“I think you worry too much about remaining neutral, I don’t blame you though. You went ahead and murdered an entire town after all, and earned that rather morbid sounding name”, she took a bite from a loaf of bread.

Beowulf remained silent.

“Even I would be worried about my actions and their effects after that. The other wendigo have had an eye on you for a while due to that, but as long as you don’t cause any other major incident, like for example murdering another town again, I think you’ll be fine”, she was now dipping a piece of bread into the onion soup.

Their conversation came to a halt when the waitress arrived.

“What will you be having?” she was holding a silver coated tray.

“He’ll be having the same stuff as me”, Alwyna replied.

Beowulf wasn’t going to complain, it appeared she was paying for the breakfast.

“Alright same as your friend then” the waitress prepared to leave.

But Beowulf remembered something.

“Can you replace the onion soup with something else?” he asked her.

“There is some chicken stock soup, will that be alright with you?” she informed him.

“Yes”, he answered.

And the waitress promptly left.

“Why not onion soup?” she asked mildly intrigued.

“I don’t like it”, he replied and drank some of the water from the glass.

“Childish”, she remarked jovially as they made eye contact.

“It’s a preference”, he put the glass back on the table.

The eye contact continued for a while.

Stolen novel; please report.

“What is your job in the sovereignty?” he changed the subject.

“Hmm, it’s hard to localize it into one category, most of the time I remain in Eastaliya and help out around the court of the high house there, but sometimes I have to travel”, she tried to summarize.

“I expected that someone from the court of high house would be more closely-knit and tight lipped”, he noted.

“Well, I’m not in a royal court right now, am I? Manners and other stiff formalities don’t matter for now”.

Indeed.

“Why are you in Entradel?” nothing else came into his mind, so he asked that question to continue the conversation.

“I’m here as a courier.. Uhh, or rather a messenger.. maybe?”, she responded.

It was apparent that she didn’t wish to talk about it, whatever it was, it was surely confidential in nature.

And so Beowulf didn’t press on that matter.

“Why are you in Entradel?” she inquired as a payback. “There are no monsters to hunt here”.

“To rest and prepare” he turned his sight to the waitress who came back with the tray and placed the food he had ordered on the table.

“Anything else you need?” she asked before leaving.

“No”, he replied.

She gave a nod and went back.

“Preparing as in?” she questioned while he was eating.

“Repairs, buying some equipment and selling some items”, he nonchalantly said as he took a sip of the warm soup from the spoon.

Hm?

He noticed she was staring at the bowl.

“Do you want to try some?” he was uncertain.

“Only if you try some of mine”, she offered the onion soup.

Why would he?

It was a lose-lose situation.

....

..........

But he found himself agreeing with her offer.

He filled the spoon and brought it near her face, with her mirroring him and doing the same.

She blew air on the spoon and sipped it, Beowulf didn’t need to do that since her soup was already lukewarm, and simply went in for the sip.

......

Yep, still disgusting.

He could see her trying to hold in her laughter.

“What?” he asked.

“You were trying your best not to make a face” she responded. “It was quite humorous”.

He offered no retort and continued to eat his meal in silence.

“If you don’t mind, can I accompany you around town today?” she asked with uncertainty as he was about to finish. “I’m mostly done with my work and am free during the day”.

“I don’t mind”, he provided an answer after thinking for a while.

“It’s decided then”.

------------------------------------