Wilde returned from mucking out the barn - it had needed it since he'd been stuck in Northcliff Pass for several days, but his priority when coming home had been milking the nannies. He was disheveled when he came in, bits of straw in his hair and after shrugging off his surcoat, he cleaned off his hands and face in a washbasin.

"Yet sprightly enough to make the journey here," he remarked, pointedly not mentioning it was the dead of winter. In the mountains. With a griffon who had a taste for human flesh flapping about.

"Something in the village must weigh on you. Is it the soldiers?"

There was, indeed, bread and stew. Rabbit, mushrooms, onions, carrots and parsnips. The rabbit meat was lean (to be expected in winter), but this was easily offset by the fact Wilde had cooked the whole thing with goatsmilk and cheese in the broth.

Surprisingly, there was also a bowl of chestnuts and dried fruit set out with the meal. He also poured a palmful of rock salt mixed with dried flowers into a metal offering bowl by the tallow candle. Old superstition, that if the Earth God deigned to dine with mortals they should feel welcomed. It also smelled pleasant, counteracting the ever present smell of of goat.