A Meal à la Nälkä
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Ein Mahl nach Nälkä-Art1

"What exactly did you mean then?" Anaij, currently in the shape of a platinum blonde woman with a face more seal-like than human, frowned at her roommate.

When Klues had returned from shopping in their small town of Sjhlfels am Rhein and started banging around in the kitchen, she had left her spot in front of the small television where she had been watching her favourite show to come over and see what he was doing.

"Healthy cooking," replied Klues. Compared to Anaij, Klues was much more down to earth. He could have passed for an ordinary teenager if he hadn't had four pairs of short tentacles growing on his back.

"I want a balanced diet. I have some doubt that all these tumors and ulcers are doing us any good. It's too one-sided, and think about it. Ulcers are unhealthy tissue."

A pout appeared on the seal face, and her tail whipped through the air somewhat tetchily.

"It sounds unnecessarily complicated and - well, just unnecessary. I'm sure not even Grand Karcist Ion thought about such trivial things. What does Karcist MoKu-Hir say about your experimenting?"

Klues' shoulders slouched in response. He sighed. "At least try it. You can still criticize me later if you want."

Anaij rubbed the bridge of her nose, and her whiskers twitched. "All right, but at least add meat to it! What am I going to eat?"

Klues beamed. He hopped around in the shared kitchen, pulling out pots and cutlery. With a strange tenderness he took a red lump out of the fridge and unwrapped the plastic foil away before cutting it into four pieces and placing it in a pan of sizzling fat.. One of his tentacles pulled a large knife from a board and passed it to a human hand, which then used it to cut vegetables.

When the hobby cook was finished, he proudly placed two carefully decorated plates on the kitchen table. "I'm serving you a grizzly bear steak with mushroom sauce. On the side is a hard-boiled basilisk egg. And here is a raspberry-mealworm tart for dessert."

Anaij eyed at the plates and said, with exaggerated seriousness, "I thought basilisk eggs were poisonous."

The two laughed, then Anaij started poking at the food and cutting bite-sized pieces. Halfway through the meal she mumbled, "Everything is very spicy. I miss a bit of the bloody finish, but otherwise, it's edible."

"Exactly. It's not so bad." Klues suppressed a smile at the fact that his roommate's hairless and scaleless tail was unconsciously wriggling with pleasure.

"And what is this?" She lifted a yellow-orange disc and peered suspiciously at it.

"That's a slice of carrot. And that's a cabbage leaf."

Anaij studied both with fascination, before stuffing them into her mouth and continuing to eat noisily.

—【◉】—

Twenty minutes later Klues climbed the stairs to the upper floor. Anaij had just made herself comfortable back in front of the TV again when she had suddenly risen and disappeared into her room looking a little sickly.

He tapped with a short claw on his roommate's ajar door, which was covered with stickers, posters, carved symbols and signs. "Hey, Anaij? Are you all right?"

He listened. Klues heard moaning. This in itself was not particularly unusual for followers of Nälkä, but this did not sound like a meditation or ceremony, and the next holiday was still weeks away. Rather, It sounded like Anaij was in pain.

Out of politeness, he knocked again before using one of the tentacles to open the door and slipping in.

Anaij’s room was, as always, filled with partly-started projects, aesthetic knickknacks, and religious articles arranged semi-ironically across various surfaces. But Klues’s gaze went immediately to the bed in the middle of all the clutter. "Are you okay?" he asked, as soon as he saw Anaij on top of it.

Anaij lay on the bed in the fetal position. She was shivering, and her skin was covered with goose bumps.

”Anaij? What’s wrong?”

"Lovataar plays with my innards…", Anaij whimpered.

"Was that because of my food? I'm… I'm so sorry," Klues said in a panicked voice. He went over and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. "How can I help? "Would it help if I… I hope that's okay…" He reached over hesitantly, put one hand on her belly and began to rub over it in small circles. Anaij moaned again but gave no clear indication that he should stop and after about a minute she seemed to relax, uncurling and rolling onto her back.

"Stop," Anaij suddenly said. Her voice was alarmingly quiet and, startled, Klues pulled his hand away. Anaij immediately curled up into a ball again, but the atmosphere had changed. Slightly embarrassed, and rather confused, Klues retreated, and closed the door behind him

He took a deep breath and then jumped down to the lower floor, not bothering to use the stairs actually.
Once downstairs, he could already hear Anaij kicking open her door and stomping out screaming in rage.

—【◉】—

"Spit it out: What did you put in it, you lecher?!" Anaij yanked roughly on Klues's tentacles. She also injected various parts of his body with neurotoxin from the sting on the end of her tail.

Not that she really intended to paralyze him, or pull the tentacles clean off; to be honest, she was more embarrassed than she was angry.

"Nothing! I swear! It was just vegetables and meat. Even the mushrooms were boring samples from the normie supermarket."

Anaij sighed, pulled one of the tentacles one last time without much pleasure and stood up. "Then why did I get euphoric?"

"I don't know either … I swear I didn't put in any kind of aphrodisiac. I was just -" then suddenly Klues was all silent.

Anaij noticed right away. "You just what?"

"Nothing important … Well, I was just singing a song from Walpurgisnachtskinder while I was cooking -"

"You listen to nälkä-classics? Which song? Hey, why won't you answer?!"

Klues blushed slightly. That's when the penny dropped on her. She grabbed at a tentacle and wrenched on it again. "Don't tell me it was 'Herzrasen'! You know it's about Klavigar Lovataar!

"OUCH! I thought ‘cooking with love’ was just a saying, okay? I didn't know it would give you a climax!"

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