Sage looked up with the expression of a child stealing cookies, only to look into the face of a confidently grinning, young Elf with white hair and a caramel-toned skin. She had brushed her hair now, revealing that what Sage had identified as untidily cut was actually a traditional elfish haircut, which mourners wore. Her left eye was covered by a streak that was slightly longer then the bang over the right brow. All in all she was the embodiment of a young, conservative Elf, even wearing a traditional Dyun, a wide, armless top with no cleavage that obstructed any idea of her body’s shape, if it weren't for the green skirt she was wearing.

She walked over to him, around the kitchens counter to stand close to him, glooming threateningly into his face..

“I was against helping you, y'know? You can't even be left alone for a single day without stealing your saviour Clan’s possessions.” said the Elf girl with the confidently aggressive tone of someone who felt superior.

“I'm just hungry. How did you even know I was here?” Sage tried to object, but the Elf interrupted him by a bunch of stuttering noises and raised her finger as if she was about to make a statement to him.

“You cannot just walk into the kitchen and steal the Clan’s food. As Grandniece of the Clan’s Leader, I'm obligated to report this.” she said with a truly bossy undertone. But then she took another breath and a friendlier, almost playful smile took root on her lips. “UNLESS that is… you agree to help me with the breakfast preparations.”

Sage gave her a confused look, followed by a not less confused “Eh..?”

The Elf pushed her hands into the hips and responded: “Like hell I'm going to let this chance slip to get some extra help on the kitchen service this morning.”

Her tone was still as confident as before, but much less threatening.

Sage gave her a mistrustful look, then nodded to the pan and the eggs again: “Does this mean I'm allowed to fry these?”

“Go ahead.” the girl stated. “... but I’ll get my share.”

Sage nodded. This was probably a much better offering then he could've expected and much better than being reported to the clan leader... or whoever was responsible for the supplies in this clan.

While he was cracking the eggs open and dropped them into the pan, the girl sat down on the kitchen counter watching him with the curiosity of a child observing a foreign animal’s behavior. Sage did not have to ask to get her to talk again.

“So... the Human who lost his memories...” she said, obviously as a conversation starter.

Sage glanced up from the pan, giving the girl a surprised look. She just smugly smirked back from her significantly heightened position.

“Don't be so shocked.” the girl said. “We haven't sheltered Humans here in.... a lot of years, I guess. And my Granduncle only agreed to it, because you were able to ask for it in the traditional elfish way. Either you're the most elaborate spy ever sent into such a boring 3rd class tribe like ours or you are an ally in serious trouble...”

Sage swallowed quietly, focusing on turning and salting the egg in the pan properly. He didn't like where this was going.

“So... which one is it?”, she asked, obviously determined to keep this conversation going, even though it was more a monologue at this point.

Sage sighed and lowered his head, understanding she was not going to stop.

“If only I knew that...” he replied short-spoken.

A grin was her reply, a surprisingly curious, youthful grin: “Alright. Keep your secrets. I will find it out anyways. After all, I have sufficient material to blackmail you now.”

Sage rolled his eyes in slight annoyance on this never ending flow of words coming from the elves mouth. He could not deny though how charismatic and well-spoken she was.

Either she has trained this a lot or she was a naturally talented conversationalist.

“It's... just a few eggs.” Sage tried to justify himself as he pulled the pan off the stove. Before he could even get one of the eggs, the Elf girl had already pulled out a fork from the counter and skillfully lifted one of the eggs onto her plate.

Sage recognized she was teasing him, testing if he was going to fight back again on her micro-aggressions.

“What even is your name?” he asked while trying to pull the remaining eggs onto his own plate using a fork. Unfortunately as it turned out, Sage severely lacked the dexterity in his hand, which the Elf had displayed.

“Kyu.” the girl responded. “Kyu Ptaha...”

“I would introduce myself now...”, Sage responded as he crammed pieces of what were once pretty good looking fried eggs onto his bread. “... but apparently you already know everything about me.”

Kyu laughed slightly: “Actually, I know precisely nothing about you.”

“See?” Sage asked with a bitter undertone in his voice. “This is precisely how much I know about myself. And now if you would excuse me...”

Sage sunk his teeth into the bread and eggs in front of him, feeling a deep satisfaction from the mere taste of something which registered as ‘real food’. He forgot about the manners, which he didn't know where he learned them from and demolished the meal before Kyu would even finish her first egg. She gave him an amused grin in response to that display.

“I think we should add more beans to our diet, as long as you're here...” Kyu said. “Even though they aren’t so popular with the kids.”

“Beans?” Sage asked, while suppressing a slight cramp in his belly.

Kyu nodded swiftly: “Yeah, rich in proteins. I knew you Humans need a lot of it, but I didn't know it was this severe.”

Sage sighs and scratched his head: “Yeah... I didn't know either.”

Kyu smiled and picked up another piece of egg on her plate, pushing it into her mouth. After a short break she grinned: “Alright... break time is over. Go into the cellar... third door on the left side. We have our fruit supplies there. I need 3 kilograms of strawberries, two kilograms of peaches, 10 loaves of white bread, 6 bunches of bananas, a kilo of gadaias and 8 liters of yogurt.”

As Sage did not immediately react, Kyu clapped twice and hushed him towards the cellar entrance.

“Go, go, we only have one and a half hours left and we need to be done with the pre-preparations before my Nan comes downstairs.”

Sage looked at the door confusedly but decided to follow Kyu’s order to keep the peace and earn his eggs on bread. As he entered the cellar the first thing he noticed was how new it looked. Modern compared to the rest of the building and illuminated by neon tubes, giving it an almost bunker-esque vibe. Sage was even more irritated when he looked left and right and saw modern doors with digital locks lining up against the wall. Only as he walked down the floor a bit, he encountered a door that could simply be opened by pulling on a doorknob. Freezing cold gushed into his face as he looked into the room and a light turned on, revealing a huge, cooling room with store-shelves lined up in aisles that carried a multitude of easily perishable foods.

He walked in and looked through the shelves, finding the gadaias first. It was a fruit native to Maranurr and very popular among Elves for their high amount of calories while still remaining heretically sweet. It had a long, almost pill-like shape and was roughly as big as a large human fist, with the largest one reaching the length of a child’s lower arm. Sage places two bags with 500 grams of weight on his arm and continued his search, soon finding large 2 liter canisters of natural yogurt on the ground. He picked one of them up and carried them quietly out of the cellar to Kyu who prepared some kind of oversized mixing machine in a corner of the room. Then he went back to get more supplies of the list and repeated the process. After his 3rd round he spoke up again: “Kyu, what's behind the security doors in the cellar.”

Kyu responded with one of her confident, mysterious smiles and said: “Oh wouldn't you like to know that?”

Sage wasn't having it. Standing in the kitchen with crossed arms he stared at her until she noticed him again.

Annoyed she said: “It's the lifeblood of this clan. It's heritage. It would be worthless to a human like you. Such as; religious artefacts, ancient tools and texts which we keep preserved. Stay away from it or I won't guarantee I’ll let you survive this.”

“She’s pretty radical...” Sage thought to himself as he turned into the cellar again to get strawberries. She didn't sound like she was sarcastic or even just exaggerating. It was weird to see such a young girl getting so pissed over a few pieces of very, very old stuff. On the other hand, Elves had a reputation for being ardently backwards on their customs and believes, something which got them a lot of trouble the humans that pursued a strictly progressive way of politics. He got back up again and placed the fruits very close to Kyu, to see what she was actually doing. It seemed that his previous observation was correct. It was indeed a giant mixer, which Kyu was filling with unnervingly large amounts of strawberries and sugar.

When she noticed Sage’s look she instantly hushed him away again.

“We still need more fruits. And when you're done with that, I need you to prepare the pudding.” she said.

“And what exactly do you do?” Sage asked, having no real idea how to actually cook a pudding.

“I make the fruit cocktail.” Kyu replied while taking the first round of yogurt out of the mixer and into huge pots. “Or at least start doing it. My Nan and Taym will help us at 7:30 am.”

Sage sighed and nodded surrendering. He went back downstairs and collected the rest of the ingredients for the yoghurt.

“How do you even pay for this?” Sage asked.

“Sharing...” Kyu responded simply. “Everything we collect in payments, welfare and wages is collected by the clan and we use it to buy everyone food and maintain this house.”

“That sounds quite unfair to those who work...” Sage instinctively objected.

“That sounds like something a Human would say.” Kyu responded nimble-witted.

“Touché...” Sage responded and sighed. Helplessly he looked around in the kitchen. Kyu followed his looks and drew some smart conclusions from it.

“You know how to fry eggs, but not how to make pudding. Interesting detail.” she noted. “Okay then, let's switch up tasks. You start cutting the pineapples and oranges and I will prepare the pudding...”

“Is she.... analyzing me?” Sage wondered when she watched the young Elf continue to rush through the kitchen as if she was doing this on a daily basis.

She went to pick up huge bottles of soy milk from below a kitchen counter, then got a pot with at least 50 liters of capacity and began filling it with the milk. Sage sat down and grabbed the Pineapple peeler next to him and started to peel the thick skin off the fruit. He made progress, slow, but steady and to his own surprise, didn't cut himself.

In the background, the milk was already foaming as Kyu started to fill in a powder that slowly began to solidify the milk. This was the moment when another person entered the room. Sage didn't even notice her at first, only when her hoarse voice echoed through the mostly empty kitchen, he looked up from the fruits in his hands.

“Good morning, Kyu...” she called.

It was an old Elf lady, with short, white hair, cut in the same manner as Kyu, which gave them an almost creepy family similarity. Even the clothing was similar, except her skirt was longer, and she wore a cotton jacket additionally to the dyun, which had a dark purple color. Also, the old elfish lady had the right side of her face entirely covered in elfish tribal tattoos and Sage had the sneaking suspicion that they continued over her entire body below the dress. The old woman noticed Sage before he could say anything.

“I see, you got yourself some help.” she said.

“Good morning, Nan...” Kyu responded and nodded. “Yes, Sage was kind enough to help me with my kitchen service. You know how much I hate it.”

“Indeed.” the old woman said. “Back in my days...”

Kyu let out a dramatically loud and annoyed moan, which made the older Elf stop talking and instead leave out a quiet, amused giggle. The elder Elf walked towards Sage, clearly scanning him as she came closer. Sage knew Woodelves had very good eyesight, better than humans at least, so she would probably noticed the spots of sticky juice all over the robe that the elves had given him, as well as perhaps the spots of fat that frying the eggs had left on his clothes. Would she judge him for it? Something told him she had some form of authority here.

“So, you're that human boy without memories.”

The way she said it was clearly telling him that this wasn't a question but a statement and Sage noticed the same kind of observant awareness, he had spotted in Kyu. He only nodded as a response. What else could he answer with?

A warmer smile appeared on her face and she said: “It does seem like nice Humans exist after all. I hope you find your memories soon, so we can get some clarity about you. My name is Hlaya. Hlaya Ptaha.”

Again, Sage nodded, but for the sake of politeness, he added: “Yes, I hope the same. And my name is Sage.... Sage... Smith, if I remember correctly.”

He actively had to recall the picture of his passport to know his name. This definitely wasn't normal.

Hlaya took some of the peeled pineapples from Sage and placed them on the kitchen counter, cutting them into small little pieces and collecting the juice that ran down the cutting board. A few, quiet minutes later another Elf, a man, maybe in his late 40s entered the room. Kyu’s Grandmother just strictly said: “You're late Taym. You let a Human and an old woman beat you in terms of working morale...”

This was clearly a pretty harsh criticism as the man gave Hlaya an offended look, but didn't dare to speak up further. The Elf referred to as Taym, seemed to confirm what Sage had suspected about the authority of Kyu’s Grandmother.

Quietly, the man got to the cupboards of the kitchen and took out long, but small spoons that looked like someone had just cut an empty wooden ball into two halves and attached them to the end of a stick. He picked up drinking glasses too and carried all of it into the dining room. Kyu and Sage only had one more opportunity to actually talk and it was a brief one when they both stood in front of the pudding pot and used ladles to fill the somewhat slimy goo into smaller pots.

“Hey Kyu...” Sage asked quietly and slightly afraid too. “How often do we actually have to do this kind of kitchen work?”

Kyu smiled: “Don't worry, the kitchen service rotates among the Elves who do not work on a daily basis. I have it roughly twice per month.”