cooks soup + warms blankets

Two rough, callused hands reached out and came to rest around iron. The hands were mostly wiped clean of the dried blood of the battlefield, but red lines remained under the fingernails. The iron they touched was not the pommel of a sword or the curved face of a shield, but the cold metal belly of a stout stewpot. The hands felt the rough underside of the cauldron, touched the sturdy squat legs, glided over the heavy-handled lid and the ridiculously sized ladle hanging to one side, and found places on either side of the pot. There, resting gently against the metal, the hands imparted warmth. Steady heat flowed from the fingers and palms into black iron, and from the metal into the cold broth inside.

The broth slowly warmed, and eventually it bubbled, drumming the lid and allowing comforting aromas to escape. Smells of herbs and hearty tubers and sweet ripe alliums—they were a recipe of convenience, the ingredients amassed on a midmorning sortie by a few of Tazri's soldiers. It was prepared on-site, in the same place where titans had risen and titans had fallen—the field of battle that was now just a field.

Chandra released her hands from the sides of the pot and used her arms to shift in her not-terribly-comfortable makeshift seat. She took the excessively large ladle in one hand and opened the lid with the other. She had to stretch slightly to reach the top of the pot, and her goggles steamed as they just cleared the lip. She reached in and dipped generously into the goulash, to get at the good chunks that had settled, and raised up a brimming portion.

She served bowlfuls of breakfast from her seat until the line ran out. And when Tazri's scouts found more roots and herbs and filled the pot with more broth, she heated that, too, and she and others served seconds to everyone, and some had thirds.

***

Chandra looked at the blanket pile. She closed her eyes and centered herself. She hugged the blankets suddenly, her face squashing into the wool. And as her body encircled them, as her palms (mostly wiped clean of blood) pressed against the rough weave, the blankets warmed.

***

ZENDIKAR RESURGANT