Saru

Friendship 0+

Player:(Looking at Saru's scars) What did [Clyde] do to you?

Characters: (Long pause) You know, people always ask that. It's the first thing they ask.

Characters: Not "How's the water?" Not "What's that incredible smell?"

Characters: Just straight to: "What happened to you?" A bath can relax a person all on its own, you know. No treatment required.

Player: I didn’t mean it like that...

Characters: No, no. It's fine. It's the most natural human [instinct] there is. You meet someone in a cave and your brain says: there must be [something wrong] with this person; let me find the crack.

Characters: That’s how people connect. They trade wounds like cards.

Characters:“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.” Very [intimate]. Very [exhausting].

Friendship 0+

Characters: The secret to curry is the [stock]. You cannot rush a stock.

Characters: Most things in life can be rushed—people do it constantly, and we can all see where that has gotten them—but stock answers only to patience. Patience, and a reliable heat source.

Friendship 0+

Player: Don't you get [lonely] here by yourself?

Characters: You know any [kitchen-based] documentaries where everyone just ticks off their task list and talks to each other in a quiet voice?

Player: Do you mean cooking shows? Aren't they usually very loud?

Characters: I don’t miss what people do to each other after they’ve been in the same room too long. That’s the [crucial] difference.

Characters: I miss the [first] forty minutes of any gathering. After forty minutes, someone always asks a question they already know the answer to, and someone else [pretends not to] understand why it was asked, and then everyone starts having feelings about it.

Characters: Then the whole evening collapses like a soufflé shown a photograph of itself.

Player: That’s… very specific.

Friendship 0+

Characters: I was married once. Briefly. Back on my homeworld.

Characters: Lovely person. The first six months were wonderful, and in retrospect that was because we [never] discussed anything important.

Characters: The moment we began being honest with each other, we discovered that honesty, between two people who care about each other, is basically controlled demolition. Very precise. Very complete.

Characters: And afterward you’re both standing in the rubble saying, “At least we were [real].”

Player: I'm sorry.

Characters: Don’t say that. It taught me something. A relationship is like a recipe where both people think they’re the chef, and neither of them has read the instructions.

Characters: The meal is always a [disaster], and people keep making it anyway, because being alone in the kitchen feels worse. Apparently.

Characters: I’m not sure it would be worse.

Friendship 0+

Characters: That’s how much I miss people. I’ve been alone in this kitchen for a very long time, and the food here is excellent.

Characters: More curry?

Friendship 0+

Characters: The finest meals in history were cooked by people who were not in the room when you ate them.

Characters:My grandmother sent dumplings by post. Took three days. Arrived cold. I wept.

Characters: You don't need the chef. You need the chef to have [cared].

Characters: And I assure you, I care from any distance. Caring is not affected by geography. Only by ingredients and attention.

Friendship 1+

Characters: Too many cooks.

Player:It's one cook. It's just Long John.

Characters: One cook is already too many if the one cook isn't me.

Characters: Add a second cook and you don't get twice the cooking — you get half the cooking and twice the opinions. I learned this in prison.

Player: Prison had cooks?

Characters: Prison had a cook. Grell. (with respect and distance)

Characters: A massive [werewolf]. Got arrested for headbutting a customs officer. Cooked the porridge.

Characters: Three meals a day. The same slimy oat atrocity, morning, noon, and night. The kitchen staff called the dinner version "mature."

Characters: Grell defended it. She said, "It's [porridge]," as though that were an argument rather than a confession.

Player: Sounds grim.

Characters: It was lethal. Slowly, invisibly lethal. Not the kind of lethal that announces itself — the kind that erodes you from the inside, meal by meal...

Characters:Until one morning you look in the mirror and realise you've become a person who accepts porridge.

Characters: That's the real prison. Not the walls. Not the guards...

Characters: The moment you stop demanding better food is the moment you stop demanding better [anything].

Friendship 0+

Player: So you dug out of [prison]?

Characters: With a [spoon]. A bent spoon. Not because I couldn't find better tools — I could have, there was an entire maintenance cupboard three cells down — but because the spoon had a pleasant weight.

Characters: I believe that if you're going to commit to something [tedious], you should at least enjoy the [hand-feel].

Characters: Week one, I hit a grey-water pipe. Directly in the face.

Characters: Week three, I emerged — triumphantly — in the prison laundry room, face to face with a guard named Potterick who was midway through a sandwich.

Player: What did you do?

Characters: I said, "Wrong turn." He said, "Clearly."

Characters: I went back in the hole. Potterick never reported it. I think he [respected] the effort.

Characters: Or he [didn't want the paperwork]. With guards, it's always one or the other.

When interacting

Chop-chop.