Chapter 603: Nannies and Cooks

"I swear I won’t do it again. This will be the last time, okay? Please stop crying. Look—I’ll make it up to you. I promise to make you a legendary-grade sword. One that will definitely appeal to your soul, something that actually speaks to you the way the others didn’t. Right, Sys? We’re going to forge something proper. Just please stop crying."

He kept stroking her long black hair, murmuring whatever soft assurances he could find while her shoulders continued to shake and the occasional (cute) hiccup escaped against his chest.

Around them the store remained in mild chaos; a few customers had begun to whisper behind their hands, others were still too unsettled to move from the places they had frozen.

Baba appeared at Benjamin’s elbow as if she had simply stepped out of a fold in the air.

In her small, wrinkled hands she carried a long, carefully itemized bill written in a precise, old-fashioned script, which was something in a world where paper was a luxury.

The list included every broken peg, every dented display stand, every weapon that had been knocked from its place and would now need repair or replacement, and even a note about the realignment of the front doors.

The total at the bottom was incredible. The old woman wore a wide, satisfied smile that deepened every crease in her face.

She had not moved so many pieces in a single afternoon in longer than she cared to remember; the sudden wave of nervous energy Benjamin had released had convinced more than one undecided customer to complete a purchase simply so they could leave the shop with something solid in their hands.

Baba had no intention of letting the opportunity pass without collecting what was owed.

***

Some minutes later the front door banged open hard enough to make the newly strained hinges protest again.

Eric and Heka entered at once. The green-haired elf boy’s face was already arranged in an expression of apology; the scarred and toned Amazon behind him looked mildly harried.

"I am so sorry we stayed so long, Benjamin!" Eric clasped both hands in front of him, the gesture almost pleading. "Heka had to return every terrible ingredient she chose—she kept picking things that were either wilted or far too strong, and the sellers were beginning to—"

"Hm? What are they doing over there?"

Heka’s voice cut cleanly across the rest of the sentence with the speed of someone who had absolutely no desire to hear her own shopping failures described in any further detail.

Her eyes had already moved past the scattered weapons and the smiling old druid, and locked onto the wooden bench near the rear wall of the shop.

"Wai—!! What IS happening here?!" Eric followed her gaze and visibly flinched.

Katana lay across Benjamin’s lap on the bench, still sniffing, her face turned into his chest while he continued to murmur soft promises of legendary blades and eternal good behavior.

One of his hands still moved slowly, steadily, through her long black hair.

The picture was obvious and, to Eric, unexpectedly difficult to look at for long.

[...Lucky woman... How nice...]

The thought arrived in Eric’s mind with a distinctly dejected and envious tone.

*

***

*****

[Heka, please. I need to surprise Benjamin with a meal she loves, today. You have been with her the longest, so you should have SOME idea.]

Heka’s steps faltered for half a second, the rhythm of her walking breaking and then resuming.

[Huh? I did not know you could use telepathy. And why are you still referring to Benjamin as a "she?"]

The complaint was clear, edged with genuine confusion. Even so, she did not pull free.

The green-haired elf continued guiding her forward through the thinning crowd, and Heka allowed herself to be led, her long legs matching his shorter stride with unconscious ease.

They had separated from Benjamin and Katana at the sloping street. While those two continued toward the weapon shop, their figures growing smaller against the bright afternoon light, Eric and Heka pushed deeper into the market district.

They wove between carts and clusters of afternoon shoppers, past stalls that sold everything from preserved fruits to lengths of dyed cloth, until the sign of the provision shop came into view.

The building was wider than most of its neighbors, its open front displaying stacked crates, hanging bundles of dried herbs, and shelves crowded with jars that caught the light in a hundred different colors.

Inside, the air had a complex mixture of scents—earth, spice, dried meat, the sharp green smell of fresh cuttings, and underneath it all the cleaner, more metallic notes of powdered minerals and preserved roots used in both cooking and minor alchemy.

Magic potion ingredients shared space with ordinary cooking goods. Medicinal components sat in labeled drawers beside sacks of grain and hanging strings of smoked sea creatures.

The shop served every practical need that could arise between a kitchen and a healer’s table, and the people who moved through it seemed to know exactly where to find whatever they had come for.

As usual, Heka stood out the moment she stepped across the threshold.

Her scarred dark skin caught the light from the windows, revealing the network of old cuts and burns that crossed her arms and collarbones, each one a small record of something survived (or attacked).

She possessed the height and solid muscle of a trained Amazon, her frame built for combat in ways that made her presence impossible to overlook.

The dark-green tattoos that wound along her forearms, torso, and shoulders stood out in sharp contrast against her complexion, curling patterns that seemed to swim when she moved.

The beautiful silver of her boots reflected the shop’s lamps with every step, drawing more than one glance from other customers who were not accustomed to seeing an Amazon in a place that sold cooking ingredients.

She ignored them out of long habit and followed Eric toward the section clearly marked for cooking ingredients.