Vanysa smiled her fangy Erinyes smile when the Sorcerer King, Jircniv, Draudillon, Enri, and the children walked up to her door. A third of the world's power stood ready to enter the house, and she couldn't have been happier about it.

The house was in the wealthy district again, where Vanysa belonged after having her rewards returned to her years before, but it was no palace, simply a very ordinary home save for her private torture chamber down below.

But in they came, with the busty Demon bowing deeply as she ushered them in under the awed eyes of neighbors, who recognized several if not all of the figures passing under the marble arch of her doorway.

When the door closed to the outside world, she said, "Follow me to be seated, unless'n yah'd like ta help in the kitchen?" She asked teasingly.

"It would be my pleasure." The Sorcerer King said archly.

"To follow me, Your Highness?" Vanysa asked.

"No, to assist in the kitchen." He said.

Jaws dropped around him.

"What?" He asked, deadpan.

"Is there something on my face?" He asked.

"Is… is that… can you...?" Jircniv asked, without forming a question.

Unbeknownst to them, an old Gacha prize machine had given him a consolation prize of "Trash Skill Modifiers" allowing him to increase what had been novelty skills, which in his case meant that hours ago after using it he gained the skill of a level 100 chef.

"Vanysa, show them to the table, and I will show them the skills of a supreme being." He said confidently.

Minutes later, they were in the kitchen and after a dubious-looking, wide-eyed Vanysa gave him the layout, Ainz was throwing together materials as fast as her eyes could follow, visions of the final product passed in front of his eyes as he worked like he'd been born in the kitchen.

Vanysa watched from one side of the king with a stupified expression on her face. "Are you the… the god of cooking?" She asked in awe.

The Sorcerer King let out a mild chuckle of amusement, "No, I simply have knowledge you lack, this is the fruit of that knowledge, now be a useful servant and hand me a cup." He said perfunctorily in a tone that even without a skeletal face to go with it, said he was enjoying himself.

From within the dining hall Jircniv could not keep the words from his tongue, "Is it… is it proper that the ruler of the Sorcerous Empire prepare us food?"

The table had no answer at first, and then Nemu spoke up, "Isn't it the power of a ruler to do as he sees fit?"

"I agree with Nemu." Goan added, "From what I understand, kings refrain from things that are considered 'beneath them' such as servants tasks, or something similar, because they are afraid of how their image will be damaged..."

Kuuderika picked up the thought, "But isn't absolute power the power to do anything you wish, and nobody's view of you will either shift, or matter if it did? He is powerful beyond all measure, so nothing he does, even the most simple tasks, can tarnish that image."

"I see." Emperor Jircniv said with a thought, "So he can simply 'enjoy himself' in whatever strange pursuit he wishes… what a novel idea. Perhaps I've been wasting years of potential enjoyment by avoiding things out of fear of the harm to my reputation."

He froze even as he spoke, "Wait… how did you do that?" He asked the trio.

"Do what?" They said in unison.

"You started..." He pointed to Nemu. "Then you picked up the thought," he pointed to Goan. "And then you finished it." He pointed to Kuuderika.

The three looked at each other, "We've been together a long time now," Goan answered, "I guess we just know what the other's train of thought is."

"It is uncanny." Enri said with a sigh, "It made them experts at covering for one another when they were younger." She gave them mock glares and they didn't even try to appear sheepish. Each of them took on a sly grin at the memories of past shady amusements.

"How did you do that?!" Vanysa could be heard to shout from within the kitchen.

Jircniv leaned in and asked in a puzzled voice, "How the hell does she do THAT?"

"You mean talk to His Majesty that way?" Enri asked, her voice saying she knew she didn't really need to clarify.

She sighed, "I really don't know, I've known him for years, and I still can't see him the way she does, I feel like I'm craning my neck whenever he's speaking.

Jircniv felt a sudden swelling of warmth in his breast for the peasant turned general turned Grand Matriarch of Carne, like a kindred spirit had appeared before him, his smile was wry and even rueful. "I know what you mean. Yet she does it so naturally, I can't help but notice it."

Goan let out a moan of exasperation, "We've noticed it too, it's strange, my mother raised me to honor him above all others, she called him a better father than the man who made me inside her. Sometimes I feel like when he did the thing he did with her, that part of his nature became my own, but when I watch him rule or lead or even speak to the public. I feel like I'm expected to scale a mountain."

"But her, she talks to him like they were childhood friends, she even playfully teases him, doesn't she know she's talking to a god?" Nemu asked.

"Maybe, but her brain is thoroughly warped, I've heard her laugh, I've seen her turn on a dime and go from sweet to sadist in a literal heartbeat, it's like she knows what he is, but also sees something else at the same time with the other half of her brain, and that part can't see him as anything but a treasured companion." Kuuderika added.

"Maybe he likes it. I can't imagine that being the ruler of an empire is a position that makes it easy to form bonds of camaraderie." Enri added.

Goan looked unhappy at that statement, and instinctively the hands that had rested in his lap, went to the two girls beside him and found their own, and squeezed, whether to reassure them or himself or all at once, even he did not know the answer.

Inside the kitchen, Vanysa was chopping up greens and tossing salad together using materials expressly given to her as gifts by the Sorcerer King, choosing to use a garlic based dressing to complement the meal the Sorcerer King had nearly finished preparing.

"Ready, Vanysa?" He asked happily.

"You're having fun, ain'tcha?" She asked rhetorically.

"I never get the chance to do this, so… yes." He said, and let out a low and dignified laugh, "Plus, the looks on their faces, reminded me of my guildmates when..." His voice went low, he paused as a wave of sadness washed over him and his hands stopped moving.

Vanysa set down the bowl and went behind him, she didn't say anything, she just leaned in and wrapped her arms around him, pressing the side of her face into his back. "Don't sire, please don't... I know, I truly do, as I lost mine too… but I'm here, we're here, we can't replace them, nobody can… but there are new memories, there is new happiness. Please embrace that, please don't be sad, it… it breaks my heart." She whispered a hint of wet tears touching his perfect royal garb.

Then the moment passed. "Thank you Vanysa..." He said, "It feels good to remember, but sometimes... and what you say is true, these are new memories, new experiences, and even if things are not exactly the same, they are good, and I should embrace that."

His voice picked up and his tone shifted to one of greater contentment, and she let her arms fall away from him and she moved back to her salad dish.

"Good. You do that, Your Highness." She said and pointed her salad tossing spoon at him and gave him an arch, mockingly stern look, drawing a guffaw from him.

He pulled the meat dish away and ladled a custom made sauce over it, then scooped a side of au gratin potatos with a pat of butter to go with it on to each plate.

"Let none question my supremacy." He said in a self effacing voice as he walked with kingly dignity out to lay plates before the stunned eyes of his companions, followed swiftly on his heels by a bouncing happy Vanysa who laid out a bowl to the back left of each plate.

"Dessert will be ready later. It will take about an hour for the chocolate pie to cook." He said.

"A what kind of pie?" Enri asked.

"Trust me, you'll like it." He said flatly.

They looked down at the dish and savored the intoxicating aromas that filled their nostrils. "God of death and god of cooking seem no different, because if this tastes as good as it smells, then it is to die for." Jircniv said with an eager expression on his face.

"In the first world, good food was considered to be best when paired with good wine, so to that purpose..." He reached into his pocket dimension and pulled out a bottle of red wine. "Emperor Jircniv, would you do us the honor of the pour?"

"How can I say no, when our very god has chosen to prepare food for us?" He said jokingly as he popped the cork and poured into each glass, going around the table in turn, filling half a glass with water in order to dilute the wine for the young trio.

"A toast to long life and great success." Queen Draudillon said, raising her cup, the glasses clinked and she set her glass down, though not without a look of regret as the others drank.

"You still don't partake?" Emperor Jircniv asked.

She shook her head. "I can be drunk or competent, I can't be both, I haven't touched a drop since we joined the war, and I never will again. The way I see it, I forfeited that right forever when it got in the way of me governing well. If I hadn't been drunk… I'd have remembered you..." She paused and looked over at Vanysa, a shameful expression on her face, "I would not have forgotten what you'd done for us, helping the Sorcerer King as you did. You wouldn't have ended up in that hovel, maybe wouldn't even have been kidnapped, or would have been found sooner and all that..." She looked away, unable to look at Vanysa's golden skin any longer.

The erinyes gave the Governor Queen a gentle look, no easy thing to do when one has fangs for teeth. "Your highness, that was a long time ago, whatever guilt you had in all that, you've long since made up for, you've been good to me since, you got me my home back, you even got all my lost books back, you found every single coin that was taken and gave it back with interest. The way I see it, the woman who was at fault then, is not the woman who sits at my table now." She reached across the table and touched the back of the Governor Queen's hand. "The woman who sits here now is a good monarch, and a comrade I am proud to help."

The pale faced Queen was visibly moved, "Thank you." She said, "I know you mean that, but I'll never feel right drinking wine again, used to be I drank to forget, now I don't drink because I need to remember."

"Memories touch everyone I think." Jircniv said as he indulged in the wine himself, "Oh, this is good, and it pairs amazingly well with this dish..." He said, interrupting his own thought to praise the Sorcerer King, who acknowledged the praise by inclining his head.

"We all have bad ones, and we all have good ones. I remember when I thought my liege was my enemy, the days of distress and frustration, thinking I had to just find a way to survive, what a fool I was." He smirked at his own memory, "I remember when the Theocracy approached me seeking help, and I remember how satisfying it was to turn them down." He paused to chew his food.

Goan spoke up, "I'm young, I know, but I know 'right' when I hear it." He said in his 'almost' monotone.

"I remember when my mother left with General Enri, and I remember when I got the letter about what happened to her, when she disappeared and was presumed dead. I was sparring with Cocytus that day, he offered to stop the lesson. I refused. So he made me stop and sent me to go spend time with Nemu and Kuuderika. He made the right call."

"Of course I have the good times too, the acceptance into the training program, not many get hands on lessons from Neia Baraja, or from a guardian. Of course, you two could be counted upon to be absent." He smirked at Nemu and Kuuderika.

"Hey, it isn't MY fault I was away at the magic academy." Kuuderika said indignantly.

"Nor my fault I was in Crescent Lake with Governor Queen Zesshi at the time." Nemu said just as indignantly as her adoptive sister.

"Ah, I believe that is by definition, 'both your faults." He said sarcastically.

"Oh… well… maybe, but it isn't our fault you were born after us!" The two girls said, quite clearly not the least bit upset.

"Fair enough. But still, missing you two was tough. Do you know how hard it is to be that age and not have two pretty girls to peep at?" He said, prompting both to slap his opposite cheeks at the same time, and the rest of the table to laugh at them.

With their hands still pressed to his cheeks as they mockingly leaned away from him, he managed to squeeze out, "Shanks again for tha blessin shire, ah thin this'd hurt awot more wiffout it." He winked at the Sorcerer king, and laughed when the two girls blushed and lowered their hands.

"Well, it was still worth it, Queen Zesshi's elves taught me everything worth knowing about shadow walking and ranged combat. Didn't hurt having a couple of former Black Scriptures there either, totally worth it. Plus she's really nice." Nemu said.

"Don't you three leave soon for your first assignment?" Ainz asked.

They nodded. "We do, your majesty." Goan said, "And we look forward to it, I promise we'll succeed." He said fervently.

"Don't promise that, just promise you'll come back." Enri said softly.

"Fine, we promise we'll come back." They said with a rolling of their eyes that was as much in unison as their words.

"You may think yourselves invincible." Emperor Jircniv cautioned them, "But believe me when I say that the quickest way to die is to believe you can't. Many great warriors have perished when they thought themselves unbeatable."

"Yeah, remember Lod?" Vanysa said with a laugh, "The Rockbreakers."

Jircniv had to pause to think of it, then the light came on in his eyes as he remembered, "Oh yes, how could I forget, truly an excellent lesson, good that they learned it in the arena where they could survive, instead of out in a field mission where death was always possible."

"Sometimes pain is the best teacher." Vanysa said with a shrug. "By… you... this is AMAZING your majesty." Vanysa said as she finished the last bite of meat.

"And you're very observant, Vanysa." Ainz said sardonically.

She rolled her eyes again. In other circumstances, it would have been impossible as a gesture. Jircniv wondered how many people had died for rolling their eyes at a ruler, and yet the Sorcerer King seemed to enjoy the sense of camaraderie, as if nothing could disturb his sense of general enjoyment at dinner.

"Memories are great and all, but I like to think more of the future." Governor Queen Draudillon said, "To be honest, I don't like to think about the past much, too much of it is bad, the beastmen invasions, the war, my… issues, it's so much better to think about tomorrow than yesterday."

"I can't argue with that." The Sorcerer King said, "Many of my memories over the years are bright, but they're like a distant shore viewed from a ship that is sailing away from it. Looking back only gets harder, even where things are good, I think it is better to concern ourselves with the future, and what we can do in the present to make that future a better one." He said thoughtfully.

"Bittersweet, some of it." Enri said softly, "The future has no flavor because we haven't tasted it yet, the present is… well only what we can respond to, and the past, well it is flavored many ways, for me much of it is bittersweet. How differently things might have gone, with only a few minor changes, it is hard to believe sometimes, where I am here in the present. I wake up and look in the mirror, and am sometimes surprised not only by my own reflection, but also just that I can actually afford a mirror." She laughed a little bit at that.

"But things gone along the way, slipped past like driftwood on a river, remembered for its passing but never to be seen again, it makes me sad sometimes. I know my parents would be so proud of everything we've done, of Nemu and myself, not to mention the whole village. But at the same time, would they even recognize me?" She asked rhetorically.

"Probably not." Vanysa said bluntly. "You can't ever really go home again, we move on from our past and change irrevocably, even IF I could go back to my old village, even IF I could bring everyone back to life exactly as they were, with all their homes intact again right down to the last stalk of wheat in the field… there'd be no place for me there anymore." She touched her horns and bared her fangs, "The boy I loved would shrink from me in terror now. I'm a torturer, an interrogator, an intelligence gatherer, a predator of predators, a demoness of vengeance married to the prince of sadism incarnate and serving at the steps of the one true god of this world. Who among my childhood companions would recognize me now?" She asked.

"Even if they knew me by this face..." She said softly and returned to the shape of a normal (if busty) human female, "They would never know my character as being mine, everything is changed, everything had to change, and even if I could see them all again, they wouldn't..." She looked down somewhat saddened, "They wouldn't want to know me as I am. It's like Neia said." Vanysa's voice went soft as she trailed off briefly.

"What's that?" Ainz asked curiously.

"Before Demi and I got married, Skana suggested something called a 'Bachelorette party, said she saw it in a book in Nazarick's library, seemed fun, so… all of us, Blue Rose, Neia, Skana, CZ, and don't think I'm going to let you and Lupusregina forget..." she gave Enri a look that made the Grand Matriarch blush, "all went out to celebrate. Neia and I got to talking and I… well I talked to her about her growing up. I didn't know how bad she had it." Vanysa shook her head in disbelief.

"The thing that hit her hardest, was the feeling like nobody in her village actually wanted her. I never had that, I was a beautiful girl," she looked briefly smug, "Still am." she snickered. "But everybody wanted me around, for her it was the opposite, she didn't have that, so she told me not to look back, because of everything that had happened, it took us all so far away from who we were, that we're not the people we remember being, and the people who stayed behind, wouldn't know us as the people they loved. She said it was better not to go back even if we could, because all that lay that way was rejection."

Vanysa took a deep breath, "I think her advice was good, looking forward has constantly worked out better for all of us, I mean that was the point of your coming to the Draconic province today, wasn't it? To think about the future, and you came to make some deals, didn't you?" She asked.

Enthusiastic expressions greeted her as well as confirmatory positive words, "But one thing remains unsettled." Jircniv said in a grave, serious tone.

A shadow fell over the table.

"Yes?" Vanysa asked with concern.

"How long will it take to get some of your shops open in Arwintar?" He asked with a laugh.

Vanysa rested her chin on her hand as she rested her elbow on the table. "My good emperor, that depends on how much you're willing to pay."

"Ah, the chocolate pie should be done right about now, anyone still hungry?" Ainz asked, as the last fork touched a plate.

Hands went up around the table as the Sorcerer King stood up.

It was a good night, one Ainz would look back on fondly for many years to come, as would each of them, even into their old age.

~End~

AN: Well a fun little story this was, hope you found it worth reading. Don't intend to continue it, its just occasionally these slice of life stories are fun to tell, you can take it as you like, but don't go asking me not to do side stories. I love to write, but unless you're paying for a specific story...don't go all CB. Don't read stories you don't like, don't complain that you didn't get what you wanted, just enjoy the free entertainment you get, whenever it comes in. Of course I'm always open to constructive criticism, and I'm not going to lambast negative reviews or reviewers if somebody didn't like something, I don't expect everybody think everything I produce is gold. But if you liked it, we all win. Leave a review if you care to, or support my charitable efforts on bdgiving dot org, and have a great day! :)