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Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2020 19:29:13 GMT -6
"Hm." Hope considered things carefully. "I'll see about getting you a dinner knife at least. It has to hurt to eat." Surely an exception could be made. If not, a bribe could certainly be made and that would be enough. Hope sipped the soup and wrinkled her nose. "The soup is passable. I've had worse. You should have tried some of the food Henry used to make." He had been so determined to prove himself and to be helpful.
He had been a terrible cook. "He tried to make tuna mac one day. It was very much pasta mush. I couldn't even bring myself to take a bite to encourage him." They had ordered takeout.
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Post by Ylanne on Mar 31, 2020 19:44:04 GMT -6
"It must have been a grave disappointment, then." Drulović carefully removed the carrot from the fork, and picked up the piece of cornbread. It was a bit stale, and lacked the warmth and lusciousness in the cornbread she made at home. She frowned, but bit into it anyway, chewing slowly. It at least crumbled well. "It could be worse," she said. "At least, I'm no longer attempting to eat with broken teeth still in my mouth." She'd simply starved, for weeks. She set the cornbread down, and reached for the soup, leaning over the bowl and tilting it slightly toward her so she could sip at it. The soup and the cornbread were likely going to be her only nutrition until dinner. Well. At least they'd brought cornbread this time, instead of leaving only the vegetables and meat she couldn't chew. "I much prefer my own cooking. I loved my kitchen dearly. I'd have fed you, had you come to visit." She'd fed dignitaries and mafia bosses in her house, soccer moms and vagrants. It had never been an ostentatious place. It had, however, been home.
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 12:02:12 GMT -6
"Would you like my soup too?" She offered politely. She could eat the other foods after all. "It's no trouble. And it's not like I can't just pop out and get more food for me." She pointed out cheerfully. "I will miss being able to do that. It's tied to the chip." She admitted, not that worried about sharing secrets. Who exactly was the old lady going to tell in prison that would believe her. "Well, that and a genetic quirk. You do have to have both, before you get any ideas." All hail the person who initially figured it out, even if it was kept hush hush because of probable erutin experimentation.
Hope was realistic about the horrors her government perpetrated. There were a great many and she only knew a very small amount of them. The erutin government wasn't exactly a utopia, after all.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 12:13:52 GMT -6
"Please. Don't worry too much about me. I'm fine with what I have." The old woman ignored the protests she already felt from her stomach as she shook her head slightly, sipping more at her soup before setting the bowl back on the table. The tables, four of them, were simple plastic things, designed to be sturdy enough to withstand a fair amount of abuse. Theirs had been scratched into so much Drulović could almost see patterns. "Besides, I never cared much for Loheu. What a slovenly fellow, so rude and lacking in even the most basic manners. I almost regret that dinner I agreed to share with the schmuck. He wouldn't close his damn mouth while chewing, either in Erutin or human form, and all the while, I had to stare at half-masticated mammal."
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 12:20:56 GMT -6
Hope ignored the protest and switched their bowls around so the full bowl of soup was now on Arianne's try. "You could just call him Gear. You're not built to get the right vocalization for his name." Hope repeated the name, but there was almost a rolling sound to the last syllable. "You'd need different vocal cords." And that was the simple truth. "My name is easier. Manehi." Mah-neh-hee, though there was a curious undertone to the word. It almost sounded like she rolled the last syllable as well. "But on Terra, Hope is better. It's what the Belkans call me too." The only people who ever got her name right were other Erutin, so she didn't mind going by the translation.
"Though I suppose it'd be a bit like you going by Very Holy." A quick search using her chip had revealed that as the meaning for the others name.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 12:50:57 GMT -6
"Or 'thanks,' if you ask the Aussies," said Drulović. "It wasn't a traditional Slavic name, nor a Jewish one. I supposed I was always a bit of an oddity. For you, though, I much prefer the sound of Manehi. It's a beautiful name." She looked sharply at Hope, catching the quick switch of the bowls. "But as I said, I don't want your pity. I've lived on much less." With her trembling hand, Drulović removed the full bowl, setting it on the table, and reached back for her own, taking it from Hope. The soup here was nothing like what her mother had made, or either of her grandmothers. Still, it was a far cry better than the meager rations she'd survived on in other hells much worse than whatever Ĭtpraṽmår was, for whatever indignities and privations she'd suffered here, the expectation of bribes really only the least of them. Most Terrans now couldn't even pronounce its name properly either. Too many of their languages were lost to time, ravaged by millennia of war and conquest. "You should eat your own soup. It'll grow cold if you wait too long."
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 13:03:36 GMT -6
"Arianne. You are old and frail. I am young and strong. Eat the soup." She said and put it back on the other woman's tray. "Before they yell at us to stop playing with our food. You need more to eat than what you've had, or you'll lose even more wait. That boy of yours, your deputy? He'll already fuss at the sight of you. You'll make him fuss more." She pointed out. She knew the two were close and that the boy hadn't been allowed to see her since her arrest. No doubt he'd come by soon enough though, and he'd fuss over how thin she was. Children did that.
Hope nibbled at her corn bread and made a face, but ate it, if slowly. "Humans eat weird things besides. I'm sure the food is better suited to you than it is to me." She still wasn't sure of most human foods. They seemed to be something else, to be sure. Hope tended to prefer a good deal more meat in her meals herself. The mystery meat was more alogn her lines of healthy food, even if she had no clue where it came from. "And I'm not supposed to eat too many vegetables. I may look human, but I still have an erutin's dietary needs." Vegetables didn't provide enough calories, though they were necessary for some vitamins. But she tended to need a large amount of calories in order to shift her shape. What was on her plate wasn't enough, but she could simply send for more. It was something the other woman couldn't do.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 13:26:33 GMT -6
"Then eat whatever this bit of meat is supposed to be," said Drulović, spearing her piece of it and dumping it unceremoniously on Hope's plate. "It's of no use to me." She drank the last of the soup in the bowl originally on her tray, and then reached for the cornbread piece again. One of the guards had brought over a small cup of coffee, and another a little cup of juice. The old woman mused over the cornbread before lifting the juice and drinking some. It, too, was thin and watery. "You'd think flavors and seasoning were contraband." She snorted in contempt. Hope was right, though. She'd become thinner and bonier, though her appetite had also decreased over the last several months. A maladaptation of some kind, no doubt. But Ahmad had not yet come, because they'd all been told they needed to wait for the central office to approve him on her visitation list, and, well, the paperwork could take a while. Especially when, as it turned out, not all of hers had come with her when they'd transported her out of the city. God, the bureaucrats could be as efficient as a one-toed sloth in hibernation, sometimes, when they really hated you. They were just skilled enough to know which precise documents to accidentally misplace, or have to send for two additional signatures, on routes known for delays and missing mail. Just skilled enough to stoke near everyone's ire, but well protected enough to avoid any consequences for it.
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 13:34:54 GMT -6
Hope nibbled at the meat as well. It wasn't really identifiable, which should probably concern her. But it was alright. "Meat's better for me anyway." Hope noted. And the old woman wouldn't have been able to chew it, so this was probably fine. Hope accepted the juice as well and put the coffee to the side, to drink later. "I wonder if I can talk them into sugar and creamer for the coffee..." She murmured and sighed. "Probably not." They'd be huffy about it if she asked, and frankly, she didn't want to find out the pitfalls of the Terra prison structure.
She sipped the juice. "I can keep you better fed as part of our deal. This is rather ridiculous foodwise." There was probably a system. Hope would set someone to figuring it out so that the older woman would eat well, even if she was stuck here.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 13:42:46 GMT -6
"There's creamer in the refrigerator, but I wouldn't trust it," said the old woman, glancing suspiciously toward the appliance in question, which itself looked at least twenty years out of date, next to a bare counter that might have last been cleaned only a few days ago, but looked as though no amount of scrubbing would actually freshen and sanitize it. "It's like to be at least a season old, and I can't say I have any particularly strong desire to visit the infirmary for an upset stomach." They'd taken her the day after she arrived, just to be sure they weren't incurring any unknown liabilities, but the nurse on duty - not even a full doctor, she'd noticed - said that she was ambulatory, alert, and able to speak, plus not currently bleeding, and so therefore, she was fine. They'd consider approving her for a cane. Drulović was inclined to agree with the nurse, anyhow. The last item on their trays was a single cookie per meal, possible a shortbread or sugar cookie. When Drulović had finished with what she was going to eat of the cornbread, she reached for the cookie, pressing her lips together tightly in disappointment upon realizing it, too, would be too hard for her to bite into. "Mr. Humphries does a worse job of baking than Natalija did when she was but five years old. What a terrible disappointment."
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 13:47:04 GMT -6
Hope considered the cookie, and bit into her. "You could probably manage it if you broke it apart by hand." She suggested. "It's not too tough for that. and once it's smaller, you should be okay." She should still have enough teeth for a smaller cookie, at least. "Henry informed me sugar is necessary for humans, so you should definitely have the cookie." Henry had gotten away with a lot by insisting it was a human thing. Hope had trusted him well enough to stay out of trouble and to have a decent idea as to what he needed, foodwise.
She did insist on vegetables though. Those were important, according to their television shows. "They may let you bake one day. I'm sure you'll do better." If she could stand long enough to do so. "Don't prisons often have rotating inmate duties, and things like that?"
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 13:58:32 GMT -6
"I'm sure I'll be fine without it," Drulović said, waving dismissively. She passed the cookie, wordless, to Hope. Nearly all of the others in her unit who were still here had eaten their fill by now, and had wandered back out to the yard. A few were elsewhere for at least the next couple of hours, and so would have taken their lunch outside the unit's dayroom. "Work is mandatory for many here, yes, though for me, well, I think Ms. Krstevska hasn't quite decided yet whether she thinks I ought to have some assignment or whether I'm too crippled to be put to work. Terra doesn't practice hard labor here." Not officially, anyway. And certainly not systematically. But the old woman knew she'd be a poor sight trying to dig ditches or haul lumber or pave roads. She'd be much more a hindrance than a help, and she knew that Krstevska knew it too. The warden could see it each time Drulović struggled to stand or walk farther than about twenty feet. Andrade had taken great care not just to ensure that Drulović couldn't outrun him when she'd tried, but that she might never be able to run again. "The point of it is humiliation, more than anything else." It was not clear what she was talking about, now. She sipped at the coffee, now lukewarm, and bitter.
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 14:04:13 GMT -6
"Humiliation?" That sounded ridiculous. Hope decided not to chance the creamer and pushed her coffee over to Arianne. "Work shouldn't be about humiliation." It should be about work. Though she didn't really know what work actually should be about, if she was honest. Striving for something, she supposed. She nibbled on the second cookie, glad enough to have it. She'd need the calories, and she knew it. "I hope they don't decide to make work mandatory for you. Work shouldn't be mandatory for anyone locked up like this." The prisoners had already lost their freedom. They shouldn't be forced to be productive as well.
It should be a choice.
But it wasn't and she knew it. It wasn't a choice at all in erutin prisons. Terran ones were kinder though.
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Post by Ylanne on Apr 4, 2020 14:41:04 GMT -6
"It'd be something to do to fill the hours of the day," said Drulović, shrugging. "I've been working damn near my entire life, and it's strange, really, to be without it." Officially, anyway. She drank the last of her coffee and then took Hope's. She much preferred her own. Or the little roadside stands in the old country, where they brewed it thick and hot and carefully spiced. Or the absurdly oversized mugs in the country diners where it always came with a thick helping of cream and sugar, and a smile, and stories about the old days. "But as I've said. You needn't make the same sacrifices that I have. You've your entire life ahead of you. Me? I'm afraid I've wasted most of mine." And how she had paid the worst possible price for it. Loneliness could be so terrible, it ached on its own, separate from what pains ailed her body, looming over her and enveloping her, swallowing her entirely in its shroud of grief and solitude. All she had left on the home front was only to ponder what troubles yet awaited, silent and still. She craved their screams and their laughter, their tears and their keening, warm bodies pressed against hers, the sounds of doors opening and closing in other rooms, and voices rising and falling in rhythm, while the fire burned soft and warm and crackling. But all of that had brought only trouble and turmoil, before it vanished, for good.
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Post by demikara on Apr 4, 2020 14:47:55 GMT -6
Hope shrugged, uncertain. "I suppose doing nothing would get very boring very quickly." She conceded. "Especially here, where there's nothing to do." She stretched and pushed her tray away, having finished off most of it. "It's funny. I came here expecting I'd be able to offer you something you'd want." And instead it was the other way around. "But you're not interested in what I have to offer at all, are you?"
Freedom wasn't something that seemed to interest the other. Perhaps it would in time, but Hope had imagined the months leading up to the trial would be enough for anyone to want freedom. Apparently not this woman though.
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