deernet | video, un:charon

Good evening, all. I think this is what is termed a 'bandwagon.' However, as I imagine we will all be busy dead, dying, or in the process of resurrecting soon, I thought I had better commit before October.

I'm opening a bakery and sweets shop.

[Lysithea pans the camera to a table that is covered with pans filled with dozens of buns, cakes, and confections of different colors. It really looks extremely well done. One would imagine that Lysithea applies herself with the same intensity to any task she undertakes.]

Everything will be sourced from traditional Fódlan desserts, passed down through family histories and collected by hand in this book. I've realized that if I'm not the one who makes these treats, I'm... never going to taste them again. So I thought I should share.

[The view changes to an enormous tome currently open to a page titled Saghert and Cream in script prominently displaying a luscious picture of some kind of fruit and cream concoction. It really looks like this was drawn by hand.]

I'm baking from my room for now. If you want anything here, you can drop by or I'll bring it over. If you want delivery, you've got to get at least a dozen, because frankly, I'm not running all over town to give you one sweet bun. I'll open a proper location when it's not Death Month.

...Thanks.

[She signs off after a moment's awkward hesitation, as if she's not sure what to do next.]

[video pt 2, ten minutes later]

It's -- me again. Upon further reflection, I have no idea how to run a business, at all, apart from the portion where you confidently declare it in public.

I would... appreciate advice.

And help. If you are willing to be paid in cake.

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[Ah. Echolalia. That was a... new development. Lysithea half-opens her mouth to ask why in the world he was repeating her words verbatim before deciding that there could be no positive outcome to that line of questioning. Suffice it to say that he seemed to be... internalizing her message.

As Lysithea kneads her own dough, the two bakers soon fall into a comfortable rhythm. She relaxes under the spell of companionable silence - and progresses far enough that she begins to shape and press the dough into perfect little adorable spheres. Early on, she remembers to instruct Paimon in the importance of wetting his hands from time to time to avoid dough sticking to his fingers - then more or less forgets he is there.

Something nudges her about ten minutes in.]

Ye -- Oh.

[She looks wordlessly at the bread doll for a moment.]

Is that... me?

[She has no reason to believe it is her, only that she has some vague idea about sympathetic magic accomplished through effigies, which seems vaguely demon-esque. Glancing up to meet his face, she is... surprised by the intensity of the expression in his eyes. Intense, but... somehow earnest.

Slowly, Lysithea tears a hunk of dough out of her own bowl and with practiced skill, molds it into the shape of a little person. She pokes two small holes for eyes, then hands it to Paimon.]

There. That's you.

( Honestly, there's no telling who the little figure was originally meant to be, or if there was even some sort of intended outcome to its creation at all. There's just a... need to create within him. Some echo of his past life inside of the little girl — the one who'd been so lost, who'd created strange dolls and figures out of anything she could find. Bits and pieces of items deconstructed and repurposed into imitations of life: animals, people, fusions of different parts. She, he, they, had made sense of the world that way, and expressed themselves so quietly with it.

Like with so many things, Paimon doesn't explicitly remember being inside of Charlie, but that need to make dolls has continued on in him even after being transferred to Peter, like some inherited trait.

But as soon as Lysithea asks, the demon is nodding. Because at once, it becomes her, as easily as that. This is her.

Then he waits and watches as she responds to his creation with one of her own, silently transfixed by the process. Before... eyes wide, he slowly reaches for the doll she holds out for him. This is him. The demon draws it closer, fingers holding onto the dough figure with a careful gentleness that doesn't seem to match his usual twitchy demeanour. There's something much calmer that comes over him as he slowly examines it, turning it around in his fingers. )

This is nice.... You're really good at it.

( His manner of speaking changes too, subtly: there's the use of contractions now, and words, phrasing, that might seem a bit.... odd for the demon to use. He dips his head downwards a little, eyes shyly peeking up at her. )

Do you like making dolls? ....I make them lots.

I couldn't really say. I've never made one before today.

[Lysithea, who is always dreadfully honest, shrugs slightly as she picks up the doll that Paimon had made. Mimicking his motions, her touch is gentle and the doll does not lose its shape in her hands. This does not... entirely fit with her knowledge of Paimon - neither Paimon, the creature inside the human host, nor Paimon, the great demon lord described in the texts. Perhaps this was a quirk borrowed from Peter? But she hadn't ever known him to care about dolls, eitehr.]

If you like dolls, we could make gingerbread men. ...It's not exactly the same, but you'd be rolling up dough into the shape of people.

[...And despite his current (oddly endearing) shyness, some part of her still thinks that the most likely connection here is ancient demon dark magic. Lysithea sets the doll carefully to the side and glances over at Paimon.

He is acting decidedly strange.]

Have you... been making dolls for a long time?

( Gingerbread men? Does he... know that term? He seems to linger on it, thinking deeply for a moment.. but the snippets of association with the concept are strangely out of his reach, and he lets them fizzle away — giving a nod instead, as though making an important decision. )

I'd like to make gingerbread men. We can make everyone we know.

( That's.......... a lot of people....

The question, however, is something he's able to answer. It comes easily to him, even though he shrugs one shoulder upwards and tilts his cheek towards his shoulder to look away from her for a moment, another expression of shyness. )

Pretty long. Mom makes dolls too, but mine are different. ...She still likes them, though. ...She buys me things to make them with.

( All of this is said slowly, and a little awkwardly, but there's a sincerity, too. He hesitates for a moment, before adding something he was especially proud about. )

She bought me a hot glue gun.

Let's call that the next project we work on, then.

[The current dough, sadly, is destined to become sweet buns, light and airy and peppered with little bits of glazed fruit. It would not do to actually bake it in the shape of people. As Paimon? (Paimon? somebody else?) continues to speak, Lysithea tries to affect a casual expression and continue with the process of forming the dough into little spheres.]

Indeed?

I'm afraid I don't know what that is. I can make a guess, I suppose - it shoots glue? To assemble your dolls with?

[Who was it he was referring to as 'Mom'? (Why is it that she thinks of Peter's girlfriend - the one who gifted him the flower.)]

Your mother must enjoy looking at your creations.

( He falls silent for another long moment, trying to think how to describe it. Some times, translating thought to verbal form is harder than other times. But after a moment, he thinks the way she said it describes it best, and nods again. )

It shoots the glue. Then you can put stuff together with it. But sometimes there's strings and you have to pull them off.

( Time-consuming, but a task he'd always taken to with the same methodical precision, pulling thin strings of glue off of fingers. )

She's good at looking. ( He agrees, or... perhaps answers in a different way. It's hard to say what Mom enjoys, sometimes. And she gets mad a lot. )

Does your mom like watching you make things? Food, like this?

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