Chapter 5A: Food Shortage

*****

-Error. Connection Terminated.

:Failsafe Protocol Checklist in Effect…

-Time since last connection to Master Marceline: 176:22

-Connection reattempts Quota reached: 10000… OK.

-Checking Barrier Integrity… 99% Integrity…OK

-Searching for Mana Signs…

-Kane Sato: OK

-Abel Wright: OK

FAILSAFE ACTIVATED.

****

1 Week And Three Days after the Battle of the Grey

Kane sighed, the demoness laying in her room with the windows open as one hand held her book and the other cycled the room with air mana.

“I’ve been drifting in your design, stuck in patterns I can't… define, every breath is a borrowed script, every script another… glitch,” Kane muttered, writing down the lyrics before shuffling the air again with a flick of her wrist. “You call it order- I call it restraint.”

“We have a problem,” Abel said as he knocked on the bedroom door of Kane’s room.

“Is the problem that you’re disturbing me right now?” Kane replied coldly as she lowered her hand and bit into a squash before turning the page.

“I’m serious Sato,” Abel said as he beckoned the demon and left the messy room. “Come on.”

“Great…” Kane muttered, closing her book and joining Abel only to frown at the sight of the laid out squashes that littered the floor of the cottage and made it nearly impossible to walk without stepping on an item. “What am I looking at besides your compulsive cleaning?”

Abel turned, the man, crouching atop the dinner table with his feet atop of hovering disks of golden light.

“I’ve been counting our stockpile of food-”

“Compulsively cleaning.”

“-Right, anyway, all we have to eat is squashes right? Which is kind of a problem because it doesn’t provide us with all the daily intake of fat, proteins, and vitamins.”

Kane opened her mouth to say something snide but closed it as she realized what Abel was getting at. “Oh.”

“Anyway, there are about three hundred squashes here that's supposed to last us three months. The pantry is enchanted with temperature control, so we don’t have to worry about them going bad, but at our rate of consumption, we’re doing about four a day, which means we’ll be out of squashes in about twenty days give or take,” Abel explained.

“If… we don't starve to death.”

“Right! IF, we don't starve to death. We could ration our intake but we still wouldn't have enough to last and sooner or later our Absolute powers will wane,” Abel said, rotating the silver cuff on his wrist.

Kane frowned. Normally with her entropic system abilities she would subsist off of mana around her, removing the need to eat. A trait, which she found had been paramount to survive the poisoned food of the demon courts.

But here in this cottage, where her connection to her God was being drained, that luxury was waning, an issue she had been allowing to fester up until now.

“Don't you Order paladins have a spell to put yourself in stasis or lower your food intake?” Kane asked.

“If I did, do you think I'd be speaking with you?”

Kane’s lip twitched slightly upward, “Fair.”

“Anyway, that's more along the territory of turning yourself partially undead, which I could do if my powers weren't being drained.” Abel said as he picked up a butternut squash. “I'd say let's plant them but I don't have any idea about growing crops.”

“I…” Kane said, clenching her jaw, reluctant to finish her sentence, the compulsion at the back of her mind pulling at her vocal cords.

“Hm? What?”

Kane exhaled, fighting against the compulsion. “I can try and start a garden.”

Abel blinked and raised a brow, “You?”

“Don't You? Me! You don't think I can do it?!” Kane spat as she snatched the squash from Abel's hand.

“N-no, I just… didn't expect you of all people would offer a solution.”

“Yeah well, it's not a permanent solution, plus, you've made a good point. We'll need to find something else to eat besides squash anyway if we want to survive,” Kane said as she laid the squash on the dining table and sliced the tip of the phallic object with wind magic.

Abel winced, watching the woman handling the now cut vegetable.

“Hand me a spoon,” Kane ordered.

“Err, right,” Abel said, reaching over to the nearby counter where a dozen freshly polished spoons, forks and knives lay in a neat row. “Here.”

Kane took the spoon and quickly began scooping out the seeds from the zucchini and dumping them onto the table.

“So, are you sure you're capable of planting them?” Abel asked, watching as the demoness made a mess. “If this goes bad we could screw ourselves worse.”

“If I told you I used to live on a farm and handled squashes what would you say?” Kane replied.

“I'd say you're probably the expert.”

“And you'd be right.”

Abel chuckled, “Aren't I always Wright?”

Kane sighed, “If you want to be useful, you can start by picking out the seeds from the mush.”

Abel hesisted, eyeing the goop of the squash as he rubbed the inside of his palm with his hands.

“Well?” Kane said, raising a brow and resisting the urge to splatter the neat-freak with squash.

“Yeah, yup, got it,” Abel said as he grabbed a bowl to organize the seeds from the squash.

“Wow. The big Hero afraid of squashes,” Kane jabbed, smirking at Abel. “Damn, If I had known you're weakness were vegetables I would have won the war years ago.”

“Alright! You got this! Just do it! Yeah! I'm the hero!” Abel shouted, psyching himself up as Kane let out a giggle.

Abel and Kane froze.

“You heard nothing,” Kane spat. “Get to work! We'll have to start rationing as much as possible. Perhaps probe the barrier again and start looking for bugs.”

“Bugs?!”

“Well, yes. We need to diversify our calorie intake and I don't see any monsters to eat around here do you?” Kane said flatly.

“Right… heh, bugs,” Abel said before going back to work picking seeds. “You’re good at giving orders. Are you sure you aren't secretly on the Order spectrum?”

“Shut up.”