Stena

My birthday trip into Flowing Dragon City with my mothers was overall pretty great. Over the years, both of them had endeavored to give all of us as much one-on-one time with them as they could manage, and even as a kid I understood that with so many children to take care of, they had to work extra hard to split their time between us.

But taking a trip into the city with just them and me was still a special occasion, and I loved it. They had drawn up a plan for the day, but beyond the very basics of when we needed to go eat at Lyn's because of a reservation, Mom and Momri had treated me like a princess, bending to my whims.

We dropped by Jade Pearl Tea, same as always and had a nice, warm pot of jasmine tea. Ava wished me a happy birthday, and was happy to chat with us. My mothers made it a point to drop by her tea shop almost every time we visited the city, and Ava was more than happy to oblige, even going as far as sitting with us for a chat while her employees handled things for a bit.

After that, we went to the market street lined with stalls for shopping and treats. The entire road always looked like a festival to me, with people shouting about their deals and smoke rising from all the grills and other cooking apparatuses used by the food stalls. While the late morning sun took away from the festival feeling somewhat, walking the street was still exciting, and for once I was basically able to point at something and get it.

Of course, once it became clear that I wouldn't be able to eat everything immediately, and Mom was putting things into her storage ring to take home for later, I was less excited to just try to get one of everything. I didn't stop entirely though, and even asked that they got enough for everyone at home when it came to a couple things. Even if I was enjoying my special alone time with my moms, I wasn't a monster.

I was also pointing out toys here and there. There were stuffed animals around in some stalls, featuring everything from dogs and cats to some of the spirit beasts that could be found on the Peaks. Momri bought me a stuffed pig that looked a lot like Koin, the piglet I liked that had a pink body with a gray rear end, and I couldn't have been happier with it.

Except for the interaction that we had with the shopkeeper that sold it to us, that had been playing over and over again all day.

"Well, little lady, I hope you take care of your new piglet!"

"I will! We have one just like it at home, and I feed her all the time." I said happily, squeezing the new stuffed animal to my chest.

"Well that's good. This one doesn't need to eat that pig's food, though, alright?" The shopkeeper smiled, and I nodded.

"I know. I'll take good care of her too, and won't let her get dirty. She'll stay in my room instead of the barn." I said.

"Good plan."

"Thank you." Momri said, as she handed over the tael in exchange for the toy.

"No, thank you." The shopkeeper said with a bow, then turned back toward me. "And what about you? Did you do something special to get your new piglet?"

"Nope, today's my birthday!" I cheered.

"Oh, really? And how old are you today?"

"Seven or eight? I don't know." I said, giving an honest answer. The shopkeeper turned to Mom and Momri, looking confused and a little disapprovingly at them, but didn't say anything.

"She's seven." Momri said, with a bit of an awkward smile on her face.

"Ah. Well, have a good day. And you take good care of the piglet, you hear?"

"I will!" I shouted again as we left the stall.

That same sort of chat had played out multiple times over the course of the day, and it was beginning to bother me.

Like with most of the kids that my mothers had taken in that were younger, I didn't really know how old I was or when my actual birthday was. I was perfectly happy to say that my birthday was the day that Mom and Momri had taken me in, especially as I got older and felt like that was the start of a new life anyway.

But as a child, it was just enough to have that one day that was mine; I didn't really care when it was.

My age though, that was harder to deal with. With the world being as dangerous and deadly as it was, families didn't really often teach their kids about their age or birthday, only really celebrating it once they were a little older. It varied, but usually somewhere around eight to ten years old.

So while it was certainly possible to guess at any of our ages by appearance, it was far from a sure thing. When my mothers took me in, I could have been anywhere between three and five, probably, with no real way to know exactly where I fell. Given my development, they seemed confident I was probably four or five, and that carried forward with me, but I still didn't really know. So, saying I was "seven or eight" seemed to be the best answer to me at the time.

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During our conversations at home, Mom and Momri had always been straightforward and honest with us about things like that. Whatever their reasoning had been, my mothers had always been somewhat blunt, but supportive. They made sure that I knew where I stood with them the entire time growing up. I was told I wasn't physically their child, but that I was theirs in every way that mattered. I was told that even though we didn't know exactly how old I was, it didn't really matter because a birthday, such as it was, was about celebrating your life, which we could do anyway.

As a kid, I simply took what they said at face value. They proved the first statement over and over again, so I had no reason to ever doubt them. But the awkwardness that kept popping up while we shopped didn't sit well with me, and I couldn't figure out why. It made me curious, why everyone seemed so bothered by me not knowing my exact age, or why some things got us strange looks while other things didn't.

That day was probably where my doomed curiosity over the city began, even though the majority of the day was nothing but happy memories.

The three of us arrived at the Celestial Dragon Pavilion in the early afternoon. There was a congregation of people waiting around the door to be seated, as it was the latter part of the lunch rush, but we walked right up to the podium just inside the doors and handed over our reservation slip.

Before the host could even react, Lyn was coming down the stairs from the second floor, a little ways into the building.

"Emery! Avuri! And little Stena. You three are right on time." She said, her voice reverberating through the large main hall. Some heads turned, but most didn't bother; Lyn was known to be loud, friendly, and inviting to guests in their establishment, and her making a bit of a show was nothing unusual.

With a bow to the host and a muttered apology, we slipped by and followed Lyn up to the second floor. And then to the third.

"We have a private room set aside for you three up here." Lyn said as we made it to the landing of the third floor. "Second door on the left - right here."

I skipped ahead a few steps, excited, to see what the inside looked like as Lyn opened the door.

The room was incredible, and my mouth fell open. While I had never gotten to eat in one myself, Mom and Momri had talked about the open air balcony rooms before, and that was where we were now. The room was mostly enclosed, but on the opposite side from the door Lyn opened was a huge open balcony that gave us a view over the street, and the sky beyond. Lyn and Cyril had enough pull in the city to make sure that the side of the restaurant that had the balconies had an unobstructed view of the sky.

Most of my attention, though, was focused on the spread of food.

The table dominated the room. There were three place settings, but the rest of the table was completely overrun with dishes of food. And even more exciting for me was that it seemed my request had been taken into account. Ninety percent of the dishes were chicken based, and it smelled heavenly. Fragrances of chicken, garlic, onion, anise, cloves, and pepper drifted around the room in an intoxicating combination. I felt my mouth watering almost as soon as the door opened.

"Wow." Mom said. "Lyn, I know we asked you to do extra chicken dishes, but I think this is a little excessive."

"Excessive?" Lyn scoffed as the four of us stepped into the room. "This is Stena's birthday feast. It's hardly even enough!" She chuckled, and crouched down by me to meet me at my eye level and whispered, "There's even more waiting, so feel free to eat whatever you'd like." Then she put her hands up in front of me for two high-fives. I obliged with a huge grin.

"Now then, you all dig in and enjoy." Lyn said, stepping aside to let us spread out around the table. I was having trouble controlling my wandering eyes, as they darted from chicken fried rice to egg soup to some kind of breaded chicken dish to another one that looked saucy that I didn't know the name of.

I clambered into the seat at one end of the table and looked out over the feast, wide eyed. Apparently the expression was enough to have both Mom and Momri laughing at me.

"So, Miss Birthday Girl, what would you like first?" Mom asked, picking up my plate and preparing to serve.

"That one." I said, pointing at a dish I didn't recognize, but looked yummy. "A cup of soup? Oh, and a little bit of rice. And some of that."

As I pointed out dishes, Mom did as she was bid, scooping some of each onto my plate. She kept the amounts fairly small, and told me I could always have more, especially once I had tried things and decided what I liked. She also warned me about which piece of chicken would be spicy.

Momri meanwhile, sat with her hands steepled and watched the scene with a pleasant smile. Once my plate was back in front of me, she waved a hand and a burst of cool air flowed over my food, cooling it to a safe temperature to eat.

Without any fanfare, I took a spoonful of the soup and followed that with a big bite of a piece of chicken that I wasn't told would be spicy. It was one of the best individual bites of food I had ever had, and I genuinely loved my mothers' cooking.

"Thank you, Mom." I said, between bites. "Momri." I did my best not to talk with my mouthful, but it was a failing battle.

"You're welcome, Stena." Mom said.

Momri laughed. "You can slow down, you know. The food isn't going anywhere. And Lyn said we can take what you don't eat home with us."

My eyes lit up. "She said there was more, too."

Mom groaned. "We're going to have to make some space in our storage at this rate."

Lyn took that moment to happily march through the door with a beautiful cart decorated with gold, holding three tiers of more dishes. Several of which looked unique from what was already on the table.

"Here we go." Lyn grinned as she filled every available spot on the table with more plates.

"Are these really all chicken?" I asked, excited.

"They sure are!"

"Lyn, there aren't this many chicken items on the entire menu." Momri muttered.

"I know, isn't it great?" She shot a sly smile back. "Cyril took the chance to make all of the beef and pork dishes with chicken to see how they'd work. So you have some genuine chef specials here that might never get made again."

"Whoa." I marveled at the plates, recognizing some of the traditional beef dishes that were swapped for chicken.

Even once the table was full, there were still several dishes left on the cart. Lyn nodded, satisfied that she couldn't see the table cloth any longer, and walked over to me. She gave me a comforting pat on the head while I chewed through one of the best bites of food I had ever had and said "Happy Birthday, Stena."

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