New York Carnival 42 (How To Be Yourself Without Really Trying)

Hey everyone. It's been a while. Well, for Chiri, specifically. I've still been updating, I've just been focusing on the Sifal spinoff New Years of Conquest for a bit. Check that out if you somehow haven't seen it yet. I have to keep mentioning it because I think some of you skip past the author's notes up here and miss all the cool news updates.

For those of you who aren't aware, stiplets are from u/browneorum's famous work The Offspring. It's quite good, dare I say Tolkienesque. Definitely on the opposite end of the spectrum from my manic dialogue-forward writing style.

Gonna be in the woods next week. I'll be writing, and I'll be on Discord, but it's very unlikely that I'll be posting. We'll see.

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Memory Transcription Subject: Chiri, Gojid Refugee

Date [standardized human time]: November 1, 2136

“That was fun,” said David, stepping out of the shower. He sounded a bit euphoric and a bit out of breath. “Want me to get started on dinner while you, uhhh…”

He’d already toweled off easily–perks of evolved furlessness–and thrown on some lightweight clothes to lounge around the apartment in. I, on the other paw, looked like I’d halfway melted. My fur was soaked and slicked flat against my skin, and there weren’t enough towels left in the whole city to get me dry on their own. “Yeah, I’ll be a few minutes with the fur dryer.”

“Hair dryer,” he corrected. “Humans don’t have fur.”

I snorted. “Nah. And I’m not gonna start calling my paws ‘hands’ and ‘feet’, either.”

David chuckled. “As you wish,” he said with a shrug. He paused by the bathroom door before heading back out. “I kinda wanna cook in front of you for this one, but I’ll go get my mise en place ready to go.”

I was left alone with the fur dryer and my own reflection, but she was just grinning like a love-struck idiot this time. I was too blissed out for intrusive thoughts.

No such thing, said the critical voice, as I swatted her away.

It honestly just felt great, though, to finally have a path forward. I had something to do with my days again, something to work towards, and I had someone whose company I enjoyed to do it with. Good company and living with purpose were all it took to keep the bad thoughts at bay.

Still right here, always, said the critical voice. I swatted at her again, but she dodged away. Incorporeal little jerk. If anything, you should be worrying more now that things are going well. Now you have something to lose again.

No, I was going to make a point of just enjoying things for a little while longer. I had the rest of my life to be an anxious wreck. I could be chill for a week or three.

Can you, though?

I smeared the steam on the mirror with a paw so I didn’t have to stare at the other me for a bit.

My fur was fairly fluffed up as I took the stairs from the loft area of the apartment back down to the kitchen. The apartment’s kitchen, to be clear. The day had been long and exhausting, physically and spiritually, and there was no force in the universe that could compel me to take the main stairwell back down to the restaurant for anything short of a house fire. I took the same seat as last time, with my back to the window. I wanted to see David more than the ruined skyline. He had a covered pan simmering on the stove already behind him, but his attention was on a noisy device whirring on the countertop. He was slowly drizzling two different pale yellow-green liquids into a clear container in the device that was whipping it into this… fluffy white goop.

“Is that a burger?” I asked, half-jokingly, as soon as the noise stopped.

David laughed. “Nah, it’s toum,” he said. “It’s an emulsion of olive oil and lemon juice using lots of raw garlic as the stabilizer. That’s what keeps it so fluffy.” He tasted it briefly and seemed satisfied with what he’d made. I was just happy I’d already managed to commit olives, lemons, and garlic to memory. “Normally I’d put a little mayonnaise or aioli on the burger as a condiment, but nowadays those almost always use the protein from bird eggs to stabilize the emulsion. Toum is an old cousin sauce to aioli that never went mainstream, so it’s still always made in the traditional eggless style.”

I nodded. “Fluffy bread, fluffy sauce, fluffy girlfriend,” I mused aloud.

Did you even check if you two were official, or are you just inferring? the critical voice needled.

David froze, momentarily, at the word girlfriend, before his face bloomed into a huge grin.

I’m inferring, I thought, smiling smugly.

“Alright, Chiri. Ready to start?”

“Yes! On with it!” I shouted, laughing as well. “I hunger for flesh!”

“Right, well,” David started. He began heating up two more pans on the stove, and pulled out two packages of reddish pink goop. He was meticulously keeping them separate, doubling the amount of dishes he’d have to wash later. He put them out on the counter for me to examine. “This one is the plant-based meat you picked out,” he said hesitantly, “and this one is ground beef.” He looked at me, waiting for a reaction.

I poked my snout as close as I dared towards the real meat. It looked fairly similar to the fake, like someone had let boiled root vegetables go soggy and spongy, and then smooshed it together. The flesh bits didn’t even smell like food; it just smelled wet and metallic.

I looked back up at David. “And this is food to you?”

David shook his head. “No, not really. Again, it smells like food once the fire gets at it. That's what I want to test. If it starts smelling delicious to you once it starts cooking.”

Proof of a predator, said the odd voice. Do you have a human’s nose?

I rubbed my snout like it itched. “Alright, let’s do this.”

David added salt and spices to the meat, real and fake, as he heated the well-oiled pans. A few moments of anticipation passed as they got so hot that the oil was just approaching the threshold of smoking. Then the meat hit the pan.

I flinched. It sizzled so loud! It crackled and spit like someone had tossed a handful of fruit slices into a deep fryer.

Sin, said the critical voice. That’s the sound of sin.

David immediately placed a mesh lid over the real meat. “Splash guard,” he said. “If we’re treating it like an allergen, I don’t want it splattering everywhere.”

See? the critical voice continued. Even the human doesn’t want the corrupting taint of predation spraying around the room like seafoam, infesting you.

Oh sweetie, no, said the odd voice, a strangely patronizing tone seeping into her. Forget the lies we were taught. Besides, if predator disease were actually communicable by fluid transfer, that ship has sailed. Twice tonight already and counting.

“Let me know when it starts to smell good,” said David.

Past the crackling and spitting noises, there was an oddly sulfuric-sweet fragrance. “It already kinda smells good,” I said.

Hot pan number one, with meat, hot pan number two, with plant-based meat, and David lifted the lid on pan number three, in the back, on low heat. The savory-caramel scent reared its head. “Caramelized onions,” David said. “Just butter, salt and pepper, and an angry root bulb that learns to chill out if you simmer it long enough.” He splashed a little more water on the onions. The onions hissed angrily at the insult. “They’ll slowly turn brown and jammy as they cook. Makes for a wonderful condiment. I can even do it with olive oil, if we’re serving people who think butter is icky.”

Like Yotuls, Venlil, or around ninety percent or more of all Gojids, said the critical voice, conversationally.

I nodded, and David fussed around, making sure all his ingredients were in their place. There was a drawn-out silence as it cooked, punctuated by the hiss of it sizzling in the frying pan.

He’s going to eat that, you know, said the critical voice. Dating an apex predator has been an abstraction thus far. David’s never gorged on flesh in front of you. You might be excited on paper, but are you prepared for the reality?

“So, starting tomorrow, I’m going to have to get back to focusing on how to reopen the restaurant,” said David. For obvious reasons, he was oblivious to the conversation happening inside my head. “It’s going to be R&D sessions in the kitchen for the rest of the week, in all likelihood.” He tapped the counter, weighing his words. “I’ve been doing home-cooking for you so far. Very loosey-goosey, food prepped from the heart. The dishes I serve to customers are a lot less improvisational. They have to be perfect. Which means, I can’t just make up a recipe, I have to refine and practice it.” His eyes focused in on mine. “I need you to understand, this is going to be tedious and unglamorous. I’m going to make, like… fifteen slight variations on purple root vegetable stew. You are going to tell me that it’s good enough, and I can stop, and I’m going to ignore you, because ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough. Anything I serve needs to be impossibly good.”

That was a baffling enough statement to jolt me out of my mental rut. My family’s business was alcohol, but beverage sales weren’t entirely a realm apart. We’d sell kegs to restaurants, which involved navigating the temperaments of restaurant owners. I understood how prissy some proprietors could be while focusing on the balance between quality of food and quality of service. This sounded like a level of obsession fully beyond that, though. “Alright?” I said, confused. “I mean, most of your dishes are going to come off as mind-blowing already to nonhumans, but if you want to push it further…” My eyes widened as I remembered we weren’t actually alone on this planet. “Oh, right! You’ll be competing against other human restaurants. You can’t just rely on novelty, you have to be good enough to… to…”

I blinked, and I turned towards the stove. My nose rankled with an alluringly sweet scent that I didn’t recognize. It was toasty and fatty in a way that made my mouth water. And underneath it all, there was this… odd funk to it? It reminded me a little bit of cheese, and a lotta bit of mushrooms tossed in butter…

My mouth watered.

Your instincts betray you, said the critical voice.

Not a betrayal, said the odd voice. An affirmation.

“It smells amazing,” I told David. I teared up a little. My guts were all twisted up, worrying this way and that. How could they not be? There was a part of me that was worried that I was evil, that I was a traitor to everything I’d been taught from the day I was born. But there was another part of me that was worried that I would never belong anywhere: not a real predator, but too far gone to go back to being prey. It was a moment of pure catharsis, knowing the truth of my instincts, knowing once and for all that I had the same birthright as any human. I had a place at the table. I could be free here on Earth.

“You okay?” David asked. His eyes were still so bewitching. When he looked at me, I had his full attention. For prey, it must have been terrifying. From a lover, though, it was touching. “I’m used to people being brought to tears by how great my cooking is, but I’m worried there’s a bit more to unpack in your case.”

“Tears of joy and relief,” I said, smiling. “Glad I’m one of you.”

David smiled back, and casually shrugged. “I’d love you even if you weren’t.”

I turned a little blue at the edges as my grin widened. He flipped the little meat-ish discs over, and the scent and color of them reminded me of something very specific.

“This looks and smells like Liar’s Stiplet,” I said.

David froze, blinking in confusion. “‘Stiplet’ isn’t quite translating, but I’m getting something like ‘squirrel’, or maybe ‘chinchilla’?” Those didn’t quite translate right on back. “Little arboreal rodent thing, I take it?”

I did a double-take. “Yeah? I guess? I don’t think the name is related. Liar’s Stiplet is just a mix of crushed dried mushrooms and starchy grain, formed into a ball and deep-fried. It has nothing to do with actual stiplets. It’s just a silly name.”

David stared at me incredulously for a few long moments. “I mean, there’s an old dish from the British Isles called Welsh Rabbit. It’s cheese on toast. The ‘joke’ is that, as far as the English are concerned, a Welshman could wander off into the forest to hunt a rabbit–again, a small forest creature, and fairly easy prey for a human with any projectile weapon whatsoever–and fail so haplessly that they’d just lie and pretend that a bit of cheese was actually hunted meat.”

My eyes narrowed. “That’s kinda fucked up.”

Consider, at least, that humans are a great deal more tribalistic than Gojids are, said the critical voice. Gojids tend to favor speciesism instead.

David nodded. “It’s absolutely fucked up. But if you tell me that you have a fried mushroom dish called ‘Liar’s Stiplet’, my guess is that it was originally exactly what it sounded like. A passable imitation of meatballs, served by swindlers to the poor. The name probably survived first contact because the Farsul didn’t respect you enough to realize what it meant.”

My eyes went wide, and I blanched, not saying anything for a long moment.

“If that’s something that matters to you, you may have had a proud hunting tradition all along,” David said, smiling warmly. “It was just hidden from you in plain sight.”