Breakfast was fish.
The compound cook had been making the same breakfast for as long as anyone in the compound could remember, which was a long time, the specific institutional continuity of someone who understood that the people they were feeding had strong opinions about disruption and had decided the safest policy was to simply not disrupt. Mountain trout, spiced heavily in the eastern style, with rice and the dark fermented paste that Vane had spent the first three days of the summer compound learning to tolerate and the last nine learning to prefer.
Mara ate it with the focus she gave things she was genuinely experiencing. She had been applying this quality to every meal in the compound since their arrival, which was the morning of the second day, and the cook had noticed and had been putting the best cut of the trout on her plate since the third meal without being asked.
Vane ate and looked at Ashe across the table.
