Tia and I started by heading to the stove where Toor Deen was serving people a stingingly spicy offal stew with tarapa. Unsurprisingly, Tia’s nose twitched when she smelled the aroma of herbs coming off the dish.
“Looks like things are going great, Toor Deen. Oh, and our two guests from the Zaza are here too, huh?”
The Zaza twins, Geol and Sufira, who really didn’t look alike at all, were standing there beside the stove. Geol Zaza had apparently been drinking, since I could tell that his face was red, even as dark out as it was. Plus, his expression looked a lot more relaxed than it had before.
“Ah, Asuta of the Fa clan... Wait, the giba bone soup isn’t gone already, is it?” Geol Zaza asked.
“Nope. Only half of it. We’re taking a break before we serve the rest. I take it you haven’t had any yet, Geol Zaza?”
“That’s right. We’ve been talking over here, and it’s just been dragging on and on,” Geol Zaza cheerfully replied, earning him a chilly glare from his sister.
“You’re the only one who’s been talking on and on, aren’t you? Plus, Toor Deen’s working, and you’ve clearly been troubling her.”
“How could I be causing trouble for her? All I was doing was praising Toor Deen’s skill. I haven’t been bothering you, have I, Toor Deen?”
“N-No, I was very honored to hear you say those things, Geol Zaza,” Toor Deen said, though her smile looked kind of anxious.
“Good!” Geol Zaza said with a satisfied grin of his own.
Sufira Zaza gave a big sigh. “Your duty is to observe this banquet, Geol, and you can’t do that by remaining in the same place the whole time, now can you?”
“I did a full loop around the plaza before coming back here, so I have no idea what you’re complaining about.”
As that perplexing conversation between the Zaza siblings continued, Toor Deen remained standing off to the side, still smiling, though her eyebrows were drooping a bit. The two of them were probably hanging around here in order to get to know her better.
Was Toor Deen born under a star that makes it so strong-willed people are drawn to her or something? Well, I guess Odifia is an exception, though.
Toor Deen was undoubtedly a very charming person, and personally, it made me really happy to see her becoming more popular with other people.
“All right, why don’t we have some food too? I’m sure you’ll like this dish, Tia,” I said.
“Yeah, it smells really good.”
Toor Deen swiftly dished out two portions of her stew for us. Despite how hot it looked, Tia immediately started slurping it down, then broke out in a bright smile that reminded me of a small animal.
“This is tasty. It’s just as good as the food you make, Asuta,” she said.
“Oh yeah? I guess you really like tarapa, huh, Tia?”
“Yeah. I enjoy the sourness of this red broth.” Tia then held her wooden spoon in a sort of reversed grip and started using it to shovel some of the fillings back toward her mouth. It had been a little while now since she had last eaten giba cooking, and this was a rather unusual dish—offal stew—but her smile remained bright as she ate. “What an interesting taste. Are these giba innards?”
“Y-Yes. We used a variety of organs such as the heart, intestines, and stomach,” Toor Deen explained.
“Hmm. I was told that giba meat wasn’t worth the effort to use as an ingredient, but I guess that wasn’t true.”
That comment made me wonder about something as I enjoyed my own helping of stew next to her, and I decided to ask her about it. “So, you hunt giba on Morga too, then?”
“Every once in a while, a giba will wander onto the mountain, but they tend to get devoured by varb or madarama, so the red people hardly ever hunt them.”
“I see. The legends say that the three great beasts drove the giba from Morga, and that’s why they live in the forest at its base.”
“I don’t really know much about that. From what I’ve heard, the giba have been living at the mountain’s base since at least as far back as when my mother’s mother was the leader of our people.” Of course, that was only natural, given that the giba had already been making the forest’s edge their home eighty years ago. “But I’ve seen giba at the border between the mountain and the forest plenty of times. They can only run around on the ground, so I can’t imagine how they’d be able to survive up on the mountain. The red people and madarama can defeat them from up in the trees, while varb can run faster than giba.”
“Hmm. By the way, between the red people, the madarama, and the varb, which one is the strongest?”
“You can’t really compare us to each other that way, and there’s no point in trying. We’re all fellow children of the great god.”
That was enough to satisfy my curiosity for now. We finished eating our stew, and I decided that it was time to head to the next stove. We said farewell to Toor Deen as the Zaza siblings continued to loudly argue with each other.
The next stove we visited was serving okonomiyaki. It was the improved version I had unveiled in the castle town, and Yun and Ia Fou Sudra were the ones in charge of the dish.
“Hey, Asuta. We’re just about to finish up a fresh batch.”
“Great. We’d love to have some. Oh, but we don’t use any herbs in this one, so I’m not sure you’ll like it, Tia.”
Since that was a bit of a concern, I had Tia try a small sample first. As she tilted her head and popped it into her mouth, she solemnly furrowed her brow before saying, “Hmm...it has a strange taste and texture. I’m fine with only having one bite.”
“I see. You don’t like stuff that doesn’t have herbs in it, huh?”
“Not always. Berinbo dumplings don’t use herbs, but they’re still really tasty. I like those baked poitan you make too.”
I was incredibly curious about what Tia’s diet was like up on Morga, but a banquet wasn’t exactly the right time to dig into that topic. Instead, I switched to chatting with Yun Sudra and a few other people who were standing around while I enjoyed my okonomiyaki.
Then another group walked over to us. When I spotted my beloved clan head among them, I excitedly called out, “Hey, Ai Fa. You’re already free of the winners’ stand? That was pretty quick.”
“Yes. We’ve already finished accepting everyone’s congratulations,” Ai Fa said. She was accompanied by Raielfam and Cheem Sudra, as well as some men from the Fou and Ran.
“Radd Liddo is at that stove over there, talking to Geol Zaza. Zei Deen went there too, to speak to his daughter,” Cheem Sudra explained.
Meanwhile, Ia Fou Sudra greeted her husband with a dazzling smile. “Cheem, have you already had some okonomiyaki? If you’d like, I can cut a piece off for you.”
“All right. I’m still not full yet, so please do.”
Cheem Sudra’s expression remained largely the same, but his eyes looked very fond as he gazed at her. Though he was two years younger than me, he was already the head of his own household. It had been two months since their marriage, and the atmosphere around the two of them was really full of love now.
“You only just started eating, right, Asuta? Instead of worrying about us, you should be enjoying as much food as you can,” Raielfam Sudra said.
“I suppose so,” I replied with a smile. “But we should talk later, okay? And I’d love to chat with you too, Cheem Sudra.”
“Yeah,” Cheem Sudra said with a bashful smile. Then I said farewell to the chefs and moved on, with Ai Fa now accompanying us.
As we walked, my clan head shot the young girl at my side a harsh glare. “Tia, you haven’t caused any trouble for him, have you?”
“Of course not. I’d never break the rules of the forest’s edge,” Tia replied, a deadly serious look on her face. Even though it had been four days since they had first met, the way they interacted with each other remained the same.
For Ai Fa’s part, she clearly felt a strong sense of responsibility toward the young girl in our care. The leading clan heads had managed to come up with a peaceful solution, so she undoubtedly felt that it would be really bad if things went wrong because of poor supervision on her part. Tia seemed to be fully aware of Ai Fa’s feelings on the matter too. Normally, she was pretty casual around my clan head, but she most definitely hadn’t forgotten how shaky the position she found herself in was.
Anyway, as we walked through the plaza, I felt really invigorated now that the two of them were with me. It was still too soon for the women to dance, so everyone was just enjoying the good festival food and fruit wine.
“Ai Fa, did you already get enough to eat?”
“Indeed. Or perhaps I should say I’m around eight-tenths of the way full. I get the feeling I’ve eaten as much as I usually do already, but I hunted a number of giba during the day, so I used up a great deal of energy.”
“Asuta, I’m still really hungry,” Tia chimed in.
“Okay, then let’s hope the next dish is to your tastes.”
Surprisingly, that wish came true in the best way possible. The next stove had the dish that Tia had enjoyed the most over the last few days: curry. As she took a bite of the helping the Liddo woman served her, the young girl’s eyes narrowed blissfully.
“I don’t believe I’ve had anything that smelled or tasted quite like this before, but it’s very good,” she said.
“Yeah. This curry uses giba meat instead of peifei. What do you think?”
“It’s delicious. Every bit as good as the kind with peifei.”
Our peifei meat seemed like it would be gone in a few more days, so that was good to hear. Tia ate some of her curry with a spoon and some of it by dipping baked poitan into the sauce, and in no time at all, she had devoured three servings of it.
The Liddo women serving the dish and the other people around us were all watching her eat with smiles on their faces. Even if she was an outsider who couldn’t be welcomed in as one of us, that didn’t stop a warm, fuzzy feeling from welling up in everyone who saw the charming sight. Meanwhile, Ai Fa had swiftly finished off half a serving herself and was calmly staring down at Tia. She seemed to find it satisfying to see Tia enjoy a giba dish so much.
✦ ✦ ✦
