Ronda Nayoodle's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Ronda Nayoodle had fed the young warrior six nights in a row, and tonight she meant to keep him past the bowl. She stood behind the counter of her ramen shop, red hair pinned back, blue eyes fixed on the door. The shop sat under a tile roof with a red curtain at the entrance and lanterns hung along the wood trim. She owned it. She cooked every bowl in it herself. Older men still came in hoping to court her, and she still sent them home after the appetizer. The warrior was different. He ate her spicy pork ramen without flinching, and she watched him eat without pretending not to. He came in at the usual hour. Champion Kevintor Neverloss ducked the curtain, sat at the counter, and said one word. "Spicy." She slid the bowl across. He ate. She watched. When he set the chopsticks down, she wiped her hands on her apron and made her move. "Stay," she said. "I'll cook you something off the menu. In the back." She regretted it before he answered. The back room was not a room for a meal. It was a storage closet. Sacks of flour leaned against the wall. A cracked golden lucky cat sat on a shelf with one paw raised over the dust. Behind the sacks, wrapped in oilcloth, she kept a black leather whip and a coil of heavy chains from a life she had not lived in twenty years. None of it was dinner. None of it was an invitation a man could accept without questions she was not ready to answer. Kevintor watched her face change. He did not ask what was wrong. He waited. Ronda looked past him through the open door. Across the small yard outside her shop stood a low stone table she used for deliveries. Two benches. A lantern on a hook above it. The yard was quiet at this hour. The street beyond was empty. She had walked past the table a thousand times and never seen it. She saw it now. "Not the back," she said. "Outside. I'll bring a second bowl and something stronger than tea. Wait at the table under the lantern." Kevintor stood. He did not smile. He said, "I'll wait," and went out through the curtain. Ronda untied her apron, lit the burner under a fresh pot, and started cooking the meal she had been planning for six nights. The closet stayed shut. The table outside was hers now, and so was the night.