The kitchen had been alive since dawn.
The smells of meat sizzling over a flame, citrus being squeezed into glasses, and fresh bread getting sliced into hearty pieces filled the space and drifted into the hallway and nearby rooms. Sparrow hummed as she finished the dishes from her morning baking, drying and stacking them in the large cabinet on the far wall of the room. Tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear she grabs a thick slice of dark, rich bread from the basket in the middle of the table and tears a piece off, stuffing it into her mouth in a not so lady-like fashion. Her eyes close and she smiles while still chewing on the delicious treat.
"That's not for you, little bird!" Her fellow cook and loving mentor, Larra, purses her lips and narrows her eyes at Sparrow, who giggles in response and grabs the bread basket on her way out of the kitchen. She places the basket in the middle of the largest table in the dinning hall and then grabs a large iron rod from near the wall to tend to the fires that had been lit early in the morning. Although the kitchen staff made more than enough food for everyone living in Sanctuary some still liked to cook for themselves, and so the community fires had to maintained throughout the day. Tending to them was one of her least favorite jobs, second only to washing the dishes, but everyone had to put in their fair share of work.
After rekindling the warm flames Sparrow makes her way back to the kitchen. While she had been away the other workers had finished preparing the meal, and she assists in bringing an array of cooked meats, sliced fruits, a mixture of nuts and cheeses, and this morning's baked goods to the table. Larra had showed her how to make poppy seed muffins, and three dozen of them fill bowls, accompanied by sweet rolls and luscious savory biscuits. The smells draw sleepy inhabitants from their quarters and soon the kitchen isn't the only area of the village that is wide awake. Children dash around the tables, sneaking in between the adults to grab food and then running away to share their steals with the others before they have to head off to class. Laughter erupts from one corner of the room as the elderly share stories among themselves, and other folks talk about the days tasks.
Instead of dinning with the others Sparrow takes a few tidbits: another slice of bread, a piece of cheese, and a handful of nuts, and ties them up in a small cloth to bring to her favorite spot. She skips down a long corridor to her quarters and places the satchel of food on her nightstand before stripping off her work clothes and changing into a tan dress. She pulls the soft cotton over her head and tugs it down over the rest of her body. The fabric hugs her chest and loosens into a relaxed shirt at her hips, the hem falling just below her knees. She pulls a light blue cardigan on over her shoulders and runs a comb through her blonde hair before grabbing her breakfast and heading back out into the hallway.
Sparrow makes her way towards the main floor on the southern side of the mountain compound and finds a small bench against a wall near the entrance to the villages market area of sorts. A few people were already setting up trading booths for the day, and others, like herself, seemed to be simply watching and relaxing. Opening the cloth holding her breakfast she breaks a corner of the piece of cheese off, nibbling the edge of it closing her eyes. She leans her head back against the cool stone wall and smiles while listening to two women bicker over a trade.
How much is a woven blanket really worth? Such matters were of little interest to her, but the idle banter relaxed her mind and let her thoughts wander. Here she didn't have to worry about making sure the bread didn't burn, or whether someone else would wash today's dishes, she could simply listen to other people's stresses, which seemed much less important then her own.
