The Dragon King

Upon reaching the kitchen, Narrie found herself in a storm of activity. The annual festival was just a few days away and everyone at Lia Bell’s Inn was caught up in cooking and decorating for the event. Even though no one even remembers why we celebrate that day anymore. Yes, the reason for celebration had died out generations ago. Most people just took it as an excuse to get out of work, have fun with the sparklers that the kindlers always made, and the chance for adults to get drunk and not face angry spouses the next day.

Narrie weaved and ducked her way around the kitchen until she found her plump, red headed, green eyed Aunt Amalia. She was currently sampling the cake that one of the younger chefs produced for the inspection so Narrie stood to the side, out of the way of four other chefs currently wrestling with a very oversized pot of soup.

On normal days she would have talked to some of them or helped with menial tasks such as taking rolls out of the fire or giving the leftovers to some of the dogs that took residence in the stables. But today there were no such tasks as everyone was working on some sort of special or “secret” dish for the festival.

So she was stuck fiddling with the pockets on her pants while her aunt made suggestions for the final cake. The young chef simply nodded at each new suggestion before hurrying off to complete his tasks. With that taken care of, dear Aunt Amalia turned her attention to her fifteen-year-ld niece.

She looked Narrie up and down, taking in her appearance, with hawk like intensity. Deciding that she looked decent enough, she pulled a slip of paper with scratchy print out of her apron and handed it to Narrie. As the girl scanned the paper, Aunt Amalia silently strode away to criticize some other poor chef’s work. With a small sigh, Narrie stuffed the shopping list into one of her many pockets and exited back into the stables. If she was going to suffer then so was Stef.