“No matter the difficulties, the hardships, or the challenges, Life always finds a way.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

As Aideen led the girls to the next destination, Aserfa Emirate further east of the Khanate, they happened to stop by a village along the way.

By coincidence, the three arrived right as the villagers were having a ceremonial celebration, which in such areas, almost always involved the slaying of some beast of burden to be turned into a feast for the whole village. Sometimes the slaying itself was part of the ceremony, but the dead animal’s meat was never wasted in either case.

In the more arid regions of the north, the favored beasts of burden tended to be camels or a local variety of giant sandworms. The former was mostly used for transportation purposes, while the latter was more suitable for working what little arable land was available, further helped by the fact that both creatures were very independent and perfectly capable of living just fine in the arid deserts.

On the other hand, in more temperate regions, the locals favored either cattle or certain kinds of docile, herbivorous giant lizards. The village they went to – and the Emirate in general – seemed to be a place where cattle was the favored beast of burden, evidenced by the characteristic grassy smell of cow droppings in the air as they approached the place.

The village was clearly on the poorer end, but that did not affect the celebrating villagers in the least, who had wide smiles on their faces as they welcomed the strangers into their midst. The celebration was clearly open for everyone, it seemed, even visitors. The way the villagers looked, they might not possess that much in terms of material objects, but they at least had happy lives.

Based off that, the Emirate was likely a better place than the Khanate they had just left behind.

Aideen’s guess was further confirmed when a bit later in the day, when it neared the evening, a man who dressed like a local official – the clothing style in the region were relatively similar throughout so it was easy to tell – came to the village while leading a donkey that carried two large barrels on either side of its torso.

The villagers welcomed the man enthusiastically – from their conversation Aideen identified the man as the holder of an official position that was simultaneously a constable and a tax collector in one, which made the warm welcome telling – with some of the older ladies even trying to matchmake their daughters, nieces, or granddaughters to him, to the man’s consternation.

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As for the barrels, once the villagers opened one the scent of alcohol immediately wafted out. Apparently the constable had brought some drinks for the celebration. If that was a habit the man did often, it was little surprise that he was quite beloved by the local villagers. The man himself seemed pretty down to earth and mingled with the villagers easily, probably from a similar background himself.

Throughout the celebration, the main dish for the feast itself had been simmering in large cauldrons over the past three days. Like most poor villages, the villagers could only afford to slaughter old and no longer useful cattle for such feasts, as they needed the healthy ones for their livelihood. The meat from such cattle would be tough compared to cattle that had been raised and bred for their meat.

In Ptolodecca that was the only sort of cattle around, and good beef was considered a luxurious meal, as the people there had no need for them as beasts of burden due to the wide availability of necromantic constructs that handled the role. In places like these, though, cattle meat was likely synonymous to tough, chewy meat since they were taken from old cattle that worked through their whole lives.

Such meat would naturally not be good for eating without proper preparation, which was why the villagers had been simmering it into a stew for the past three days. Together with the meat was most other parts of the cattle. Most of its organs were chopped up after it was cleaned and cooked together as part of the stew, while the bones were saved up to make bone broth.

It reminded Aideen somewhat of the similar habit people in the Lichdom had where they made use of every usable bit of anything they caught and slaughtered. The habit originated from their ancestors, who came to Ptolodecca as refugees with nothing more to their name than the clothes on their backs. The people back then were very poor and soon learned to make the most out of everything they could get.

Clearly the villagers had a similar philosophy, as some places would often throw away some parts they deemed unsavory, which Aideen always thought was folly. Then again, she spent a lot of her life in Ptolodecca and Vitalica, where she was raised, had much of the same attitude on that matter. She always viewed things like organ meats as good food rather than anything “dirty” or “unsavory”.

So what if it used to contain whatever stuff the animal ate and digested? They were cleaned properly for a reason.

The villagers’ willingness to invite strangers to their celebratory feast despite clearly not having much to their name as a rather touching thing for the girls, and brought a smile to Aideen’s face. Naturally, she wouldn’t be stingy with such nice people either. As a way of showing her gratitude, she brought out several clay amphoras of old liquor from her collection which she bought during her travels. The liquor was wine from Alcidea which had aged for over a century by then, something that even kings and sultans would probably have a hard time procuring.

Instead, Aideen freely poured the expensive and valuable wine for the villagers. The constable gave her an odd, appreciative look after he sampled a sip of the wine in his cup, then apparently decided not to question things and settled into enjoying the wine in small sips instead, taking his time to savor the liquor. He probably had some idea of the wine’s value, unlike the rest of the villagers.