[ how is grace the only one that noticed, i hate this. she hums a bit, frowning a little ]
Considering what Takeru said happened, that's both weird and... makes sense, I guess. Some weird punishment? [ pensive. ] But you've still got energy despite that, right?
In this memory, you are on the Mithraeum, the space station that is the seat of your God and his saints. Due to increasingly persistent murder attempts by the Saint of Duty, you have spent days without sleeping, using necromancy to stimulate your own cortisol, and you fear you have become increasingly unhinged. But when you asked God whether he might ask the Saint of Duty to stop trying to murder you in your sleep, he suggested that instead you ought to get a hobby.
"Harrow," said God, when you pointed out the murders, "Do something normal. Learn how to make a meal. Read a book. Take the time to rest. Have you slept lately?"
So you realized that nobody cared, and no one would pay any attention to you on this ship full of thousand year immortal beings who thought of you as a useless child, a failed experiment, certain to die soon anyway. The worst indignity was that the Saint of Duty himself, when he wasn't stabbing you in surprise with knives or bypassing your wards in the night to attack you in the path and leave you in a pool of your own blood, went about his business perfectly normally, hardly acknowledging you, and completely healed of every injury you'd tried to put on him in return. Against a Lyctor, there was little you could do. Your necromancy could not reach inside his body; it was a void to you, and anything you attempted to pierce his skin he immediately countered.
So you decided to follow God's instructions, and you learned how to make soup. You had never cooked anything before, never watched anyone cook. You poured over technical manuals on the subject in the kitchen drawer. You practiced your soup during the day, keeping your hand at all times on the pommel of your rapier, and at night laid in bed, reading your manuals, waiting for an attack that didn't come. One hundred and twenty six hours without sleep, you no longer felt pain, though sometimes your jaw rattled to itself.
Perhaps impressed with your newfound understanding of soup or hungry for social cohesion, God asked you to make everyone dinner. That night you made soup more carefully than ever. The recipe said it had to cook for a long time. You paced up and down the kitchen, distracted and startled by lights as the air grew steamy and a little sweet-smelling. You transferred it to a big tureen, and when you all sat down around the table, the Emperor served everyone, like he always did. He was pleased with you. He smiled that rueful, dented smile, and he rested his hand on your shoulder, very lightly, when he filled your bowl.
"As I said, Harrowhark," he said. “Make a meal. Read a book. It’s the little things."
God and the Saints ate your meal. The Saint of Patience, ever cheerful and disappointed in you, criticized your technique, but pronounced is interesting wrong. The Saint of Duty ate your soup at a stolid, uninterested, mechanical pace. You had noticed at previous dinners that he did not like some particular vegetables, so you had put them all in. Deprived of solid choices, he was mostly drinking stock. God had taken a spoonful, eaten it, then put down the spoon, then taken a discreet sip of water. He said nothing. The Saint of Joy, irritated at being called to supper at all, pronounced it mediocre.
"Is it mediocre, sister?" you asked. "I followed a recipe."
The Saints ignored you, eating their soup and beginning to reminisce about cooks they had known in the past, their long dead cavaliers and friends. Finally, thSaint of Patience thought to ask you about your technique.
"What’s the meat in here flavouring the broth? If there’s chunks, it’s all rendered down."
You closed your eyes, concentrating, trying to focus on so many things at once despite how badly you needed sleep. For the moment, you forgot the word you were looking for, though it was on the tip of your tongue, as you focused on building, cell by cell.
"Marrow," you said.
The Saint of Duty exploded outward as your construct emerged from his abdomen. Your soup was watery and mediocre, as soup went, but as a delivery method for bone rendered through so much water as to not pass comment it was perfect. Half a dozen arms shattered him. You let out your breath, and coalescing scythes destroyed his intestines, lungs, and heart. Then you fired upward, toward the brain.
And God said, "Stop."
You stopped. The shrapnel spray from the Saint of Duty did not stop — it cascaded across the table like the crest of a pink waterfall, pitter-pattering down on bowls and the tablecloth and the polished dark surface of the wood. But what remained of him stopped too, half man, half rupture.
The Emperor of the Nine Houses, his plain face splattered with gore, said, very calmly, “Ten thousand years since I’ve eaten human being, Harrow, and I didn’t really want an encore. You cannot have controlled foreign bone matter within the body of a Lyctor. Tell me what you've done.”
“The cells weren’t foreign.”
“What?”
“I sectioned a portion my tibia for the soup,” you said.
God’s eyes closed, very briefly. He pushed his bowl another fraction away. God said, “Harrowhark, when was the last time you slept?”]
[ i would respond with a memory immediately but i feel a lot of this needs addressing, mainly: ]
You cut your bone and cooked it to kill that guy?
[ like, from the memory and feelings she witnessed, it felt deserved, but also. this is some kind of horrifyingly hardcore grace isn't sure what level of impressed she should be? ]
[She's still. . . eating her crackers. She doesn't really seem put off by this memory.]
I had no choice in the matter. The Saint of Duty is a thanergy void. He can undo my wards like they're little more than air. An attack from within was the only way to counter it.
... And he wouldn't stop trying to kill you. I get it.
[ she doesn't, not quite, but still. she gets the sentiment. whatever else she wanted to express is lost in the next second, when i make you watch a two minute clip because i refuse to write out one of the few scenes i can find on youtube. grace winces at the end, but it's more reflexive to having anything personal shared against her will, even if this tells no one anything at all ever except one time she fought turtles. ]
Okay, so the memory thing is a weekly effect thing. That explains it.
Anyway, this memory is so much. What is this cartoon. What is this world. She actually does have questions. The numbers on their arm - she wants to know what it means. (She doesn't want to know about the turtles, at all.) But she. Will basically fundamentally respect privacy.]
. . . Yes. What do they have to gain, doing this to us?
It is a hideous thing, to be so exposed. Further, it is unfair, as I am meant to obtain indulgence for sharing these on my own, and it is being robbed of me.
But I do not care, that you know about the soup. [Well. She cares a little bit about her tired and vulnerable state, but also. . . gestures to last week.]
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no subject
Is this a side-effect of the Thursday thing still?
[ sometimes you observe people being weird about food and assume. whether it's true or not. ]
no subject
. . . I haven't had much of an appetite since, no.
no subject
Considering what Takeru said happened, that's both weird and... makes sense, I guess. Some weird punishment? [ pensive. ] But you've still got energy despite that, right?
no subject
I've eaten enough not to starve, it's only that it's difficult to keep down.
no subject
Have you tried one of those protein shake things? It's all the energy, and less... chewing?
[ she has no idea what the trigger is, it's fine. ]
no subject
[Anyway, I'm going to give Grace. . . soup.
In this memory, you are on the Mithraeum, the space station that is the seat of your God and his saints. Due to increasingly persistent murder attempts by the Saint of Duty, you have spent days without sleeping, using necromancy to stimulate your own cortisol, and you fear you have become increasingly unhinged. But when you asked God whether he might ask the Saint of Duty to stop trying to murder you in your sleep, he suggested that instead you ought to get a hobby.
"Harrow," said God, when you pointed out the murders, "Do something normal. Learn how to make a meal. Read a book. Take the time to rest. Have you slept lately?"
So you realized that nobody cared, and no one would pay any attention to you on this ship full of thousand year immortal beings who thought of you as a useless child, a failed experiment, certain to die soon anyway. The worst indignity was that the Saint of Duty himself, when he wasn't stabbing you in surprise with knives or bypassing your wards in the night to attack you in the path and leave you in a pool of your own blood, went about his business perfectly normally, hardly acknowledging you, and completely healed of every injury you'd tried to put on him in return. Against a Lyctor, there was little you could do. Your necromancy could not reach inside his body; it was a void to you, and anything you attempted to pierce his skin he immediately countered.
So you decided to follow God's instructions, and you learned how to make soup. You had never cooked anything before, never watched anyone cook. You poured over technical manuals on the subject in the kitchen drawer. You practiced your soup during the day, keeping your hand at all times on the pommel of your rapier, and at night laid in bed, reading your manuals, waiting for an attack that didn't come. One hundred and twenty six hours without sleep, you no longer felt pain, though sometimes your jaw rattled to itself.
Perhaps impressed with your newfound understanding of soup or hungry for social cohesion, God asked you to make everyone dinner. That night you made soup more carefully than ever. The recipe said it had to cook for a long time. You paced up and down the kitchen, distracted and startled by lights as the air grew steamy and a little sweet-smelling. You transferred it to a big tureen, and when you all sat down around the table, the Emperor served everyone, like he always did. He was pleased with you. He smiled that rueful, dented smile, and he rested his hand on your shoulder, very lightly, when he filled your bowl.
"As I said, Harrowhark," he said. “Make a meal. Read a book. It’s the little things."
God and the Saints ate your meal. The Saint of Patience, ever cheerful and disappointed in you, criticized your technique, but pronounced is interesting wrong. The Saint of Duty ate your soup at a stolid, uninterested, mechanical pace. You had noticed at previous dinners that he did not like some particular vegetables, so you had put them all in. Deprived of solid choices, he was mostly drinking stock. God had taken a spoonful, eaten it, then put down the spoon, then taken a discreet sip of water. He said nothing. The Saint of Joy, irritated at being called to supper at all, pronounced it mediocre.
"Is it mediocre, sister?" you asked. "I followed a recipe."
The Saints ignored you, eating their soup and beginning to reminisce about cooks they had known in the past, their long dead cavaliers and friends. Finally, thSaint of Patience thought to ask you about your technique.
"What’s the meat in here flavouring the broth? If there’s chunks, it’s all
rendered down."
You closed your eyes, concentrating, trying to focus on so many things at once despite how badly you needed sleep. For the moment, you forgot the word you were looking for, though it was on the tip of your tongue, as you focused on building, cell by cell.
"Marrow," you said.
The Saint of Duty exploded outward as your construct emerged from his abdomen. Your soup was watery and mediocre, as soup went, but as a delivery method for bone rendered through so much water as to not pass comment it was perfect. Half a dozen arms shattered him. You let out your breath, and coalescing scythes destroyed his intestines, lungs, and heart. Then you fired upward, toward the brain.
And God said, "Stop."
You stopped. The shrapnel spray from the Saint of Duty did not stop — it cascaded across the table like the crest of a pink waterfall, pitter-pattering down on bowls and the tablecloth and the polished dark surface of the wood. But
what remained of him stopped too, half man, half rupture.
The Emperor of the Nine Houses, his plain face splattered with gore, said, very calmly, “Ten thousand years since I’ve eaten human being, Harrow, and I didn’t really want an encore. You cannot have controlled foreign bone matter within the body of a Lyctor. Tell me what you've done.”
“The cells weren’t foreign.”
“What?”
“I sectioned a portion my tibia for the soup,” you said.
God’s eyes closed, very briefly. He pushed his bowl another fraction away. God said, “Harrowhark, when was the last time you slept?”]
no subject
You cut your bone and cooked it to kill that guy?
[ like, from the memory and feelings she witnessed, it felt deserved, but also. this is some kind of horrifyingly hardcore grace isn't sure what level of impressed she should be? ]
no subject
[She's still. . . eating her crackers. She doesn't really seem put off by this memory.]
I had no choice in the matter. The Saint of Duty is a thanergy void. He can undo my wards like they're little more than air. An attack from within was the only way to counter it.
no subject
[ she doesn't, not quite, but still. she gets the sentiment. whatever else she wanted to express is lost in the next second, when i make you watch a two minute clip because i refuse to write out one of the few scenes i can find on youtube. grace winces at the end, but it's more reflexive to having anything personal shared against her will, even if this tells no one anything at all ever except one time she fought turtles. ]
Okay, so the memory thing is a weekly effect thing. That explains it.
no subject
Anyway, this memory is so much. What is this cartoon. What is this world. She actually does have questions. The numbers on their arm - she wants to know what it means. (She doesn't want to know about the turtles, at all.) But she. Will basically fundamentally respect privacy.]
. . . Yes. What do they have to gain, doing this to us?
no subject
What did they have to gain with taking our skills? They're messing with our heads for fun.
no subject
. . . Well, obviously that.
[Except she's only agreeing because she wants Grace to think she's cool and not an Avatar simp, which she is.]
no subject
Whether it's the Avatars or this place, this? Sucks. Can't we go back to the bad wish thing from the first week?
no subject
Would that we could. This is my nightmare.
[She says it like it's a joke, but it really isn't.]
no subject
Honestly? Same.
[ it's also not a joke? she does not want to see her own memories never mind letting others see them? this is fucking terrible ]
no subject
But I do not care, that you know about the soup. [Well. She cares a little bit about her tired and vulnerable state, but also. . . gestures to last week.]
no subject
[ if you ignore the vulnerable state part. but: ]
And I'm cool with you seeing the turtle car thing. It's not like there's even anything weird in there? [ except like, turtles. ]