a totally normal and innocuous wanted ad

[faithlikeaseed]

Name: Myr Shivana | un: mshivana
Date: 9/15
Format: Voice

Evening, Mirrorbound. My name's Myr Shivana, for those who don't know my voice.

I've need of someone with experience mediating disputes--a village elder, a judge, even a senior ench--senior academic, if you've had particularly bad students. [There's a note of faint amusement in his voice, there.]

You'd be helping settle a matter that's caused no end of pain and distress to those involved. The reasons behind it are sensitive in nature, so discretion's a must.

I can compensate your time--with cunes or honey or service, whatever's preferred.

[...]

Also--unrelated to the other issue, if there's any Witches or Fae who specialize in illusions invoking taste instead of sight, I'd like to talk to you. Or cooks specializing in food for folk who can't taste much, I s'pose could work too. [He sounds cheerier about this one, at least.]

Comments

[hearthebell]

[Back to this topic. It's a deeply unpleasant one, but also welcome for the change, the breathing room that comes with it. Over the channel, L wrinkles his nose involuntarily.]

Like fermented cabbage and radishes, I imagine.

[He imagines that it tastes terrible.]

[faithlikeaseed]

You've never actually had it?

[Not...actually a surprise, given the givens, but here Myr thought an aversive reaction that strong came from direct experience.

...]

How many other things d'you imagine taste terrible?

[The response to last year's gift of moretum is suddenly a lot more interesting in this potential context.]

[hearthebell]

Are you asking me for an itemized list, or a ballpark?

[He could probably provide either, but he's going for a simpler answer. He can do that; there's safety in it, with Myr, the advantage of a Bond.]

Most meat, vegetables, legumes and grains likely also taste bad. Especially when they start to rot, but... the foods I like don't keep secrets. You can see the blemishes on fruit, or smell when cream's started to turn. Honey crystalizes, but won't make you sick, even after years.

[faithlikeaseed]

[And butter's obvious about being rancid, and anything with enough sugar in it would keep forever.

Quietly,]

How often did you have to eat something that was already rotting?

[hearthebell]

[There's a long, cautious silence, followed by a curated, cautious answer.]

Nearly always, once. Then never again.

[It was part of the promise his handler had made, and kept. For all that L had lived too much, or not at all, it could at least be said that choosing hunger or illness wasn't one of the choices that faced him every day.]

I almost don't remember what maggots taste like.

[faithlikeaseed]

Maker's blood and breath.

[He breathes out the oath, and lets an acknowledging silence follow it.

L's attitude really isn't all that foreign to an alienage kid who'd, once upon a time, been suddenly introduced to a Circle where three fresh meals a day was the norm.]

We weren't forced into that choice so often. [But he's had recent experience to remember it by; Hasmal's stores had been dwindling badly by the time the Inquisition's offer of help arrived.]

Cured and spiced foods might be a good addition to your list. To try.

[hearthebell]

[For someone so terribly pared down to bone, L is deeply afraid of hunger. Nothing comforts him like excess, to have or waste as he pleases, without fear. The idea that he might someday be afraid enough to eat the way he used to have to is unacceptable; paradoxically, he almost would rather starve.]

Do you think so?

[He sounds doubtful, but not dismissive. He doesn't think that Myr would steer him wrong out of malice, after all. Like Watari, his is a hand that feeds him.]

[faithlikeaseed]

It's worth a try. We know you like moretum; maybe something else with garlic, to start.

Though, [with a clearing of his throat,] we don't need to be so dire about it as we're both feeling right now. I think this'll be fun, to be honest with you.

[He's willing that into being in the act of saying so. Food is love and enjoyment for him, after all--an attitude born out of his own remembered childhood hunger.]

[hearthebell]

[Garlic is also pungent, but he's eaten it before. It was different, but even back then, it was love, wasn't it? The same way his own tragic latkes were to all unfortunate enough to receive them?]

Yeah, it... could be fun. I'm willing to give it a try. The worst case is that I can't taste it, right?

[faithlikeaseed]

Right. Then we'll just move on to the next thing--florals, maybe. Another Faun I know suggested 'em.

[They can have hope about this. It will get better.]

[hearthebell]

Roses are supposed to be sweet, if not as much as they smell. I've heard of them in lemonade.

[faithlikeaseed]

They are that, and we're coming up on rose hip time as it is. [He's making mental notes of all of this, clearing a new room in his memory tower to set down recipes and ideas. Rose petals, rose hips...]

...Come to think, d'you know what a pineapple is?

[hearthebell]

Yes; pineapple's good. It's common in my world's tropical regions.

[He usually adds sugar.]

I appreciate most fruits, and things that they feature in.

[faithlikeaseed]

Huh. Good, but not amazing enough you'd make it the centerpiece of a wedding? [Don't... mind him, his mind skipped sideways a little there.

He's heard some strange things lately about pineapples.]

Right. At least the seasons here mean we'll have some all year round, [and thank the Maker for that.] And honey. Not quite enough to live on, but--

[Huff. All right. He's perseverating, at this point, he knows it.] --we will find something.

[hearthebell]

Anyone trusting me to choose the centerpiece of a wedding has probably abandoned the path of wisdom, anyway... but it's good in cake, sometimes.

[Usually in milder amounts than he can taste well, at this time.]

At this point, you've put more thought and effort into all of this than I have. There is the alternative of just learning to live with it; my life isn't so joyless that food is all I have to care about or look forward to.

[It just was, once. In recent memory, for a stretch of over a decade.]

[faithlikeaseed]

[Despite the way it's phrased, there's...actually something heartening in hearing L say that. Myr gives a little huffing noise that's almost a laugh.]

That's true. I'd prefer a middle way, at least, where you get something out of eating--so it's not just another obstacle in maintaining yourself. Your body is the conduit for your magic; with how brilliant you are as it is, I can't help but wonder...

[What L would be like, well-fed and rested for once.]

[hearthebell]

[L can kind of guess at the direction Myr is going with that. He's wondered, too.

Would it make the world seem both kinder and more honest, to eliminate the reasons for the pity and disgust that even those who care for him must feel on some level?]

I'm older than I ever thought I'd be. I suppose that youth makes one resilient to poor nutrition for a long time, but...

[Not indefinitely.]

[faithlikeaseed]

Not forever.

[He's silent a moment--and then, in one of those bouts of utter earnestness he's good at,] I want you around for a long time, amatus. Living your life like you're burning it won't give us that.

[hearthebell]

[Nothing is forever, the pedantic impulse insists to say, but life has a way of becoming precious when it seems permissible to actually want to live longer, for selfish and indulgent reasons that are somehow also permissible.]

If I want that, too... at least a longer fuse would be manageable. If there's some damage I can't recover from, I expect that there's some that I can.

[faithlikeaseed]

I expect there might be a lot of it you can, [is Myr's reply, warm and gentle.

It would need time, and patience with what couldn't be mended. But Myr has his hopes, at least, and they are emboldened by the feeling they have turned a corner.]