Day 19

Ofelia took a sip of wine, angling her head and the rim of the cup so as to conceal the lower end of her face like a mask while taking only minute sips at her leisure without breaking eyecontact with the orc all the meanwhile.
"You certainly have a way with words, Bess." Ofelia said from behind the goblet, "Would you kindly use your eloquence to actually answer the question?"
"Your words are heavy with accusations, lass. And yet all I have done was to perform my duties as a host, to delight and entertain my guests! Rejoice, my friends! And partake from this feast! My wine is your wine! My bread is your bread! I am witholding nothing as you can plainly see, so if you ever were to find my words flighty then it really says more about you than me!"
"Oh? Did I offend you? I'm ever so sorry. That sure wasn't my intention." Ofelia said, plopping the goblet down on the table, "If ever I thought you had a lot to hide, then it was only because you keep hidden where you are from so numerous people. Us included. Though I feel I should mention that, yet again, you didn't see fit to give a satisfactory answer."
The orc's face curled into a frown of disappointment, which broke suddenly into one of her signature boisterious laughters, "Ahahaha! Lass, with how nosey you are, it is proof like no others that nature indeed has a sense of irony! It would have been far too appropriate to give the nose on your pretty face to me, and the snout of a pig to you! But if nothing sates your curiosity, unless I spell it out, then I am obliged to do so!" The orc raised her cup, and one of her servants approached with the amphora, pouring the sweet crimson into her goblet, "The life of an outlaw, even those that band up, is cruel, brutish and short... Under normal circumstances. That certainly was how the Malort Bandits lived, until we were whipped in shape by a certain man. A man who rose to become our leader. A man who lead us into glory and prosperity! That is how we came to live as the kings we always knew ourselves to be! "

"Ah, that would be this Cornelius fella, right?" Thomas pointed out, "The man you claimed resembled me so."
"He did so, he did. Always ready to action. Always ready to take a stance. And yet he believed that anyone can be his friend... Even if they declare themselves your enemy. I would have sworn that if I so lived for a thousand years, never again would I have met a man like him... Had not Lil Tommy here run straight under my snout. And so I am left with a conundrum; if this world is evidently crawling with men like Old Cornelius, then why are tales of their greatness so rare?"
Simon wrapped his napkin over the tip of three fingers and ran it across his mouth , "Elementary, Bess. The foremost graves are always dedicated to the men and women whose bravery is most renowned."
"Hey!" Thomas said, putting his piece of rye bread on his plate, "I... Don't know if I should take that as a compliment or not."
Bess laughed uproarously, slapping her knee, "That's all too true though. Why if that hadn't been the case, then he may well have been in our company with this feast tonight!"
Bess raised her cup high over her head as if it was a torch of victory, "TO CORNELIUS! TO ALL MEN AROUND THE WORLD WALKING THE SAME PATH AS HIM! AND TO BROTHERHOOD!"
The dozen or so people in the room dropped whatever they were preoccupied with to roar together in what they imagined as unison, but turned into a loud and chaotic rabble of roughly the same idea as they raised their earthware to the toast, gulping the contents down .
The orc whipped her head back and poured wine from her goblet into her mouth, slamming the cup to the table with a satisfied gasp.
Everyone in the table raised their cup to the toast, apart from the sheep girl who raised the bottle of absinthe the bandits gave her to replace her old bottle of rum. They all chugged down their respective bevarages.
Thomas hadn't drunk anything that night, and in the excitement he ended up drinking all the content of the cup from the brim to the bottom until not a drop remained, all in a single swig. When he parked his cup on the table he had a grimace of disgust and revulsion on his face, though no trace of regret.
He shook his head and tapped his chest with his fist, before following the orc's gasp with a sigh of mixed relief and delight himself.

The orc raised her hands before herself in an almost sanctimonious manner, "From this night on, and for all nights to come, you are my brothers and sisters. Consider yourselves honorable members of the Malort Bandits! There is not one of you for which I would not hesitate one moment to give my life for! Now, eat to your heart's content! You are with family here!"
Thomas chuckled, "Thank you most kindly, ma'am. Forgive an old sailor for getting sentimental, but it brings joy to my old heart to once again feel like part of a family. I still hope to once again hear from my son, but he scarcely knows where I am and what I've been up to. Why, he probably wouldn't even believe me if I told it to his face. It's times like these that I can't help to think what the folks back in my old hometown of Hendmoor would say if they got wind of my little misadventures. Why, old lady Margaret and Meridith would probably have a field day! Them gals don't do anything but gossip all day long, ahaha. 'Oh, the gall of that man,' they'd say, 'not only is he running errands for the Demon Lord after being recussitated by horny monster girls, for standing up against a monster slayer of the Church and fighting to the ****; but he ends up dining with a band of outlaws, who then adopts him into their family! The audacity of that man! He never learns, does he?' Oh, I can just see their faces when they learn of this, ahaha..."

"Thomas..." Simon shot Thomas a sympathetic smile, "When you fought against Lydia, that was the stupidest, most bull-headed behaviour I've ever seen. Nonetheless, what I saw was bravery beyond that of any warrior. Any bufoon can run towards danger if it means running away their problems. But to face your problems head on when it really matters... That is what true courage means."
"Got 'im good I did, right?" The little awkward gremlin cackled, earning her a snort and threatening glare from the bandit leader.
"You made some remarkable progress, Thomas." Ofelia smiled towards Thomas, "Does that mean you might put yourself out there and find a mamono wife to make you happy?"
Thomas cleared his throat, "Give it some time, will you? Fine, I suppose that I've got a bit of a problem there. Forgive an old sailor his bullheadednes, will you? But... The time I spent with Mildred really was the best time of my life. If I found someone else, will she really be able to make me that happy? And if she can, what will that tell me about the love I felt for my Mildred? I just don't know... And I don't think I'm ready to find out. But for the first time in twenty-seven years, I want to."
"That's fine, Thomas." Ofelia said, "Wanting to grow, and move on, is a big step in and of itself. Just know that many mamono are looking for an eligible bachelor, and not all of them are willing to wait."
"That's their problem!" Thomas declared, "And if they insist on making that my problem then I'm afraid they're going to be more the sorry!"

"Trouble moving past your old lady, huh?" The porcine woman said with a laugh, "You really are the spitting image of Old Cornelius! I'd call you twins, but at least twins tend to have different women and different problems with women... Most of the time anyway! Ahahaha!!"
"Ah, I figured you and him would be a couple the way you fawn over him, Bess." Simon said.
"Bah! I wish! More than once I tried getting my paws on him, but no! He's stuck in the past, just like Lil' Tommy over there! Only for Old Cornelius, it all seemed a lot more... Ominous. As if, if he couldn't find some way to move past his loss, something truly awful was gonna happen."
"To him?" Simon asked.
"Yeah. Or to everyone around him." Bess raised her open palms between herself and the rest of the table, "Look, don't worry about it! That's just some gut feeling I've got about him! He's an amazing leader and good friend, and don't ever think I thought anything else about him!"
"Don't be so ready to discard your gut-feeling, Bess." Simon pointed his fork at the pig lady, "How do you think I figured out your little ambush to begin with? When I saw the log, but couldn't find the stump of that log, I immediately knew something was up."
"Besides." Ofelia chimed in, "Something awful did happen. He was caught in the dragon attack. Do you have any idea if Cornelius was involved in this in some way...?"
Having pushed the entire rest of the pork leg into her mouth, Bess pulled the clean bone out and gently tossed it on her plate, "Ehehe.. Girl, you got a talent to ask one of them questions that's really hard to answer! I really don't know! We expected that something was gonna happen, but this... No, it couldn't have been that."

"It couldn't have been what?" Thomas asked, "Forgive an old sailor his curiousity, but right now we don't know anything at all about the dragon attack. Let's try and figure out as much as we can about it, and later we'll figure out what is and isn't relevant. That's what I'm thinking."
"I think Thomas is right." Simon said, "Any preconceived notions of what we do and don't need to know, at this point in time, can only harm our investigation. If there is anything that can possibly help us, Bess, then please. It's better to tell us upfront."
"Please..:" Ofelia leaned in on the table towards Bess, using her very best sad puppy dog face, "You'd do it for your brothers and sisters, right?"
"...Fine. But try to keep this to yourselves. Think of it as a spring-board to your investigation. If it turns out this'll clue you in on whatever's going on, all the better... But let's keep this between ourselves." Bess signalled for the group to gather closer as Bess leaned in. The rest of the group gathered closer, meeting each other near the center of the table. This included Lydia and the sheep girl.
Once they were in whispering distance, the orc indulged her secret...