“He doesn’t need to bore you guys with it,” Wisteria interjected, trying to be somewhat polite but her arms were crossed, “I wouldn’t want to make him repeat everything, after all. That would… be tedious for him.”
Sir Alexys appraised her with a raised brow, giving a limp shoulder shrug, “Alright. I can give the shorter version. The Baytr family has very few people left alive in it, unfortunate as that is, and… I am a knight of the family. It is a bit of a tradition for the men and women both to try their hand at it. I am no one fancy, no one of particular renown, but I am a knight all the same. As the Baytr family has few people left, and we are in relative peace without me getting called into action, I have simply… meandered. Traveling here and there. That is my simple, short version of my history. Satisfactory, Wisteria?”
She groaned softly, looking annoyed as she glanced away from him, “Yes, yes, that’s fine, whatever.”
Alister chuckled, continuing to move past them and into the house, “You’re sounding more like a teen.”
“Oh shut up,” Wisteria grumbled, following Alister and the twins inside. She looked back at Alexys as he stayed outside looking at the group move, “...I’m trying not to be unnecessarily mean to him or whatever. He’s not… bad. Just… It feels wrong having him be dating my mom.”
“I think it would feel wrong regardless of the man in question.”
She sighed, “You’re probably right, I guess, but that doesn’t mean I have to like him and get along with him all of a sudden. He’s a stranger. And people like my mother and I can’t afford to trust people easily.”
Alister nodded, considering it, “I mean… given my own situation, I certainly sympathize. I shouldn’t trust people easily either. Just try your best not to drive a wedge between him and your mom unless you really think that’s for the best.”
“I won’t! I won’t. Just… ugh. It makes me feel so gross thinking of someone… with her… like that. Blegh,” she shuddered, grimacing, and headed to the dining hall for a slightly early lunch, “I’m going to grab something to eat and get something for my mom too. Want to join me?”
The twins and Alister agreed and followed in. Though breakfast was good, they had walked quite a bit by now, and Alister at least needed to make sure he ate enough to make his frail body grow healthily. His aunt Marabell would also make… absolutely sure to stuff him with food, if he didn’t eat his meals.
Overall there was little going on today. Lunch was nice, and it was pleasant to talk to Wisteria for a moment even with her so focused on catching up with her mom. His father was busy with sorting out paperwork much of the day, trying to sort the documents before everything needed packed away. Tomorrow he’d go to the border with his father and cousin Harriet, but Wisteria still wished to stay behind and not leave her mother’s side. It was really sweet to see how good of a relationship she had with her. As much as Alister loved his own parents, he wasn’t attached like she was. Being away from his mother wasn’t so stressful, it just was… life, he supposed. Dinner was the most interesting part of the day, and that was entirely due to his… interesting meal of ginseng and drake heart.
The ginseng was the more pleasant of the two to look at. It was a golden tea that was almost thick with the ginseng that had been made into a paste. He glanced across the table at Olana, “...Didn’t want them to waste a single scrap of it, hm?” The texture looked like it would be awful, and the taste was sure to be very strong and bitter. He grabbed a jar of honey on the table and scooted it closer to himself. The drake heart was the more intimidating option. He was not innately a picky eater, but he had gotten used to a certain level of food quality. It was deep purplish red stew with cubed drake heart and a healthy serving of onions, radish, and garlic. If it wasn’t for the intense organ meat smell, it would be less intimidating.
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Marabell looked up at him from her own piled plate of food, a mixture of breads and vegetables with an entire roasted chicken on a plate beside it, “Need help? It’ll be good for ya. And Olana got it for ya, so I’m sure it’s decent quality. And the cook’s good so they probably did as much as they could with it. But you don’t wanna waste any drop, you need all the hearty foods you can get!”
“I-I don’t need help, Aunt Marabell… thank you…,” he muttered, shoving his spoon into the stew. He took a big bite of it and immediately began to struggle, holding back coughs from the spiciness of the meat itself. The drake, whatever species it was, had meat that tasted like he had sucked on a piece of heavily spiced pepper jerky, but the texture of lean beef. He grasped the mug of tea and chugged a heavy gulp of the bitter beverage. This was unsurprisingly even more of a mistake, and so he dumped spoonfuls of honey into the tea, desperately mixing it in before taking another drink.
Olana was grinning into her cup at his misfortune, but it was Marabell who first spoke up again. “You good, Little Ali?” his aunt asked, brow furrowed at his panting through the spice, “...I can get you some milk if ya want?”
His pride refused to allow him, and thanks to his passive he could quite literally feel that everyone at the table (as well as some of the servants) was watching him with entertainment. Alister shook his head, coughing into a napkin, “N-no thank you. I’ll be fine, but… I just didn’t, ah, expect it to be so… hot.”
“Well, it was a fire drake,” Olana helpfully offered, smiling all innocently at her cousin.
He grimaced at her, “Of course it is… hah… did you pick that especially for me?”
“Of course, Alister. I figured a fire drake heart would help warm you up. You’re so small and skinny I thought you might be cold,” she deadpan teased him, sounding so innocent while being such a pain in the ass.
Grumbling, he rolled his eyes and suffered through eating his very hot stew and now-heavily-sugared tea. It would be good for him. He knew it would be good for him. He just had to suffer through it and then he’d have the benefits of it. A drake heart was not something to waste, no matter how much it… burned. It would be an unpleasant night on the toilet for sure.
After dinner was finished and his stomach was grumbling with uncertainty, Alister sequestered himself away in his room to focus on cycling his mana to make the most of the fancy ingredients of his spicy meal. It still caused a little pain and soreness as he sat on his bed and circulated his energy from one hand, up his shoulder, across, down the other, back in, down his chest, through one leg, then the other, and then back up into his starting hand. As a general start that path was good enough, but he also intended to do a core-specific circling, like the eye of a storm, and then one that focused on going just up and down from the top of his head to his groin a few dozen times. None of it was flashy or interesting, just meditation to most onlookers, but it was important… and he did genuinely feel a little better already. He’d have to do something later for his cousin. Something that was equally as painful as it was helpful, like she did for him.
Sore, he fell asleep after a couple hours of meditation and zoning out, followed by at least a half hour of pain in the bathroom. Tomorrow would be a couple days of traveling again, and he was exhausted after everything. Even though nothing much happened, it was like this calm was stressful in and of itself, but also… like he finally had a chance today, back at Keene, to let all of the stress he had been holding onto since the debacle at the funeral… just… go. He couldn’t imagine how bad the feeling was on his parents, or how much worse he and his cousin Olana both made it on them. He genuinely wanted to strive to be better in the future.