While the guards were also a bit reluctant to eat the stew they still did and all changed their tunes immediately after the first bite.
"It can't be THAT good right?" The woman said with a disbelieving look as the men scarfed their bowls down.
"Say that after you try it. Just a spoonful if you don't want to fully commit to a bowl just yet." I say amused while holding out a clean spoon.
She took it haughtily and dipped it into the pot before taking it out and blowing on it's content and with a grimace shoved the spoon into her mouth.-
The moment the flavors spread out across her tongue her eyes snapped open in astonishment.
"How? How does this taste better than most meals in the royal palace!?" she demanded after swallowing her mouthful.
I chuckled "Little known fact is that my most refined skill outside swordsmanship, it's cooking. I'm a master chef. I even have a few cookbooks published." I say leaving her and the guards speechless.
"Cooking? The same person who uses the voice, She` hai and magic. Mastered cooking?" She asked dumfounded.
"Aye, I didn't like how bland food was growing up and dedicated myself to making the world a more flavorful place. All the rest? That's work to do. Enjoyable sure but still work. Cooking? That's something I want to do. And that? That's important." I say seriously.
"But it's so...." she trailed off with a scrunched up face as she tried and failed to find a word that wasn't insulting.
"Mundane? Boring? Pedestrian?" I offered with a knowing smirk.
"Yes. I just don't understand." she said honestly.
"Is that really so hard to believe? That the man who grew up in a Nordic orphanage in the second worst hold of Skyrim wanted to change at least one part of that experience? I have royal blood, aye. I have grinded myself against the whetstone of power like a hound stubbornly chewing on a bone, aye. But I am only a man. And men want to live lives without regret. I'm no different." I explained looking out at the heavens overhead as a gentle wind brushes past like a warm hand stroking my hair.
The camp went quiet at that as the weight of those words landed among everyone there.
It invoked introspection from each of them. Made them ask themselves if they were living without regret. The answers that came to them weren't all positive either. For such a question they rarely are. Living without regret is not easy. It's not as simple as simply not giving a shit. Because the moment you look back at your life that carelessness can bite you in a place that hurts something fierce. Living without regret is acknowledging that it's hard, that you'll suffer for it. But knowing that what awaits on the other side is worth it. That you can accept the price you pay for what you want without looking back.-
I learned this lesson far too late. I lived a life on Earth that was summed up as boring. Full of regret. I couldn't think back to even a single moment where I wasn't plagued with the question of "what if?". Given a new chance at life in a world that would let me live without regret, how could I ever not take it? This world was ridiculous, dangerous and backward but it was free and wonderful too. So I had tossed away my shame, my reluctance and all my regret and set one foot before the other. -
I failed, oh yes I did. Countless failures. But I never stopped. At most I'd take a pause to contemplate my failure and learn from it. For these people it must be so different. They haven't lived a whole life of regret in a world that doesn't really allow anything else. They only know this life and have that fear of pain, of risks, of mistakes that I had in my first life. I didn't judge them for it. That would be hypocritical of me. But that didn't mean I didn't understand that even with this sudden spurt of introspection they likely wouldn't change in the long run.-
Among them all the only ones that didn't seem to have regrets were the young girl only slightly off from my own age and Alontar. The girl because she likely never even considered there was anything to regret to begin with. Alontar because he lived how he wished from start to finish. He served my elven half's family willingly and brought me to that orphanage so many years ago even at the great personal cost to him. A cost he accepted and made clear he'd accept once more even if he was sent back to before it.-
You know the fucked up part? His acceptance was precisely why I couldn't repair it. That disfigurement was accepted and so his soul mirrored it. I couldn't use his soul to sculpt his flesh back into the shape it once held because there was no image to draw from. He'd even admitted that as a servant he lacked any portraits or anything of the nature I could use as a source for his appearance. And I WOULDN'T touch his mind. That sort of magic was the territory of Sload and masters of illusion.-
Beyond all else however it was painful to the one it was used on. Not physically but spiritually. A mortal mind is not designed to accept a foreign one into itself. That wrongness is an agony that is beyond description. I wouldn't do such a thing for the vain purpose of restoring the look of a man who accepted his current one. It was needlessly cruel and I am not that.