>>5161464>>5161498>>5161871>>5162017It’s a good soup—you can’t deny it. You still eat sparingly, because you just know these abundant surface-spices and the vegetable portion of the halfling cook’s concoction will be a source of future indigestion, but it is masterfully made comfort food, and right now you could use the comfort. Despite the soup, you are still stewing.
‘Babe,’ Irinnile chirps, ‘you’re not, like… Mad with me, are you?’
You have another spoonful of soup, ignoring the succubus as you instead address Lord Yosef.
“Thank you again for you hosspitality,” you say.
“Well, I mean, I have the rooms,” Yosef says, once he has finished a spoonful. “It would seem a callous thing not to use them. You looked about ready to fall down.”
“Maybe,” you admit. “I may have been pushing mysself a little.”
Yosef shakes his head ruefully. “Rest now, when you’re young. When you get older, you’ll wish you had more time, and every second spent asleep will seem like a waste of what little time you have left.”
“Oh come now,” you say with a smile, “you sseemed to have plenty of life left in you when you were talking to me about your misadventures with your wife and the future Archmage.”
Yosef chuckles a little at that, and shrugs. “Rebecca was the kind of woman who has that effect on a man. She could make you feel half your age or twice your height. Like the world was a truly bright and shining place. That woman had a smile that could chase away the shadows from one’s heart…”
Yosef’s face grows wistful, but you see the darkness starting to set in again. You decide to interrupt his reverie.
“Do you have anymore sstoriesss about your exploits—you, Rebecca, the Archmage?”
“Oh Gods ABove, do I ever,” your human ancestor says, snapped out of his funk by the thought of one which seems to force a smile across his face the moment he thinks of it. “Let me tell you about the time that Rebecca suggested we go sailing. Did you know, the Archmage of the Hawksong Mages Tower actually gets SEASICK?”
“No!” you say, egging him on with feigned disbelief.
“It’s true,” Yosef smirks. “And Rebecca too, even though she suggested it! Ha! And she KNEW it before we headed out, too—said she wanted to ‘overcome her womanly weakness’. Well, when she framed it that way, you can imagine how poor Alfonse felt when he was right next to her throwing up over the railing.”
“Not you, though?” you ask.
“Well… The seas were choppy,” Yosef admits, looking away for a moment. “But I kept my lunch down. Someone needed to steer the ship—we hadn’t brought a crew!”
