Dimitri sighs through grit teeth, a growl rattling in the back of his throat. "I'm well aware, my friend. Prize cuts of meat come from cattle who live better than the farmers who raise them. Still -- starve yourself to spite him, and you'll only serve his ends." Now Dimitri wonders if anyone has tried a hunger strike. What their fate was. He suspects, if they had, they'd waste away into one of the ship's endless complement of shades.

"You've seen how he manufactures suffering. Before the mirrors, there was a month of rain that would compel you to speak truth or lies; you'd only realize what you'd said after the compulsion wore off." Dimitri pauses. "Though I'm told that was the result of a spell he meant to cast on himself gone awry, so perhaps it doesn't count. Regardless -- before I arrived here there, there was a battle royale. Passengers forced to kill each other. And just recently ... "

His pace falters, slows, as memory catches up with him.

" ... there were these things ... 'zombies'. Corpses, animate. They wore the clothes of people we knew. People we loved."

The Captain's been on a kick of that lately.