Samir returned the next day, swapping out the ceramic cup of cold tea for a new one.

Smell was a sense that the saltsmith lacked. They inexplicably retained hearing without ears, sight without eyes, and a mockery of touch – the sensation of pressure with less variance, less control.

Yet, no true smell. An internally written report of what smells existed, but no experience of it.

What the saltsmith would give for smell at this moment.

“I’ve brought jasmine tea today, but I can’t stay. Juniper caught a boar for us –” The carcass’ skull was smashed inward by the jester’s hammer, none of which the word caught could properly convey. “—and it will take hours to process the beast properly. I will return tomorrow, I’m sorry!”

The saltsmith watched Samir leave in a rush, having been only steps away from the man as he swapped the cups. Steam wafted upwards from the jasmine tea on this cool morning.

The saltsmith remembered a cousin who enjoyed foreign treats; jasmine was particularly fragrant and lovely.

The cook was polite, refusing to enter someone else’s home without clear permission; the stone wall blocked Samir’s line of sight of the saltsmith, folded up into a small form.

Curiosity killed the cat, yet satisfaction brought it back. The saltsmith followed Samir with great intrigue, wondering what a boar might look like in this world. They’d seen the beasts at a distance after leaving the dragon’s lair, too far to distinguish details, but to see a dead boar was another thing entirely.

The boar was massive, as they tended to be. The saltsmith was intrigued to see that it didn’t look like the transparent ape-boar the lady Nanazin ordered around.

No, it was bristly and brown and – judging by the way Samir covered his face with a kerchief – it reeked like only wild game could.

The saltsmith climbed a nearby fir tree when the cook’s back was turned, peering downward to see the entire process from start to finish. Samir skinned the beast, leaving the saltsmith to wonder if anyone knew how to process leather here?

Then came the butchering, the newly repaired cleaver making quick work of cartilage and small bones.

It was remarkable watching Samir separate all the cuts, salting and seasoning some, hanging them to dry near a fire. Adding others to pots with glowing designs on them, perhaps for preservation? Making a stew, slicing and packaging the belly cuts, even the massive cheeks on the boar were not left untouched.

Eventually, Samir needed a break. He headed elsewhere, letting the saltsmith do some snooping.

They were emboldened by the confrontation the other day. The humans knew of their existence and permitted it. Therefore, the saltsmith could reasonably poke around the settlement.

If they stayed out of sight, that is.

The saltsmith couldn’t place where the urge came from, but as they were looking over the skinned, de-fleshed carcass of the boar, they became fixated on the beast’s tusks and teeth. The tusks could make a good handle for a knife, that was true, but the urge to pry the teeth from the skull was a strange one.

They were too far from their peaceful, human home-life for the saltsmith to question this urge right now. They produced a flat scrap of metal – not a screwdriver or an awl, but similar enough to work – and quickly wrenched as many molars from the boar as possible.

The tusks were another story. This was a fresh, recently living boar. The saltsmith knew nothing of maceration and flesh-removal for the morbidly-inclined – those who wanted to keep and display skeletons or maintain trophies of their hunts – but it was easy to guess that older boars had tusks that would come out easier than young ones.

It was still really, really hard. The saltsmith had no weight to throw into their actions, given that they were entirely bones and metal coating. In a burst of ingenuity, they used the weight of the head against it, loosening and removing the bottom tusk by rocking the skull against a hard surface, then flipping it over and doing it again.

They had to skitter off into the forest as soon as they were finished, barely avoiding contact with the cook, who was too distracted to notice the rustling of leaves or the lack of teeth on the carcass.

Samir, admittedly, was a bit in over his head. He knew how to butcher a pig, as his old boss had been crude in his insistence that the prettyboy was out of his depth in a kitchen, but he never denied Samir the opportunity to learn.

It was what to do with all this boar meat that Samir was unsure about. He could easily cook the individual cuts, as provided to him individually, but how to process an entire boar with minimal waste?

He separated the cuts into groups – ones for curing, ones for immediate use, others for cooking and storing.

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Samir convinced Atteberry to help construct a makeshift smoking station with cut timber poles and the hide of the boar itself, built over a constantly fed campfire. Smoking some of the meat would make it last longer, and in the meantime, he could salt or cook the rest.

He set about making pork indad, a flavorful stewed pork belly that was heavy and hearty.

Perhaps the surrounding nations were different, but Kovatelli had no lack of spices. It was considered bad luck to let your kitchen run out of spices, as an empty dabbi – the box of spice cups and containers – meant the cook was absentminded, and probably bought the worst cuts or curdled milk.

Between the spices and the slow cooking, the tough boar meat would lose a lot of its gaminess and be, hopefully, delicious.

Samir didn’t have time to pause his work to reminisce, so as he wiped down his cooking station and scrubbed the chopping board with salt to rid it of the meat bits, he wondered what his old boss would do.

Argyris was a stinky old pig himself, grumpy and constantly complaining, but he had a right to since he ran his kitchen with precision and knowledge that only came from decades of experience. Samir thought of him fondly, more like a riotous uncle than an employer.

While Argyris wasn’t the first job opportunity Samir had after… well, after he left, working as kitchen staff was the most educational by far. There were only so many things Samir could do without providing his qualifications and education, both of which would give him away immediately as important, if not highborn.

Being in a kitchen was so helpful. Even if Argyris’ partners tried to put the pretty, young worker in front of customers, Samir was having none of it. He panicked in front of the old chef, who decided with finality that Samir was his new project.

Even if Samir felt little peace after that moment – constantly driven to work on task after task until closing time – he was grateful for the opportunity.

Now, employment at the guild settlement was a new chance to get out of the cities, to be gainfully employed and happy with significantly less risk of being outed.

Argyris understood. He whined and complained about it, but he understood. He and his partners sent Samir along with the best of wishes and a few small presents, tokens of their time together. Tools, work clothes, the like.

What would Argyris do with this boar? He had a tavern to feed, not a small encampment of eight people and an odd spirit.

… he would tell Samir to buy some pigs and then laugh as the creatures “tasted the wild” by cleaning up the rest of the carcass meat. Argyris didn’t like wasting good food.

With a sigh, Samir finished cleaning. While the edible meat was stripped from the bones of the boar, he was unconvinced that he was being the most efficient or intelligent with his use of the beast. Without Argyris to consult, Samir was on unsteady footing.

He began the next nasty task, hauling the carcass and organs to… elsewhere. He took it out to the treeline, resigning to recruit Atteberry or Juniper after dinner so they could figure out what to do with it.

If it was too close to the encampment, it would reek and attract beasts, big and small. But transporting it farther away was a task for multiple people – people with a plan, which Samir did not have.

From her perch on the rock by the shoreline, Nanazin watched the cook move the carcass with vague interest. No, Samir wasn’t the strongest person in the guild settlement – that easily went to Atteberry – but that didn’t mean he lacked strength entirely.

She found his determination interesting, and the clean-up afterwards doubly so.

Nanazin held the borrowed whittling knife in stasis, abruptly halted from her task of carving an icon for the blacksmith spirit as Samir began removing his shirt in her vicinity.

He said something first – he wasn’t a beast, after all – but all Nanazin heard was a vague indication of uncleanliness, followed by immediate stripping, which certainly led to some dirty thoughts.

The day was not cold, perhaps crisp, so Samir wasn’t freezing as he removed the nasty clothes layered with boar-bits and meat juice.

His intentions were to become slightly more presentable for dinner by rinsing off in the lake. It was a trade-off for algae and fish water; Samir could burn some incense or find some perfume if he needed it.

The mage appeared stunned, which Samir mistook as insult and silent admonishment. Ever the gentleman, he immediately made amends.

“I apologize for the intrusion, Nanazin! I couldn’t wait for a bath to heat up, as the scraps of boar on my clothes would have made soup in the basin.”

The apology came with a respectful nod followed by a cheeky smile. When Nanazin’s eyebrows shot upwards, Samir understood that he did something impolite by not wrapping up in a sheet immediately.

He threw the sheet around himself and gave another apology nod, rushing off so he wouldn’t intrude on the woman’s day any longer.

Nanazin was slow to react, her mental capacity for new information stalled by sheer visual input.

“Oh. Wait, no—”

Samir was too far away to hear Nanazin’s quiet protests.

Fates, that man was pretty. While she watched, her lips were pressed together tightly so her mouth wouldn’t drop open at the sight of Samir emerging from the lake, dripping wet in his underwear.

It seemed that Samir was more of a traditional southern Kovatellian than Nanazin would have ever predicted; he wore a style of underwear reserved for those serious about combat or who engaged in frequent exercise.

It left little to the imagination.

Samir was fit but not lean. The mage barely had a few seconds to analyze what she was seeing before Samir dipped into the lake, but his shoulders and back were muscular and beautiful, with some tattoo on one side. With Samir’s profession as cook, it kind of made sense to Nanazin why his upper body was well-built.

That wasn’t meant as an insult for elsewhere. She appreciated that he was well-fed and fed-well; his belly was a good indicator that he enjoyed his own food, something Nanazin appreciated in a cook. And a man.

Then he was gone.

As she slowly returned to her whittling, Nanazin tried to focus on something other than Samir’s unintentionally wanton display. Or at least think about Samir’s personality and smile and pretty, curly hair.

Anything other than how thin that underwear looked while wet.

She hummed between her pursed lips, chiding herself quietly. The spirit needed an icon. That was her task before lunch.

Her attraction to Samir was just that. Simple attraction. Even if he was sweet.

With newfound determination, Nanazin began rounding out the curves of the block of wood in her hands, attempting to make a gourd shape out of a block of soft wood.

With luck, she could paint or embellish it for a proper shrine, as the blacksmith had to be a spirit of smithing or something similar. That was the only possibility that made sense to the mage.