“All too often, people focused too much on a difficulty that had befallen them to the point of failing to gather their wits to think of a solution to the problem. Wiser heads would have detracted themselves from the problem, if only to calm their minds, and think of a solution that way instead.” - Dwarven folk saying.

“Have some grub, lass,” said a matronly old dwarf as she served up some of the freshly cooked dinner on broad stone plates to Aideen and Celia. The old dwarf had a gentle, grandmotherly look on her face, and the way most of her beard had been streaked with gray told of her advanced age. “No point puzzling over things ya can’t do a thing about. Better to fill yer tummies first and relax while you still can.”

“Thank you, Ma’am,” replied Aideen politely as she received the platter of food. The plate felt heavy in her hands, though she did not have any issues holding it thanks to her training. It weighed at least a couple kilos, which wasn’t too odd considering how it was made out of solid stone. There was plenty of food on top of it, along with a stone similarly carved out of stone as a utensil.

“This is a lot of food,” commented Celia from next to her. The stone plate on their hands must have been loaded with another whole kilo’s worth of food or thereabouts, and the younger unliving was rather surprised by the portion size.

“Dwarves eat more than humans, so this is about normal,” replied Aideen with a nod. Unlike Celia, who had never really known dwarves until Aideen brought her around, Aideen had traveled far and wide and familiarized herself with all sorts of people. “You worked pretty hard too, today. Just think of the food as a bit of repayment from the ones you helped and enjoy it.”

“Got it, Miss,” replied the younger woman.

“Come on, eat up before it gets cold.”

Since the caravans were traveling long distances, they naturally did not bring many fresh ingredients with them. Most of the food they brought were in the form of non-perishables or other items with long shelf lives. The dishes served for dinner were similarly made with such ingredients, but the ingenuity of the cooks made it look otherwise.

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What dominated the center of the stone plate was a heaping portion of some sort of casserole. Aideen recognized it as the food that was being cooked in the huge, flat pan earlier, just portioned out into slices for serving. The dish was one made from many layers of thin dough, with crumbled cheese and bits of smoked meats between them, all cooked up until the dough was fully cooked while the cheese had molten into a gooey mass.

The flavor was sharp and strong, from the cheese and the salty smoked meats, though the dough helped cut down on the richness somewhat and balanced things out, while at the same time giving a hefty body to the meal. If Aideen was not an unliving, even half of the portion she had been given would have been more than enough to fill her stomach, but given her current physiology, she had little issue finishing the portion.

Served together with the large portion of the cheesy casserole was a thick stew that made copious use of wild vegetables – mostly plucked from their surroundings – and flavored with some dried herbs and more of the smoked meats. The stew itself had been cooked until the liquids were almost entirely absorbed and served on a trencher of bread.

Naturally, the trencher grew softer as it absorbed the stew’s liquids and was also eaten along with it. The stew had a fresh, almost herbal flavor punctuated with the salty meatiness of the smoked meats, and was a good change of pace from the hearty casserole paired with it. Everything was naturally washed down with large tankards of strong ale, one thing no dwarven caravan would ever be lacking.

What served as a sort of dessert – positively a luxury given the situation – was a square-shaped chunk of confection that was made by mixing chopped nuts with bits of dried fruits, then binding everything together with molten sugar syrup, mixing them well to coat things evenly before letting it dry and set into a solid mass. That mass was then chopped up into more manageable pieces like what was served that night.

“They… don’t look like people grieving… or in trouble,” commented Celia while they munched on their dessert sweets.

“Different people do things differently, like I told you before. These people around us are all long-lived ones, so it’s only natural for their point of view to differ,” replied Aideen. The members of the caravans were indeed mostly dwarves, with the caravans from Alfheim crewed by half-elves and the occasional full-blooded elf. None of them had a life expectancy less than five to six times that of a human’s lifespan.

“For humans, it was already rare to see one disaster like this in their lifetime, but for these people, chances are this isn’t the first one they ever lived through. Sure, the others might not be of this scale, but in general, the point stands,” she continued, her arm gesturing to encompass the traveling merchants around them. “For them, this is just another part of their life.”

“So you’re saying they learned to take things as they come since they live much longer?” asked Celia.

“Think of it this way, girl. If you stress over every single difficulty you run into in life, and you live a long time, you’d drive yourself crazy before too long. Learning when to let go and just let nature run its course, accepting things as they are, is one of the things we all need to learn, given how we’re very likely outliving just about anyone around us,” said Aideen with a wistful sigh.

“It’s either you get used to that, or lose either your mind or motivation to live.”