“Hey, can you teach me how to cook?”

Umbravor lowered the book he had been reading and looked at the human standing by his hammock. “I can, but why the sudden interest?”

“Well… If I’m being honest, I feel like I am as useful as a plow in a drought, so…”

“Only if you explain how did you get a rural accent since the last chapter.”

Cedric had a pretty good reproduction of the setting sun on his face after that comment. “I ain’t from the capital, growing on a farm and all, so I learned how to speak real fancy so people don’t mock me.” He shrugged at that. “Just thought I don’t need no fancy talk with ya.”

Or the author just thought that would make the character more unique. Choose whatever explanation you like, I guess.

“Fair enough.” Throwing the book to the side, which then flew its way towards its proper place in the shelf, Umbravor got up. “How much do you know?”

“I’ve helped around Ma before and can survive in the wilds pretty fine, if I say so myself. Nothing fancy, mind ya, but I make do what I have.”

“Alright, then let’s try a simple recipe to see how it goes.”

Two hours later had the ancient dragon looking at what he expected to be meat and potato stew, with Cedric with his hands behind his back, head lowered. Umbravor knew he watched over the whole process. And yet, perhaps for the first time in his long life, he had no clue what he witnessed.

There was no doubt he followed all the steps in a somewhat correct manner. Sear the beef pieces, add stock with water and spices, boil, reduce heat and let it simmer for an hour. Add vegetables of choice, let it simmer another hour. He had prepared the exact same recipe for centuries, perfected it to the most minute detail.

And yet it looked like a dark aura emanated from whatever monstrous creation had been born in that pot.

“How…?”

“I ain’t even gonna try to explain it. No idea either.” The human scratched the back of his head as he stared directly into the abyssal depths that was his creation. “Thought you could explain it.”

“Cedric, that think looks like one of those cliched censored failed recipes.” Umbravor pointed at the thing, face pale. “I’m sure that’s going to need to be covered up or we risk having people going insane by looking at it!”

“It’s looking mighty bad, yes.”

“I’m pretty sure no one has broken into the castle yet as they should have by this point because they felt whatever eldritch horror this is.”

“Now, that’s just being mean.”

“The biggest mystery here is how you manage to do that when I sat right here, looking over the entire process.” Umbravor opened a portal straight to the Abyssal Wastes. “I am not taking chances with that thing.”

After two more tries, it got decided by equal understanding that Cedric would never touch a kitchen utensil for the remainder of his oh so short life.