“The way people prepare things for consumption often reflects their living conditions and life experiences as well. An observant eye could learn a lot just from a single meal in that manner.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

“Oh, this is good,” praised Aideen sincerely after she tasted the dish Yngva had been preparing for them. The main dish was some sort of thin stew – or a thick soup, whichever way one preferred it – that had a broth of meat and bone thickened with eggs, with plentiful chunks of tender meat floating in it along with several kinds of vegetables that had been cooked together in the pot. “What did you have in it? If it’s not some secret family recipe, that is.”

“Haha! No such thing, lass! Glad to see you like it!” replied Yngva. The woman was likely older than she looked given her likely dwarven ancestry, so it wasn’t that odd for her to call Aideen ‘lass’ given her own youthful looks. “Nothing that special, honestly. Just some cured raptor meat, potatoes and yams, with some winter cabbage and radishes fresh off our own garden cooked in bone broth. Thicken them up with some eggs and potato starch and you got what’s on your plate.”

“Huh,” noted Aideen with some surprise as she sipped some more of the soup and tasted it more carefully. The soup had a strong meaty flavor – not unexpected for a bone broth – but also some sharp pungency that reminded her more of ripe cheese, but not in an unpleasant way. It was why she thought there was some other unusual ingredient in the soup. “Wouldn’t have guessed it to be that simple to make with how it tastes.”

Despite how the soup couldn’t have been cooking for longer than a few hours – Aida probably sent a runner to inform her spouse as soon as the convoy arrived, but that was only around noon – the chunks of meat were so tender that they could be cut with just a spoon. They had a strong, gamey flavor, but was not unpleasant, and matched well with the strongly flavored soup, the eggs somewhat turning the gaminess into a more mellow taste.

The chunks of potatoes were soft enough to crumble when one pressed them against the roof of their mouth using their tongue, and gushed out plenty of the soup they absorbed when they did so, while the yams had a more chewy texture that gave more of a textural play to the dish. The cabbage leaves were cooked until they turned silky and could just be slurped up, while the chunks of radish – likely added late in the cooking – remained crisp and added a refreshing flavor to the mix.

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They had some black bread, made from rye flour, to go with the soup. The bread itself was flavorful in its own way, though it became much better – and softer – after it was dunked into the soup, which their hosts encouraged with wide smiles. It was indeed a warm, filling meal like Yngva promised, one that helped drive away the winter cold that was ever prevalent in Vinjaun as a whole.

“Wait, you said raptor meat?” asked Áine in the middle of the feast. “I thought Mistress Aida said that Snow Raptors are pretty much unpalatable for people?”

“Oh, different kind, dear. This is Hill Raptor meat. They’re kind of a cousin to the pest that is the Snow Raptor, but more useful,” explained Yngva with an understanding nod and a smile. “Their meat still ain’t good to eat fresh, but if you cure them right for a couple weeks to a month, they’ll be pretty tasty, like what we’re having right now.”

“We actually raise some ourselves,” added Valdis, the couple’s older daughter. The girl was probably sixteen or seventeen or so, and looked human for the most part, though her slightly longer lower canines and her solid build hinted at some orcish blood in the mix. “They lay eggs often, and are manageable enough thanks to Fleki and Geri here,” added the girl as she ruffled the fur of the wolves that perched themselves between her and her little sister while gnawing on some bones.

“Hmm? Ah, I think I get it. They recognize the wolves as stronger predators and give way before them?” guessed Áine after she thought about what Valdis said.

“That’s right,” said Aida with a nod. “They defer to the wolves and would refrain from acting out while they’re present. As for the wolves themselves, our people had somewhat domesticated them for generations now. We’ve had these two since they were pups and Gudrun was still a wee toddler, and they pretty much grew up with us as their pack, so they’re as loyal as can be.”

“Smart way to use what you have,” noted Eilonwy approvingly. “Actually, can we see how you keep the raptors? I’m kind of curious how you people would handle those.”

“Sure, though it’s already dark now, so we’ll take you over tomorrow morning when the kids gather the eggs,” replied Aida with a smile. “For now, have some of our traditional drink, if you partake in alcohol. We call this Aqfavi,” she added as she placed a waterskin on the table. “It goes well with the cheese.”

The liquor Aida offered was clear like water and did not smell or taste like much of anything, but burned all the way down the throat to the stomach, as it was a lot stronger than it appeared. As for the cheese, the dark brown lumps had a rather crumbly texture and an unusually sweet flavor to them, which did complement the alcoholic burn of the drink well.

As such both Aideen’s group and Aida’s family feasted through the night until the food was gone into their stomachs and the children started to get sleepy from the late hour, before they finally called it a day and settled down to rest. Aida naturally offered her house for their abode for the night, as long as they didn’t mind sharing with the family, which Aideen had no objections to.