Brand II

Brand II

Brand traversed the stone lined halls with a number of guards trailing diligently behind him, every now and then a waiter or serving girl would pass by with a plate or pitcher full of something or another, Brand's stomach growled loudly but he would not permit himself to eat from their stores. He wondered when he had grown so proud? Being a low born meant you had to show more manners and humble yourself more so than those of favorable birth, but why? So that the high may permit the low to live? Well the high had already taken whatever 'lowly' rights he had to life away from him already, what use is humbling himself now? Following the servers and the heavy aroma of food cooking on open flames, Brand cornered hallway after hallway before he found himself at the open kitchens door.

A man stood amidst two rows of cooking stations lined from one end of the wide room to the other, he was pale and ginger and portly, but his gruff and chiseled facial features lead Brand to believe he was a captain of arms at first if it were not for his pristine white cooks garb with a fitting but slanted chefs hat. He was shouting out orders to his chefs and servers alike, he looked none too pleased and given how loud and scary the man seemed, Brand was beginning to regret his defiance before his punishment had even begun.

"Chef Oden, Halton deems the boy fit for punishment and has sent him to you." One of the guards spoke from behind him, Brand winced involuntarily as the head chefs wrath was now directed his way. The chef looked Brand over, a burrowed frown forever on his face but none more pronounced than it was right now.

"Sent him to me? That blastered Halton, doesn't he know I'm busy cooking food for 30 odd guests?! He damn well should be since he's fucking eating it all! Food doesn't just poof onto your plate you know, it takes time, dedication and SKILL to whip up these kinds of dishes!" Oden raged as he tasted a soup one of his female chefs brought to him, never taking his piercing eyes from Brands masked face. "Good, needs a dash more salt but is ready to serve once garnished." Brand watched the chef scurry away with a small smile on her plump lips. "How about you boy, what do you need? Would that I could taste you and tell, but alas they'd have me in a dungeon or gallows by nightfall." Brand winced more so from the look the ginger chef was giving him than the words.

"I.." Brand swallowed, where had all his pride gone to? Now is no time to fray like a scolded boy. "I refused to eat from the plates you have served me." Brand thought it impossible for Oden's frown to furrow any deeper, but it did all the same. "Not because I am ungrateful, but because I do not sit at a guests table, I am more hostage than guest, more **** than soldier." Brand found the courage to say his truth, Oden scared him but the words came out unbidden and strong. Oden sighed deeply as he stroked his ginger beard, some of the furrow in his frown undone.

"We serve you not as a guest, nor as a hostage, neither **** nor soldier - we just serve, and what we served you was precious food that took hard labor to produce, now look at me boy." Oden said the last part sharply, Brand had been more interested in a plate of food and had let his eyes wander whilst the chef scolded him, returning his gaze to the Ginger chef he saw a knowing look on his chiseled face. "There's nothing in this world more precious than food, if you had seen a starving man you'd know it to be true. I'd like to see you justify your childish reservations and pride to such a man, look him good and well in the eyes as you squander the life giving grub he so desperately desires." Oden frown furrowed once more, casting deep lines and wrinkles across his sturdy face. Brand had the decency to be ashamed of himself at the older mans words, but he was wrong about one thing, he had seen starving men before, whilst he lived in a small logging village, there had been no end to battles fought nearby and with the battles had come the famines. Some of his neighbors had starved to **** over the winter, he and his 'family' were only spared the same fate because their trade was farming and not logging. His thoughts also drifted to the pack of wolves he and mostly Arthur had slain on that mountain, those wolves were so starved they had eaten one of their own brothers when he had burnt the wolf with his mandate.

"You may have the right of it." Brand finally finished, he had heard a passing noble utter this once to another of his noble companions as they perused his villages meager wares and found it to be a fitting way of conceding the point with some dignity. The chef chuckled at that, his belly bouncing up and down as his eyes and the lines of his cheeks cracked with even more lines and wrinkles.

"Traveling with these lords has certainly trained your tongue if nothing else. Come, you were eyeing this plate of food weren't you? I won't have a man go hungry under my roof, not for pride nor petulance." The chef kicked a nearby table on its hind legs and Brand watched it scitter and scrape across the smooth stone floor until it gently bumped into the crude wooden table that lay nearby. Brand looked back but was blind sided as the chef walked past him carrying the plate of food to the table along with a two pronged fork and a sharp knife.

"What? Do you need a waiter to hold the chair out for you? I suppose your travels really have turned you into a lordling!" Oden finished with a laugh, Brand reddened ever so slightly at the jab and wasted little time to seat himself in the chair. "I'll see to the boy for now, you may return to your posts, but not before you grab yourself a leg or a breast, and I mean chicken not server you damned cretins." The guards all laughed as they ripped pieces of meat from a freshly carved chicken and returned back to the halls all in good spirit. Brand wasted no time on chowing down on his food, it was a meager meat gravy pie with potatoes and vegetables, but it was the best meal he'd ever tasted bar none, the meat was so tender it practically melted in his mouth, and gravy was strong and odorous he couldn't permit himself to waste a drop. Whilst he shoveled mouthful after mouthful into his face, the older chef took a seat at the head of the table just diagonally to him and watched him eat.

Once Brand had finished his plate, he looked up to the see the chef smiling tenderly at him. "Enjoy your meal?" He said, Brand nodded and smiled behind his mask. "Nothing is more precious than food, some would have you believe their mandate is more important than anything else, but I've watched great men with powerful mandates starve all the same without food." Oden said with a look on his face Brand could not understand. Brand thought back to his mandate, if powerful men could starve then what were his chances with such a weak mandate? As if sensing his distress Oden put his hand over a cup.

"Watch this boy." Oden's hands began to glow a faint white as a stream of liquid poured from his hands into the cup. "It is said that a mans mandate can come from a need or a desire, some men live their whole life without ever being granted one, others are born with theirs, and then there are men like me who acquire them half way through their life, through a desire we are granted powers from the gods, and this is mine." Oden removed his hands to reveal a cup of... milk? Brands eyes widened at the sight, he had heard of mandates that could tear the earth asunder, mandates that could pull lightning from the sky, but he'd never heard of a man who could magic milk out of the palms of his hands before.

"Expecting something more powerful, more grandiose were you?" Oden asked with a bit of anger to his voice, Brand shook his head quickly which made Oden laugh. "That's alright boy, I don't need to be like Oak Helm the Strong, or Mageus the Inferno to be called powerful, if we three were stranded on an island, who would you think is more powerful? The man who can turn his body into living wood, the man who can turn the skies black with smoke and flames, or the man who can produce milk at will?" Oden asked with a sly smile on his lips. When Brand did not answer, Oden carried on.

"So, what mandate do you have? To be sent to the academy as a commoner you must have a pretty good one." Oden drank from his own cup, the thought of Oden drinking a milk that came from his own hands made Brand feel a little queasy but he answered all the same.

"Flames." Brand shuddered as he recalled that darkened room. "But they are weak, not like Mageus the Inferno at all. They come out as wisps that barely match my finger tips for size, nothing like his inferno's that block out the sun." Brand confided in the ginger chef, he had decided that he liked him enough to be truthful with him. The chef stroked his beard again as he thought for a time. "Show me, I have good experience with flames as a chef so I will be the one to decide if they are weak or not." Oden finally said, Brand gave him a troubled look but Oden spoke up before he could voice them "Have no worries, if they are weak as you say then there will be no harm done to my kitchen. And if they are powerful, well then you'll get to see a right funny show of me putting your flames out with my milk." His smile broadened with that and he began to chuckle. Brand laughed too as the thoughts of seeing this hardened chef spilling milk on an open flame like a bastardized firefighter.

Nodding, Brand stood up and channeled his mandate into his hands, it took a lot out of him but he managed to cast a continuous burst of blue flames from his index finger as he pointed it upwards. He could only manage it for all of five seconds before the flame withered into regular orange and and then poofed from existence. It was then that Brand noticed the other chefs had stopped their work only to watch him, he looked back to Oden to see his expression unchanged, none telling. 'So they were right, those commoners, my mandate truly is weak.' Brand thought to himself as he sat himself down once again, happy to rest from his exertion.

"You're an interesting boy, Brand, I should like to be able to see what kind of a man you become after the Academy molds you." Oden pats him on the shoulder and gets up. "And you think those flames are weak? Get up Brand and come with me, I wish to educate you on something." Brand wasn't sure what Oden was getting at but he followed him anyway. Oden lead him over to a cooking pot that was currently brewing a fresh batch of stew meant for the servers, it was currently on a gentle boil, the bubbles in the stew popping to the surface gently and with a soft noise to it.

"You see that orange flame? See how wide the flame is at the base, how tall it dances?" Oden asked looking to the boy, Brand nodded. "Now watch." Oden twisted with some knobs and dials and the flame began to turn blue, the size of the flame shrunk considerably, it shrunk in width and the flames no longer danced tall, instead they now jutted out like a spear head in perfect form and unity. Then Brand noticed it, first came the sound, no longer a soft roiling, now it was a screaming pitch as the bubbles popped loudly and droplets of stew began to jump out of the pot and land onto the floor, then he peered inside and saw as the gentle boil turned into a raging rumble of scolding stew, and all because of that little blue flame?

"What is your name boy?" Oden asked with a grin on his face.

"Brand." Brand responded quietly, transfixed on the blue flames that burnt strong and steady under the cauldron.

"I shall remember the name, I expect one day I'll be hearing of it again."