Small Mercies — five windows into warband life. Nothing heroic. Just home.
Zyneese had been gone for three weeks.
She told them it was a supply run. She told them this with the particular confidence of someone who had rehearsed it. Nobody pushed further because Zyneese’s supply runs historically produced results worth not questioning.
She returned on the evening of the Lunar Festival carrying one bag of standard supplies and one ceramic container sealed with an obscene amount of wax.
“I was in Pandaria,” she said, setting the container on the table. “And then Tanaris. And briefly Silvermoon for the dairy situation.” She adjusted her glasses. “I made cookies.”
The void whispered something deeply skeptical about the flavor combination.
“Salted egg,” Zy continued, opening the container. “Aged cheese. Lunar Festival spice blend. The technique is from a baker in the Valley of the Four Winds who made me earn the recipe by—” she paused. “That part isn’t relevant.”
The cookies were golden. Slightly irregular. They smelled extraordinary and deeply confusing.
The warband stared.
Lulureese reached for one first because Lulureese always reached for things first. She bit into it. Chewed. Her amber eyes went very wide.
Then she grabbed two more with both hands.
Then everyone was grabbing cookies and the container was somehow half-empty and Vyrneese was eating one with the focused expression she normally reserved for threat assessment and Avelreese had forgotten entirely that she’d already had one and taken a second.
Brasskeese ate four. Paused. Ate a fifth. Looked deeply annoyed at herself.
“One more,” she said to nobody.
Those are acceptable, the void admitted, very quietly, in the back of Zyneese’s skull.
Zy looked at the empty container. Looked at her warband. Adjusted her glasses with the measured satisfaction of someone who had crossed three continents for exactly this moment.
“I know,” she said.