It starts by accident. She is chopping vegetables, her technique enthusiastic but inefficient, and I cannot watch anymore without offering correction.
"May I?" I gesture to the knife.
She blinks at me, surprised. Then smiles and hands it over. "Please. Show me how it's done."
I take the knife. Feel its weight and balance. My hands remember this, even if I do not: the precise movements, the rhythm of blade against board. I have wielded swords for centuries. This is just a different kind of cutting.
"Like this," I demonstrate, the vegetables falling into uniform pieces.
"Show-off," she teases, but she is watching my hands with fascination.
I do it again, slower, so she can see the technique. She tries to copy it, her movements still inelegant but improving.
"Better," I tell her.
"High praise from a knight," she says drily.
I do not tell her that I have never taught anyone anything. That Elspeth never asked me to do anything that was not violence.
But I think she knows anyway.
After that, I find excuses to be in the kitchen when she cooks. She does not order me to help. Does not command. Just... makes space for me. Hands me things to chop or stir. Asks my opinion on spices.
Treats me like I am her partner in this small domestic dance.
The silence between us shifts. Becomes comfortable. Companionable. Sometimes she hums while she works. Sometimes she talks about her day, about something she read, about nothing at all.
I mostly listen. But sometimes... sometimes I respond. A comment here. An observation there. The rusty machinery of conversation slowly remembering how to turn.
"You're funny," she tells me one evening, grinning.
"I am not."
"You are. You're just very dry about it."
I do not know what to do with this assessment. So I focus on chopping the carrots with perhaps more precision than necessary.
Her laugh is warm as summer.
The Midwinter announcement comes via messenger three days later.
Iris stares at the letter like it has personally insulted her. "No. Absolutely not."
"Is there a problem?" I ask, though I can feel her panic through the bond: sharp and bright and growing.
"The cottage mage is supposed to host the Midwinter Feast." She looks up at me, eyes wide. "Dozens of people. A whole formal dinner. I've never hosted anything in my life. I can barely manage a dinner party, let alone a feast."
"That seems unlikely given the elaborate meals you prepare daily."
"That's different! That's just us! This is..." She waves the letter helplessly. "Everyone. The whole village. They'll expect something worthy of my grandmother, and I'll just... I'll disappoint them."
I consider this. The fear in her voice is real. But so is her competence. I have watched her command a kitchen with the same focus and precision I once brought to battlefields.
"I've planned military campaigns," I say carefully. "A dinner is less complicated."
She stares at me. "Are you... offering to help?"
The question catches me off-guard. Am I?
