The Divine Tears: Crestfallen

V

'Good morning, princess,' Daarion crushed some spices between his fingers, before throwing them into the pot cooking over the fire. The boiling of multiple vegetables and pieces of chicken filled the small area with a homely aroma. Two soldiers sat on a log surrounding the campfire, along with the two dragonesses, with Yara sharpening her knives, and Lyra flicking an arrow through her fingers. Haxios was also present with a fur coat on his back and ready for the day's travel. Erwan surveyed the area.

'It smells lovely,' she sat on a wooden chair.

'Would've smelled better with more basil,' Lyra snickered.

'By all means,' Daarion stirred the pot, 'have at it.'

Lyra smirked, for she'd rather do anything else than cooking, even twirling an arrow between her fingers was far more exciting than stirring a pot.

'There are some lovely spices they've sent with us, Tess,' Daarion said, 'and it felt fitting that I cook the last day. Your humble soldiers are some good company as well, I suppose our friends are as well.'

'And what have you been talking about?' said Tessriel.

'Oh, just Haxios' first contract,' Yara said with a tingle of an amusing pitch in her voice. 'Rather dull, in fact. I've had better dreams.'

'Oh!' the princess said. 'That reminds me, I haven't heard about your contracts before, not a single one of you.'

Daarion tasted the stew with a wooden spoon.

Haxios leaned forward, the heat of the boiling pot flowing before his face. 'Let me oblige you, princess. It was just two towns wrestling with one another. The dwarven town wanted to mine in the area of a human town—even though they didn't use the mine. I just settled it by having the humans receive a third of the mining, however, they must aid the dwarves with food as well. A child could solve that matter.'

Daarion poured stew into multiple bowls. He sprinkled some salt over the stew and handed it to the listeners. They all indulged in the steaming breakfast.

'But when I rode back to the town we were staying, I took a detour,' Haxios continued his tale, 'I rode on a path, west of the mountains of Ûndim. A beautiful area, peaceful and lush. On my second day, I discovered a town, the people were friendly and all, but the lord of the town was a bastard. He ordered his men to execute a man living in a near forest. I offered my help, but he pushed me aside. So, I went into that forest to find the man. He lived in a cabin beside a river, it all felt so undisturbed, as if no life seized the opportunity to harm the area. And for the man—he seemed harmless. He invited me into his home, offered me a drink and to my surprise his wife came in.'

'How is that surprising?' one soldier asked with a mouthful of stew.

'She was a succubus, and a pretty one at that,' the Valkan took a bite and saw a sly glare from his love, 'we've all been taught that they are lustful beings, but she was warm and loving. And in her arms, she held their daughter, also a succubus, as all are born succubi from a succubus mother. It came out that the lord of the town fancied the succubus, and with the birth of their child it set him in a rage, ordering the man and their child's dead.'

'You kill 'em?' the other soldier asked.

'No, I tried to reason with the lord, but he wouldn't listen. He set his men on me, but I battered them all in the town's street, quite a show—the people thought. I demoted the lord. As for the man and his family, I advised them it would be safer in that dwarven town I was in the day before. Luckily, they listened, so I gave them half my pay from the contract and some gems the dwarves gifted me.'

The listeners finished their meals.

'Jealousy is quite the instigator,' Haxios said, 'it fuels rage, and with it—regret. With all these lessons I've learned in my travels, I'm quite certain I could become a bloody scholar.'