Crow glanced at Gavin for a moment before looking away again. He wanted to stop the fighting between them, but that didn’t mean he wanted to try to befriend the knight. Whether or not Gavin appreciated his compliment meant little to the thief. He just hoped that it would be enough to lessen the tension between them and let the knight know that even though he didn’t like him, he wasn’t unwilling to work together. Of course, it was also entirely possible that the other man just assumed he was trying to manipulate him somehow, so he didn’t bother to say anything more on the subject.

A brief silence fell over them as Gavin distributed the bowls of stew. Offering a curt nod of thanks, Crow picked up his spoon and dipped it into the warm broth, stirring it slowly as it cooled. He was just about to lift a bite to his mouth, when he heard the knight ask Penelope what was wrong. Pausing in his tracks, he knitted his brow concernedly and turned to look at her to see what Gavin was talking about. For a moment, he worried that she was feeling sick from the alcohol she had drank, but that didn’t seem to be the case. She didn’t look ill; she almost seemed like she had been startled by something. He frowned, wondering what had made her look so alarmed.

[color=fff79a][b]“Uh... nothing.”[/b][/color] Penelope looked uncomfortable at the question. [color=fff79a][b]“But, uh... when thin’s die down, maybe you could teach me a bit about cooking… and, uh, whateve’ else you learned growing up with tha’ servant.”[/b][/color]

Crow blinked in surprise at her sudden request, and then flushed as the pieces fell into place in his mind. He averted his gaze, realizing that his earlier comment had included her too, even though that hadn’t been his intention. He hoped she didn’t think he was disappointed in her for something as simple as not knowing how to cook. She was already giving him more than he ever could have hoped for by simply agreeing to run away with him after the war. He couldn’t ask anything more of her on top of that.

The thief brought a spoonful of stew to his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. In all honesty, he hadn’t really thought about the specifics of what their lives would look like once the war was over. After all, it hadn’t been that long ago that he’d believed he would never settle down with any woman. Expecting to live alone, he hadn’t bothered to come up with any expectations for what he wanted in a wife. His childhood hadn’t been very conventional either. Since his mother had raised him by herself, he also didn’t have any preconceived ideas about what a “proper” family should look like. He supposed he could make some guesses based on what he had seen in families like Silas’s, but he had never been one to follow the lead of others to begin with. He preferred to abandon tradition to do whatever felt most natural for himself.

Sneaking a glance at Penelope, he studied her furtively from the corner of his eye. Though she seemed to be insecure about her ability to perform the tasks of a peasant housewife, he couldn’t see her taking on that role anyway. He remembered her telling him long ago that her father had believed she would make a better knight than wife of a nobleman, and the thief believed he had been right. He didn’t want her to feel like she had to settle for mundane work such as cooking and cleaning when her strengths lied in fighting and defending others. While there was no way for her to continue being a knight when she left to be with him, he was sure they would find some other way for her to use her talents for the people of the outer villages.

The rest of the supper went by quietly, only interrupted once by Zenith, who came over to tell them all that their sleeping quarters had been cleared out before she left to join her husband for bed. Crow finished off his food quickly as usual, and once Penelope was done too, he rose from the table and took her hand to lead her to the adjoining room, where he laid out his bedroll for them to sleep on. When that was done, he stood up again and peered into the other room. Gavin was washing the dishes, and it looked like he had convinced Olivia to help him too.

Turning back to Penelope, Crow stepped over to where she was standing and slipped his arms around her, pressing one hand to the small of her back and the other between her shoulder blades as he pulled her into a close embrace. He met her lips in a deep, yet tender kiss, trailing one hand from her shoulders up to the back of her neck. When he pulled away again, he met her gaze and smiled affectionately.

“I love you, Penelope,” he breathed, touching a gentle kiss to her forehead. “I don’t care if you can cook or manage a house. Honestly, you could be the worst chef in Brerra, and I would still want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He chuckled softly and ran his fingers through her long hair. “No one ever said any of those tasks would be your job anyway, so you shouldn’t worry about learning them all for my sake. I may not be as skilled as Gavin is with his fancy spices, but I do know how to prepare some simple dishes. So, until you learn how to cook—or even if you decide you don’t want to learn at all—I can take care of that for us, alright?”

He pressed one more kiss to her lips and then met her green eyes once more, “Don’t forget, we’re in this together. You don’t have to stress yourself out about the things you don’t know how to do, because I’ll be figuring it all out right alongside you. Whatever our life is going to look like, I’m sure we’ll make it work, just like we always have before.”