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Cor opened his eyes at the crack of dawn as he usually did, thinking there was absolutely nothing different about this new day.
Then he acknowledged the delicious smell of brewed coffee and scrambled eggs that wafted into his bedroom.
That was the only time that he remembered: he had a guest.
He normally slept in the nude, and went about his indoor morning rituals without needing to put on a scrap of clothing.
But he had a guest this time. So he hurriedly put on his trousers -
Then he remembered who his guest was.
He scoffed at himself for even considering not putting on clothes, just because his guest couldn’t see if he was wearing anything or not. It was a matter of propriety. Of course he had to put on clothes...
(He supposed this was what retirement and growing old felt like: being so set in one’s ways, the smallest inconveniences seemed huge.
(It had been over two years since he was last around anyone else, much less someone younger. He mentally prepared himself for the sting of this blow to his ego to linger.)
He sighed, and finished dressing up without ceremony. A simple white shirt and dark trousers ought to serve.
***
A smile and a nod greeted him from behind the kitchen counter. “Good morning, Marshal.”
“Cor,” he corrected. “Good morning, Ignis.”
He wondered for a second how Ignis could have known he was standing in the doorway. But he supposed he had made enough noise to be detectable. The opening of his bedroom door alone must have alerted his guest to his approach.
It seemed that Ignis had been up and about for a while. When Cor found him, he was already wiping down the counter. The things he had used to cook were already neatly stacked in the kitchen sink, ready for washing. And the food he had prepared was already on two plates set on the small four-person dining table, still steaming hot.
If not for the fact that Ignis used one hand first to move ahead and inform the movements of the other, the one holding the washcloth that he used to wipe the counter clean, Cor would not have thought he was vision-impaired. He moved with such confidence, it was difficult to remember he couldn't see.
“Apologies if I surprised you,” Ignis continued. “I made it a point to wake up early so I could memorize the interior of your house. I would rather not need to use my cane when I’m indoors, and I'd rather not break anything by accident.”
“Noted. No need to apologize.” Cor glanced at the dining table. “I see you’ve made breakfast. You shouldn’t have bothered.”
Ignis shrugged. “I usually cook breakfast for myself at around this time, anyway. And it’s nothing fancy - just a vegetable omelette.”
Just a vegetable omelette, he says, Cor said to himself. That a blind man in a stranger’s kitchen managed to prepare anything at all fascinated him. It even appeared that Ignis had no trouble finding everything he needed.
Cor’s vegetables, all freshly gathered from his backyard garden, were stored in different places. Some were hanging from the ceiling. Others were stashed in airtight bins. Ignis had managed to find everything usable for omelette-making purposes.
He had also found Cor’s stock of eggs gathered from the wild, and chosen a small chickatrice one. Cor had been loath to cook his gathered eggs in the past, because he hated having to freeze food for later consumption, or having to eat the remnants of a dish quickly, before it went bad. And eggs gathered from the wild tended to be on the large side.
But the one Ignis had picked out was just right for breakfast for two people. There were also fresh fruits in a bowl, neatly cut up into bite-sized pieces. Plus coffee in one of the decorated clay pitchers that Cor rarely used.
All this was certainly a little more “fancy” than the breakfasts Cor prepared for himself. He normally reserved the tedious task of cooking for later meals; for breakfast, he only had a bag of oatmeal in the cupboard.
Fortunately, Ignis ignored this in favor of tastier fare that was far more complicated to fix up.
“Please have a seat,” Ignis instructed. “I’ll join you shortly. It would be good to start eating before the dish gets cold.”
“You usually prepare your own meals?” Cor asked as he pulled up a chair for Ignis first, then himself, at the dining table.
“Regularly,” his guest answered. “I find it’s a good way to awaken the senses, if I do it first thing in the morning. Especially since that’s also the time when I make coffee.”
Ah, coffee. Truth was, though he was always fond of coffee, Cor had not been fond of making coffee for himself in the cottage, because fresh beans were hard to find. The ones he had in stock were quite old and already had a flat, earthy taste to them. And he didn’t always have milk purchased from farmers in Leide to make it a bit more bearable.
Yet somehow, Ignis managed to make his old coffee smell and taste good. Even without milk. There might have been a little bit of sugar, and a bit of other things - cinnamon? Nutmeg?
“Quite good,” he noted with some surprise, after his first sip.
Ignis smiled again. “Thank you. Forgive me, but I noticed the grains were a bit stale. So I used a pinch of salt, and opted for a stovetop brew.”
“Salt?” Cor’s eyebrows rose. He glanced down at the clay mug in his hands, as if expecting to see grains floating on the surface of the black liquid in it.
“Among other things. I couldn’t read the labels on the spice bottles, of course, so I went by smell. It was easy. All your herbs appear to be fresh...”
“I harvest them from my garden and dry them myself,” Cor matter-of-factly said. He took another sip of the blessedly tasty coffee, then picked up his wooden fork and took a bite of the omelette.
It was delicious.
Ignis had sat down and begun to eat, as well. If he was as impressed with his own cooking as Cor was, his face didn’t show it.
“The wooden cutlery and clay containers,” Ignis conversationally began at the table, “I presume they’re handmade?”
“Everything in here is handmade,” Cor replied. “By me. So I apologize in advance for any shortcomings.”
“I’ve spotted no shortcomings so far,” Ignis admitted. He probably should have figured it out earlier. All the doorways, windows, furniture were customized for a man of Cor’s exact height.
Yet Ignis affected the amused air of someone who had trouble imagining Cor knowing how to operate anything apart from weapons.
Cor supposed this was understandable. When he was still in active service, Cor was aware, some younger Crownsguard cadets made fun of him behind his back, because he wasn’t always up to date. He could barely operate a smartphone. And seemed to have no concept of the latest fashion trends or modes of speech.
He had always been able to brush it off. But this time, when there were no actual kids around being cruelly petty, it was a bit unsettling. Ignis was widely known to be one of the more clever persons in service to the Lucian crown, and he clearly had his own formidable talents.
Was he ridiculing Cor, in his mind?
“An advanced security system to protect the perimeter. Solar panels for basic heating and lighting tasks. A functional toilet and shower, sourced from a nearby stream.” Ignis seemed to have made a list in his head of things to admire about Cor’s new domicile. “It’s ingenious.”
Well. Cor had never had anyone over before. So he had never had anyone praise the small cottage he had built with his own two hands, in the middle of nowhere.
It was a good feeling.
“There are still no phones or stable electricity here,” he pointed out, to temper the self-congratulatory mood that Ignis had put him in. “There’s no working grid near enough to connect to. I have a two-way radio that reaches as far out as Hammerhead, where former Glaives and Crownsguard could reach me - that’s enough for me.”
“That ought to be enough for anyone,” Ignis agreed. “If I were retired, this is exactly what I’d want for myself. A place of my own, far away from the trouble. Surrounded by things I’ve made.”
So it seemed his guest did not just come to regale him with one of the best meals he’d had in over two years -
He also came to make Cor feel good about his personal accomplishments.
Cor smiled, though he knew Ignis couldn’t see it. He was suddenly thankful he had dressed up for this.