"So now that you have met everyone, shall we eat?" Meredith offered.

"Yes! I'm starving!" Judith exclaimed, before she reached for a small bowl on the table. She took a handful of whatever was in it, threw it in her soup and passed the bowl along, for the rest of my dinner companions to do the same. Before the basin reached me, Meredith noticed my curiosity.

"Almonds," she simply explained to me.

"Almonds? You put them in your soup?"

"And you don't?" one the maids whose name I was yet to remember, asked curiously. "Or is it just that you don't like them?"

"I like them just fine. But I've never actually seen anyone put one in their soup."

"Oh? I thought everyone ate their soup that way..."

"They do. It's the first time I'm seeing someone who doesn't."

"You must not be from Jarenbourg then, Aili?" Meredith asked.

"I'm not," I admitted. "And we don't eat our soup with almonds where I'm from. Or any kind of nuts, for that matter."

"Is that so? How peculiar. Where are you from, then?" she looked actually interested. And so were the rest of the maids, apparently.

"Me? I..." I hesitated for a moment. "I don't remember..."

Where am I from? I can't just go out and tell them the truth. I faintly remembered the princess and her guards talking about some foreign land? Or some other lordling who I presumably served before my ship crashed?

I probably should've payed more attention while they were creating my backstory for me...

"You do not remember?" Meredith, as the rest of the table, looked confused.

"I don't know," I said quietly and tried to sound as mysterious as possible. "I don't really want to talk about it."

It's better people think I have secrets, or that I have some dark, traumatizing past, than the alternative. Let them gossip, let them speculate, what else there is to do in a keep, anyways?

We sat in uncomfortable silence for a while, before Judith broke it, with her cheerful voice.

"Here, try it with the almonds! Try it!"

I conceded and threw a handful of almonds into my soup. The interesting thing about this pumpkin soup was that it wasn't blended. The only kind of pumpkin soup I've ever ate was the one they jumble with a blender and serve it in a creamy smooth state. I found it curious more that anything else, since the plate paced in front of me smelled great.

I went ahead and tasted it. It was like nothing I had expected and at the same time it was exactly what I predicted it would be. It was nothing like the fluffy soups I was used to, but it was buttery, soft and rich in flavor. The small pieces of pumpkin were practically melting in my mouth, leaving the aftertaste, of what I now recognized as basil. I proceeded to sample one spoonful after another, completely forgetting the world around me.

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It could've been just because I was starved, but at that moment I could swear that was the most delicious thing I have ate in a long, long while. The almonds were a pleasant surprise as well. They didn't exactly were meant for pumpkin soup, but I could see why people would flavor their soup with them. It was similar, in a way, to how some people would add cream or crackers to their soup, but at the same time it was more practical. Not everyone could afford a full meal, and not every soup in the Kingdom was as rich as the one prepared for the princess, so the almonds offered a sense of fullness. And they were great from nutritional perspective as well, though I doubt whoever came up with putting them in a soup knew much about nutritional values and RDIs.

"It's delicious," I finally said, after devouring more than half of it.

"I am glad you like it, it is princess's favorite, you know," Meredith said.

"That's not something you hear from a cuisiner very often," said one of the maids. "Praising someone else's cooking, that is."

"You know, Aili, cuisiner is supposed to be the one who prepares the dinner for the princess's attendants as well as her maids."

"He is? I mean, I am?"

"Yes," she smiled. "In fact, everyone was hoping to taste some more of your cooking tonight, that's the only thing everyone kept talking abou-- OUCH!"

I looked up from my plate, just to see a flock of blushing maids, all avoiding my gaze. The one who was blushing the most was sitting next to Judith and by the looks of it was trying to kick her leg under the table. She was the same awkward girl, who tried repeating Meredith's introduction, I recognized.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know..."

"It's fine, it's fine! But make sure to make us something tasty tomorrow, yes?"

"Ah."

"Not to worry, you do not have to prepare anything specially just for us," Meredith added, seeing me fluster. "It is fine to simply make the same thing you prepare for the princess, but enough for everyone."

"I see... Then I will do that."

This new information came more as a shock than anything else. I already had my hands full with having to cook for one person, but now I had to cook for a whole flock of maids, as well as who knows how many attendants... It was just one of those things that simply keeps happening to me, I guess.

"Then am I to cook breakfast, as well?"

"No, we are responsible for the breakfast," as Meredith was about to speak, another one of the maids intervened. "For the princess and for the staff."

"Lunch is usually a luck of the draw between the cuisiner and the maids," another one added. "The ones who cook lunch for the princess end up responsible for the staff as well."

"Guess that makes you, Aili," Judith patted me on my back happily. "I doubt the princess will want to eat anything that wasn't prepared by her cuisiner for the next few moons."

"Next thing we'll know, you will even be responsible for the breakfast..."

"You won't see me complaining."

"Oh, Athena won't like it..."

"What is her deal, anyway?" I asked.

"Do not worry about her," Meredith answered calmly. "She has a lot of pride and not much experience in handling it. Unless, of course, you mean that thing the princess mentioned?" she smiled an old person's knowing smile.

"No, that's definitely not what I was talking about..."

"Do not take these things too seriously," she laughed. "The princess might be ruling this country one day, but right now she is still just a girl who wants to talk about romance and gossip about the matters of love."

I figured as much. Food and gossip, what else is there for a future queen?

"And Athena wants to be a cuisiner?"

"She does. Or she did before, but now she had given up on that notion."

"How come?"

"The same way it always is. At some point we all realize that we cannot all be knights or ladies of the court and settle for whatever we can be, instead of what we wanted to be."

A matter, that was all too familiar to me. I too had dreams and aspirations once, and now was stuck doing a job I didn't like, with people I hated, working for something I did not believe in. Sometimes life just happens and you have to give up on your dreams and take whatever is in front of you.

And sometimes, apparently, you can get away from that pit of self-loathing and get thrown into another world to cook for the royal princess. Things just happen, life is funny that way.

I enjoyed the rest of my soup while chatting with my companions about this and that, after that I felt my eyes starting to close on their own and one of the maids offered to take me to my quarters. I wished everyone a good night and followed my guide with a single dreadful thought on my mind:

Do they even have bathrooms in this world?