Marron's first instinct was to retch.
She doubled over and spasmed.
Lucy crept up and sat beside her, tendrils gently patting her back. She glowed a pale blue, but the elder shaman clicked her tongue.
"Not now, slimekin. She has to do this herself."
The blue slime gave a disapproving burble but stopped her healing pulse. Mokko lunged toward her but was stopped by three or four wolfkin hunters.
He growled and they bared their fangs.
"We understand, but the chef has to do this alone."
"I can't even GET CLOSE?" Mokko asked, glasses threatening to fall off his snout.
"Yes. We don't know how your bond can affect the evil that wants to possess her."
He punched the dirt with his paw, leaving a sizable hole.
"If she doesn't get over this, I'm going to punch you." He glared at the elder shaman and the other wolves.
"If she dies," the elder shaman said sagely, "you can kill me."
+
Marron's breathing quickened.
The heat from the potion didn't settle in her belly. Instead, it crawled up like a dragon into her chest and settled in her throat and jaw.
Her teeth ached, and her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. And there were so many flavors, it was difficult to identify them all. She tasted vinegar, salt, and the faint bitter taste of burnt meat.
When she saw the obsidian kitchen top, she sighed.
The infernal kitchen again.
One moment her face was pushed against moss, and the next she stood on cracked tile.
Same place as before.
A kitchen like her own, but stretched too wide.
Too many doors. Too many sharp corners.
Someone had already been cooking something, from the way the pot burbled in the center of the room. The lid rocked to and fro slightly.
Isn't that the chipped pot from Earth? My friends had to throw it out for me.
She knew that pot, and refused to part with it because it belonged to her mom. But her friends were always saying how it was unsafe, because the enamel had worn off over time.
'We love your cooking Marron, but I don't want to eat iron shards!'
So she let them throw it out before she moved into her second apartment.
How did that get here?
She turned—
And there it was.
The hooded figure.
Its hands moved calmly, adding sugar into the pot and stirring until it caramelized. As the hooded figure stirred, she could see a memory bubble up in front of it.
Her worst splatter burn. She'd added cold butter instead of letting it come to room temperature.
After that, I never wanted to handle caramel again. It took a long time to get over that.
What did I do after...?
She couldn't remember, and stared with horror as the hooded figure grasped the memory bubble and started crushing it into the pot.
Bit by bit, she could feel the memory dissolving from her mind, hopelessly forgotten. The painful burns she sustained...
...all disappeared.
She didn't even know why she tried so hard to make it in the first place.
"Stop," she said.
It kept stirring.
Marron tried to grab the wooden spoon.
"That's mine. That's me."
Steam rose in sharp spirals and covered hooded figure in white smoke.
While the kitchen looked familiar, it wasn't hers. It was a recreation of what the hooded figure observed.
Recorded.
It was a remixed version of what it thought it should have been.
"You don't get to use my flavor like that."
Marron's pink eyes scanned for a knife, but couldn't find any.
That's how you know this is not my kitchen.
Just spoons.
So she grabbed a spoon.
The figure added salt, and then...something completely weird.
She added sour—a squeeze of fermented lime, pulled from the same pantry it used to haunt her dreams.
"You want to cook through me?" she whispered. "Then taste me."
She grabbed a knife and pierced her finger with it. Then she let a drop of her blood fall into the pot. Instead of red blood, it was blacker than coal, and fizzled as it fell.
Her present.
Not her memory.
Who she was now.
The pot screamed. A high, breathy whistle.
The figure flinched.
And Marron grabbed the spoon and stirred it so hard the pot cracked in half.
The figure collapsed inward. It wasn't destroyed, but covered in the salt-lime caramel.
Burnt.
Bound to her now.
+
She woke up.
Hands trembling. Breathing fast. The clay cup had fallen from her lap, shattered in three clean pieces.
Lucy was hovering at the edge of the circle, jittery but waiting.
Mokko was still held back—but every muscle in his body screamed tension.
The elder shaman stepped forward.
Sniffed.
Sniffed again.
Paused.
Then, softly: "The possession has been tampered with. Now it is part of her, and obeys her."
The elder wolf gave her a small bow.
"It is no small feat to conquer a snakekin possession, child."
Marron groaned and rolled onto her back, the world tilting.
"I hate metaphysical soup," she whispered.
Lucy immediately wrapped her in a soft, cool hug.
Mokko pushed past the guards. No one stopped him this time.
"I'm fine," Marron said.
"You look terrible," he snapped. "But you're still you."
"I stirred it back in," she murmured. "I didn't get rid of it. I just made it... part of the recipe."
The shaman gave a long exhale through his nose. "Very dangerous."
"Very her," Mokko said.
+
The next morning came slow and silver.
Marron sat alone beside the fire circle. The ashes were cold, but she hadn't asked for flame. Not yet.
She didn't need it.
Lucy sat nearby, her glow pale and unsure.
Mokko stood off to the side, arms crossed, trying not to interfere. His scent was heavy with distrust—but not toward Marron.
Toward what she was about to do.
She held one ingredient.
Just one.
A slip of meat—dry, threadlike, folded in waxed paper. It wasn't from her coldbox, but from the kitchen of the possessed spirit.
Part of the thing the wolves banished from her food cart.
They hadn't destroyed it.
They'd salted it, yes.
But they'd let her keep it.
"You shouldn't," Mokko said, barely above a growl.
"I know," she said.
She didn't cook it in oil. She didn't char or fry. She steeped it—slowly, in a pan of miso broth laced with wild nettle and bitter bean.
She added ginger—not to balance it, but to amplify the heat. Chili from her own pouch—hers, not the shadow's.
A single drop of stolen glaze, retrieved from the cart after the cleansing.
This is a dish made with a ghost, she thought. But the recipe is mine.
She stirred gently.
She did not taste it.
She breathed into it.
Then she poured it into a bowl carved from ash-wood and set it down before her.
The wind didn't move.
No one spoke.
The shaman came forward and crouched beside her.
"You're not offering it to us, are you?"
Marron shook her head. "I'm offering it to myself."
The elder's nostrils flared. Their expression changed—no longer fear. No longer wariness.
Respect.
Marron lifted the bowl to her lips.
The broth was hot.
Not burning.
Not alive.
But listening.
She drank.
[System Response Triggered]
SYSTEM UPDATE: Culinary Signature Modified
EMOTION CHANNELING II → ECHO-BOUND FLAVOR (RARE PATH)
Trait Added:Inhabited Cooking— Your flavor profile now includes a fixed echo. It may amplify emotional effects or manifest memory-images.
Warning: The fixed echo flavor may unsettle others. Proceed with scent management protocols.
Dear host, you are no longer being watched. Instead, the snakekin will remember you.
Marron exhaled. Her stomach didn't turn. Her mind didn't spin.
But something shifted.
There was someone else in her body.
It was like a guest had finally sat down at her table, but was expecting to be served properly.