In front of Rowan was a plethora of dishes, bottomed with pale glass plates.
The main course was a large heap of red meat surrounding one thick bone, drizzled in a black, viscous sauce.
Surrounding it along the same dish was a single purple leaf, aether flowing out of it.
The resounding glow was enough to almost dissuade Rowan from trying it, but when he saw the way Kaia was hounding away at her meat with such intensity that she was actually growling like a rabid beast, he felt it would be far too wasteful to simply shove away his plate.
Rowan grabbed his four-pronged fork, haphazardly stabbing into his food while edging his body backwards a little bit, half-expecting it to blow up.
Instantly, Rowan's eyes opened from their squint, his posture more relaxed as the fork just passed through the meat like a soft ball of clouds.
'It's fall off the bone!' He yelled in his mind, the meat beginning to slide down as he picked up the single bone it was attached to.
Extending his lower jaw out, he vied for a small piece, letting some of the black sauce trickle down along with it.
"Mmmmm!" He hummed, his eyes vibrant with life.
The texture was beyond description, like if one were to mix meat and cotton candy all into one.
Just a moment's contact with saliva was enough for the meat to almost melt away completely, the calories burning in his gut in liquid form just as fast.
It was with this that his stomach thrummed and rose in temperature, the feeling of a nicely resonating heater soothing the rest of his body.
Rowan grew desperate for the sensation, clawing away for a second bite even faster.
He grew to appreciate the meat's taste even more with his next mouthful of meat, the sauce an earthy, fermented flavor with a hinge of salt. If Rowan were to try to put his finger on it, he'd imagine the sauce as a mixture of soy sauce and steak sauce.
The meat's flavor wasn't all that foreign to him, however. It had the same rich, grassy flavor as slow-cooked lamb, yet, after more careful introspection, Rowan felt another flavor skillfully interwoven into the meat that wasn't replicable by anything of his world.
There were specks of purple in such small quantity that they would hardly have been noticeable by one not actively seeking it out, but yet there sat Rowan, carefully inspecting the meat.
Unknowingly, he was garnering bad attention, some of the nearby guards looking down at Rowan with reserved vexation.
Some of the angered would turn their heads in secret, saying, 'how ungrateful he is', and others commenting, 'to suspect the royal palace of poisoning his food; how preposterous!'
Rowan could hear them, however, and resigned himself in hushed shame, looking down with little to nothing to make of the situation.
"I pray the food has been serving you all well?"
The king's statement a cutthroat blade to the bad attention Rowan had brought to himself, the heroes all looked towards Viral, Kaia halfway through her fourth slab of meat and the other heroes having almost cleared out their plates.
"Yes, this food has, by far, exceeded my expectations." Lucien cut in, rubbing his stomach with a belated satiety.
"Oh, yeah, this food's great! I've never seen anything like it." Elias added, inattentively holding onto one of the purple leaves.
"This is the best meat I've ever had, worthy of a demon queen's palette!" Kaia disjointedly announced, licking the bone of the ravaged remains of the meat she'd just been holding in her hand a few seconds ago.
A few men in the room twitched at her remark, breaking their before ironclad composure.
"Ah-- I mean, yes, this meat is amazing!" She immediately added, turning away with a red blush in her cheeks as she feigned aloofness.
"This food is quite delectable. Please do send the chefs my best regards." Liora warmly spoke, her smile investing a warmth in Rowan's chest with even greater soul than the meat he'd been badgering at just moments ago.
The sudden onslaught of emotion froze Rowan, choking out his words.
Unluckily, the rest of the room shifted their attention to Rowan, the guards recoiling in disgust at his expression.
He'd had an unnaturally wide smile, almost intruding onto the space where his eyes were, his nose puckered to such an extent that dozens of lines filled the gap between his nostrils and his temple.
Liora looked up to where he was sitting, lightly waving her hand back at him. She had an innocent smile to her, wholeheartedly responding to Rowan's stare.
The act was too much for him to handle, his heart impacting against cupid's arrow, the shifting of some emotion in him stirring enough to completely incapacitate him.
"And you, Sir Rowan?" The king inquired, breaking Rowan's daze.
"Uh... Ah... Well... this food was... good. Wait, no. I-it was great!"
Rowan's stammering caused some in the room to reel their heads back, stifling laughter through grit teeth and covered mouths.
The king on the other hand, laid still with the same monotone expression that invoked a distant annoyance in Rowan for reasons he felt he couldn't explain.
"Well, I'm thankful that you heroes were able to enjoy the banquet prepared in your name. I'll tell you, getting all the necessary materials for your legendary palettes was no small feat, hah."
The king's small break in his composure made Rowan feel as if an imaginary weight were lifted from his shoulders, the distance between the heroes and the king being enclosed inch by inch.
"If you truly enjoyed the food as much as you say you did, then it pains me even more to cut this banquet short."
The heroes, some more than others, were all adopting faces of wide-eyed bewilderment, some slamming their hands on the wide feasting table while opening their mouths in ready anticipation of refuting.
"Of course, you heroes may request for food to be brought to your quarters, but for the time being, I humbly request for you to consult the royal seer."