#hw coco

The thing about being the Ellenstein's knight was that there wasn't much to do. Andre mostly kept himself busy with whatever tasks the Regent sent him in the meantime, but on the rare occasion that Lady Ellenstein actually sent him to do something, it was always, always unexpected.

"Coco is being escorted by a real knight, Coco feels like a lady," the little fox oren with a giant backpack wiggled in delight.

Andre wasn't sure Lady Ellenstein had ever seen an oren fight seriously, or she would be much less cautious about sending one off traveling alone. Orens tend to have strength rather disproportionate to their size. This one even came prepared with explosives. Really, Andre was more worried about any bandits that might face her wrath than the other way around.

Andre got down on one knee and grasped Coco's hand, kissing the back of it and spoke, "I am Sir Andre Wolf, lady. It will be my pleasure to accompany you on this journey."

Andre held back his smile as Coco squealed and then cooed at him. Coco ruffled his hair with her free hand while he was at her height. "Magda's knight doesn't need to worry, Coco will keep Magda's knight safe." Maybe this would be more like a camping trip. An easy job for once, one where he doesn't have to kill anyone.

---

It was not like a camping trip. Coco was just as batty as the wild mages were.

Coco sat squatting over the corpse of an orc, digging around in the guts, black blood up to her shoulders as she moved things around, showing Andre all the different organs and explaining, in great detail, what each one did when set on fire. Apparently the purple fleshy mass that was the liver had to be dried next to their campfire, where they were going to eat, because if you ground it into a powder, cooked it with sugar, and then set it on fire, it burned long and slow and gave off a thick blue smoke. Andre had to turn away and gag when coco started digging out the eyes.

While he was happy he wasn't the one that had to kill it, he would have preferred to avoid the monster entirely. It was Coco who had taken one look at the beast and charged it with a yell. The battle was over before Andre could even draw his sword, but now they would be stopping at midday so that Coco could properly treat and store her trophies. What was meant to be a week's long journey may take a month at this rate. Was his job meant to be keeping Coco on track? Was that his real purpose here?

Coco made a noise of triumph as she found the hearts and cut them out. "Look, look!" she shoved the bloody organs at Andre. He didn't normally have a weak stomach, but then again, a mortal wound is very different from a dedicated dissection. "Orc hearts are good fried in butter. Makes you grow up big and strong." Ah, he hadn't actually realized that orens ate monsters. Humans simply didn't have the constitution for such a thing so it hadn't occurred to him. Was this why Lady Ellenstein sent him with so much food?

"I can't eat that," Andre pointed out helpfully.

Coco looked at him with pity in her eyes. "This is why humans don't grow up strong. Andre can't be picky."