The Chicken Salad War

Simon LeFevre is chef to the royal family of Askazer-Shivadlakia and a surrogate father to the children of the palace -- and these days their children, too. He's never married or had children of his own, and he doesn't exactly regret that, but sometimes it can be a little difficult to see people he helped to raise finding the partners of their lives. Still, he has plenty to keep him busy. He’s on the planning committee for the Reclamation Day Festival this year, overseeing the food tents and cooking competition. Unfortunately he’s been partnered up for the project with the city’s newest chef, Mr. Ylias Lazaar, with whom he’s already clashed over some misattributed ricotta. Ylias, glad to be home where nobody blinks much at a woman who prefers male honorifics, is excited to be opening her own restaurant at last. Independent and occasionally a little prickly, she has also enjoyed putting Simon on the back foot since their admittedly rocky start. Still, at this point their sparring is in good fun, and Simon's even helping her on a quest to find a lost family recipe in the palace archives. Simon is fun and funny, and he seems to enjoy her company, too. When Ylias claims she could improve on the curried chicken salad that Simon served for Prince Noah’s graduation party, they decide they’ll both enter the yearly Reclamation Day cooking competition, and may the best man win. But as they argue and collaborate and play careful palace politics, it's becoming evident to both of them that this could perhaps be more. Now if only they could get on the same page as to what "more" might mean.