Fuyuko's mind spun as she set down the scroll that Mordecai had given her and leaned back against the pillows of her bed. He was right, it was simple. But it was also hard. Easy to try, but also easy to mess it up. Tid ay and you could turn into a living statue; too little sense of self and you could lose your mind to madness. And if you were running away from death instead of moving toward something in life? That souhe worst.

  It also shouldn't be something she was worried abht now. But that was in a world where her parents were alive. In this world, she now lived with immortals and the idea of growing old in front of them ainful. Oher hand, the idea of deg to not ever be with her parents again also hurt.

  There was no reason she had to make a decision now, but Fuyuko felt like she o even if she didn't know why. Maybe talking to Mordecai ter would help, but it was getting a bit te and she o ge for dinner. No armor at the diable.

  Hmm. She flipped through her wardrobe a bit nervously, looking at the garments that had been provided in her sed bedroom up here iree. Nothing had been said about dressing up, but it was her first holiday with them. And she vaguely remembered the sort of things she wore for holidays with her parents.

  In the end, she chose a long dress. It wasn't terribly fancy, there was only a tiny bit of trim and g at the neck, wrists, and hem, but it retty dark blue that she liked. She started to grab her boots out of habit then remembered where she was. Kazue had decred their rooms in the crystal tree to be a proper house, and shoes were not to be worn inside.

  If Fuyuko had e in the way everyone else did, her boots would be by the nding. But Mordecai had added a special entrance for her he base of the tree. It specifically required using shadow magip from the dark patch of crystal to its matg spot in her room, and only a few people were keyed to be able to use it at all. It was still difficult for her, and sometimes required a few mio get just right, but she loved the thrill of having her ow' entrand the still slightly scary sensation of sliding through shadows and densed space. Also, Mordecai said that if she got good enough he'd work on manually crafting a shadow-based path between her bedrooms, which would be uo the dungeon shortcuts.

  When she went upstairs to the on area, she found Kazue, Morikette, and Carmil gathered around the dining table, which held a strangely brown cake on a serving ptter and a stack of ptes. The sound of the dragon hatgs squabbling carried in from the retly added baly, and from even here Fuyuko could catch whiffs of smoke and the acrid st of lightning. Udup sounded like he was trying to maintain order, but he was being a bit bossy about being the oldest which just made the others rebellious.

  Kazue beamed at her and said, "I was getting ready to call you up, we have a new cake to try. It's not just chocote; it uses another fruit's seed called coffee. It's supposed to make it a bit more bitter but a lot tastier. And if it's too bitter for someone ye, we've got some sweet cream, honey, and fruit here."

  Fuyuko frowned slightly at Kazue, she retty certain that the older woman was teasing her with the 'ye' bit, but Fuyuko couldn't resist rising to the bait. "I'm not a little kid," she groused as she joihem at the table, "and aren't we supposed to be saving room for dinner?"

  A moment ter she registered that she was now sittio Princess Bridgette, who was now her adoptive cousin or something like that. But, well, Bridgette was an actual princess. Sure, Fuyuko was a "Faerie Princess" now and was teically the same rank and stuff, but Bridgette had been born royalty and grown up in a pad everything. Fuyuko felt self-scious around Bridgette and not sure how to act, even if Kazue was setting a really casual example.

  Then there was Moriko. Fuyuko wasn't quite as self-scious around Moriko, but she'd still only actually met her yesterday. She'd known what Moriko had looked like and all, but that still wasn't quite the same thing. With Kazue, Fuyuko had at least been able to talk to her illusionary self.

  Her moment of paralysis was covered by Kazue's eagerness as she cut into the cake. "Don't worry about that, we have a bit of time still. We decided to make this a cooking experiend bought some ingredients that had been brought in. That way we have to make do with what was avaible, and that will make it a challenge and thus more fun!"

  Fuyuko told herself to get it together. It wasn't like this was even the first princess she'd met. Not that Carmil really felt like a proper princess, and Fuyuko hadn't ied directly a lot with Orchid. "Um, I guess. I haven't really done any fancy cooking." Throwing stuff into a pot for a stew or putti on a stid roasting it retty basid the couple of stews she'd made had not bee. Edible, just not really tasty.

  "I have to admit I don't really know how to cook either," Bridgette said, "We all got trained in how to cook enough to survive and how to make trail rations, but I never sought out learning anything more. I guess we learn together?"

  Carmil shrugged and said, "I've ouched kit work, but surely it 't be all that hard?" That sounded a lot like her to Fuyuko. She didn't dislike Carmil, but she had to admit that she did not feel very close to her adoptive sister. She wasn't sure anyone here was, but Carmil was teically family now. Plus the 'parents' of the group probably saw the holiday as a bonding opportunity.

  "Um," Moriko added with a sheepish expression, "I think Kazue and Mordecai are the only ones with real cooking experience, and Kazue admitted she'd previously only really done sweets and baked things."

  Kazue grinned and replied, "Yeah, but I had been practig on my own before we started our trip, so I have a little more experienow."

  While the others talked, Fuyuko started in on the cake she'd been served. It was incredible, but she had to admit that Kazue was right, the bitter notes were kind of strong. So she poured a little of the sweet cream over it and tried agaier. Mm, maybe she should try the hooo? Yes, that was good. The fruit was a nice trast to the rich cake too. Huh, she was out of cake and had cream, honey, and fruit oe now. Maybe she should get a sed piece of cake to up her pte with.

  A giggle from Kazue pulled Fuyuko's attention away from her pte, and she blushed to find all four women watg her with amusement.

  "Well, I see that it meets with your approval," Kazue said with a smile before taking another bite of her own slice of cake.

  Which she immediately began choking on as a ripple of shocked surprise ran through the dungeon. Bridgette didn't have any e to the dungeon so she reacted first in helping Kazue while Moriko, Carmil, and Fuyuko recovered.

  "What, what was that?!" Fuyuko asked. It was the first time she'd really felt the cores' emotions like that, unication was normally much more deliberate with tractors.

  Moriko replied in a slightly dazed voice, "We, ah, just got an offer that, well, um, we talk about ter. Er, sorry Bridgette, it's strictly dungeon business right now. Maybe we talk about it after we've had a ce to think about it."

  An offer? What sort of offer could surprise the duhat much? Fuyuko's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden chaos of four worried young dragons p into the room. It took several mio calm the four down and they insisted on staying inside instead of going back out to the baly, which left the area a little crowded.

  When they went to sit back down at the table, the five women found the cake and most of the toppings missing. For a moment Fuyuko thought that Li might have e back, but then she realized several of the dishes were gooo, and that seemed less like Li.

  The hatgs were looking studiously i.

  "Did they eat the ptes too?" Fuyuko asked.

  "Mm," Kazue replied while trying to stare down elian, "dragons eat anything. Though I've sometimes been expeg your ptes to disappear too." She fshed Fuyuko a grin and a wink befoing back t to discipline her cat-dragon.

  Fuyuko suspected that this was going to go about as well as it would with an actual cat. "Er, 't you just jure up a new cake?"

  Kazue pouted and said, "It's not the same. That one was made for me from all gathered ingredients, nothing jured. That makes it special. It might taste the same, but it wouldn't feel the same to me."

  "Yeah," Carmil added, "I have to agree with her. jured treats are nid all, but the real thing is always better somehow, even if it tastes the same."

  That sort of made seo Fuyuko, who turhoughtfully to the dishes oable and began helping with up, as it seemed their snack time was over. Eating this close to dinner had been bad of them, but Fuyuko was having trouble feeling guilty over it.

  Again, this was a task the cores could have taken care of with barely a flicker of attention, but Kazue had specified that she wahem to make this area a home where they lived normally. So ihey gathered, washed, and dried dishes like normal people in a normal house. Fuyuko found that she didn't mind at all, it was nice just to be doing homey things with her new family. And it was amusing to find out that Bridgette, while game to help out, was less certain about what to do. Her experiences were at the extremes; either served everything with others ing up, or field training and camping with sturdy dishes. Carmil, oher hand, grumbled about manual bor when she had plenty of spells she could use to help.

  Mordecai arrived a little after they were done and looked a little distracted when he did, but it only took a few moments for him to set it all aside and foaking dinner with them. He mostly directed the process as everyone else had something to learn and practid there were a lot of hands to go around. Also, he kept Shenlong maed to help Udup mahe hatgs and prevent them from stealing food, so he was a bit too distracted to focus entirely oask for long.

  For Fuyuko, her task was mostly prep work on ingredients. She was good with a dagger but proper cooking keique turned out to be more different than she had expected. Especially the grip; having her fingers oop of the bde itself felt weird until she adapted to it. Choppiables a up into even pieces was satisfying and had very clear results. She kneell she'd done and how much better she could do without being given more dire, once she'd been shown how to cut different shapes up.

  She paid attention to what else was going on but for the most part, each step was being done as a one-person show. However, everyo to participate in the seasoning steps. Kazue was more familiar with this bit ahe way with only a bit of input from Mordecai, though Kazue found a few surprises herself. Learning to taste each herb and spid pare them was iing and Fuyuko's sense of smell helped her find the subtle differences and simirities.

  Pulling all that information together with the fvor of yredients and the way you were cooking to decide on which to use was more difficult, but so much tastier and Fuyuko was happy to have the opportunity to try more iure.

  It meaing more food after all.

  Having dinner as a family was wonderful, but it came with one downside from Fuyuko's point of view; she had to eat in a more measured manner. Her adoptive parents weren't going to insist on anything more than basic table manners all or even most of the time, but for a sit-down di their home, all of them were in agreement that this was a time and pce for her to practice moderation and manners. Nothing formal, just things like chewing her food thhly and drinking slowly rather than gulping.

  And it was hard not to gulp the sweet drink she'd been served. It was the pre-fermentation form of a mead called bochet, though watered down to thin it out enough to drink. The honey was caramelized before water and spices were added, and it was delicious. This batch had just retly been made by some of the inhabitants and most of it was in fermentation vats right now. There were several sub-batches as well, divided by the type of wood used to age it in. The dungeon did have a rge variety of unique species to choose from.

  After dinner, dessert, and dishes were all dohey moved out from the kit area to where Kazue had set up a bunch of cozy furniture. Mordecai, Kazue, and Moriko chose to share a rge couch with Kazue in the middle while Bridgette picked out a chair big and soft enough for her to tuck her feet underh herself instead of sitting on it normally. Carmil chose a loveseat to curl up in with a book and Udup, though Fuyuko did notice she was ao be able to easily watd listen even if she pretended not to.

  The hatgs had been fed a rge meal too and were once more piled up into a heap of sleeping dragons.

  Fuyuko sidered her options, but fortable furniture would leave her sitting taller than everyone else. So instead she grabbed a cushion and plopped on the floor o Mordecai's end of the couch. She put her bad head against the front of the armrest and closed her eyes as she collected her thoughts.

  Feeling Mordecai pet the top of her head fly made her want to keep her eyes closed and drift off to sleep, but she fought past that urge and opened her eyes to gnce up at him. "So, I read the scroll. I think I get it, but it kinda leaves me with even more questions, and I'm not sure where ta begin."

  Zagaroth