(2025-08-30) Cannibearism, Split Stew, Room 3

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Author:	Luridel
Summary:	Cecil and Ozzy settle into Surwich, have lunch, and chat. Ozzy tells a story. Cecil rents a room. ~4.1k words.
Rating:	T for Teen

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romance

Only about a minute has passed by the time Cecil follows Ozzy into Surwich's inn - he did not dawdle. The very first thing he does is find her and show her what he has written on his notepad, which is, 'I'm going to go wash my hands. Can I find you here after?'

He absolutely needs to wash his hands. His gloves are spattered with demonic ichor. He's been punching ghosts and evil trees and demons and spiders.

"Yeah, I'll um… I'll wait right there." Ozzy points to a nearby chair. Her own worgen-hand is perfectly clean, because it was her bear-paws (and jaws) that were tearing into the demons.

Cecil ducks outside. He returns in a few minutes, smelling more strongly of the ocean than before. His hands are clean and carefully washed, and his gloves have been put away. He settles down in a chair next to Ozzy and smiles at her.

She smiles back. "So, the way the buildings look around here? It's just like a town in Gilneas. Imagine a big city that looks all like this, under a gloomy gray sky. Also a huge cathedral with colored stained glass windows. That was my city."

"Beautiful," Cecil signs. He opens his notepad and writes, 'Hungry?' Then he shows her the sign for hungry, which is the letter C drawn down the front of his chest like food is being digested.

Ozzy copies the sign, grins, and says, "Always." She then bares her fangs and growls playfully. "The beast in me hungers!" she says dramatically. The innkeeper gives her an unamused look.

Cecil laughs and signs, "Worgen!" with a fake look of shock.

Ozzy giggles. "I'm gonna get you…" she says, narrowing her eyes and leaning forward. Then she sits back and giggles again. "So, other than the demons, wot do you think of the town?"

Cecil pretends to cower in his chair, which passes once the joke is over. He writes, 'It seems cozy, but it's in a really remote location, which means either it needs to develop more self-sufficiency or a new road ought to be built for it. It was dangerous getting those horses here. Even without the demons.'

"Yeah," Ozzy admits, "it's not a very practical location right now. But I fink the idea was for the druids to work their way toward Nethergarde with their healing magic and make the whole land healthier again over time. Also I fink they, or we I guess, weren't counting on the sea route being quite so dangerous. I wonder if there's any truth to the rumors that Horde shamans meddled wif the weather? We'll never know now. Everyone who could say is dead."

Cecil nods, bowing his head in respect for the dead for a moment before writing, 'Do you want to split lunch? If we order something liquid with solids, like stew, I could have some of the broth down here.'

"Sure!" Ozzy says cheerfully. "Any decent Gilnean inn will have at least two kinds of good stew. That's assumin' this is a decent one, of course." She giggles. "I should probably switch to human form to eat stew - this muzzle isn't really made for it."

Cecil smiles at her. 'You can have all the meat and vegetables. Will you order? Pick whichever one you like, things taste relatively similar to me.'

"Oh I guess that's kind of a plus," Ozzy says. "Easier to eat healthy if you're not picky. Must be why you're in such good shape." She eyes him subtly up and down, then waves down the single working server. "Wot kinda stew you got 'ere?" she says.

"Fish or bear," says the server, a sleek-looking dark gray male worgen.

Ozzy wrinkles her nose. "Too soon for fish," she says, and then informs the server, who did not ask, "I just had a nawsty battle wif a kraken not too long ago, an' it's put me off seafood a bit."

"Bear then?" says the server in a bored tone. His accent is similar to Ozzy's, but more intelligible than her full native one.

"Yeah," she says. Then she turns to Cecil and says cheerfully, "Cannibalism!" Then she considers. "Cannibearism?"

The server shakes his head slightly, bemused, as he walks toward the cauldrons.

Cecil snickers quietly and begins to draw a bear sitting at a table, then adds in a giant bowl in front of the bear and draws the head of another bear in the bowl.

Ozzy's laugh is so sudden and loud that people look over and frown at her. No one here seems to have much of a sense of humor.

"I'm real glad we ran into you on the way here," Ozzy says when she's finished guffawing. "Made the trip so much more fun than if it was just, well, you know." She glances skyward like a teenager whose parent Cannot Be Named.

Cecil smiles proudly and signs, "Good."

A tray containing two bowls of stew and two spoons arrives at the table while Cecil is still putting the finishing touches on his cannibearism drawing. Cecil sets his pen down to sign, "Thank you," to the server.

"Thank you," Ozzy translates.

Then she leans over to peer into Cecil's bowl, as though it contains anything different from hers. It does not. It literally just came from the exact same cauldron.

"Okay," she says. "So let's scoop all the chunky stuff into my bowl, and then I'll pour some of the broth back into yours so we got about the same amount of stuff."

She picks up her spoon and begins the excavation of Cecil's bowl. A nearby villager watches, her expression somewhere between judgy and 'There's nothing better on tonight, why not.'

Cecil smiles gratefully at Ozzy for translating, and he moves the bowl closer to hers to minimize the risk of splashing stew onto the table before helping her with the transferal of the chunks.

It's a good thing he thought of that, because Ozzy is not naturally a Minimizing Splash kind of gal. She attends to the work with a Very Serious Expression on her still-worgen face, and between the two of them they manage to transfer all the bits of bear and carrot and potato and so forth into Ozzy's bowl.

She then picks up her bowl, considers her large worgen hands, and sets it down again.

"You should probably do this bit," she admits.

Cecil picks it up and uses his spoon to hold back the dam of solid foods, tilting it carefully to transfer the broth. It is not a fifty-fifty split, but also the bowls were fairly full to begin with, and pouring too much might cause his own to overflow. Ozzy still has around three-quarters of her original broth when he's done. He gives Ozzy a thumbs-up.

"Yeah, I figured you'd be good at that," Ozzy says approvingly. "Me, I'd have ended up with half of it on the table probably. Or in your lap. And you've had enough goo on you today."

Cecil chuckles and ruffles Ozzy's mane. He dips his spoon into the broth, blows on it to cool it, and then glances at the woman who's been watching them rearrange their stew, holding her stare to see if she'll look away.

She stubbornly meets his gaze for a moment, then looks away like she was just going to look somewhere else anyway, it's totally not because of him.

Ozzy shrinks down into human form and shovels extremely chunky stew into her mouth in a way that probably doesn't seem rude to the locals, but would horrify most of Cecil's acquaintances.

Cecil eats hesitantly, one spoonful of broth at a time, at maybe a quarter of Ozzy's speed. He seems to be using the spoon to hide what remains of his tongue as much as possible whenever he opens his mouth.

Ozzy politely averts her eyes while he eats, lending him what privacy she can while sitting right next to him. After shoveling about half the stew into her maw at an alarming speed, Ozzy remembers to finish chewing the meat and veggies and actually swallow them before she speaks.

"So uh, did you hear anyfing back from your da after you wrote him about, you know…?"

Cecil sets his spoon down for the moment - plenty of broth remains - to flip to a new page (Cannibearism is preserved) and write, 'I gave him the note in person. He said "Good for you, son," and then he left to join the evening patrol.' Cecil looks a little irritated about this - while it's not a strictly bad outcome, it is a clear demonstration of his father's priorities.

"Could've been much worse," Ozzy observes. "Even if it was sarcasm, at least he didn't backhand ya or disown ya. So that's a good start. Now we just let time do its thing, yeah?"

Cecil sighs and the annoyance softens as he acknowledges her point. 'That's true.' He has another spoonful of broth.

"So," Ozzy says, stirring the remaining chunky concoction in her bowl. "On the way here when we was tradin' tales, I didn't wanna tell too much about things I got up to when I was younger, but it was mostly on account of the old folks. I don't mind tellin' stuff to you, if you ever want to hear it. I don't fink you'd judge me, but even if you did, better now than after we get into this too deep, yeah?"

Cecil nods eagerly and writes, 'I always want to know more about you, but what I'm basing my opinion of you on is who you are and what you do in the present, not who you were and what you did in the past.'

Ozzy studies him a bit dubiously. "So even if you heard I murdered some orphans or somefing, you'd just let all that lie in the past and take me as I am today?"

Cecil nods slowly, then thinks about it, then writes to clarify: 'I won't hold you responsible for anything you did while you were feral, no matter who you killed. And if you did say something like that, I would give you the benefit of the doubt and let you finish the story and explain why.'

She fidgets, and has a few more bites of stew as she thinks it over.

"I guess most of the stuff I did, my reasons were just that I wanted to keep being alive. Which isn't heroic or nuffing but you can't really blame me for it eiver. I ain't never tried to come out on top, all I ever wanted was just to keep breavin'. And mostly when I was a kid that meant stealin' anyfing that wasn't nailed down. An' a couple fings that were."

Cecil nods and pats her shoulder sympathetically. He looks around the room to see if anybody appears to be paying too much attention to Ozzy admitting she used to be a thief.

At the moment, if anyone's being nosy they're at least being subtle about it.

"Unfortunately," Ozzy goes on, "sometimes that meant takin fings from people who was perfectly nice. But like, I was a kid, yeah? And there was a grown man runnin' our gang, Gaffen, he was called. So he was sendin' us out to do fings. Really it was him people should blame if they want to, he was the mastermind and we was just his little minions. We'd get fings for him, and he'd let us keep some, and also he let us sleep in a safe place and gave us stuff to eat that wasn't rotten."

Cecil nods, understanding and not yet jumping to any conclusions. "Keep going," he signs to her, and eats more broth.

"One of the other Gravehowls, Zeke, he was in our gang too, but he and the main kid Adam left to go be sailors after a while. But Zeke was back in the city when the worgen took over and he ended up with me and Lord Graves durin' the evacuation. No idea whatever happened to Adam. But we had this whole peckin' order an' I was always way at the bottom on account of bein' younger and also a girl. But Gaffen thought I was all right. He just saw kids as tools, like extra hands, yeah? He took care of us like you take care of your tools, and he judged us by how good we was at the job we was meant for. But because he didn't really care, he didn't get mad and hit, either. To me, he was just about the most pleasant fella I'd met. Gilneans tend to have hot tempers, even when they ain't worgen. Passions run deep, as they say."

Cecil relaxes at the confirmation that Gaffen never hit her. With a wry smile, he writes, 'I hope you've raised your standards since then.'

Ozzy snorts. "Well after the way you've spoiled me, my standards is so high I'll never be able to-" She hesitates, unsure of exactly where that subconscious train of thought was going. "I'll be useless," she finishes weakly. She shrinks in on herself for a bit, and her eyes suddenly tear up a little; she quickly turns her head away to stare with great interest at the wall on the other side of her from Cecil.

Cecil watches this emotional transition with concern, but since she's looking away, he just sets a hand on her shoulder, rubbing soothingly with his thumb, and waits until she gathers herself or looks at him to offer her a hug.

She turns toward him and sort of dives forward, hiding her damp eyes in his shoulder.

Cecil gathers her close, resting his cheek against her hair. He has to wait to refute her point for the time being.

Eventually she pulls herself together and leans back, dragging the heels of her hands under her eyes.

"Oh boy," she says. "More Ozzy drama. Just what you ordered. It comes as a side wif your bear stew."

Cecil smiles gently at her. He doesn't seem bothered, just concerned, because his girl is upset. Reaching for his notepad, he writes, 'You deserve to have high standards. I don't know where you got "useless" from at all.'

"I just mean…" She hesitates, studying him. "Never mind. You'd feel insulted if I said, and I don't wanna get in a fight this early."

Cecil seems a little puzzled, but he lets it pass. He writes, 'You're used to losing people. That's often a part of life, but I'm sorry' — and here he pauses to sign, "Sorry," before continuing — 'you've lost so many that you've come to expect it. I plan on staying with you for as long as I can.'

"I know," she says. There's a weariness in her eyes that suddenly makes her look much older than twenty-four. "Everyone stays as long as they can. And it's always real good, at first. I mean, it's never been this good, even at first, but that just means there's farther to-" She sighs and rubs her eyes with one hand. "I'm sorry," she says, her accent shifting toward Stormwind. "I need to learn to keep some of my thoughts to myself."

Cecil shakes his head. 'No, I understand. It's alright to be scared.' He still has a good amount of broth left, but he seems to have lost interest in it.

"The best thing," Ozzy says resolutely, "and the thing that kept my chin up during the worst years - at least the worst ones I can remember - is just to really enjoy anyfing you can, for as long as you can. Don't fink too much about the future or the past. Now is really all you've got, and if there's something in the Now that can be enjoyed, you just drink it right to the dregs." On that note, she pokes his stew bowl. "You should finish that even if you can't taste it. Don't want you wastin' away."

Cecil smiles at her and signs, "I not hungry." He writes, 'I like that philosophy. I can have a little bit more but I'm pretty full. I'm about half a pig.' A beat. 'Hopefully the front half.'

"How do you keep up all them muscles wifout hardly eatin' anyfing?" Ozzy says, giving his bicep a playful squeeze.

'I eat more when I'm at home. A lot of eggs for protein. Chicken in small pieces.' Cecil flexes his arm, just for fun. He is definitely getting nutrition from somewhere, even if he may have gotten less of it in the last day or two.

"Mmmm," says Ozzy appreciatively, with a little glint in her eyes as she smiles. She then lets go of his bicep with obvious reluctance and applies herself to what remains of her stew. When she's finished, she glances at his bowl and gives him the exact look that turns a sign into a question.

Cecil has one last spoonful and then slides the rest in her direction.

Ozzy grins, picks up the bowl in both hands, and gulps down the rest of it. Unlike most of her behavior, no one in the inn seems to find this odd at all. Hungry hungry worgen.

Cecil takes out his coin purse, sets it on the table, and writes, 'Will you ask how much the stew cost, please? We can each pay half. There are a bunch of different signs for half and split, I can show you those later. You use different signs if you're talking about math.'

"I'm soooo bad at mafs," Ozzy says with a despairing eyeroll. "Good thing I'm better at learnin' signs, yeah?"

She waves at the server and inquires how much she owes. He tells them a reasonable price, especially considering their difficulty in acquiring supplies, and then wanders off while Ozzy counts out coins.

"You're supposed to add in extra for the server," she says. "Ten to twenty percent, depending." She looks really proud that she knows this. "I can do half of that too, if you'll figure out what ten to twenty percent is, or what it depends on."

Cecil smiles and writes out his calculations on the notepad, circles the number that each of them will be paying individually, and then counts out his share. He does happen to have the change.

Ozzy seems to have enough to pay her share as well, and looks very smug about this. Take that, imaginary doubters! She waves the server over and pushes the coins toward him.

The sleek gray worgen takes them, and his demeanor brightens a bit when he notes that she has actually tipped him. He did not seem to have expected that from a table that was pouring things into one another's bowls.

"Fank you, sir and miss," he says in his growly voice. "Do you need anyfing else?" Hey, he doesn't know what a 'th' sound is either! Must be a Gilneas fing.

Cecil flips to a clean page and writes, 'I'd like to rent a room for a week or two. Are there any available?' He rises from his chair to show this to the server and then tilts his head towards the innkeeper to acknowledge that yes, this isn't his job, and Cecil will be asking the correct person.

The server gives Cecil a curious look, probably wondering about the note-writing business, but then he says, "Should be," and shuffles off to let Cecil and the innkeeper handle it.

"I'll probably just be a cat and sleep right outside the inn," Ozzy says. "It'll be safe in town, and I'm more comfortable under the sky generally, unless there's a big storm."

Cecil nods to her. He bends both arms at the elbow and holds both hands diagonally, wiggling his fingers. This is an entirely new sign that he has never taught her. He takes his notepad and coin purse over to the innkeeper to arrange for that room, but he leaves his bag at the table they were eating at: he's coming back.

Ozzy kicks her heels gently against the legs of her chair and gazes at Cecil's bag as though it somehow reassures her.

Cecil returns once he's secured the room, sliding back into his seat and flipping to a new page. He writes, 'This means "wait".' Then he demonstrates the sign he just did, smiling at Ozzy.

"Oh, I was wonderin'," she says. "That one doesn't look like 'wait' as much as some of the other signs look like the things." She smiles and copies it.

Cecil smiles at her. He looks down at his notepad. Quicker than normal, he writes, 'I've rented Room 3. If you want to come by for any reason at any time, you're always welcome. Just knock and don't try to sneak up on me.' He takes out the pair of keys that he was just given and offers Ozzy one of them. He doesn't seem flustered, but it's a clear invitation.

Ozzy studies him for a moment, then takes the key. "Yeah, awright," she says. "You often get people tryin' to sneak up on you when you're in bed?" She smiles crookedly.

Cecil smiles wryly and nods. 'I punched Hubert when I was half asleep once. I don't want to hurt you by accident.'

Ozzy slaps a hand over her mouth, wide-eyed, at this revelation. Then she bursts into giggles.

"Oh noooo, poor Hubert. Was he okay? You've got quite a punch."

Cecil grins at her, pleased that he's made her laugh. 'He was. We were just boys. My punches have improved since then.' Cecil toys with his room key idly with his left hand, spinning it in his fingers as he writes, 'No expectations. No pressure. But you're always welcome where I am.'

"Okay." She hesitates, running her fingertips over the woodgrain of the table, and not looking directly at him. "But um… your people, don't you… aren't you supposed to wait until you're married? To um, share a room?"

Cecil pats her hand. 'Society is rather sexist.' He makes an exasperated face as he writes that, and continues, 'I am not married or engaged. It is a woman's "virtue" that society is typically more concerned with. Double standards. It isn't fair. In the eyes of society, the chaperone is for your sake.' Cecil rolls his eyes - he's clearly mocking society and not Ozzy herself.

He skips a line and writes, 'Cuddling sounds nice. I've never had the chance.' And that finally seems to embarrass Cecil, at least a little. He doesn't have a pack, he just has a brother, and as close as their relationship might be, it seems it is not a physically cuddly one.

Ozzy's eyes go all soft and melty when she reads this last. She reaches over to lay her (still human, for the moment) hand atop his.

"Yeah, and I miss my pack," she admits. "I might not sleep there all night or nuffing, but maybe I can come snuggle for a while? If you don't fink Mr. Cardassus will tattle to your da."

Cecil smiles with equal parts excitement and relief, and he nods eagerly.

"So which me do you wanna snuggle wif?" she asks, with no indication whatsoever that she's expecting any particular answer. "Worgen is bigger and warmer, but maybe you like to be the big spoon, in which case I should be human. I could also be a big cat if the purring is relaxing for you. Bear is too heavy for a bed, and stag too pointy in places."

Cecil uses the or-wiggle to sign what is presumably "Worgen or human." The human sign is different from the second half of how he signs 'worgen' (WOLF-PERSON): but it involves pointing to himself with both hands twice, so it probably isn't "cat". He writes, to clarify, 'Worgen or human. Both sound nice. We can try and find what seems most comfortable.'

"Yeah," says Ozzy a little shyly. "Probably it'll depend on whether you feel like bein' the inside or the outside spoon."

Just in case he isn't familiar with cuddle jargon, Ozzy grabs her spoon and his, holds them up, and nests them together to demonstrate.

Cecil gestures to both spoons, doing the 'or' wiggle and raising his eyebrows in question as he points to Ozzy.

"I was usually the inside spoon," Ozzy says, "but only because I'm used to cuddlin wif people bigger than me. Sometimes it's nice to be outside spoon because you feel all protective an' like the person is all yours."

Cecil nods, smiling warmly. He writes, 'That sounds nice. We can take turns?' The embarrassment is starting to fade.

Ozzy nods, smiling warmly. "But if you doze off in one spot or another I'll stay put. Maybe at the end of the day? I can come knock real quiet like?"

Cecil nods and gives her a thumbs-up.