Meat is Murder

*cough cough*

"Oh good, Fauna, you're awake!"
The keeper of nature's vision was slow to focus. She squinted, and one of the blurry shapes coalesced into a humanoid form.
Mumanoid.
Mumei.
The rest of her vision followed. She was laying in a hospital bed, an IV pouch filled with something dripped into her arm.
"Huh? Mumei? What happened?" Fauna's voice crackled.

"I found you sprawled on the ground near your cottage, barely breathing. The doctor said you have malnutrition. Your vegan diet isn't giving you the nutrients you need to stay healthy."
It came as a shock to Fauna. She had been fine for 4.5 billion years, how could this have happened now?
"I see. I will remember to take some more supplements," she said as she began reaching for the IV needle.
Mumei wiggled her fingers at the kirin, ordering her to stop.
The expression on Mumei's face twisted, being the bearer of this bad news brought her no joy.
"Supplements can only do so much," she explained. "What you need is meat and animal protein. What normal people eat."

The thought alone was nauseating to Fauna.
"I... I can't," she stammered. It wasn't just the ethics about it.
She had kept it up for so many years that veganism had become part of her identity. To go back on it now felt like a betrayal to herself and her following.
"You have to," Mumei said. "I know it's really important to you, but so's your health. If you're not eating right, you could die, y'know?"
Fauna had never given it any thought before. Sure, she could have a heart attack, or experience spontaneous combustion, or a motorized bear could come crashing in, but she could have never guessed that veganism-induced malnutrition would do her in. It was a chilling thing to imagine, there would be no shortage of people that would be struck with grief if such a thing occurred.

"You can't do this keeper of nature stuff if you aren't healthy, and that settles it," Mumei said. "You said you've eaten meat when you were younger, right? It should be fine."
That much was true.
"Besides," Mumei said. "About two thirds of all animals eat meat. You're Ceres Fauna. If your name was Ceres Flora, I guess you could make an argument for it, but even then, there are hundreds of species of carnivorous plants that eat bugs, like the pitcher plant which is just a big floating stomach-slash-toilet that dissolves-"
"Alright thank you, Mumei. You've convinced me."
The owl girl smiled. It wasn't often that her friends took her suggestions to heart.
"Okay!" Mumei said, clapping her hands together, ready to run off. "Everyone else already agreed, so I'll get everything ready. You just sit here and rest, okay?"

Fauna shifted about in her bed. It was for health, and her friends, and her fans. It would be fine... right?

Not long after, Mumei came back with a cart. She set up the bed tray and laid out a large serving of chicken on a bed of lettuce. The meat looked beyond tender.
"Was... was it at least free-range...?" Fauna ventured, trying to suppress her involuntary mouth-watering.
"Oh yes," Mumei replied. "It had all the ranges. Free range, electric range, vocal range, the works. Now eat up. Bone app the teeth."
Fauna stared at the gravy-drizzled white meat, its side emblazoned with the telltale tiger stripes of expert grilling. Simply laying her fork on the meat caused its juices to seep out.
She brought it to her mouth, and sank her teeth into the cutlet. Its juices seeped out from the meat as she chewed, filling her mouth with the aroma of well-seasoned meat lathered with herbs and spices as a glistening trail of oil trickled down her chin. This savory flavor was something familiar to Fauna. A taste that she had long forgotten, but knew all along. Wrapping the meat in lettuce did nothing for the twinge of guilt she felt relishing the flavor. Maybe it was the vegetables talking, but she polished it all off.
No sooner than she finished, Mumei reared her head back around the corner. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
No matter how much she enjoyed the chicken, it would have felt like a defeat to admit it.
"It... it was alright," Fauna said. An answer that would protect her ego.
"Only alright?" Mumei asked. She bent down to grab something from the lower part of the cart, before standing up with a box.

"In that case, maybe you'll prefer this takoyaki," she said, handing Fauna a wooden skewer.
Fauna popped the steaming ball in her mouth, nearly dropping it. If nothing else, it was freshly made, and burning hot. The spun batter was packed full of octopus, tempura, ginger, and green onion. She swallowed it, and the bolus of food seemed to slither down her throat. She remembered how the last time she was in Japan she still limited herself to vegan options. Maybe this was Mumei's way of making it up to her.
It's not fair, Fauna thought. Two savory dishes, one after another. The savory flavors that vegan dishes could muster paled in comparison. She muttered a silent apology between each bite.
The container held twelve and she ate all of them in the blink of an eye.

No sooner than she had finished them, Mumei presented Fauna with another plate.
"Next up, some sausage."
There was a single coiled-up red sausage with no segments.
"This seems a little too long to be an ordinary sausage," Fauna commented.
"That's because this is no ordinary sausage; this is snake meat blood sausage!"
"S-snake meat?!" Fauna sputtered. "Couldn't you have made something a little more ordinary? Like pork?"
"Pork?" Mumei laughed derisively. "I considered it, but I figured you should try things you definitely haven't eaten before, like this sausage," Mumei explained. "You know, a snake is basically already a sausage."
"I see..."
Fauna gulped. She had already prepared herself for meat, but snake meat? She didn't even know what snake meat was supposed to taste like.
A drop of sweat ran down her brow.
"Come on Fauna, we don't have all day," Mumei prodded. "It'll get cold. We still have lots of other meat for you to eat."

Fauna gulped. Her sterling knife sawed into the meat, and sliced off a circular portion. Her fork stabbed into the flesh and brought it to her lips.
It was very chewy. This was a meat nothing quite like those that she knew, not that she had ever eaten snake meat before. She struggled to break it down before swallowing it.
It felt wrong.
Her chest heaved, but she tried to keep it down.
It was like nothing she had ever eaten. Maybe it was because she had never had snake before. Maybe it was because she hadn't eaten meat in a very long time. The other two went down naturally, this one she had to fight to ingest.
"This is for your own good," Mumei said as she cut a segment for herself.
"M-maybe we can try something else," Fauna mumbled, pushing away the plate.
"You know, I would've liked to get you some alligator or ostrich, but I couldn't get any on hand. Maybe next time."

"Um, thanks, Mumei," she said. "I think I'm--"
"Ah ah ah, you sound pretty hoarse after all that meat. How about some soup to wash it down?"
Mumei placed a shimmering bowl of soup on the tray, steam wafted out as wispy tendrils. A triangular blue shape was floating in the middle of the soup.
"I-is that...?"
"Shark fin soup," Mumei explained. "Very costly, but we felt you were worth it. We all chipped in, so you'd better finish everything."
"...Um, I don't think I can--"
She didn't even give Fauna a chance to protest, she just grabbed the bowl and poured its contents down her throat.
It went down, but not easily. It might have been the sheer amount of meat she had been forced to consume, it may have been the types. Whatever it was, it made Fauna feel nauseous. The salty ocean taste of the heavy broth washed out all of the other flavors of the day.

"I really think--"
"You have to eat it all," Mumei said firmly. It's like she was expecting this conversation down to the sentence. "I know your vegan sensibilities object to this whole thing, but if you don't eat it, it'll just be wasted."
That struck Fauna. Wasting all of it would've--
"And besides, we all came to an agreement about this."

"Huh?"

Mumei smiled.
"Well, I knew you were going to be reluctant to eat meat because of the ethical concern, so I made sure to only feed you meat that consented. Please, don't refuse our kindness."

Um.

"Anyway, just sit tight. There's one more that you have to eat, and I won't take no for an answer."
Mumei ran off before Fauna could say anything.
This has gone far enough, she thought. She tried to get out of the bed, only to find that she had been strapped down.

The kitchen may have been out of her line of sight, but the sounds were not. She heard... things. Sounds that she had never heard from a kitchen before. The high-pitched whirr of machinery and the sound of something being shredded. Sounds that didn't belong in a kitchen. Sounds that didn't belong anywhere.

Finally, she heard a combination of footsteps and metallic thumps.
Mumei came back, but was only using one arm to push the cart.
Her other arm was draped over a crutch. There was a large dome-covered platter on the cart, and it was quite a struggle for Mumei to move it next to Fauna.
The color drained from Fauna's face. The others could have all been part of a mean prank, but this was no joke. She pointed a quivering hand at Mumei's crutch.
"Did you..."

"I'm quite proud of this one," Mumei said. "I really put myself into it, haha."
She lifted the cover, and a slender leg was laying on the plate.

"Don't worry, I consent. We all did."