The scent of eggs, ground beef, toast, and beer fills the kitchen of ?l? and Dyder’s house. She had recently found out that her soon-to-be husband had been eating the gruel from the castle kitchen that they give to the servants and determined that Dyder needed to eat better. She sets the two plates down on the dark wooden table, which she had set sparingly with just two knives and two forks.

  “This is what you should be eating.” ?l? says to Dyder, who was already seated, patiently waiting.

  “Should doesn’t mean I can.” Dyder looks at his plate of six eggs, each placed on a piece of toast, and two hundred fifty grams of ground beef. He looks across the table to ?l?’s; she has less than a third of what he has. “This is a lot.”

  “You eat the slop made for the servants every morning.” When she had found this out, her view of Dyder’s physique changed quickly from one of salivatory awe to confusion, not understanding how a man who had been eating cooked paste could grow to and sustain the build he has.

  “That is only because I am awake before Gekaryna. My other meals are more than sufficient.” Dyder says between bites.

  “Now all your meals will be sufficient.” ?l? shakes her head. She is not the most experienced cook—eggs and ground beef being about the only things she can confidently handle—but watching Dyder happily makes the struggle worth it.

  Dyder taps the table with the handle of the fork and covers his mouth, still chewing. “I’ve been meaning to ask: why are we not using the furniture in the attic? There is enough up there, but we’ve used none of it.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  ?l?'s heart jumps into her throat; she had been methodically making her way through what was in the attic and purchasing replacements. Dyder had not noticed until she had purchased a rather ornate four-poster bed, though when he asked about it, she managed to redirect his attention elsewhere.

  “I stopped liking it.” She says flatly. “After spending time in the Castle, I feel it would be unfitting not to match its interior aesthetically. After all, Gekaryna was kind enough to let us use this house, so I feel like it would be uncouth of me to not match the interior. I got the chairs in the other room from the same atelier that made the chairs in the queen’s library; the table was from them as well. I’m thinking of having the walls papered in a darker green and having the plaster molding painted a darker brown.”

  Dyder, who would be quite content calling a hay-pillow and a single blanket on a hardwood floor in a five-by-five-meter bare-stone room, looks at Ilsenyla rather blankly and shrugs. “You do what makes you happy.”

  “Don’t you think the room would be dark?” ?l? asks, Dyder’s lack of reaction to her logic—or justification—miffs her.

  “I would think it would be the chandelier's job to deal with that.” He does not know which room she is referring to but assumes the parlor.

  Setting her utensils down, she runs her hands down her face. “Gods, you men. You put so much thought into the color of the tunics of the third company of Arylynn spearmen but not a thought into where you live.”

  “Agrelan, not Arylynn [1]; that’s a different country further north.” Dyder takes his last bite.

  “Just go do your job.” She dismisses his comment with a wave of her hand.

  “If you insist, my lady.” Dyder finishes his beer, gives Ilsenyla a kiss, and begins heading out.

  Footnotes

  [1] One of the many nations that formed from the ashes of Agrela. Arylynn (pronounced AREE-lihnn) was formerly known as Arylynn-Skyr when it was a province of Agrela. The country formally fell in 4503 EotTS and has been widely forgotten by all except those with interests in Agrelan history and fringe Arylynn ultranationalist/terror groups.