What if she already knew who I actually was?
What if she didn't care even after I revealed it?
I couldn't blame her if she wanted to punish me for the things I did.
At the end I nearly killed her. Just to answer some damn question.
The possible actions I could take going forward; they revolved in my mind endlessly, I wanted an answer. But I was afraid of reaching out to that truth.
Forget it. It wouldn't do me any good. In the end I would have to consume the two of them all the same. How could I ask for that companionship, when I'd look them in the eye and devour them in a short while?
That was the reason for this facade.
I was supposed to live on the same level as my prey, to experience their lifestyle, humanize them. Then eat them after all that.
I couldn't understand what was so holy or transformative about such actions. The only thing that I knew... was that I had to do it.
Revolting. I'm still justifying myself, even in this situation.
I was brought into the hovel proper at the behest of the small boy. It was what one might expect from a cave, the ground surface was abrasive and hot, heated by the humid, putrid air rising from the Bloody Goblet. Few furnishings decorated the room; two blankets, I assumed acted as their beds, another dwarfed the other two in sheer scale. As if someone had put out a blanket for three horses. Prepared for my arrival, I suppose. A stone cut dinner table with a large bench and two standard sized chairs, more than enough for the children.
A seat had already been prepared...
Come to think of it, the butler did mention that this was a plan in the making for years now. It would hardly be difficult to prepare this hovel for my arrival. So long as the space was wide enough to accommodate me.
I half expected this...
The seat was at the head of the table. I presided over these two children, a real family, like some omnipotent patriarch. An intruder upon this family's peace. However, I couldn't step away from this now. Not with that ridiculously large landmass looming down on us from above.
With the weight I had lost from that arena fight and forgoing meals, it was easy enough to slip into the bench's embrace. Though, I wonder if that would remain the case, had I remained a similar weight as when I first came to this world?
Looking towards one of the distant walls a small wooden chair, similar to the two's was snug against the wall. As if it had been freshly discarded and forgotten... a placeholder, why? Wasn't this place to my specifications?
I'm overthinking things. It would waste resources to keep on making seats to my specific dimensions, better to leave a marker and prepare something in the event I arrived.
I knew the reason my mind was beginning to wander from one thing to the next.
Sitting at the dining table... an obvious activity would follow. My least favourite activity of any day. One I still had trouble with partaking in.
All the same saliva naturally pooled in my mouth, an autonomic response. I was the dog that had heard the dinner bell. Shame erupted internally at that realisation.
...
Meal time was approaching. There was a single fortunate revelation this day; the meal I was dreading the most, wouldn't be today. Nor was it the day after, in a different way that sent me reeling into anxiety. I didn't have to commit that atrocity in this moment. This event would be much easier to stomach, I couldn't see my meals' eyes and face. That was the only comfort I was afforded.
At least, today. I can pretend to be human for a while longer.
Of course... I'd still have to eat. It made no difference whether it was in the castle or here.
Just get it over with.
"Here." Opening my eyes warily. I could barely believe it, my eyes must be playing tricks on me. Peering up from the plate, she was still here. Were they both tricks of the heart, smoke and mirrors that my mind conjured after being stuck in this mad place for so long?
"...What? What is this?" There were foreign plants and wildflowers scattered over the plate. A plate much smaller than any I had become accustomed to eating from. It was dyed or looked that way at least, nowhere near the lush colours of the food I was used to in that old world.
Foliage.
Even if it was a completely different colour and appearance to my preconceptions. I couldn't help but feel that its existence was some kind of miracle. Where this land was acrid, calcified, destroyed, forgotten by God. Something had managed to survive. Presented before me.
"Food. Eat it or don't, I don't care. That servant guy asked me to make some for you as well." I noticed she had handed me the food last... Not the usual sequence, when considering nobility. The woman strode back to her own seat, dining upon the meal in front of her, trying her best to never allow my figure to enter her vision.
"No way..." Breath, words they were caught in my throat, I could nary make a sound. Express anything more than my shock was impossible.
So it was here all this time... I had to eat human flesh, even though this alternative was in front of me all along?
Just how did they?
...No, don't even think about that. It doesn't matter how it's made, it has to be better than growing humans like cattle.
"I don't blame you, Sis' cooking isn't the best..." He whispered, reaching over the table slightly.
"I don't see you complaining when you stuff your face, brat." She rebutted immediately.
"It beats out starving, just barely." The boy stated, with his mouth still full. Some of the contents spilling as he spoke.
"If I could make the meals I actually wanted to, maybe you wouldn't be such a runt."
"Gah, I'm not a runt!" Pushing himself off the table with both arms, he glared at the girl, elevated enough to look his older sister in the eye.
"Are too." The two of them continued their antics despite my presence. What a strange feeling.
But... it was comfortable.
The boy looked over for a moment, noticing that I hadn't taken a single bite. Let alone reached for the cutlery beside my plate.
"If you aren't going to eat it, then it's mine! Hehehe!" Before he could make his way over, I took up those utensils.
Not once had I used them for a meal in that manor. It would make things too real, I would have accepted that chaos as normality. I ate like an animal instead, some wild beast that ate with his hands as if he had just killed the prey and feasted immediately.
"No. There's no need for that. Thank you, it's wonderful."
"You're weird." The boy said automatically. His eyebrows raised in suspicion.
"I never thought I'd agree with you little brother, but you may be right about that. I don't want to hear any complaints from you then, Baron or not." No one had spoken to me like that in years. I assume she knew all too well what was happening behind the scenes. Why I was here at all... Had she made peace with it? I don't even know if I have... I'm not being given much of a choice.
I funneled the food into my mouth, taking deliberate steps to enjoy every single mouthful of this small delicacy. My vision was glistening.
...
Is this what it's like? To be a normal human again. It's been so long, I had forgotten. The simple feeling a warm, home cooked meal could produce. I couldn't forget the world outside this hovel, this tiny, insignificant burrow. But it was a joyful moment of reprieve, just a brief respite from the hell I had found myself in.
Perhaps there really is another way.