Breakfast and Coffee

The glow of the sun permeated the sky when Avery's nightmare finally relented, vanishing back into the dark corners of her mind. With a weary sigh, Ahsch finally released his concentration on Dreamweave, slouching back into the chair he was perched on. His eyes drifted closed, but with a shake, he **** himself up, quietly replacing the chair where he found it and making his exit, one final, brief brush against his wife's mind confirming that the pleasant dream he had woven for her, while not quite what he had been maintaining all night, was still present, the nightmare nowhere to be seen.

Gently shutting her door, the hrafthi slouched once again, his eyes drifting closed as he leaned. He allowed himself a moment of relaxation before he again **** himself to move. The sound of cutlery and dishes from the direction of the kitchen, and the smell of breakfast, drew him down the hall. There, he found some of the servants breaking their fast, earlier than Avery or himself and the girls did. A few started at his appearance, beginning to offer to fix him some food, but he waved them down, reassuring them that he would be fine.

After a few long moments of tired thinking, he started to pull together some utensils and ingredients. Avery likes simple, he sleepily recalled as he cracked a few eggs and started the heat enchantments on the stove top. After a few minutes, Butler made an appearance and headed straight for the hrafthi. It seemed the sleepy royal's presence in the kitchen had not avoided the head servant's attention. "Good morning, Lord Ahsch."

"Morning... Butler," came the yawn-interrupted reply.

A pause. "I don't believe I've ever seen you cook before."

Ahsch paused his whisking, too tired to think and act at the same time. "No, I suppose not," he finally agreed before resuming.

Another pause. "May I ask what occasion prompted this?"

A shrug. "Avery was... she seemed very upset yesterday. I want to try and make her feel better, and food from the people you care about and who care about you always seems to help, so... yeah."

A longer pause. Then, with just a hint of consternation. "May I ask what you're doing with that potato?"

Ahsch glanced over. It wasn't _quite _a potato, close enough as far as the Earth-born part of him was concerned. "Hash browns," he replied simply.

Butler didn't seem to have a response for that. Though the automata did try and assist, efforts that Ahsch flatly refused, or more frequently, interrupted and shooed away the servant. At least until he started to make a pot of coffee. "If you are going to insist on wasting perfectly good coffee, My Lord, the least you could do is prepare it the way that Lord Avery would."

Ahsch frowned at the wording, but was too tired to pursue his questions. "Well... tell me how then."

If magitechnological constructs could sigh, Butler would have. Then he proceeded instruct the hrafthi on how to prepare coffee like Avery would. Even with his fatigue-addled mind, Ahsch made a point to try and memorize it all, even roping his ever-present brain guest of a familiar into helping. Eventually, Ahsch had a simple breakfast of eggs, toast, hash browns, and a few cuts of ham, with a tray of coffee. A glance at the timepiece confirmed it was about the time that the rest of the House started to wake up, so he shook off some of his fatigue, **** his eyes open, and tried to put a little pep in his step as he carried the tray to Avery's bedroom.

A gentle knock on the door while balancing the tray precariously in one hand prompted a distracted-sounding, "Come in." Entering, Ahsch saw that his wife was sitting up in bed, looking towards her nightstand with a frown. A small, almost thimble-sized cup of some kind of herbal mixture sat beside an empty cup and an open kettle. "Butler, this isn't an extra..." she trailed off as she turned and saw Ahsch, blinked a few times in confusion, then raised an eyebrow. "What's all this?"

With an awkward smile and a shrug, he lifted the tray a little. "Breakfast," he announced. "You uh... didn't seem very happy last night, and I... well, I wanted to help." He shrugged. "It's not much, but it's what family does, right?"

There was a pause, not a contemplative, observant one like Butler had done before, but a confused, almost shocked pause as Avery just stared at him. "Yeah," she finally said, not sounding at all sure.

After another moment, Ahsch approached the bed, glad that he had managed to get the appropriate 'in-bed' tray as he set things up for his wife. Avery watched him with a bemused expression, but then fixed her eyes on the food and, once everything was set up, dug in with her usual gusto.

Even as she did so, she gestured for Ahsch to sit on the bed, and they made small talk. The hrafthi let his wife lead the conversation, not wanting to accidentally bring up anything that might remind her of the incident from the evening before. There would be a time and a place for that conversation, but in bed, over breakfast was not it. Instead, their topics of conversation ranged from quick bits of gossip about the Odestag servants, to complaining about a rival business she was dealing with, to some snippets of... well, 'gossip' about other royals may well be intel, given what Ahsch had learned last night. Even if the source was not a friendly one.

Regardless, it was pleasant, and oddly casual. Ahsch had to pause when he thought that. For sure, he and Avery had been sexually intimate, and in some ways they'd been intimate otherwise (revealing his entire reincarnative history and revealing her race were both pretty damn intimate things to the two of them), but for all her flaunting of rules and etiquette and acting casually, Avery wasn't exactly casual _with _anyone, except maybe Butler. Teasing and playful, for sure, but Ahsch had never seen his wife simply... be. And even though he could tell that her guard was up, as it always was, Heart Sight revealed that she was, in fact, at least a little bit happy.

And that put a small, contented smile on his face as he talked with his wife.

It wasn't until after she had finished and shooed him away, as he was taking the tray back to the kitchen, that Ahsch realized that the coffee was completely untouched. A realization that was further compounded when Butler swooped by with a larger tray for coffee for Ahsch, Ariin, and Mahat's breakfast, and knowingly snagged the pot, coaster, and cup without a second glance. The hrafthi stared for a long moment before shrugging and proceeded to bus the dishes. Maybe she just didn't want coffee that morning.

As he was finishing up, Avery came out, shot him a smile, and grabbed the jar of grounds. Ahsch watched surreptitiously as she proceeded to make herself a cup of coffee.