Even the illusion of June is enough to send a stabbing pain through my chest

[butnotyet]

Who: Augustine the First and ____________ (This could be you!)
What: A little bit of everything, including Event threads, and who knows what else
When: Throughout June
Where: All around Trench; specific locations listed in TLs as necessary.

Content warnings for this character: Necromancer with visibility issues (still running a little bit Invisible Man) seeking CR for explicit gore/body horror as a matter-of-fact daily occurrence / being jaded AF about life in Trench and otherwise (look, man, he's older than dirt) / needs more people to be slutty at-or-with (bearing in mind he is, again, currently at-least-mostly Invisible, you/your character's kinks/mileage May Vary, player more interested in vague/FTB/finessing a scene than anything explicit). Also, his omen is his brother, and also a venomous snake, and also really chatty.

Specific warnings for this post: Nightmares featuring a lot of violence, including self-inflicted/suicide; various types of religious imagery/discussions, definitely including "taking the Lord's Name in vain"; invisible nude spying on God (might get spicy).

Comments

[terriblepurpose]

By all rights, Paul shouldn't have let the first few months in Trench alter his perception of scarcity. It's sensible for a person in a position of providing for others to have an awareness of resource constraints and to look to insure his people against hard times. It's not necessary to go further than that, or to let it preoccupy his thoughts so often, especially given the ability of the head of this particular house to provide.

No one is going to go without under this roof. Paul still counts the jars he's set aside in the basement. Hunger is a memorable thing.

So it is that his raised eyebrows when Augustine comes into the kitchen with a bushel of grapes is undercut by his small smile, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows as he stirs a steaming berry sauce on the stovetop. Augustine's new garb doesn't merit much surprise, at this point. Compared to the Ninth's paint, it's not that strange.

"Grapes, this time?" He says, more to open the conversation than for any other reason. "I think there's still room in the fridge, if you'd be so kind."

[butnotyet]

"One of the many miracles of life," Augustine intones — heavily laced with an amused sarcasm — "having fruit that's actually fresh, taken from the vine or plant or tree within days, if not hours — preserving something for a few millennia, even if it isn't spoiling, really does just take something out of it."

The spirit of the fruit, maybe, more than the actual flavor — but seriously, after ten thousand years, not even kale tastes exactly like it does when it's really fresh.

"Is that turning into jam, or staying a sauce?" he asks over his shoulder, or maybe through it, while he starts rearranging refrigerator contents — wary, of course, that he's going to end up dropping something unseen onto the back of his head, as things shift around. 'Room in the fridge' is possibly only a technical term, at the moment.

«Maybe we could get a new refrigerator,» Alfred suggests with a wary eye at a teetering, foil-wrapped mystery, and nudges it a little more firmly onto that top shelf.

[terriblepurpose]

Another detail to file away for future contemplation: the Saints of the King Undying of Augustine's particular vintage crave freshness. Paul wonders how much of that is a concrete difference and how much is a perceptual one. When it comes to matters of taste, the distinction isn't as discrete as people sometimes think.

"A sauce, for this one. I have to get more jars for jam before I can begin on that. There's been a shortage at the market - I think you aren't the only one going in for fruit." Paul doesn't quite laugh, but the suggestion of it ripples beneath his tone anyway, and the surrealness of the situation only adds to it.

It's not an unsettling surreality. There's conversely something almost comforting about it, something that feels easy and known, even if this is unlike anything Paul would have done in his last home.

"But at least it condenses this down, in the short term, and it gets into the rest of them easier..." He means Kaworu more than Gideon, and certainly more than Harrowhark, who finds this much sweetness overwhelming, in his experience. "I'm surprised you ever had to go without fresh fruit."