Chapter 51: Gastric Grievances

They round the corner onto the inn’s street and Lucien’s stomach drops straight into his boots.

A crowd has gathered outside, spilling off the porch and into the road, more villagers than he’s seen assembled anywhere since the market square.

His mind leaps immediately, horribly, to a dozen worst-case scenarios, most of them involving a half-eaten beast-kin, fire, or some unfortunate combination of the two. He breaks into a dead run, shoving through the crowd, bracing himself for the absolute worst.

Inside, the scene that greets him is somehow both better and considerably stranger than anything he’d imagined.

Valgereth sits at the center of a massive banquet table, surrounded by a full battlefield of empty and half-empty platters. Bones picked clean and stacked in a neat, almost obsessive pile, bread baskets reduced to crumbs, a small mountain of oyster shells arranged like a monument to his own appetite. A steadily shrinking pile of gold sits at his elbow, and a rotating cast of increasingly frazzled beast-kin servers dash in and out with fresh food faster than he can visibly clear it.

"Val! What is going on?"

Val dismisses him with a single grunt, too deeply committed to a roast boar leg to spare him so much as a glance, grease dripping freely down one wrist and onto the tablecloth.

"He’s been eating for three hours straight," a wide-eyed young beast-kin whispers from somewhere near Lucien’s elbow, staring at the spectacle with the particular reverence usually reserved for natural disasters. "Never seen anything like it. Not even during harvest festival."

"Appetite of a dragon," another murmurs, nodding sagely, like this explains everything. Which, he didn’t realize, it absolutely did.

"Hoard of one too," someone adds, nodding toward the shrinking pile of coin with something between awe and genuine financial concern.

A server sprints past the table balancing three plates on one arm, and Val flicks a few coins after her without even glancing up. "More gravy. And the basilisk balls... with cheese, and that little flower thing on top."

"We’re... we’re out of basilisk." she stammers, skidding to a halt.

Val throws more coin at her, a thin curl of smoke drifting up from his nostrils, his patience lasting as long as his food. "Then get more!"

She scoops the gold off the floor with both hands and bolts for the kitchen like her life genuinely depends on it, which, given the smoke, it possibly does.

Another server arrives moments later bearing a fresh, steaming tray, and Val inhales the contents in a handful of efficient bites, chasing it down with an entire pitcher of ale tipped straight back like water, throat working steadily until it’s empty.

A third server, hands visibly trembling, sets down a whole roasted chicken with the careful reverence of someone making an offering to an angry god, and it survives exactly as long as it takes Val to reach across the table for it.

"I’m impressed," Serenith says, floating in behind Lucien, taking in the wreckage with wide eyes, "and thoroughly horrified. Where does it all go?"

Lucien claims a small corner table with Brina, tucked just out of the direct line of fire from Val’s ongoing feast, and tries, twice, to flag down a server for actual food, only to be met both times with an apologetic wince and the same explanation.

"Apologies, sir, we’re fresh out. Of everything." The second server gestures helplessly toward Val’s table by way of explanation, which honestly does explain quite a lot.

Lucien sighs, settles for a bottle of wine and a small plate of appetizers that arrive looking distinctly like an afterthought, and turns his full attention to Brina, elbows on the table, chin propped in one hand.

"Give me the full rundown. Tribelands, one-oh-one. Everything you’ve got."

She blinks at him, caught off guard by the sudden focus. "E-Everything?"

"Everything."

She takes a breath, visibly gathering herself, and launches into it with the enthusiasm of someone who’s clearly been waiting her whole life for somebody to actually ask.

They go over who owns what, what goods move where and by which routes, customs and courtesies between the different clans, trade routes old and new, territory disputes going back generations, mating rituals she explains with a straight face that makes Lucien work very hard not to laugh, market prices for everything from dried fish to enchanted wool, seasonal festivals, and half a dozen ongoing border disagreements that apparently never actually got resolved so much as everyone involved simply got bored of arguing and quietly agreed to disagree forever.

She explains that the otter-kin control most of the river trade and guard it jealously, that the boar-kin mind their farmland like it’s sacred ground, that the tortoise-kin elders settle most serious disputes purely because nobody else has the patience to out-wait them in negotiation, and that absolutely nobody, under any circumstances, insults a tiger-kin’s cooking to her face, not even accidentally, not even as a joke.

Lucien soaks up every single word, refilling her wine glass the moment it dips low, nodding along like a man taking dictation from a particularly gossipy, extremely well-informed industry insider, occasionally scribbling a note directly onto a spare napkin whenever a number or a name catches his interest.

Hours slip by unnoticed.

The appetizers vanish entirely.

The first wine bottle empties and gets quietly, efficiently replaced by a server who’s clearly decided this table, at least, is manageable.

Then that one empties too.

"You’re very good at this," he tells her, somewhere around the third bottle, genuine admiration creeping into his voice.

She beams at the compliment, sitting up a little straighter, clearly pleased with herself, and keeps talking without missing a beat.

A burp finally rattles the cutlery on every table in the room, loud enough to still every ongoing conversation at once.

All eyes turn, as one, to Valgereth. Stomach bulging well past anything resembling reasonable limits, one hand raised in the air like he’s flagging down an emergency healer, face gone a faint, concerning shade of green around the edges.

"Val?" Lucien calls, half-rising from his seat in legitimate concern. "You good?"

"Does he... need help?" Serenith asks, genuinely alarmed now, wings tensing like she’s ready to fly over.

Val sucks in a breath that seems to physically pull half the remaining air out of the room, chest expanding to an alarming degree, then releases a burp that shakes the building down to its very foundations, rattling glassware on every table, capped off with a small puff of flame that sets a nearby stack of napkins gently alight.

He sighs, long and deeply satisfied, patting his own distended stomach with real affection. "Best meal I’ve had in three hundred years."

The remaining crowd, those who’d stuck around purely to witness the spectacle, erupts into spontaneous cheers, and Val, despite every ounce of his usual stoicness, gets visibly swept up in the moment, flinging a generous handful of gold coins into the applauding mob and making them cheer even louder.

A few of them are already, alarmingly, composing what sounds suspiciously like an impromptu drinking song in his honor, something with far too many rhymes for "gravy."

He tolerates exactly four bars of it before scowling hard at the noise and barking at everyone.

"I need to digest in peace! And possibly take a nap for five years."

"That should keep him out of trouble for a few days, at least." Lucien says as he slumps back in his chair, laughing hard enough that his ribs ache. "Maybe a week, if we’re lucky."

Brina, cheeks flushed pink from the wine, glances between the two of them, brow furrowing as something finally clicks into place. "Wait. What exactly are you two? You keep talking about... territories, and business partners, and one of you just set the tablecloth on fire with a burp."

"Sorry... never properly introduced myself, in all the chaos." Lucien extends a hand across the table, grinning. "Lucidius. Demon Lord of the Ashlands. Lucien, to friends."

Her mouth falls open, slow and complete, gaze flicking rapidly between him and Val, then back again, like she’s trying to physically reconcile the words with the men sitting in front of her.

"You’re being serious."

He grins wider and nods, entirely nonchalant.

Her face goes completely, utterly blank. Then she erupts up from the table and sprints straight for the door without another word, knocking over her own chair in the process and leaving it spinning slowly on one leg behind her, wine glass still sloshing on the table.

Serenith doubles over laughing, wings fluttering hard just to keep herself airborne through the fit of it, tears actually gathering at the corners of her eyes.

Lucien sighs, watching the door swing shut behind her, shaking his head slowly.

"That is starting to become a concerning habit." he mumbles into his glass.

"A very entertaining one," Serenith manages, still wheezing, wiping at one eye. "Did you see her face?!"

Val, thoroughly unbothered by the entire exchange, reaches across the wreckage of the table for the last of the gravy.