"These aren't recipes you'll find in Guild textbooks," Henrik said. "They're not elegant. They won't win awards. But Louvel—" His voice went quiet, serious. "These recipes fed me as a child. My family was poor. My mother made Hearthstone Loaf every week because one loaf could stretch for days. I learned fancy cooking later. But I learned cooking from watching her make something from nothing."

Marron looked up at her intimidating, perfectionist instructor and saw something she'd never expected: vulnerability.

"That's why I support what you're doing," Henrik continued. "The street vendors, the resistance against the decree. Those vendors aren't making fancy food. They're making honest food, efficient food, the kind of food that respects both ingredients and the people eating them. The Merchant's Guild dismissing them as 'unhygienic' or 'substandard'—" His jaw tightened. "It's dismissing the food that actually sustains this city."

"Chef..." Marron wasn't sure what to say. "I didn't know."

"Most people don't. I don't advertise my background." Henrik began gathering the recipes back into the folder. "But I'm telling you now because I want you to understand what's at stake. You're not just saving businesses. You're protecting a tradition of cooking that's kept people alive for generations. The kind of cooking that doesn't get celebrated in upper district restaurants but matters more than anything they serve."

The timer chimed. The bread was ready.

Henrik pulled it from the oven, and Marron's first thought was that it looked nothing like the beautiful loaves she'd learned to make in other classes. It was dark brown, dense, the crust thick and rough. No shine, no perfect shape, no aesthetic appeal.

But the smell—

The smell was incredible. Nutty from the seeds, slightly sweet from the rootash, rich from the broth powder and fat. It smelled like sustenance. Like survival. Like home, even though Marron had never eaten anything like it before.

"We let it cool for ten minutes," Henrik said. "Then we taste. And then—" He looked at her seriously. "You're going to make one yourself. From memory. Because if you're going to fight for street vendors, if you're going to understand what they do, you need to be able to make food like this. Food that maximizes everything. Food that respects scarcity."

Ten minutes felt eternal. But finally, Henrik cut into the loaf.

The interior was dense—not in a bad way, but in a way that looked substantial. Filling. The crumb was tight, studded with seeds and grain. It didn't look like it would fall apart or dry out quickly. It looked like it would last.

Henrik handed her a slice. "No butter. No jam. Taste it as it is."

Marron bit into the Hearthstone Loaf.

It was heavy on her tongue, dense and chewy, requiring actual work to eat. But the flavor—the flavor was surprisingly complex. The slight sweetness of the rootash balanced the earthiness of the wheatcorn. The sunseeds added a nutty richness. The brine and broth powder created a savory depth that made it satisfying without being overwhelming.

One slice, and Marron felt full. Not stuffed, but genuinely satisfied in a way that fancy pastries never managed.

"This is incredible," she said.

"This is necessity," Henrik corrected. "But yes. When done properly, necessity can be delicious." He cut himself a slice and ate it with the same careful attention he brought to evaluating fine cuisine. "The mark of a good struggle meal is that it doesn't taste like suffering. It tastes like someone cared enough to make the best of limited options."

"How long does it keep?"

"Five to seven days without going stale. Toasts beautifully—crispy outside, chewy inside. Can be eaten plain or with anything. Soup, stew, cheese if you have it, plain if you don't." Henrik wrapped the remaining loaf. "I'm giving you this one to take home. Study how it keeps. Pay attention to how filling it is. Then make your own."

"Today?"

"No. You're too busy with the decree crisis." Henrik's expression suggested this was a concession he didn't make lightly. "But before you resume regular classes, you will make this bread from memory. You will understand every ingredient's purpose. And you will demonstrate that you comprehend what it means to cook with scarcity."

"Yes, Chef."

"Now then." Henrik pulled out a whole chicken. "We still have two hours. Let's see if you remember anything about proper butchery, or if your trip to New Brookvale made you forget everything I taught you."

The rest of the class was pure technique—breaking down the chicken, trussing for even cooking, making pan sauce with the fond. Henrik was exacting as always, correcting her knife angles and her sauce consistency with the same stern precision he brought to everything.

But Marron noticed something different now. Every time Henrik demonstrated a technique, he mentioned efficiency. "Use the backbone for stock—never waste it." "That fat? Render it. Save it. Cook with it tomorrow." "The giblets can become a separate dish if you know how to handle them."

He was teaching her fancy technique through the lens of resourcefulness. Showing her that proper cooking and efficient cooking weren't opposites—they were the same thing, just viewed from different angles.

By the time class ended, Marron's hands hurt from knife work and her brain was full of new information, but she felt... grounded. Like she'd learned something foundational that she'd been missing before.

"Louvel," Henrik said as she was packing up her knives. "How many vendors are still unpartnered?"

"One. I'm meeting with them tomorrow. Should have everyone secured by end of day."

"And the registrations? Are they processing?"

"Most are approved. Three still pending, but we have seven days. They should clear in time."

Henrik nodded, his expression unreadable. "The Culinary Guild is still reviewing the decree. Guild Master Savorin won't make a statement until he's certain of the legal grounds. That's proper procedure, but it's also slow."

"I know, Chef."

"Which means your coalition is the only thing protecting those vendors right now." Henrik met her eyes. "No pressure. But if this fails—if the Merchant's Guild forces exploitative partnerships or shuts vendors down—it will damage Lumeria's food culture permanently. The street market is where innovation happens. Where immigrants introduce new cuisines. Where young cooks experiment before they can afford restaurant spaces. Losing it would be..." He paused. "Catastrophic is not too strong a word."

"I understand, Chef." Marron felt the weight of it settling on her shoulders again. "We won't fail."

"See that you don't." Henrik turned back to his teaching station, then paused. "Louvel? That bread I gave you. Share it with your friends. With vendors if you encounter them. Let people taste what struggle meals can be at their best. It's a reminder of what you're fighting for."

"Yes, Chef. Thank you, Chef."

Marron left the practice kitchen with her knife roll, a wrapped loaf of Hearthstone Loaf, and a new understanding of what cooking actually meant.

It wasn't just about making food taste good. It was about making food that served people properly. Whether that meant beautiful presentation that communicated care, or dense bread that maximized nutrition from cheap ingredients, or perfect portions that recognized individual need.

Care, patience, generosity— and now, respect. For ingredients, for resources, for the people who'd mastered making much from little.

A fourth lesson was learned today, and she didnt even need to find a Legendary Tool.

+

Marron was heading back to her apartment, mind still processing Henrik's lesson, when she encountered Millie in the Guild's main corridor.

"There you are!" The rabbitkin looked frazzled, her usually immaculate fur slightly ruffled. "I've been looking everywhere for you. We have a problem."

Marron's stomach dropped. "What kind of problem?"

"The paperwork kind." Millie pulled her into an empty side room. "Three of the home-based restaurant registrations were rejected."

"What? Why?"

"'Insufficient documentation of commercial food preparation space,'" Millie quoted from a paper she pulled from her bag. "The city registrar is claiming that home kitchens don't meet commercial standards even with Guild certification backing them."

"But that's—" Marron's mind raced. "That's not in the regulations. I read them. Home-based establishments are explicitly allowed as long as the chef is certified and certain standards are met. We met those standards."

"I know. This is the Merchant's Guild pushing back." Millie's red eyes were hard. "They're pressuring the registrar's office to reject applications on technicalities. Trying to prevent our loophole from working."

"Can they do that?"

"They're doing it right now." Millie gestured at the paper. "Three rejections so far. If this pattern continues, we could see all the remaining applications rejected. Which means—"

"The vendors partnered with those chefs won't have legitimate partnerships when the deadline hits," Marron finished. Her hands clenched around the Hearthstone Loaf she was still carrying. "How many vendors are affected?"

"Fifteen, if these three registrations don't go through." Millie's voice was tight. "We can appeal the rejections, but that takes time. Time we don't have."

Seven days. Fifteen vendors at risk. The Merchant's Guild actively working against them.

"We need to talk to the registrar directly," Marron said. "Find out exactly what documentation they're claiming is insufficient. Fix it if we can, or prove they're applying standards inconsistently if we can't."

"I already scheduled an appointment. Tomorrow morning, first thing." Millie's ears were flat against her head—extreme stress. "But Marron, even if we get these three approved, what's to stop them from rejecting the next batch? Or the one after that? They're playing bureaucratic games, and we're running out of time to counter every move."

Marron took a breath, trying to think strategically instead of panicking. "We need backup plans. Alternative solutions if the registrations don't go through."

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet." Marron looked down at the loaf of bread in her hands—humble, dense, made to last. "But Henrik just spent two hours teaching me about making something from limited resources. About maximizing what you have, respecting scarcity, finding solutions that other people miss." She looked up at Millie. "There has to be a way. We just have to find it."

"You're very optimistic for someone whose plan is actively being sabotaged."

"I'm very stubborn," Marron corrected. "There's a difference." She tucked the Hearthstone Loaf into her bag carefully. "Come back to my apartment. We'll strategize with Mokko, figure out contingencies. And I'll share this bread Henrik gave me—you need to eat something, and this is designed to maximize nutrition and energy."

"Is that your solution to everything? Feed people?"

"It's worked pretty well so far," Marron pointed out.

Despite everything, Millie smiled. "Fair enough. Let's go plan how to outsmart a bureaucracy that's actively trying to crush us."

"That's the spirit."

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