I don't like hats

Posted on Sat Feb 19th, 2022 @ 4:05am by Lieutenant Commander Rin & Ebi [Rin] & Lieutenant Myne Redal

Mission: Season 5: Interlude: Darkness Abounds
Location: Myne's cabin
2324 words - 4.6 OF Standard Post Measure

//ON//

Myne was humming to herself in the small kitchen of her cabin as she checked the temperature on what she had in the oven, not before dipping her pinky finger in the beetle puree and taking a taste. Making really happy, tasty sounds.

The table she pulled in the center of her cabin bore several bottles of black hole, eelwasser, millipede juice, slug-o-cola, snail juice, stardrifter, starduster and of course synthehol. Synthehol, all the pleasures of taste and smell of alcohol, but without the intoxication, addiction or poisoning of alcohol!

"Am I going overboard?" Myne wondered to herself as she began to take the dish out of the oven and start brining to the table the rest of the meals she had prepared.

Flaked blood fleas as finger food, jellied gree-worm, lokar beans, puree of beetle, slug steak, snail steak and tube grub. Looking at the ridiculous amount of beverages and foods she had prepared, Myne rubbed her back of her neck nervously.

"Oooh yeah, I went overboard. Not to self, never start cooking when starving..." She wondered what her guests would have to say about this. Hopefully they'd just attribute it to Myne being Myne.

Rin and Ebi arrived almost exactly when Myne asked them to. Allowed through the front door, both were clearly shocked by the amount of food laid out on the table.

Ebi happily popped a blood flea into his mouth. "This is incredible. Surely a replicator can't make all these.... did you manage to get all this fresh?"

Rin, meanwhile, was more curious about all of the various mechanical constructions scattered about the room.

The room looked more like a workshop in disarray, with various components and mechanical creations just piled up chaotically in a failed attempt at keeping order.

"Well, you know how Ops basically have a run on supplies? Let's say I keep... putting in orders to get fresh stocks every now and then. What's the point in working in ops if you don't do some smuggling on the side, right?" Myne explains and dug into the beetle puree. "I hope you find it tasty, I love Ferengi dishes, they are so yummy!!!"

Sitting down to eat, neither Rin nor Ebi seemed to have any objection to the Ferengi cuisine.

"I know one of your previous hosts spent a lot of time with the Ferengi, did you as well, Myne?" Rin asked.

"Me? Oh no, I went from home, to the Academy to Starfleet. Well, ok, home as a tradeship, so maybe I ran into them a few times. My folks are traders, so dealing with the Ferengi at one point or another is unavoidable. And I was always fascinated by their culture. Having a previous host that lived among them for decades is just a bonus really." Myne explained before turning her attention to Ebi.

"So Ebi, now that I am buttering up to you, care to spill any embarrassing secrets that would make Rin blush? Like go very very very red?!" She chuckled and winked teasingly at Rin while taking a glass of millipede juice and drinking half of it.

"Why would I do that to her?" Ebi asked. "Why do friends want to hurt friends?"

"Because it is called teasing and it is fun as long as it is done in good spirits." Myne says with a comforting smile. "And I am sure Rin won't mind a little bit of teasing. Right Rin?"

"I think his concern was with the number of "very"s in your question," Rin clarified. She smiled, attempting to communicate she was ok with the discussion in the hopes that Myne didn't become self conscious. "And the last time we saw each other was Tavara, where anything you might call embarrassing was usually a failure to understand something we encountered. We also didn't have much of a sense of humor."

"However, anything we do now is probably fair game. But we haven't had much opportunity to embarrass ourselves in the four days I've been here," Ebi added.

"See? Told you Rin is alright with it. Now come on, spit it out! I want to hear everything about xB humor from that time and the failure to understand things. It all sounds kind of fun, at least the idea of it does. Pretty please Ebi?!" Myne smiled and pressed on happily, trying to pry any story from him.

"Myne, we were like children, only more lethal," Ebi tried explaining.

"Well. You can tell me about the less lethal parts. The ones that seem, you know, more innocent. Like, how was it to rediscover the world again? What did you think of toothpaste? Or forks? Oooor spoons? Or if you want, we can change the subject. I just thought it would make for a fun topic, you know?" Myne smiled a little bit nervously.

Ebi and Rin exchanged looks and shrugged.

"Forks and spoons were easy enough. They're tools. They have obvious functions. Although the Tavarans eat things with their hands. That was an embarrassing moment when I first returned to the Federation," Rin explained.

"Acclimating to the food itself was a bit of an adventure," Ebi added. "People invest so much time into consuming it. Seemed very inefficient. And our sense of taste had to develop. But every once in a while you'd eat something new and it would just be amazing..."

"...or horrifying," Rin added. "Took a long time for things with citric acid to not taste like what I imagine battery acid would taste like."

"Not knowing which things needed to be cooked or specially prepared."

"Or which things our systems violently objected to."

"Bodily functions in general, super unpleasant, but this is dinner and I'm not going there."

"The concept of enjoyment took a lot of work. Things were either necessary or unnecessary. We couldn't understand for a long time what it was like to have a subjective opinion about something, to like or dislike."

"What's your opinion of your hair nowadays, Rin?" Ebi asked.

"Keeps my head warm."

"So do hats."

"I don't like hats."

Myne listened to the two explain and talk in such wonderful sync that all she could do was nod, small, short sounds of encouragement for them to go on and that's about it. All the while, eating her tube grub with her fingers. Actually, she had been eating with her fingers the whole time.

"Wait, you equate hair to hats and the only reason you prefer hair to hats is your dislike of hats?" Myne suddenly found herself asking as she stared at Rin with a wide, kind of silly smile. "We are soooo going hat shopping one day!! I will program a Earth style mall into the holodeck!!"

"He's referring to the fact I've always been ambivalent about having hair. I adopted it because I was trying to connect to my past life, but I've never found a style I particularly like, and it takes extra work to maintain. But it does keep my head warm, so I keep it," Rin explains.

"Awww, but but, shopping trip..." Turning to Ebi, Myne began to explain this fascinating concept. "On Earth, like two or three centuries ago there was like this whole religion about shopping. Like, the Humans were fanatical about it, having even global yearly day of mourning for the people that got trampled alive for better prices. And they had these temples, so freakishly huge called malls, where people would go by the thousands each day. And each town had them and it was... a Ferengi's wet dream really. And I always wanted to see one for myself! Humans are so fascinating once you actually start learning about their history and stuff."

"...and then World War III happened and humans almost obliterated themselves," Rin offered up to Ebi.

Then she turned back to Myne. "We could go actual shopping sometime. While we're still docked at the station, or some other time on the Elysium promenade. "Get our nails done or some such."

Nodding eagerly, Myne clapped her hands in excitement. "I would love that, so very much! Shopping and nails!! I need to go get my latinum stash, it will all be my treat!"

"And you know, Humans almost destroyed themselves quite a few times!! I still remember when we first made contact with the Federation, there was quite a debate over it. Should we join this species that will probably find a new way to annihilate themselves or not?" Myne chuckled at the memory.

"Oh my gosh, yes, it didn't occur to me your symbiote is old enough to remember that. What's it like remembering all that?"

"Did you say oh my gosh? That was so adorable!!" Myne yelped happily as she teased Rin for using such adorable words. "Yeeep, I am apparently old enough to remember back when it was just us Trills and no one else. The stars were cold and empty and we thought we were alone in the universe. In retrospect, kind of a foolish way of looking at things. But it has upsides and downsides. Some days it is normal, like you remembering something trivial from a few years ago. Other days I am a bit too aware these are not my memories. And all the time I have the added benefit of..."

Myne leaned in to whisper as if she was sharing a big secret. "Of not being able to actually forget anything. Which makes it really weird for me to claim that I forgot to do something. Because unless the person I tell that to is a Trill, I don't know if they know this or not. So always a gamble. Works with my Chief though, she buys it each time I tell her I forgot something!"

"I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever been called 'adorable," Rin commented. "Is that not the usual phrase?"

"It is, for more silly people. Hearing you say it, does make you even more adorable than you usually are! Isn't that true Ebi?" Myne added.

"I think it safest for me to remain neutral on this matter," Ebi replied.

"Hehe, a wonderful tactic!! Smart one at that too!! So how is the food you two? I usually find it that most people do not share my particular leaning towards Ferengi foods."

"Wonderful," Said Ebi. "You didn't say earlier...is this replicated or have you managed to get fresh supplies out here? Either way it's delicious."

"Oh, I have smuggled most of these onto the ship with the last supply shipment. And it makes me really happy to hear you like it. I have to say, you are the first people I cook for ever since getting aboard the Elysium." Myne took another bite of her grub cheerfully.

"Why a need to smuggle?" Rin asked, trying to be casual about it.

"Because old habits die hard and it's fun! Also, I get to come up with whole new ways of bypassing security, then make reports about it and send them up the chain to get our protocols updated. It's a fun combination of work and fun!" Myne explained with a shrug.

Rin appreciated Myne had turned it into the teaching lesson. She bet it was driving Security mad but, well, if there weren't gaps in Security Myne wouldn't be able to exploit them.

"I'm still marveling at everything you have here," says Ebi. "The sophistication of your replicators, the supplies you can bring in, the vastness of this ship. The arboretum alone is a luxury I never dreamed could be supported on a vessel. And the living quarters afforded to you... The only privacy the ship I came in on offered was a bunk."

"You're telling me. I grew up on a merchant ship. Sure it looked really huge on the outside, but our habitable part was basically like 5% of the ship's available space. Everything else was just interconnected, huge cargo holds. Me and my folks were cramped up at the front. The Elysium is just a space city, it is so freaking amazing. But the power consumption is equally huge. Just overseeing everything and day to day operations is a logistical nightmare at times!" Myne was more than happy to approach this subject with Ebi. She too felt a bit lost on such a great vessel as well, the size of the Elysium being rather staggering until you kind of got used to it.

Rin smiled as she finished her meal, happy to see Myne and Ebi chattering back and forth about power consumption and energy converters. Myne had said she didn't have many friends, so Rin was glad she seems to have found one more. And Ebi was acclimating nicely, although she had had less fears about that.

"So how about now? What kind of quarters did you get Ebi? More than a bunk I hope. Listen, if you need better quarters, your dear pal Myne here can set something up! I won't even charge you my standard bribe of one gold pressed latinum! I actually have a small AI that handles cabin assignments for civilians and crew, spares me the time and effort to actually read what they want and what we have!" Myne offered with a big wide smile.

"They are more than sufficient, but thank you. I'll keep your offer in mind but, truly, this ship already offers everything I could need."

"Everything? I think that is a false statement. I keep trying to get my hands on an AI core for days now and no one would give me one! Apparently, it is too 'risky' in my hands or something." Myne used air quotes on the risky word then chuckled. Clearly having said all of that as a rather bad attempt at humor on her part.

Rin and Ebi chuckled along with her. It was a good night all around, Rin thought, and it continued on for some time.