The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

And the hits just keep on coming.

“This is why you must seek out the fanciest restaurant you can, every time you’re on an iron artery stop,” Lisa said. “They pass through all sorts of places, stocking up as they go. The Plainland meadows, the Tal-Ranic frost markets, the rice terraces of Rinia, the orchards of Sektorbrav. Shame that Orwiny is so far north. I’d love to feed you a good Orwinese coddle. Onions bigger than your fist. Winter savory and pomegranate.”

“Huh.” Seth was half-listening. Surely a place like this wouldn’t notice one measly little fork missing. Surely they were lousy with forks.

“Ever have a pomegranate, Seth?”

“Can’t say I have.” Seth refocused on the conversation, but he didn’t look up. He couldn’t. Past the flimsy barricade of the menu was his employer, in The Dress.

Sektorbrav Red

The moment they had arrived, Lisa had made a beeline for the roadhouse—they called it a hotel here, Seth had to remind himself—to get them room and board. She’d made him stay in the wagon, though she’d taken with her, in one musclebound trip, most of the stuff he was meant to be watching.

He hadn’t been sure why she’d asked him to wait outside until she’d emerged in The Dress.

Seth was reading the menu. He was not thinking about The Dress. Seth had not noticed the way the shimmery fabric clung to Lisa’s midsection, nor how it draped along her broad hips, nor the solid, shapely thigh that elegantly parted the slitted satin when she sat, because he was far too busy reading the menu. He did not perceive the way its deep V cupped Lisa’s full, soft chest and pushed it upward into two plump round perfections because, as he reminded himself, there was this menu he was supposed to be reading. And he especially did not notice the mole dotting the swell of Lisa’s right breast, because of the whatsitcalled. The menu.

Over the sightline edge of said menu, a pair of merlot lips grinned, and a pair of glamored eyes tracked his. “Still pondering, eh?”

He forced his eyes to flick from the page to Lisa’s face. It took discipline and commitment not to linger his attention between the two. “Uh, a lot more options than I’m used to,” he said. “Chalkboards.”

“Would you like me to order for you?” A black-nailed finger landed on the menu and pushed it back down to the table. “I think I can guess what you like by now.”

She leaned forward across the table, neckline full to bursting, and beckoned him to do the same. He met her in the middle, across the vased foxglove sprouting from the center of the table.

“You can look, you know,” she whispered conspiratorially. “I’m not about to wear an outfit like this and then toss my drink at you for looking. I’m rather proud of them.”

“Oh,” he said, and “okay.” Smooth, il Gutierre.

She returned to her menu. “Two bitey little monsters later, and they’re still hanging in there. I don’t know why Annalise is always so reluctant to show them off. One less lace tied on the battle-tunic’s front split wouldn’t kill her. I don’t think so, anyway. The particulars of sword work get a little fuzzy when I’m Lisa, I admit.”

“You’ve got me beat,” Seth said. “I’ve only ever dueled with a broom.”

“Do we have questions, madame and master?” A man clad in evening wear as sleek and shiny as Seth’s new stiletto slid himself into the conversation over Lisa’s shoulder. “Or have we made our choices?”

Before Seth could get out so much as a syllable, Lisa was pointing out options. “We’ll split this fennel citrus salad here to start. I’ll have the dry-aged ribeye, and the gentleman will have the tenderloin with pomegranate glaze. And a bottle of the Sektorbrav red, if you please, with two glasses.”

“Lovely choices.” The waiter’s silvery pen scribbled shorthand across his little leather notebook. “All our livestock are locally sourced and we ensure on slaughter that their hexis is properly harnessed and stored in civic dynamos. And none of our crops come from mite farm adjacent fields.”

Seth didn’t know that mattered.

“Are we celebrating something?” the waiter asked.

Lisa clasped her hands together with feigned avuncular joy. “It’s my nephew’s birthday.”

The man sent a practiced smile across the azure tablecloth to the stunlocked Seth. “Happy birthday, sir.”

“Thank you,” Seth said. “Aunt Lisa’s been so excited to take me to this place. It’s where she proposed to my uncle once upon a time, Saints bless his soul. And where she met the next fiancé, after he left her at the altar.”

“A lot of family history,” the waiter said, gamely.

Lisa chuckled. “What can I say? It’s got a tether on me.”

“He was a busboy here, right?” Seth tapped his chin.

Lisa mirrored him. “Who can be expected to remember what their third husband did?”

The waiter’s ironclad smile flaked only slightly. “I’ll get us started on that salad.”

Lisa gave Seth’s knuckles a light slap as the waiter made his exit. “Cheeky boy.”

“Birthday boy,” Seth corrected.

“Very true.” Lisa topped her water glass back up. “Let’s see if we get a dessert out of that.”

“I never actually said yes to you ordering for me,” Seth said. “Just to put that on the record.”

“You don’t mind.”

“Don’t I?”

Lisa hummed a gentle mm-mm denial. “You enjoyed it, in fact.”

“Your non-Annalise heads assume a lot about me.”

“You enjoyed it,” Lisa said. “Because you’ve always made your own decisions, because you’ve never trusted anyone else enough to make them. But it’s been years of that, and you’re tired of it, and that little fox on your back didn’t fix it. And I don’t imagine he’s got advice on pairings, but I say you’ll enjoy the Sektor red. The pomegranate tenderloin I’m not wholly sure about—have to imagine this far south, this time of year, they’ll use a syrup. But I think you’re hiding a sweet tooth. Eyes up here.”

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/173313...orbrav-red

Also, if I haven't already updated yesterday's multi-post to reflect Princess of the Void having updated on Scribble Hub by the time you read this, it's because you got there fustest with the mostest.