Welcome to Angoria

This story takes place somewhere very different from where you and I live.  It’s in a world where strange creatures roam the hillsides, and odd plants inhabit gardens.  It’s a world where griffins proudly rule mountaintops and dragons lurk at the base of volcanoes.  A magical place where magical things can be bent and twisted or coaxed and encouraged to do almost anything.  The people who do this, and do it well, are called chefs.  

Now, I know what you must be thinking: we have chefs here, and they’re of little consequence.  Most would dismiss a story about a chef, and who could blame them?  But the chefs in this world are of another caliber entirely.  They go through the most rigorous training and need to experiment tirelessly with rather dangerous ingredients.  If you’d ever tried to hunt an Angorian buffalo or pluck the polar fruit without freezing your fingers off, you’d see why there aren’t too many of them.  However, should you ever need freshly squeezed ebb juice for fair sailing or sautéed dragon peppers to help you run faster, you’d know that a chef’s wares would be just as welcome in our world as it is in this one.  

Yet in the south, below those tall and dangerous mountains, it’s been so long since people have heard of them, many doubt they ever existed at all.  Embellished legends and old wives’ tales are what the people of Oakenshire say.  Others say they were very wicked, and only wanted power, just like the wizards.  Most people in the cities are glad they’ve disappeared into the realm of myth so they may do their business, catch their coaches, and go to their balls in peace.  

But when children hear these stories, their eyes grow wide with wonder and imagination—or sometimes fear.  Some wish, with all their might, that they were alive and that all the old stories of the good they did and the people they helped were true, and others are terrified that they’ll don their black robes and pointy hats and cast spells on them.  

The adults of Oakenshire give little thought to the chefs, for when you’re surrounded by tall buildings in cramped little apartments where everyone seems to be in a hurry yet everyone’s always in your way, and you get sunberry jam in a jar at the market without ever seeing the plant it comes from, it’s very hard to picture a world big enough to contain a chef.  No, they must’ve been a lie, or a story for little children—or perhaps they were simply decent cooks with unbelievably talented publicists—but for certain these chefs could not have been real.  

Could they?