Entry tags:

alak tarr, heather miller

Who: Alak Tarr alak & Heather Miller heathermiller
What: A Mystery Caller Calls Miller's Meats
When: Tuesday, May 31
Where: Over the magical device invented by the genius Alexander Graham Bell.
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Discussion of procurement and eating of animal parts which some might not think to be edible.
Status: Complete Upon Posting

~*~

Vegetarians were masochists who hated themselves to the point they should be allowed to be put down to get them out of their own misery. Alak had determined this within hours of getting back into his body after Inara Serra -Buddhist Vegetarian Professional Companion or Prostitute Depending on Buyer's Preference- had borrowed it for a few days. He took great affront to the fact he was in literal agony from not having had a diet fitting to suit an adult Castithan male's needs for days when he'd not done anything at all to hurt her body when he was in it.

Alak hadn't even tried out her body's---parts.

"Hello? Hi. Sorry. I'm---Is this Miller's Meats?"

~*~

Some days were busier than others. Today just so happened to be one of those busy days, and Heather loved the challenge. She was happy to keep moving, to keep working and filling orders for people that walked into the store that needed something specific that wasn't already cut. She'd caught up with everything else that morning, and she was, at present, working on stuff that they could just sell out for the day.

Heather had been working in the back as she normally did, the girls up front had been working their butts off today and so when the phone started to ring, Heather knew that there was no way they'd have a chance to answer it. She turned the saw off, stripping her gloves off and tossed them into the trash can that sat beside the table.

The phone slipped from her grasp, but she quickly recovered. She only caught the tail end of what the caller was saying and she laughed softly, "Yes, this is Miller's Meats. Sorry, I accidentally dropped the phone. What can I help you with?" She asked, pulling over a pen and pad just in the event that this person had a special order.

~*~

"That's okay. I wasn't making any sense anyway. I saw your name on a sort of forum I belong to online and thought you might be able to help me."

He sounded like a sex offender. Alak stopped talking to take a breath, the momentary pause in speech from both sides of the line was only interrupted by the sounds of life moving along in the butcher's shop. It wasn't a scene Alak could call up in his mind to get an accurate idea of how it would be in reality. In his fictional depiction, it was a very cold place, devoid of any garish colors, white and pristine except for the meats which would be so fresh he could likely still smell the life clinging to them.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Alak said, "I'm having some trouble getting what I need to stay healthy since I've had some really unfun dreams where I'm an alien. Not in the illegal way. The literal way. I don't know how this works. Do you buy meat in big animal form and cut that into smaller things or do you slaughter the animals there or where does it come from, I guess? I don't know. What parts of the animals do you have access to?"

There. That sounded less sex offender and more---okay, more ritualistic cannibal, but Alak thought he was moving in the right direction.

~*~

Silently Heather listened to the caller explain his situation. He apparently belonged to the Network, he mentioned that and dreams which could only mean that he was part of Valarnet. At least, that's what Heather assumed anyway. There wasn't a lot that made sense on the network as far as Heather was concerned, but she'd just learned to roll with the punches when it came to life here.

Letting out a long breath, Heather tapped the end of her pen against the pad of paper. "We don't slaughter them here. I order from various farms in the area, and I can get pretty much anything that you'd like." Some people considered certain parts of the animal to be a delicacy, so it was always possible to get almost any part of any animal.

"Are you part of Valarnet? If so? I can completely sympathize with unfun dreams. So, what is it that you need?" She asked, shifting slightly on her feet as one of the girls came back in with an order ticket. Heather gave a nod to her, eyes scanning over it before she pushed it off to the side.

~*~

Valarnet was its own kind of blessing in disguise. The woman literally sounded as if she would order anything Alak could come up with to try to help him out. She didn't sound freaked out or anything. His dreams were of Defiance. No one had mentioned dreaming about being an alien who landed on a trashed Earth. Alak knew there were others from his dreams in Orange County: his mother, Stahma, the whore, Kenya Rosewater, and possibly more. What would he do if Datak showed up with his memories of Defiance intact?

"Yes. I'm on Valarnet. My dreams are decidedly unfun. Some people get to fly or superpowers. Me? I turned into an albino alien whose diet requires an unusually high amount of iron, phosphorus, zinc, and B-12. Liver is pretty easy to get fresh on the open market. I'm looking for tripe? I think that's what they call it. Intestines?"

Some cultures ate cow or pig intestines every day. It was an easy way to get their protein in. Alak had no problems getting his protein in, but getting the trace minerals he needed? That was totally different. He had tried multiple pills, supplements, powders, even some teas with no luck meeting his needs. Alak had managed to make himself sick more than once trying to avoid this phone call and it all seemed to have been for nothing. He'd thought it would be a horrible nightmare where he'd have to make up some bogus excuses.

"Sorry. I have tried supplements. Pills. Pretty much anything you can find on the health aisle in a grocery store, chain store, or GNC? I've tried it. No go. So I figure I'll try something fresh? See if that helps because otherwise I'm going to starve to death or my mother will kill me one."

~*~

Heather's brows furrowed slightly. "Ouch, that sucks." There were a lot of strange things, beings on the network, and Heather felt as if she'd only scratched the surface just by what she read on there. She shifted on her feet again, brows still furrowed low over her eyes. "Ah, yeah, that's what it's called." She took in a deep breath, still listening to this mystery caller as he talked about things that Heather had no idea about.

Still, she could understand the need for certain foods in one's diet, and she gave a silent nod. "That would probably help if that's what you need. Plus there's plenty of great recipes out there for tripe. Either one should get you what you need." Heather wasn't making that up either. As a butcher she'd exposed herself to a lot of different cuts of meat, only because she believed that she needed to try it.

"I can get you cow tripe though. I actually haven't put my orders in for this week, I was going to do that soon, so I should have some in the store tomorrow. What's the name that I can put this under, and about how much do you think you'll need?"

~*~

"I'm Alak Tarr. A-L-A-K first name, last name T-A-R-R. It's Russian. Technically. In my dreams? I'm definitely not from anywhere close to Russia."

He took a deep breath, leaning his head back as he held the phone against his face, a lifeline in the dark. What did this woman think of him? She sounded fine. There were recipes for tripe? People -human people ate it? Alak had spent days looking online for options only to stumble across it being mentioned on a forum for people traveling and interested in 'exotic cuisine.' Alak hoped he could figure out how to cook it enough not to give himself some kind of poisoning.

Cooking was something he'd never had to learn much about. His mother had handled things and then he'd been able to rely on Christie since she was the domestic kind of girl in all her lives. Could he learn how to cook on the internet? Alak had found YouTube tutorials for literally everything. It was possible he supposed.

"I can use some of those recipes if you've got any to hand. Thank you. By the way. For not being freaked out. I have no idea how much I need. Can you order it like you would if you were going to eat it every day? Money isn't a problem."

~*~

Quickly Heather scribbled down his name, a light smile tugging up one corner of her mouth. "Yeah, from what little you've told me? I didn't think you were anywhere close to Russia either." Her amusement came through in her tone, and she kept the pencil hovering over the paper.

"Oh sure, I've got some that I've tried and enjoyed, so I've got you covered. I'm sure you can find some on the internet too, they just might be buried there on the weird part of the internet." Her tone was still light, full of amusement and she wrote down what she believed would be enough for a couple of weeks for him. "Oh, no biggie, you're not the first person to order it and well, I get the OC." She laughed softly and then let out a long breath.

"I think I've got enough down to cover you for two weeks. If you need more, you're more than welcome to call me again and let me know. I do orders every Monday, and sometimes on Thursday. If you're in dire need of more, call me as soon as possible so I can call my farmers." Heather didn't have any issue calling her suppliers for more meat, but she did have to have a little bit of notice.

~*~

Two weeks was a good supply. Alak had no idea how long the shelf life was for intestines. Tripe. He should get used to calling it by the name people would use when they were talking about it. People were normal outside of Orange County. Some of those normal people wandered into or through the OC which meant Alak had to keep up appearances. It wouldn't serve him well at all if he were to fall apart because he had to start eating a little differently. What did it matter if he had a few new dietary needs? Everyone was doing something crazy with their food now right?

What the Hell was the gluten thing about?

Alak figured he was lucky in comparison to those people.

"Thank you. Two weeks sounds great. I just---wait, you've tried it? Like really tried it? I just caught that. I'm having a hard time keeping my brain together. I swear I'm not on drugs. It's just adapting to the whole alien thing."

What was her name?

"Oh! What's your name? I didn't get it. Sorry. I normally remember to ask."

~*~

"You'll be able to freeze it and defrost what you need. I'll make sure of that when I package it." Heather made a note on her order ticket to wrap it differently that way it would keep long enough for him to be able to use it. Heather would hate to think of it going to waste, however, it was entirely possible that it could.

Laughing, Heather finally put her pencil down. "I have. I've tried a lot of different things meat wise. I figure if I'm going to be selling it I should know my product. You're fine, by the way. I could imagine that it takes a lot of getting used to." Heather was only now getting used to the idea of her own dreams, she couldn't imagine finding out she was a different species.

"I'm Heather Miller. Don't worry, I think, from the sound of things, you've got a lot more on you than worrying about catching my name." At least that was how Heather saw it. One of the girls came back into the back, handing off another ticket, and Heather knew it was time for her to get back to it.

"It was nice talking to you Alak. Come by tomorrow, say around 3 and I should have everything packaged up for you and some recipes for you to try out." With that Heather said her goodbyes her newest customer and hung up the phone. Today had started off fairly normal, and now? Well, now Heather knew there were actual aliens walking among them.