[Om is, as usual, in the kitchen. He's just finished taking a tray of cookies out before adjusting the oven's temperature to something better for cakes.
Considering the ingredients he still has on the table, he'll be going at this for a few more hours.]
[I'm sorry for this, but the memory Omi gets now is 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?”]
I really don't know what that is. Um. I'm glad you made it out.
[In return Harrow gets this:
It's dark and you're on your motorcycle. Your partner is right next to you on his own bike. There's nothing on the road for miles and miles. You feel so alive with him, the person you trust the most in the world.
Suddenly, a gang shows up, attacks you and your partner- both of you crash, as the other motorcyclists drive off like it was nothing. As if they didn't just kill somebody. With the high speed you were going, you're sure you broke your bones, but you can't feel the injuries with the rush of adrenaline running through your system.
"Nachi!" You scream raw and desperate, hoping against hope that he's still conscious.]
[Something about this memory just - shatters her, in a way she can't explain. The feeling of having a person by your side, trusted and beloved, ripped away from you violently - it makes her stomach heave, her chest constrict.
Why? She has never had anyone like that. She should not be able to relate to his despair at all. And yet, and yet, and yet. . . ]
It... [It isn't fine. It's been years since that accident, but the memory haunts him to this day. How many times has he woken up in a cold sweat after a related memory?]
Thank you, but it's not your fault.
[She's not the reason Omi's sharing it, this just has something to do with the base. Is it forcing them to indulge in despair?]
Obviously it isn't my fault. [Harrow, don't be rude when you just saw a sad memory.] I was expressing sympathy, and regret at having viewed something private.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Week 0: Sunday
Considering the ingredients he still has on the table, he'll be going at this for a few more hours.]
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. . . Hello. What are you making?
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You're welcome to some of the cookies there, once they cool down.
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I've wanted to ask you about something, actually.
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Alright, go ahead.
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[It was weed, Harrow.]
Did you?
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I went to the kitchen a little later with Gojou and made some spicy food.
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. . . At the party, did you see whether Beau had her quarterstaff?
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Of course. I'll try that.
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Sorry.
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Right...
Is there anybody you haven't spoken to? I know it's only been a week...
week 2; monday
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When he sees Harrow, he'll wave.]
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How are you today?
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[Can you hear the relief?]
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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?”]
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Soup? Did she really just make soup out of her own bones? He finds himself agreeing with this God, who is clearly worried about her. Was she okay?]
... I'm sorry for intruding.
[He's certain she didn't want to share that, let alone with somebody she's only barely spoken to.]
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[Actually, this memory is - okay? She doesn't like the frantic, terrified way she felt before, but.]
I did nearly best him. It will be some time before he tries once more, I hope.
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By feeding him your bones?
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I know it's an inelegant solution. But he is a thanergy void, and so he had me at a disadvantage.
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[In return Harrow gets this:
It's dark and you're on your motorcycle. Your partner is right next to you on his own bike. There's nothing on the road for miles and miles. You feel so alive with him, the person you trust the most in the world.
Suddenly, a gang shows up, attacks you and your partner- both of you crash, as the other motorcyclists drive off like it was nothing. As if they didn't just kill somebody. With the high speed you were going, you're sure you broke your bones, but you can't feel the injuries with the rush of adrenaline running through your system.
"Nachi!" You scream raw and desperate, hoping against hope that he's still conscious.]
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Why? She has never had anyone like that. She should not be able to relate to his despair at all. And yet, and yet, and yet. . . ]
I'm. I'm sorry.
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Thank you, but it's not your fault.
[She's not the reason Omi's sharing it, this just has something to do with the base. Is it forcing them to indulge in despair?]
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This week's effect is a pain.
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