Chapter Ten:

I awoke early the next morning to the inviting smell of food. My head was clear unlike the previous morning. While I did have some of the Rennydale Red last night, the bottle was consumed by three of us, so I didn't have as much of the fine wine as I did the night before. I quickly dressed and made my way out to the common area. Dalliance was already seated at the table and was nibbling on some fruit while studying a book.

"Good morning," Dalliance said in greeting. "I was beginning to wonder if you two were never going to get up."

"Morning," I countered as I took a seat and began to dig in. From what I could tell, Dalliance hadn't eaten much of the food. "Did you have enough to eat?"

"Yes," Dalliance answered. "We elves don't eat as much as most of the other races do. Some fruit and nuts will take me through the day."

The idea of only living on fruits and nuts didn't appeal to me, but then again I wasn't an elf either. As time passed, I learned that light and natural meals were what they ate. Most elves didn't eat meat, either, which I found to be very strange. I couldn't imagine not being able to eat meat!

"What are you reading?" I asked of Dalliance out of curiosity.

"I am studying my spells for the day," the tiny elf answered.

"Then I won't disturb you," I said.

I ate in silence for a time while Dalliance studied. After a while I could hear Arafel moving around in her room. A few minutes before she emerged and joined us at the table.

"Nice spread," my fellow warrior noted as she quickly loaded up her plate. It was quite like that this was going to be the finest meal we would be having for the foreseeable future, so might as well enjoy it!

"This place has spoiled me," I said. "I'll be so disappointed to not have such fine meals in the days and weeks to come."

"Get ready for days of trail rations," Arafel noted as she ate. I didn't doubt her on that point.

After finishing up breakfast, Arafel and I returned to our rooms to finish dressing for the day. I wore my usual red and black outfit, but this time added my chain mail armor. It wasn't in much better shape than Arafel's. I never did figure out how to properly clean chain mail, so I just did the best I could and hoped the armor wouldn't fall apart on me.