#please read again

Edér watched Aloth and the Watcher struggle with a few sticks in the desperate attempt to hang their pot over the camp fire. They did this every single day, no matter where they’d ended up. The only thing with the potential to stop them was unconsciousness. That meant a nearly endless source of entertainment and wonder for him. The creativity these two developed if they had to save their precious tea time from bad weather conditions was astounding. Not that he really understood their reasoning. Personally, he’d never gotten why anyone would want to drink glorified leaf juice, much less go to such extreme lengths for it.

The Watcher cheered when the pot was finally stable and Aloth pulled out his leather pouch with a pleased smile. A handful of herbs landed in the hot water and the two happily watched it boil. Edér found it hilarious. Two grown people staring at a pot of water like it was the most fascinating object in the world. Although... he was watching them do it, so maybe he shouldn’t be too cocky.

Suddenly something occurred to him. “What do you Aedyrans drink when it’s summer?” he asked, fearing the loss of his favourite evening pastime. The two Aedyrans stared him with incomprehension. “What do you mean?” the Watcher asked, while Aloth turned back and took the pot from the fire, shaking his head.

“Well, are you still going to drink tea?” “Of course,” the Watcher said, looking at Edér like he’d lost his mind. “But it’s hot...” Edér could only stutter. He was so befuddled he even forgot his earlier enchantment.

Aloth finished pouring the tea into two cups and handed the Watcher one. She took it, sipped the hot liquid and looked at Edér again, completely calm. So calm in fact, that she seemed almost the opposite. When she spoke, there was strange hypnotizing quality to her voice. “Only tea. There are no other drinks.” “Only tea.” Aloth added, with the same dry tone, taking a sip himself.

Desperate to return to a normal conversation, well, whatever could count as normal for them, he tried again, against better judgement. “And what if you don’t like tea?”

Suddenly the whole clearing seemed way too quiet. His companions stared at him. Nothing moved, not even the wind. Edér didn’t think there was wind before, but the point still stood.

Then, slowly and completely unblinking, the Watcher lifted her cup again and took a deep, long gulp. She let it sink with a content sigh, still staring Edér dead in the eyes. After a heavy pause she spoke with the same calmness as before, that made Edér’s hair stand on end.

“Then the weak die.”

The silence continued, because for the first time in a long time Edér didn’t know how to answer. Instead he turned to Aloth in the vague hope of something, though he didn’t quite know what, but the other Aedyran just continued to slurp his tea and only answered his desperate stare with a pitiless raised eyebrow. Edér was of course wrong in that regard, because Aloth would never slurp.

That was the point when Edér decided that any possible amusement wasn’t worth ominous threats of death and that he would annoy Durance a bit more, at least there wasn’t anything ominous about his death threats. He mumbled something incomprehensible even for himself and fled a bit deeper into the woods, where Durance had made his camp, loudly declaring that he refused to share a fire with a whore of the smashed dog. Never mind that he’d invited himself along and no one was stopping him from leaving.