“Could I have the cheese, Pallas?” Soleiman asked, placing the half-eaten piece of pita bread in his left hand on his lap.

Pallas leant forward, leaning to the side of the campfire between the four of them to hand him the partially-melted wheel of feta cheese.

“Thanks,” he said, using it to wipe a good helping of the molten gold onto the pita bread. He slowly placed the cheese onto his lap so that the cut and melted edge wouldn’t touch his clothes, then picking the bread up and stuffing it into his mouth.

“Is it good?” Rumi asked, balancing her bowl of chicken stew atop her fingerless palm as she slowly chipped away at it in tiny spoonfuls.

“Mmf,” Soleiman hummed through his food, closing his eyes as he felt the cheese’s flavours in his mouth. He swallowed, continuing, “It’s simple, but man does it hit the spot.”

Rumi nodded, silently mouthing an ‘ah’ as she returned to sipping from the aromatic stew.

“Here,” he said, taking another swipe off of the wheel, offering her a bite.

Placing the stew gently down upon her lap, she leant towards him, carefully biting down on the combination of bread and cheese so as to not get any of his fingers caught up in the mouthful.

She chewed, not really tasting anything outside of the chewy dryness of the bread. But then it hit her.

The sudden tangy richness of the cheese seeped through its wrapping of bread, breaking out into her mouth as an eruption of unprecedented flavour. All at once, the cheese’s richness and the mild underlying sweetness of the bread filled her mouth, the two flavours blending with and bursting out of each other to put together the greatest gustatory performance she’d been provided the privilege to partake in in recent memory. If it weren’t for the warm undertones of herbs and chicken essence in her stew priming her, she could almost guarantee the flavour would’ve hurt given its intensity.

“Good, isn’t it?”

Rumi couldn’t say anything, her mouth was still full. But she did nod fervently back at him, hardly able to contain her smile.

“This your first time trying feta, Rumi?” Pallas asked, dipping her last bits of pita into her stew.

Rumi nodded.

“You’re one of us now, then,” she said, laughing slightly.

“Do we have any more wheels?” Rumi asked, the very moment she got the mouthful down.

“No, but you can have this one if you want,” Soleiman said.

“Yes, please!”

Rumi picked the bowl from her lap and placed it onto the ground below as Soleiman handed her the wheel. She didn’t have any bread, though.

Looking back up, she saw that Qingxi had already held a piece of pita up above her head.

“Bread?”

Rumi nodded.

Qingxi moved to throw it, though she quickly stopped herself and instead decided to rise from her seat.

“It’s okay! I can catch it,” Rumi reassured her.

Qingxi paused for a moment.

“Okay then,” she said, sitting back down.

Her arm relaxed and she folded the circular disc of bread into a quarter.

Nyoom!

The little bread flew through the hot air above the campfire, unfolding as it fluttered and spun about under the guidance of Qingxi’s winds.

Rumi held her right hand out, palms exposed and fingers stretched wide open as she lined it up along the axis that lined up with both the bread and her arm.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Rotating, rotating, until it hit her palm.

Her fingers clamped down the very moment the sensory and visual cues coincided with one another in her mind, pinching down on the bread as it began to slip out of her hand.

But unfortunately, it was already too late.

The bread slapped against the tarp.

Qingxi gave her a deadpan look.

“Oops,” Rumi said, hurriedly picking the pita up off the tarp before blowing anything off of it. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Five second rule, remember?”

“I feel that five seconds may be a bit too long,” she replied.

“To be fair to her, it really was only on the floor for half a second,” Soleiman said.

Qingxi shrugged in response.

“Fair enough.”

“It’s not like a little dirt ever killed anyone, anyway,” Pallas said.

She slurped down another large draught of the stew before continuing.

“So, any ideas for what to do next?” She asked, the circle falling deathly silent the moment the question left her lips.

“Depends on whether you’d like to take on the beast or the Hashashiyyin first,” Soleiman responded, the unspoken third option of simply lying low and waiting for Rei wholly unacceptable- given that it would decimate Pallas’ reputation and waste the efforts they’d spent trying to build their own base of power over the past few weeks.

“Alright. Let’s consider our options, then.”

According to the Karnouians and intel from some other villages, the Hashashiyyin largely responsible for the policing and control over them and several other nearby villages were more likely than not set in Minlos. It was from there where the Hashashiyyin organised their raids, formulated their taxes, gathered their levies and gathered the bounties of their exploits. And, given its isolation and relative reliance on the villages for supplies, they reasoned it was not entirely outside the realm of possibility for them to launch minor guerilla attacks to jeopardise its operative capabilities in the area.

They could focus their attacks on sole Hashashin travelling through the woods and push the blame for any attack onto the ataphoi infesting the forest wilds having been recently deprived of any ability to attack the now armed villages. It would certainly be a clandestine, covert way of resisting- safe and subversive, but as a result it would also demand a level of passivity from them. Something they found a little difficult given the gross excesses of the occupiers they heard stories of on the daily.

Now, back out west, they reasoned that it was more than likely that the beast that had initially ravaged Mesimeos would soon come down upon Naphthalia and the other villagers further up the chain. Though it was never a total certainty when it would arrive and start causing a ruckus again, they knew it would eventually. And it would be far more preferable to have some sort of response prepared for when it did over being caught off-guard.

The last thing they wanted on their hands was another Mesimeos.

“It’s like we’re trapped,” Rumi said.

“Mm.” Pallas nodded, taking to downing the last of her stew. “I say we debilitate the Hashashiyyin first, then get rid of the beast. The threat of the Hashashiyyin is real. Much more pressing an issue than the possibility of a threat the beast poses.”

“Yeah, but committing ourselves to taking on the Hashashiyyin’s going to take a lot of time,” Soleiman countered. “It’s going to be slow, you know. And Minerva forbid anything happen out west in that time, lest we have to abandon our efforts and scramble halfway across the country.”

Pallas nodded along.

“Qingxi?”

“Get whatever’s the fastest done first,” she said. “If that involves hunting the thing down, so be it.”

Hmm.

Pallas sat back in her seat, the crackling of the campfire and the occasional sounds of slurping from Qingxi finishing up the remains of her stew replacing their conversation for the duration of the silence.

“Erm,” Rumi tried saying. “I think we should stop the Hashashiyyin first. It doesn’t feel right that we just let them continue with what they’ve been doing.”

“But, Rumi,” Soleiman said. “What does it mean if we do decide to deal with the Hashashiyyin? That’s days, probably even weeks of who knows how many small guerilla operations. What happens if one of those operations fails? Or if we’re forced to abandon them halfway through?”

“Isn’t there another way?”

“Who do you think is going to be the one fighting the Hashashiyyin, Rumi?”

Their eyes landed on Qingxi.

The Chitite had placed her now emptied stew bowl back onto the tarp, wiping her mouth with a piece of wet cloth before pulling the bandages back over her flaking, blistering skin.

“I’m sorry.”

Qingxi nodded.

“Pallas?”

“Why don’t we try and get the villagers to do the attacks?”

“And risk making the Hashashiyyin even more violent than they are now if they figure out it’s all a rouse?”

“Right.”

…

“So… we’re going after the Protoataphoi, then?” Soleiman asked, confirming for the last time.

“...Yeah.”

“Alright then,” he said. “Here’s what I think we can do.”