I don’t let myself smile. Not too much.
She sits without waiting. Doesn't bother looking at the menu. Doesn't ask what's new. Just folds her hands on the table and stares straight ahead, chin high, mouth tight.
But she’s here.
That's enough.
I’m already plating when Y’kren offers to take the dish. I wave her off.
“This one’s mine.”
She smirks like she knows. Maybe she does.
I layer it slow. Intentional. A ceremonial dish from the old rites—Kin-Finding Stew, we call it. Vakutan tradition says it was first served to strangers on the brink of blood feud, something to remind them of warmth before war. It’s sweet in unexpected places. Hot in strange corners. Rich with roots that grow deep and stubborn. Not something we put on the menu.
Not something I cook for just anyone.
The meat’s tender and smoked over firefruit wood. The sauce is an aged reduction of star-anise berries and fermented shell-honey. I finish it with pickled vine curls and crushed sun-nuts for texture, then light a narrow strip of fireleaf at the edge of the plate. It smolders, just enough to scent the air.
I don’t say a word when I place it in front of her.
She looks down at it, then up at me. Raises one brow.
“What’s this?”
“Something ancient,” I say. “From a time when we thought sharing food might prevent war.”
Her lips twitch. Not a smile. Not quite.
“You think I came here to start a war?”
I shrug. “Not with your hands, maybe.”
She doesn’t answer that. Just stares at the plate. Like it’s a riddle she’s almost afraid to solve.
Slowly, she picks up the fork.
The first bite’s small. Cautious. I don’t expect more. But when she chews, her eyes close just a fraction, and that’s when I look away.
I retreat to the kitchen, let the sounds of the line fill the space between us. But I’m watching. Always. Every time she takes a bite, I see the way her fingers relax. The way her shoulders drop by degrees.
She doesn’t talk.
But food is a language. And right now, she’s speaking it fluently.
I keep my hands moving. I’ve got orders to fill, customers to please, but every time I glance back, she’s still there. Still eating. Still quiet.
But not hard anymore.
Not so jagged.
At one point, a spoon clinks against the edge of the bowl and she looks up—right at me.
I meet her eyes.
Neither of us look away.
It’s not a long moment. But it’s full.
