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“I found a deer this morning, practically fresh,” Rio said to Doppo and Dice.
Doppo didn’t really like the way that was phrased, but Rio was the expert, so he wouldn’t say anything. Dice wasn’t paying attention.
“I’m still preparing it, but you can have these in the meantime.” He set a bowl of fritters down in front of them. “It’s an American dish, hushpuppies.”
Doppo tried one. “It isn’t bad.”
Dice stuffed two into his mouth immediately, and took a half bite of a third. “Yo, what’s this white stuff in ‘em? Fish?”
“Not quite,” Rio said. “It’s from the deer.”
The answer was enough for Dice to keep eating with abandon, but Doppo was a little more curious. “It doesn’t taste like venison, though…?”
“Oh, no, it isn’t venison. It’s from the deer’s liver. That’s what killed it, I assume, given how many of them there were.”
“S-sorry, you’re saying this deer had a… disease? And you cooked the diseased tissue?”
“No, I cooked the parasite causing the disease. Liver flukes. The animal’s body encapsulates them in a cyst, so they’re easy to remove whole.” Rio's gentle smile didn't quite fit with his explanation of how they were eating a parasitic worm.
“...Okay. And they… They're cooked, right? They're dead? They won't infect humans?” Doppo couldn't get a liver parasite. He had work tomorrow.
"Of course not," Rio assured. It didn't quite put Doppo at ease.
Doppo usually trusted Rio’s cooking decisions. The ingredients were strange, but the results were always worth the odd choices.
He might be changing his mind on that one, though.