Work Text:
Gagh!
This Klingon food is as repulsive as the name sounds. If you can swallow it, you’re a warrior. If you swallow it while it’s still moving, you’re a great warrior and a credit to your family.
If you swallow it and then run out the door and chuck it out, you’re me.
Scorn was my second course. While everyone else continued to eat, my place at the table had been cleared and my older brothers had closed the gap. I finished that “meal” sitting in the corner.
My brothers whooped and stuffed scoop after scoop of the slithering worms as if they could erase the family shame that I had caused simply by overeating. They alternated standing up, a chalice of blood wine in one hand and the other pointing toward heaven. “To Kahless!”
The entire group - our clan and extended clan and a few I didn’t know - held their chalices high and repeated “To Kahless.”
I held up my empty hand and shouted in my high, tinny voice. “To Kahless.”
Klingon folklore elevated Kahless, who apparently lives forever, though that never made sense to me. If to die in battle is honorable, then is living forever dishonorable? I had asked that question once. Only once.
“You think too much,” my mother snarled. “You will dishonor the family with these questions.”
Fortunately, we were alone at the time. Nobody else knew about these questions, which popped into my head every time we had to celebrate some holiday or an honorable death. Like today. My uncle died in battle. Periodically, the warriors at the table raised their eyes to the heaven beyond the ceiling, howling like wolves to let those in the afterlife know they had a new neighbor.
Where would I go in the afterlife? No matter how hard I tried to learn to fight, I always wound up on my back begging for mercy. At school. At home. Everywhere. Then the inevitable kick to my side and voluminous spit landing right on my face. I tried learning to do that, and I could never hit a target. Not only could I not fight, I could not shame.
So that’s why I hate Gagh, I explained to the counselor. It is life taking life. The Gagh should at least be killed mercifully, as I wish to die.