Dungeon - Food

     Rachel @ http://inkpenauthoress.blogspot.com/ hosts a monthly character-developing event called "Chatterbox".  Each month she gives you some topic to have your characters talk about, and you post the link to your blog on her page.
     Rachel's topic this month is food.  So I am posting a scene from Dungeon that I wrote several days ago.  I am warning all of my squeamish readers that the princess is quite disgusted with the food in this scene.
     This is my first time joining Rachel's event.  So here it goes:

       The princess’ stomach growled within her. 

      She peered into the bowl that Arfis had filled for her.  The smell was not appealing.  Most likely, it was intended to be soup, but it looked like dirty water with a spoonful of bloated, pasty grains of barley floating through it.  The princess touched the side of the bowl, and it was cold.  Eck.  Roasted rats seemed like a delicacy in comparison.

      The princess opened her mouth to ask her companions if they actually ate the revolting fare, but a glance around the room answered her question for her.  The Owd Un and Abram were devouring their meager rations with the ravenous attitudes of starving men.  And even Rachel was eating her portion, although in a slower and gentler fashion than her companions.

       So the princess closed her mouth and stared into her bowl again.  There was something floating in it.  She reached into the liquid soup, shuddering at the cold pastiness of it, and fished out a long, dingy-blonde hair.  Oh, it was so disgusting!  The princess’ stomach contracted within her and she gagged.    Quickly she set the bowl down, flinging the dingy hair with it, and retreated to a far corner away the repulsive soup.

     Fane laughed softly.  “Don’t worry, princess,” he said, patronizingly.  “You’ll be begging for more of this gourmet soup once you have adjusted.”

     The princess glared at him.  “I think not,” she replied. 

     Fane shrugged, his eyes twinkling with amusement at her disgust.

     The princess turned to face away from Fane, refusing to let him bait her with his rudeness.  Her throat felt dry and begged for water, but she knew she would never drink that soup.  She shuddered again at the thought of it.  She clenched her teeth and swallowed hard, willing her stomach to settle.

     Glancing up, her eyes found Jacob involuntarily staring at her rejected bowl of soup.  His eyes flickered up to meet hers and then dropped to the ground.

     “Would you like my soup?” the princess offered, impulsively.

     “I would not take anything from your own nourishment, princess,” Jacob replied.  His voice was calm and polite, but his fist was clenching and unclenching by his side.

     “I won’t eat it,” the princess answered, honestly.  She again approached the bowl, unable to hide her own look of distaste as she lifted it by its edges.  She slid it out of her cell through the slot and managed to work it through the bars of her cell and over to Jacob’s cell.  Jacob took up the relay when it reached his side until he brought it through his own cell’s slot. Then he gave the princess a grateful nod and devoured the soup readily.

     “I have eaten a good meal more recently than any of you, no doubt,” the princess said, humbly.

     “No doubt,” the Owd Un said, wryly.  The contrast of her life against theirs was too glaringly obvious for him to keep his mouth shut.  His own wit would not allow it.