insertmeathere | FRIDAY MEME

Anwei finally finds THE PERFECT RESTAURANT

The staff was waiting for her, of course: her visits were very well planned. They bowed as one, two long rows of cooks and servers rippling like the wind as Anwei Ayles strode into the restaurant in green and black patterned robes, head high. The yellow-blue flicker of her AI companion, Horanckk, floated at her side, appearing and disappearing as he switched his output between the restaurant's projectors. Her private dining room was prepared, table set with self-heating plates, floor covered with stain-proof plastic sheets.

First, bitter herbs to cleanse her palate, and salted ice water. The knives and prongs and clamps were already ready, and she had put on the first of several full-coverage lacy aprons that she would be going through. She did tend to make a mess when she ate.

The staff brought out the main course with clear pride. She had sent around the requisite tissue samples the week before. Now, muscle and skin gleamed on carefully shaped porcelain bones heated to blood temperature, and vat-grown organs pulsed in their support pods. The last she had of her companions, on the greatest adventure of her life.

She sighed almost wistfully, and looked up at the ceiling, seeing in her mind's eye the planet and the stars and the universe beyond – and the walls around the universe, now forever inviolate. That had been the price each of the crew of the Transmigrations-9 had paid: their universe restored, but sealed away from all others forever, so that their Thread Walker powers could not create more worlds and stress the fabric of reality to breaking.

So those others she had walked with – they were there, each alive in their own universe. Never to be seen or heard or smelled again. But they were there, and she hoped they were happy.

She had embraced them hard and well as they parted, pressed her cheeks and hands to theirs. As soon as she had arrived in her new Fle (a place of soaring glories and deep peace, now) she had called for medical personnel, and had her skin and clothes carefully scraped. The skin cells found had been rejuvenated, nurtured, and finally named and claimed by her.

The vat-grown meat ripped between her teeth, with just the right tug as she separated it from the false bone. She breathed in through a full mouth, tasting blood frothing over her tongue and all the way down her throat, and felt a deep contentment within her.

She was here, she was well, and they were well too. And a part of them would always be with her.

The meat servings were not very large; she wanted to sample as many as were complementary to her palate. Alien flesh sweet or scaly or pungent or tasting faintly of machinery. Pink skin and brown and green, fuzzed with fine blond hairs or black hairs or scales or hairless, all popping and shredding at her bite (she had thoroughly soiled two aprons by now, but barely noticed as a third was whisked over her). Heart muscle throbbing against her tongue as she swallowed, thick-creamy marrow with just a hint of sea-salt. Blood ran in rivers down her chin, and again and again she ran her fingers up her neck and licked them clean.

She picked the hair from between her teeth with a silver toothpick as dessert arrived. Dark chocolate ginger ice cream, with burnt caramel sauce. She re-used the marrow spoon for it, licking with her narrow tongue.

"I wish I could taste that," said Horanckk, materializing beside her in his usual form: wide cheekbones and the disturbingly mobile Living People mouth, hazel eyes with a hint of fire to them, his broad shoulders wrapped in a yellow burnoose-like robe. "You seem to enjoy it so."

She raised her hand and looked at it: saw the wrinkles and the age spots under the spatters of blood. She could have rejuvenated herself when she came back, but she hadn't really seen the point of it. She had time to see that all she had created was whole, and that was enough.

"You will," she promised, laying her hand on the table between them; he cupped his holographic hand over it, not too close. "I'll cross over to the AI world soon enough. I'll share everything with you; every memory, every feeling, every taste and sight and sound. And we will never be apart again."

"The time I was not there-" he started to say, sorrow in his tone, and she held her finger before his lips and made a shushing noise.

"You were there when I needed you. That is all that matters. And soon we will be together, forever."

"Forever," he agreed.

She untied the layers of blood-drenched aprons, washed her hands and her face back to the ears, tipped generously all around (another row of rippling bows) and walked into the blue-tinged sunlight, smiling wide, full and full of joy.

...hi would you like to play the villainess in my next plot

:) What, your plot requires a villainess who's a really messy eater?

I mean come on, you wouldn't be mortally offended if she nibbled on a lost strand of your hair, would you? Is there any real difference between that and culturing a few shed skin cells into something a bit more ... filling?

No, actually it's more comedic, but I always thought Anwei would make a good villainess.

YES I WOULD BE, ACTUALLY, THAT'S REALLY CREEPY XD

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Anwei Ayles

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