Not needing sleep can be a wonderful thing. Theon carried me back to his room pretty quickly. Where I wore him out rather efficiently if I do say so myself. Not that it was one sided, the completed bond seemed to have interesting effects on how we understood each other. It was the first time in a long time I was happy with how the world was. I laid watching Theon sleep for a few hours before I decided to see if I could find some food.
It was still early for most people only 3 and a half hours past midnight. Sometimes my internal clock was bothersome. I dressed quietly making sure I didn't disturb Theon, he needed more rest. I felt safe in the palace anyway.
With my ability to talk to the palace shield, it seemed like I could be relaxed in the palace. That was probably why the brother had made it, to have a safe place to sleep when he needed it. The guards seemed like overkill to me as I walked through the main entrance and sensed them still standing at their posts by the door. No one was in the halls as I headed for kitchens, I hoped me moving around this early wasn't going to bother people.
I opened the door to the dining and was surprised to hear someone moving around in the kitchen already. There where three places in the far wall where food could be passed from the kitchen into the communal dining area. I walked up to the one in the middle and leaned over to have a better view of who was working.
A tall and slender silver haired elf looked up from kneading dough in surprise. He smiled when he recognized who I was, which was a little off putting reaction for me, "Princess, finished with your prince already? Or are you letting him sleep while you refuel?"
I raised an eyebrow then smiled, "Alas not even a love picked out by god for me can keep up with my acrobatics, valiantly as my poor prince did try. To his credit he did make four rounds before he surrendered to his need for rest."
The cook didn't slow as he worked but that statement did get a lovely loud laugh. He let one roll of dough to the side to rest and started on another that was sitting in front of him. "If I didn't know that it was impossible to surprise an army girl, I would almost say finding me was one."
"It does seem strange to me, the palace is asleep, why are you here?"
The man laughed again, I was having a hard time placing if he was my age, younger or older. "There are a few places in the palace that never sleep, my lady. The kitchen is one of them, you never know when a royal is going to keep strange hours so the kitchen tries to keep a small amount of hot food ready. Then there's everyone else we feed as well, like right now I am laying out what we will need to get breakfast rolling fast as the palace mostly tries to come eat at the same time. There is a stool next to the window if you want to sit and try some of what I am making, princess?"
I leaned back and grabbed the stool and sat down at the window, "You sure I won't be in the way?"
"A few guards will be in before they go on shift. They normally stop by in half an hour. After that the servants start moving around by then you might be in the way but it will be an hour until we are that busy. Last group I normally serve is the guards that come off duty and like to eat before finding their beds. Then there are farmers and other workers in the area that come in for something to eat throughout the day."
"How many people help you then?"
"Many, the palace kitchen serves a small city of people. I just prefer to work when it is quiet. Setting out breakfast and lunch which others will finish while I get some sleep, then I get up and make dinner for the royals and help make dinner for everyone else as well."
"The master chef stays up all night?"
"Sure, prep is the most important part of cooking, princess."
Resting my elbows on the counter I put my head in my hands, "Considering the kitchen has seemed to have the best food I have met so far, I don't think I can disagree with you. I would love to try your breakfast."
I liked the chef. He seemed so sure and relaxed. He pulled a tray from an oven and set it to cool with a slight smile of his own. "Good, omelette and cherry tart, something sweet to start your day." The chef placed a plate on the ledge of the window and tossed one of the pies onto it with an omelette tossed up fresh from a pan I hadn't noticed right next to it. He must have started the moment I had walked in. He slid the plate in front of me with practiced ease and placed a fork next to it. "Don't worry, I made sure the eggs were inferential before cooking them."
"Oh, I am not one of the army people who takes their oath much too far. I can and will eat meat just as long as it wasn't killed for me and there was nothing I could have reasonably done to save the animal."
The chef nodded, "Good, some people can be so silly about food. Instead of being proud that there is so much food that we can experience. Most creatures only have three or four main sources of food but we can eat almost anything."
I picked up the fork and tried a bite of the omelette, it almost melted in my mouth. "We enjoy eating as well. Did you put mushrooms and onions in this as well?" I had a few more bites they were good but there was something about the mushrooms my mind just couldn't pin down the taste and what it was.
The chef nodded, "Yes, just got them in yesterday. Should make a good complement to the spices in the cherry tart. Though you will be the first person to try them. I haven't tried together myself yet.
"Yes, I can see how the sweet and sour would balance the salty." I opened the pie and took a good bite. It was sweet and something tangy, almost like he put cinnamon in the pie mix, just enough to give it a kick. It was a great mix and it triggered a memory.
An elder islee going over different types of poison with a group of seven year olds, "Now look here children, this is a darkroot mushroom. Other than the roots it looks much like the edible mushroom I showed you before. As long as you don't mix it with anything this is also pretty harmless. It doesn't make an effective poison in most cases, but if you want to get a group of people really sick it is a good choice. Well to use on humans. When mixed with acids like lemon, or some spices like cinnamon it activates. What makes it worth talking about is that the two foods don't have to be consumed in the same serving, they can be put into two different dishes that you are reasonably sure the target will eat within two hours of each other. Now you need to be careful. Elves and Islee that consume this mushroom have a 10% chance of death if not treated soon enough. To make issues worse symptoms of the poisoning don't start to appear until 24 hours after ingestion in most cases and progress quickly after that, so diagnosis is quite hard. The tower is the only known source of the mushrooms and they are kept since we have reason to believe that it might be most effective against demons. If they should ever become a problem again."
I picked up the napkin and spit the pie out. "Let me see the mushroom uncooked please."
The chef clearly heard the change in my voice, he started reaching for the box of mushrooms that he hadn't done anything to yet, "Something wrong, princess?"
I picked one of the mushrooms out of the box. They had been cleaned and the stems mostly cut off, but these are resilient mushrooms and the stems and roots were starting to appear again. The dark roots showing. "Yes, do not feed these to anyone else. Get a doctor, tell him I have eaten cinnamon and darkroot mushrooms. Then get the guard to start working on who set this up, it could have killed a lot of elves." I grabbed my belly and called out as it felt like a knife had just plunged in. Crap it must react faster in people with more demonic origins.
The chef managed to jump through the window and catch me as I fell from the stool. "Guards. Guards!" I heard footsteps as I lost the ability to stay awake. I am going to have to do something, but what.
The voice of my old teacher came back as she looked at me out of all the students in the class, "...most effective against, demons. If they should ever become a problem again." Yet, I don't have to be a demon do I?