in the Vale uncomfortable but after seeing him fighting so hard for Ashlynn and Heila in the High Pass, it was hard for Virve to cling to the same hatred that filled her heart whenever she thought of the human’s Church in general and their Templars and Inquisitors specifically.

The closest she’d come to reconciling her feelings was to put Ignatious in the same box she put Ollie in, Ignatious wasn’t truly a member of the Inquisition after becoming a vampire any more than Ollie was a human after becoming a witch.

”So,” Virve asked without waiting for the diminutive Willow Witch to answer. ”Are you just going to buy him a few things? Or are you going to try to win him prizes by playing the games at the festival?”

”Oh, I’ll buy things for him,” Heila said as a faintly competitive light began to shine in her eyes. ”But I don’t just want to give him things that come from me. I want to show him that there are many more people who care enough about him to give him something that couldn’t just be bought.”

Ashlynn smiled, recognizing the look of determination on Heila’s face. She’d seen it before in the arena when Heila faced opponents more than four times her size in the arena, but it was tempered by a gentle affection that had only really blossomed in the Willow Witch in the days since the battle in the High Pass.

”I saw some game booths near the northern section of the festival,” Ashlynn said as she wiped oil and crumbs from her delicate fingers. ”Ring tosses, pin bowling, all sorts of things. I’m sure they have prizes that can only be won by people who are very skilled,” she said with a wink at her coven.

”I saw them too!” Talauia said as her wings hummed with excitement. Technically, she was the oldest person here, but today, she had given herself completely over to childish fun that she’d lost the opportunity to enjoy years ago, embracing Ashlynn’s family as an extension of her own to join in the revels. ”And there was one where you throw knives at painted targets, and another with little bottles you have to knock over with cloth balls!”

”Half of those games are always rigged, you know,” Virve chuckled, licking a few drops of spicy sauce from her claws. ”The bottles are weighted, the rings barely fit over the pegs...”

”That’s why I need all of you,” Heila said, pointing at everyone in the group with a hand that held a sticky, honey pastry. ”Between all of us, I’m sure we can collect plenty of prizes, and even if they aren’t the biggest ones, just knowing that we did it for him will mean more than the most expensive treasures for sale at the festival,” she said firmly.

”In that case,” Ashlynn said, standing up and brushing grass from her skirt. ”Let’s see what we can win for Sir Ignatious!”