Third Floor Common Room; Monday Morning [11/11].

[howareyanow]

Wayne should have figured he'd had too many completely normal breakfasts in a row. And that morning was one of the particularleh annoying ones where it started out completely normal, and then went a little weird right toward the end. Because there he was, just going about his usual business of making breakfast in the morning, everything going along accordin' to plan, until he went to actually take the pancakes or the eggs or the bacon or whatever else it was out of the pan and onto a plate.

Because that was when the food suddenly went miniature.

Little mini pancakes. Little tiny eggs. Itty bitty bacon. Normal sized in the pan. Baby sized out.

"So's it's not only gotta be annoying," he grumbled at the food, "it's gotta be inefficient, too, huh?"

Because now he had to make at least twice as much food to equal the usual amount of food he'd put on a plate, and he'd found out it wasn't just the one pan, it was all the pans, and he also had to brace himself for at least a few of the usual breakfast crew probably going around talkin' about how cute all the mini food was.

But there was nothin' cute about inefficiency!

[[ and breakfast is served! Open! ]]

Comments

[bookbeltof_love]

There... there was so much cute about inefficiency, Wayne! So much!

“Goooooooooood mooooooorniiiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Nina sang as she bounced on in, bright and fresh as a daisy.

[howareyanow]

"Nina," Wayne greeted, squinting speculatively at a pancake that he'd poured extra big as an experiment, only to flip it out of the pan and onto a plate to discover it suddenly just as miniature as the other pancakes that preceeded it, which meant a faint grumbling growl interrupted the exact cadence of his usual greeting, because he couldn't just let that slide ungrumbled. "How are ya now?"

[bookbeltof_love]

“I’m.............—“

And she couldn’t resist interrupting herself when he grumbled.

“What’s wrong with breakfast today???????????????????”

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

After having a quiet day yesterday of mostly tinkering around with her phone, Tisarwat woke up that Monday feeling well rested and refreshed unlike her mun. She'd picked out a very nice tea with a slight hint of apricot to it, to sort of match the slight feeling of whimsy she'd apparently caught that morning, and figured she'd at least enjoy a little socialization before likely sequestering herself in the library to do a little research on things like radio frequencies and WiFi for the next step of her tinkering.

Her ambitions with these things seemed to come in waves, depending on which parts of her brain and memories seemed to be strongest on any given day, so she figured she'd best make the most of it while the mood struck her, because who knew when it would take a turn toward something else?

"Good morning, everyone," she greeted the room as a whole with a smile. "Anyone for tea?"

And, yes, she already had her flask ready to pour for the inevitable puppy mug being flung her way by their intrepid and dutiful cook.

[howareyanow]

"It's...."

Wayne's squint turned into a glower.

"...gone small. See fer yerself."

He grabbed one of the plates he'd been putting together and handed it over to her stiffly, so she could do just that, all the little tiny pancakes and eggs and bacon (but normal sized fruit) for all the world to see.

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina took her plate since, well, she was always going to take her plate.

But she was going to squint back at his glower there.

"Oh," she said, "is this, like, the sprinkles thing?????????????????????? Or is this an island thing???????????????????"

[bookbeltof_love]

"I'd love tea," Nina said happily, waving over at Tisarwat with gloved hands.

Really, she knew at this point to wear them if she'd arrived at the common room before Tisarwat had.

"Good morning, Tisarwat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[howareyanow]

"S'an island thing," Wayne grumbled, going to pour another pancake, though he didn't know why he bothered making it the size he did, habit more than anything, he s'posed, he should just start making them small, but if he did that, they'd probably end up even tinier. "Or mebbe jus' a pan thing, fuck if I know. Alls I know if they got in normal, and end up..." Oh, he had so many glowers for this, he just might go and burn a hole through something with the sheer power of his glower alone, "gone small."

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

And it was common sense and foresight like that, Nina, that earned you one of the really nice cups, which Tisarwat wasted no time and getting out for her and pouring, as soon as Wayne's coffee-laced puppy mug was filled.

"Good morning, Nina," she responded pleasantly, handing the cup over. "How was the rest of yor weekend?"

[bookbeltof_love]

Too bad there was no way of knowing that it was completely adorable foreshadowing!

"At least the fruit haven't gone small," she said, biting back giggles as she went to add berries and some butter on top of her tiny pancakes. "And there's nothing really wrong with being bite-sized.................."

[howareyanow]

It did seem like an oddly specific, yet somewhat timely, problem to have, now, didn't it?

"Well, the fruit doesn't go in the pan," Wayne pointed out. "It's only the pan stuff that's...." Glare "...gone small. And there is something wrong with it, Nina, if it goes in the pan normal size but comes out smaller size, because what happened to all the rest of the size? That's food waste!"

Somehow, he felt Vette would be so proud of him right now.

[bookbeltof_love]

"Full of panic and flailing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she said cheerfully as she took the cup thankfully. "Oooooh, apricot!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[bookbeltof_love]

"I don't think shrinking food really, like, counts as food being wasted," Nina said thoughtfully. "I mean, like, doesn't the same thing happen when you dehydrate food????????????????? Raisins are just shrunken grapes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

"It seemed to fit the mood of the morning," Tisarwat explained with a laugh. "It's always nice how certain teas can perfectly suit any situation. Even if I don't know if I'd pair apricot with panic and flailing! Why," and she had to laugh again, because there wasn't exactly much panic or flailing in that cheerfulness, as far as she could see, "are you full of panic and flailing in the first place, Nina?"

[howareyanow]

Wayne was just going to squint over the logic a little, because it seemed pretty heavy on the Nina Logic side of things, the same side that made pancakes with shellfish, but on the other hand...

"I don't think," he stated, "this is a dehydration issue, Nina. But, come to think of it, now that you mention it, raisins do seem to be a bit of a waste of a good grape, now, doesn't it?"

Because that? Was pure Wayne Logic, right there.

[bookbeltof_love]

"It smells so nice," she said, giggling. "It has my vote for being paired with panic and flailing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It was, quite obviously, not the sort of panic and flailing that one ought to be worried about, so...

"And oh my gosh, Tisarwat," Nina leaned in a bit, like she was sharing a secret, even though it was all over radio and, like, anyone who talked to this week was going to be so sick of hearing about it by Friday, "I have a date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But, like, I've never been on one!!!!!!!!!!! What do I do???????????"

[bookbeltof_love]

"I like raisins," Nina protested. "They're tasty and don't go bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Well. It took a lot of effort of have raisins go bad on a person.

"It's definitely not a waste!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

Tisarwat did have a feeling that might be it, since she did listen to radio pretty regularly, but it was usually far more interesting and fun to let the other person say it, especially when that person was Nina.

"I don't know if I can be much help there, I'm afraid," she offered, apologetically, though her amused expression wasn't going anywhere as she sipped her own tea now. "As I've come to understand it, dating expectations on Earth are very different than in the Radch."

Of course, her source of this information was Seivarden, so she didn't know how truthful or skewed those things might be.

"What does a date on this planet usually entail? Back home, it would be...going out for food, or maybe tea, or going to watch an entertainment or maybe a museum or a garden, if the planet or station has those kinds of facilities."

[howareyanow]

"Well, I s'pose...."said Wayne, who then trailed off a little, for a moment, then made a face down at the pancake he'd flipped out of his pan, "if you consider a raisin a good way to keep good grapes from goin' bad, then they're really not so bad, but I think, ten to one, I'd rather have the grapes. But, again, I'm pretty sure this isn't a grapes-to-raisins situation, Nina, but just the island caring fuck all about the state of matter, and I don't care fer that. Unless they'll still fill you up the same way the normal sized ones do, in which case the whole thing, then....is just...silleh."

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina went a bit pink at that continued amusement--though, really, she deserved it--as she sipped at her own tea.

"I mean, like, that............ sounds pretty much like dates here, as far as I know?????????????????" And, really, if she didn't know then Nina was pretty sure Owen wouldn't know or care either. She hoped. "Like, we're going for dinner, though we haven't decided where..............."

[bookbeltof_love]

"Sometimes," she said, "silly is good for you, Wayne!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Be more like Nina, Wayne! Silly was a way of life most of the time!

"And, like, grapes are good, but we don't exactly have refrigerators back home, so............ raisins are definitely more common?????????????"

[howareyanow]

"Yeah, well," Wayne drawled, "back home, you also make ice cream with...just an egg, so........."

That Nina-level usage of ellipses and that trailing squint of Wayne's suggested that that might be all he had to say about that.

[bookbeltof_love]

"I can do that here too," she said sweetly. "Or, like, I could make French toast for you, if you're feeling adventurous today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[lilac_eyed_lieutenant]

"Well," said Tisarwat, looking thoughtful between sips, considering the island and what little she knew about Earth cuisine, since she avoided a lot of it due to its tendency to lean toward foods eaten with hands, "do you know what kind of food your date likes? Or maybe something you both are a little unfamiliar with, so that there's a common ground and you can go through the experience together..."

[bookbeltof_love]

She giggled.

"We, like, couldn't decide where we wanted to go," she explained, "so we're having, ah, a pre-date meeting with strips of paper and a marker and picking a place out of a hat............................."

That, at least, was the one thing Nina wasn't panicking over!