Her Beasts Volume Four

Trade Route Negotiations Part One

Iris took a seat in the sand beside the ocean and took out a stone slab and some charcoal as well as several products before speaking to Boreal once more.

"Our city is actually quite strange, even for land dwellers. We have several unique products that are made in our city that you won't be able to find anywhere else. Well, the Golden Tradesmen do tend to purchase our goods and sell them elsewhere, but their origin is most certainly our city.

I have prepared several examples of the sorts of products we sell that I thought your people might enjoy. Several of the products I have brought for you to sample today are actually foods. I brought a few varieties of cookies, candies, breads, dried fruits, and jerkies for you to sample. Pearl can attest to the fact that these are quite common in our city, but I can personally eat some, if you are worried about ill intentions, before you do. I am aware that you could be hesitant, especially with how important your position is and how unfamiliar our groups are with each other."

Pearl looked confused as she looked between her brother and Iris. She didn't understand why Iris was acting as if she was a stranger when Iris was her close friend and her brother was her family. Pearl would never accuse Iris of trying to harm her family as Iris had never shown anything but good intentions towards her and others. Boreal looked adoringly at his sister before reassuring Iris

"You worry too much. While the concept of females being close friends is a bit foreign, it isn't unheard of. With how well you treat my sister and the tales her mates tell of how generous of a leader you are, how could I treat you as a potential enemy? No, I am fully willing to try whatever you have for me, but please do enjoy yourselves as well. As a mated male, I know how angry females can get when they feel left out. I'd hate to be the only one eating when both you and my sister are present."

Iris smiled gratefully before taking some honey jerky while Pearl grabbed a cookie and her brother slowly made his way through trying everything. Iris had plenty of other jerky, but she wasn't exactly about to pull a separate batch out right now. Still, she was reassured that there would be plenty to share should the male want to take some of the products to share with others in his tribe. It would be good if the females were to enjoy the foods and sufficient interest could be built up before the first delivery of goods was ever transported to the mermaid tribe. It would improve their speed of selling in the future.

"While all of these foods are not something that we have in my tribe, it is still quite surprising how little I recognize most of them. I'm pretty sure this meat one is similar to the concept of dried meat that I've heard of and the dried fruit also seems unfamiliar. However, the others are completely foreign to me."

Pearl looked excited as she watched Iris in anticipation, waiting for her to explain.

"Yes, well, like I said, our city is a bit unique. We use fire to cook our food and many of these foods are part of that. The cookies are made from flours made from things like cattails, acorns, or even the inner bark from trees. There are, of course, other ingredients as well that go into them like sugars from either honey or maple syrup, which also comes from trees. We have made full use of our land through foraging, farming, and otherwise developing the land.

The meat one is the jerky and it is similar to dried meat. It is just thinly cut first before being smoked and dried with salt and other seasonings. We actually use a lot of salt, which we usually have to purchase from the Golden Tradesmen. However, I hear that salt comes from mermaid tribes originally?"

Boreal nodded and Iris continued

"The breads are also similar, but require a more complicated process when it comes to developing the dough and has less sugar in it than the cookies. If you'd like to keep these samples and share them with others in your tribe, I have a few large stone containers to hold them in that you can have. We actually recently developed a new way of making containers. These ones are round and the lid twists on to seal it so that the lid won't come off as easily and it should be able to travel safely under the water. Although, I must recommend that you wait until you aren't submerged in the water to open the containers so the food doesn't become water logged."