Ship: Deshavi/Ymira/the Captain (PC), from Mount & Blade Words: 283 Notes: This is part three of a six-part story. Content warning for (off-page) killing and (on-page) eating of a secondary character’s pets in the face of starvation.
On the eighty-sixth day of the siege, they slaughter Lord Fudreim's dogs.
They had subsisted on vermin so far, but now there are no rats to be found. Better a swift death, the Lord says, than the agony of starvation. That burden is reserved for soldiers.
He isn't present when it happens. You don't blame him.
You're given one carcass as your company's share. It will be the first meat in your rations in more than a month. It will be the last meat in your rations until the castle falls or the siege is lifted.
Deshavi is your best butcher, so the task falls to her. She expertly strips the skin from the meat, strips the meat from the bones. The meat, such as it is, you’ll salt and spread across as many meals as you can.
What you can’t preserve, you’ll eat today.
Deshavi cracks the bones and places them in a cauldron, along with the grain that would have been today’s rations. It’s a thin soup - barely a broth, really - but when you sit down to eat it, it’s incomparable.
Deshavi makes sure you’re given the thickest bone. Normally, you’d refuse, but today you lack the willpower. There’s precious little meat left on it - Deshavi is a good butcher - but what there is, you find, and you eat. You scrape the gristle from the joint. You suck the marrow from the center.
“You know,” Deshavi says, “it’s easy to be a good cook for starving soldiers. Maybe we should get besieged more often.”
You can’t help yourself. You laugh.
You laugh, and you laugh, and you retreat to your quarters before they can see your tears.
Fill: Team OC
Words: 283
Notes: This is part three of a six-part story. Content warning for (off-page) killing and (on-page) eating of a secondary character’s pets in the face of starvation.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
——
On the eighty-sixth day of the siege, they slaughter Lord Fudreim's dogs.
They had subsisted on vermin so far, but now there are no rats to be found. Better a swift death, the Lord says, than the agony of starvation. That burden is reserved for soldiers.
He isn't present when it happens. You don't blame him.
You're given one carcass as your company's share. It will be the first meat in your rations in more than a month. It will be the last meat in your rations until the castle falls or the siege is lifted.
Deshavi is your best butcher, so the task falls to her. She expertly strips the skin from the meat, strips the meat from the bones. The meat, such as it is, you’ll salt and spread across as many meals as you can.
What you can’t preserve, you’ll eat today.
Deshavi cracks the bones and places them in a cauldron, along with the grain that would have been today’s rations. It’s a thin soup - barely a broth, really - but when you sit down to eat it, it’s incomparable.
Deshavi makes sure you’re given the thickest bone. Normally, you’d refuse, but today you lack the willpower. There’s precious little meat left on it - Deshavi is a good butcher - but what there is, you find, and you eat. You scrape the gristle from the joint. You suck the marrow from the center.
“You know,” Deshavi says, “it’s easy to be a good cook for starving soldiers. Maybe we should get besieged more often.”
You can’t help yourself. You laugh.
You laugh, and you laugh, and you retreat to your quarters before they can see your tears.