JPL ~ CHelm & Cooky ~ Lt sh'Thrass & Fveirrolh ~ "Wafuu!"

Posted on 241501.14 @ 6:03am by Arrain Maec tr'Verelan & Lieutenant Zhyalla sh'Thrass

Mission: Holy Cow

[Enterprise]

It was a splendid device. It was the marvel of Federation ingenuity. It could produce whatever dish you programed into it- this “relakator” that Mhai was so colorfully complimenting. To Fveirrolh the device was some type of insidious witchcraft. How could you make food from nothing? It was obscene! From what little he could gleam from Mhai’s words it apparently had something to do with waste recycling. So they liked to eat dung? It probably wasn’t so simple but after tasting the first programmed dish from the infernal thing he may have well eaten dung. “There is no flavor!” He had exclaimed angrily in this native tongue causing Mhai to argue with him fervently. Another dish brought the same reaction but this time with an indignant toss of a soup bowl into the replicator’s controls. When he turned around to yell at Mhai again she had disappeared. Undeterred by the audience now curiously eyeing him Fveirrolh attacked the soup stained controls of the replicator and pressed all the buttons furiously. Yes, all of them. The device flared repeatedly as weird beverages and foodstuff spilled out of its orifice like a mad glutton vomiting his afternoon meal.

The occupants of the mess hall all stared at the exotic creature that was losing, rather entertainingly, in his battle with the replicator. The other one had disappeared without a word, and no one had dared stop her — one look in her eyes and anyone with survival sense knew better. Zhyalla almost had, but then having weakest member of the pack all too herself was just too tempting. Instead, she strolled up behind the littlest Romulan and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Whoa there, tacks."

“Mhai!” Fveirrohl spun around angrily reaching out to grab Mhai. Except that it wasn’t Mhai. When the realization finally dawned on him he also noticed he had this thin blue wriggling thing in his grip. His eyes seemed to widen unnaturally as he released his clutch on the Andorian’s antennae with the reflex of someone who had just grabbed a scalding pot handle. Stepping away from the woman he held his hand by the wrist and looked at it sorrowfully wondering if it would now turn blue.

Her eyes were the size of saucers, and the only thing that kept her from crying out in pain was how hard she'd bitten down on her lip. A drop of blue trickled from it when she finally opened her mouth to take a deep breath. She stepped close to the little pointed eared hobgoblin, ready to grab one pointed ear and twist so hard that three generations up and down his family line would feel the pain, when she realized that he looked scared. So instead she took another deep breath and wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

"I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume that you did not intentionally mean to twist my antennae nearly clear off," she said quietly. In her peripheral vision, she could see her crew mates moving away to give her lots of room, and she felt a little dizzy. "So you and I are going to sit down and we're going to figure just why you were damaging Starfleet property." By now, someone likely had put in a call to maintenance, and there would be a crewman who'd made his supervisor unhappy up here to clean the mess from the replicator soon.

Fveirrolh dropped his hand and stared at the woman tilting his head slightly at her words. Some might even say he resembled a poor puppy lost and confused. Except there was very little that was poor about this puppy. Instead of fear Fveirrolh felt ire. How dare this thing interrupt his tantrum? If he had a wooden ladle in his person he would have smacked her. Narrowing his dark oval eyes into slits he pointed at the replicator “Arhem komne au seiyya aeu!” He was determined that this evil device would either have to be rid of or he would die in a valiant effort. There was no middle ground here. Not when honor was at stake.

"Why isn't the universal translator telling me what you're saying?" Zhyalla asked herself as she flicked at her combadge. Her left antennae quirked upwards as the eyebrow below it did the same, causing her to wince lightly at the antenna's upward movement. "Look, I think you've pretty much broken it. They'll send someone to repair is," she insisted, forcefully grasping him and trying to point him at an empty table.

“Brok? Broku?” Fveirrohl’s expression tensed when grabbed and he tried to pull away but found the effort fruitless as the woman literally shoved him towards an empty table. Normally his first reaction would have been to slap the woman but as he twisted around with his palm out he recognized that hitting her would probably bring shame on the master. That sudden realization made him go limp and then trip, which incidentally caused the Andorian to stumble into him sending the pair tumbling over the empty table together.

A string of cursing in Andorian filled the mess, and suddenly there were half as many crew around to witness the interaction. She wanted to box the Romulan about his ears, but even if she thought he was doing this intentionally, it would likely at least cause a diplomatic incident if not some time sitting in the brig. So instead she took a deep breath, picked herself up, and offered him a hand.

"Are you okay?"

Take her hand or not? Fveirrohl studied the woman’s blue digits for a short moment before reaching out and grasping her offer. Even among his people spurning such altruism was considered incredibly rude. He started to speak but then paused and reached into his pocket pulling out a delta styled commbadge similar to the Andorian’s. Holding the small thing against his chest he carefully slid the device across the fabric of his shirt until it was relatively in the same spot as everyone else’s. “diin…” he paused again and flicked the badge “they…” Oh, seemingly strange to hear his own words echoed out in standard “they said that this would help me be understood? Do you…understand me?”

"Now I do. Did the replicator lick you funny, or what?" She shook her head, stealing a sidelong glance at the mess that sat in the replicator and dripped down the wall as a testament to his disagreement.

“Lick?” Fveirrolh’s expression became horrified “is it able to do such a thing? That insidious device?” He pointed at the replicator as a small army of technicians appeared in the mess wearing ‘what the hell happened here?’ looks as they gathered around to assess the damage.

"It's a human idiom," Zhyalla insisted. "The pink skins have such odd turns of phrase sometimes. That one means that I don't think the object of your rage is capable of doing something to justify it... but it makes light of it. They make light of so many things." She clicked her tongue, and pulled out a chair. "Sit."

“Pink skin?” Fveirrohl accepted her invitation and sat down “what an unsual description. Are you referring to one of them?” He jerked his thumb towards one of the technicians who was a Tellarite. “And that device, your relakator, is pure witchcraft. How one can even consider the dung it synthesizes as edible food confuses me.” Acrimony welled up inside him and he clenched his fists “and fresh produce- I cannot believe your ship carries very little of it. I would have had crates shipped over from the Battlequeen if I had known that this ship would be so ill equipped and uncivilized to properly care for the young master.”

"He's a Tellarite," Zhyalla corrected, settling herself in the chair across the table from the excitable Romulan. Maybe with a solid piece of a furniture and a device translating him, he might not cause any more injury to her. "I meant the Terrans, a lot of them have skin the color of the soft underbelly of a tuber. As for the replicator-" she said it carefully, emphasizing the correct pronunciation for him. "It breaks the everything down to the base particles. It doesn't always produce the tastiest of things but from a purely scientific standpoint it is nutritively the same as the real things. It doesn't change that the Belgian waffles taste like shit." As she made the comment about the waffles, she leaned forward, lowering her voice as if she was sharing a secret with him.

“Beljan wafuu?” Fveirrolh blinked at her words “what is this beljan wafuu you speak of?”

"Belgian waffles. Only the best thing to come from that little blue ball in the Sol system. It's fluffy and crunchy and covered with this sweet brown liquid called syrup. If you're really lucky, you get the syrup from the land of the beaver with the red leaf on the label." Zhyalla grinned as she sat back in her chair again, a satisfied nod at her explanation. "...but the replicator gives me this chewy thing that isn't crunchy, it isn't fluffy, and the syrup? The syrup is cloying and runny, and it's just disappointing. Have you ever had a bad waffle?" She leaned forward again, and her antennae jutted forward as she asked, a piercing gaze pointed at him.

“Wafful?” He studied her for a long minute finding her mannerism a bit off-putting but there was something about this mysterious delicacy that latched onto his curiosity. Fveirrohl wasn’t closed to learning something new- after all what if the young master took a liking to this new food? What to do? “Can you teach me more about this…beljean wafful? Perhaps the young master will like it.”

"Belgian waffles," she repeated carefully for him. "It starts with a waffle iron. The perfect waffle iron is hard to come by, as you need one that'll heat the waffle evenly as it cooks, one that will provide lots of surface area for the crunchy parts, but will also offer deep pockets for the syrup or whatever else you choose to put on top." Zhyalla occasionally tapped on the table with her fingers, seemingly trying to emphasize certain points of her statements. "Now, once you've found the perfect iron, you'll want to make a batter. Those humans from the North American continent will insist that you use baking powder in your batter to make it light and fluffy, but the good waffles? They're made with yeast. So, it's like a bread, the waffle batter."

Fveirrohl eyes moved with every word that the blue woman uttered. He was entranced and made mental notes about the waffle process like a composure would his music on a sheet. It seemed to be such a complicated recipe that his fingers tinged with excitement at the thought of cooking with terran delicacy. By the time she finished her explanation the Romulan cook had already compartmentalized the ingredient list and necessary tools. Standing up he gave the woman a gracious nod “I will immediately start to gather materials.”

"And leave the replicators alone?" she asked, realizing that her conversation had gotten overrun with waffles. She wanted a good waffle. "I can be your jenny pig when you're ready to test your abilities. You wouldn't want to serve a bad one to your young master."

“Jenny pig?” Fveirrohl blinked at the words but slowly needed his head understand the gist of what the woman meant “yes you may pre-sample. It is always best to ensure that food is not poisoned before serving it to ones master.”

"Yes, Jenny pig, a test subject," Zhyalla insisted. She elected not to point out there were things that could harm a Romulan, but not an Andorian. No need to confuse the poor young thing anyways. Literal poison didn't seem to be the style on this ship anyways. She stood up and held out her hand. "My name's Zhyalla."

“Hm.” Fveirrohl murmured as he casually pulled the delta off his shirt and pocketed it away securely. He gave the blue woman a slight parting nod as thanks and uttered “Bedah.” With careful steps he weaved his way through the throng of irritated and irate technicians as he headed out of the lounge.

An antennae and eyebrow quirked upwards as she watched the Romulan leave without a return introduction, and she grumbled as the movement reminded her of the assault he laid to her antennae. With a head shake, she sat back down at table to watch the wake of his assault on the replicator, watching surly technicians fixing things was but a small consolation prize but it was one none the less.

==

Lieutenant Zhyalla sh'Thrass
Chief Helm Officer
USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-F

Fveirrohl
Eccentric Cook
USS Enterprise