#verdanzy

“So how is it?”
Verdanzy looks up at Winterlayt and Urlae, eyes wide as they chew on a mouthful of cooked lamb. They think about it for a moment before looking down at their plate,
“Oddly sweet - and then bitter in places.”
Both blink at them and then turn to each other. Winterlayt shrugs,
“I suppose that would be the mint and then the thyme.”
Urlae shrugs in response,
“I’ve never cooked it before, I just followed what Helvelta told me to do.”
Verdanzy tilts their head,
“Why the thyme? It’s so bitter.”
Their father shrugs and gestures to a book at the end of the dining room table,
“Found out it was by royal decree that thyme and bitter herbs are cooked with lamb because of people preferring it over mutton - as demand went up it meant less lambs to grow up, then less sheep to have the lambs in the first place. A rather silly rule if not an effective one.”
“But can’t people just choose to eat lamb without the thyme?”
“Yes but with the rule instated it was illegal and you could be fined.”
“Ah.”

Verdanzy looks back down at the plate,
“…Why am I eating this?”
Urlae shrugs,
“Lily and Weyther won’t because of the mint, and we can’t - it’s more because we’re both happy you can eat such things.”
Verdanzy scowls and cuts up another piece,
“So I’m your guinea pig.”
Urlae chuckles,
“Pretty much - but please know it’s because we’re happy you can do things we can’t.”
Verdanzy glances at Winterlayt,
“Have you tried?”
“Yeah…We both have, numerous times.”
Winterlayts’ face is its usual stoney glower, but there’s almost a smile on his thin lips. There’s a pause before he speaks up,
“Back when I was a sapling - when I awoke within the Inquest labs, they still thought us plants that mimicked sentience. They thought that due to our bodies being that of plants we should be able to survive like plants off sunshine, water and dirt. Unfortunately, we’re a bit more complex than that.”
Vedranzy can see their uncle rolling his eyes at the corner of his sight as Winterlayt continues,
“But movement requires so much more energy than what can be absorbed by the ground. So some of us managed to stave off starvation by basically sleeping 24/7 to conserve what little energy we had.”
The engineer seems lost in his memories,
“It’s…only with some of us dying that they realized soething was wrong, and then the theory was made that perhaps we were carnivorous plants like pitchers and fly traps.”
There’s another pause as Winter’s hand lies flat on the book and then slowly grips it to the point his knuckles as a bright gold,
“I had only ever eaten dirt until then, so as soon as they gave me meat - well, I craved it.”
He doesn’t look at them, doesn’t move an inch. There’s a moment where Verdanzy sees the commanders’ shoulders tighten and his grip on the book loosen;
“I ate naught else, and by the time I was free - by the time I was out of there, I knew nothing else and the shock of trying for the first time with Autl cooking me a piece of beef was…”
He turns to Verdanzy, a somewhat sad but wide grin on his face;
“I couldn’t do it. The texture, the smell - spices and the like - cheese and dairy, all of it made me dreadfully sick but we did try it all.”
He looks to Urlae, who shares the same hollow gaze and a solemn nod. They both look to Verdanzy,
“So yeah - we’re both just happy you’re nothing like us, and can eat such things.”

Verdanzy looks down at the plate, unsure what to say, unsure what to think; they pick up another piece of cut lamb with their fork to chew it.
“Thank you.”