[indent][b]Arlanna ap Tadgh[/b][/indent]
[hr]

It came to Arlanna as a moderate surprise that she had been granted the superior seat over that of her husband. Not that surprising, of course, since of course she was far more familiar with Aedthel than him, but surprising nonetheless. She had expected Aedthel to observe more [i]traditional[/i] practices than this. If he meant to communicate some kind of message through this decision, it was certainly an interesting one. Did he mean to suggest that he valued actions of loyalty over the authority of titles and traditions? Perhaps, or perhaps he merely preferred to sit closer to a friend rather than a stranger.

Of course, the vagueness of this message left room for fouler interpretations than her own; for the illusion of a veiled insult when no such thing was intended. Arlanna worried that Kerenatam might have come to such a conclusion, and so attempted to defuse the possibility before bad blood had a chance to fester. No doubt they had plenty of enemies at this summit already - it would be folly to encourage more, especially from those biased in their (or at least, her) favour.

"He means nothing by it," she murmured to Kerenatam "We have been friends for some years, whereas to my knowledge, he never met you - that is all. He means no insult either to you or your position, my love."

Matters only seemed to worsen when they learned how they were expected to prepare their own food. Kerenatam was a great warrior and a great leader, but his skills in the domestic arts were less impressive. Arlanna was internally debating whether giving him assistance would be less humiliating than allowing him to try by himself, in which case he would most likely fail. Was failure alone more honourable than victory with assistance in the culture of Aedthel's people? Arlanna did not know, but at a task as simple and menial as this one either was doubtless a cause for embarrassment.

Thankfully, Aedthel, or rather the one who spoke for Aedthel, managed to indicate that he was on Kerenatam's side in this unfortunate incident. With the offending member now dealt with, Arlanna took this opportunity to begin cooking her food. It was a necessary skill for a woman, at least of her culture, and she'd witnessed this particular practice several times when visiting Aedthel, even attempting it herself a few times, with an acceptable though unimpressive degree of success. Regardless, she hoped her husband would notice her doing this and subtly follow her lead, that he might seem capable without her or anyone else's assistance.