Page 23 of Sorcery, Swords & Scones (Tales from the Tavern #2)
Twenty-Three
Sass pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen, as Lira yanked another baking sheet from the oven with more force than wasnecessary. The metal clanged against the counter as she set it down with obvious irritation.
They had told her about Erindil as soon as they'd returned from the forest, expecting perhaps excitement or curiosity about this mysterious uncle who had been watching over her from afar. Instead, Lira's reaction had been anything but pleased.
“Is this still about your uncle?” Sass asked as she glanced at Crumpet, who was not taking Lira’s agitation in stride. The flutterstoat darted frantically from the copper pots hanging overhead to his perch on the windowsill, then back to the worktable.
"I don't have time for some long-lost uncle,” Lira muttered, using her hands to toss the golden crescents from the baking sheet to a serving tray.
"The Harvest Festival is in two days, I've got a tavern full of hungry customers, there might be a band of dwarves closing in on you, and now I'm supposed to drop everything because some uncle I've never met pops out of the woods? And even worse, that a father I’ve never met is missing? ”
Sass dodged around her friend's agitated movements, nudging the hand pies into place on the tray. "Everything will be fine, Lira. You've been working on your recipe for the festival, and that’s well in hand. There’s no sign of dwarves, as of yet. And I know you don’t want to hear about him, but Erindil seems nice enough.
There are certainly worse uncles to have. "
Despite her obvious frustration, Lira glanced up with a raised eyebrow. "Worse how?"
Sass couldn't help but snort out a laugh at the memory that surfaced.
"One of my uncles lost an eye wrestling an ice badger when he was drunk on fermented mountain ale. He kept his own eyeball in a jar of spirits by his bed and used to take it out during family dinners to show us young ones. Said it was a 'teaching moment’.”
“Did it teach you not to drink?”
“Of course not, but it taught us not to wrestle ice badgers.”
Lira’s mouth twitched in what might have been the beginning of a smile. But the moment passed quickly, and she returned to aggressively stirring the meat filling that simmered on the stove. "I'd take Uncle GlassEye over one who hides in the woods watching me like some kind of woodland stalker.”
Sass leaned in to inhale the savory steam rising from the savory pies.
Thank goodness Lira’s mood hadn’t affected her baking.
“I’ll take these out to the dining room," Sass said, recognizing that her friend needed space to work through her feelings and she didn’t want to be in the line of fire when Lira started waving her spoon and meat filling started flying.
She pushed through the swinging doors and into the great room, pausing for a beat to take in the bustling scene that was such a change from the first night her feet had darkened the threshold.
Conversation was a merry hum, interspersed with the thunking of mugs and the scraping of chairs.
Vaskel stood at his post behind the bar, pulling pints and flashing wicked grins to the ladies gathered around.
Sass made her way to the chairs by the fire where Korl and Val sat, turning sideways to squeeze through a group of farmers at one table and a band of ogre mercenaries crowding the other.
"Hand pies, fresh from the oven," Sass announced, offering the tray to her friends.
Val looked up from her knitting. “So Lira calmed down?”
Korl grunted and plucked a golden-brown crescent from the tray. “Just because she’s baking doesn’t mean she’s calm.”
The orc knew his fiancée well. Although Lira baked to calm herself, it didn’t always work. At least not right away.
“Is that why you’re out here and not in there?” Val teased him.
He grunted again but didn’t answer. The orc was wiser than anyone gave him credit for.
Val took one of the proffered hand pies and grinned at her friend. “Korl knows better than to try to calm down a female.”
Korl shot Val a look. “Learned it the hard way.”
“And he means hard,” Val said. “I might have thrown a few things at him back in the day.”
A particularly loud clatter echoed from the kitchen, drawing a few glances before curious patrons returned to their eating and drinking.
“So definitely not calmed down,” Val mumbled around a bite of meat pie.
“Better check on her.” Sass hurried back toward the kitchen and imagined what chaos she might find. She pushed through the swinging doors just in time to see Lira squatting on the floor beside a fallen baking sheet, half-moon shaped pastries scattered across the floor like bones rolled for chance.
Sass rushed to her friend's side. “Let me help.”
Together, they knelt on the crumb-dusted kitchen floor, carefully gathering the hand pies that had escaped the confines of the baking sheet.
The pastries were still blazingly hot, and Sass could feel the heat searing her fingertips as she helped collect them, but she didn't complain.
The pain seemed minor compared to the defeated slump of Lira's shoulders.
When they had retrieved the last of the scattered pastries, Lira finally looked up, and Sass could see that the anger had burned itself out, leaving behind something more vulnerable and raw.
"Thanks, Sass.” Lira’s voice barely rose above a whisper. "I know it’s ridiculous that I would care this much about a family I never knew, but..." She trailed off, seeming to struggle with how to say what she was feeling.
Sass waited patiently, recognizing that her friend needed to find the words in her own time.
"In a way, I’m still grieving losing my gran," Lira continued, her voice thick.
"She was the only family I ever knew, and I thought I'd made peace with that. But now there's this uncle I didn’t know existed, and a father who's apparently been wandering the Known Lands for ages and knew about me, but now he’s missing and might be…” She sucked in a jerky breath.
“I don't know if I can handle grieving someone I've never even met. "
Sass's heart clenched at the pain in her friend's voice. Even though her parents weren’t dead, she understood loss and grieving for something that was never really yours. She’d been quietly grieving the loss of a future in her homeland since she'd run from it.
Sass reached out without hesitation, pulling Lira into a fierce hug.
Lira melted into the embrace, her shoulders softening as she allowed herself to accept the comfort.
The unlikely friends stayed like that for several long breaths, surrounded by the coziness of the kitchen and the muffled chaos of the tavern beyond the doors.
Soon Sass felt Crumpet’s tiny paws as he landed on her shoulder and wrapped his wings around both their heads.
“Thanks, Crump,” Lira said through a watery laugh. She pulled back and smiled at both Sass and the flutterstoat balanced on the dwarf’s shoulder. “I feel better already.”
Before Sass could ask her if she wanted to take a longer break, Iris burst through the kitchen doors, her colorful skirts swirling around her ankles and her silver-streaked curly hair an untamed halo around her head.
"I came as quickly as I could," she announced breathlessly, putting one hand to her waist as if she had a stitch in her side. "What's this I hear about an elf uncle in the woods?"