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Large shallow bowls of bright reddish-orange soup were placed in front of each of them. Each bowl had a green leaf in the middle of it.
"I'll take his over here," Drifter told the servers when they brought soup to Morg's spot. "He's uh… got a temperature sensitivity… hot soup's not good for his mouth."
Morg's bowl was placed in front of Drifter.
"Would you like the third bowl as well?" Firesprite-7 asked, amusement glinting in his Exo eyes that only Drifter and Eris could see.
"I mean… she probably ain't comin' back for it any time soon, so might as well, yeah."
Koharu-4's bowl was placed in front of Drifter.
Drifter closed his eyes and smelled his soups before dipping his spoon in to taste the first one.
"Oh that's good," he said to Eris. "That's a tomato basil." Then he looked over to Firesprite, now on the other side of the table beside Chilliwack. "Hey, could we have more bread? It'll go so good in the soup."
"Of course," the Exo grinned and winked at him.
Eris leaned over close to the Drifter and whispered for only him to hear just above a whisper "Apologies. I did not intend to cause us to lose the social combat."
Drifter smiled and muttered as he ate his soup. "He shouldn't'a went there. Anyone with half a brain knows not to go there."
Eris tried some of her soup. "Correct."
"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." Drifter said as he ate.
Artemis sat between them. The serving staff gave her a wide berth. Drifter reached down to pat the War Beast Puppy on the head. Eris immediately turned and glared at him.
Drifter's eyes went wide. He put his spoon down, pulled his elbows in and raised both of his hands up by his shoulders so she could see they contained nothing.
"I ain't feedin' her! You said not to! I ain't doin it! Especially not here and now. Trust!"
Eris sighed and returned to her soup.
"If you really are here to… support your fireteam…" Chilliwack leaned forward and broached the topic carefully. "Then why are you still here? Gifts have been exchanged."
"Now that," Drifter paused his soup-consumption and pointed his spoon at Chilliwack, "is a very reasonable question, and both Eris and I asked Ikora the same damn thing."
Eris leaned forward after swallowing her spoonful of soup. "I am not allowed to depart until after the Cabal cultural ritual combat at the end of the evening," she intoned. "To do so would be… deeply offensive to the empress, according to both Ikora and Lord Saladin."
Drifter gestured toward both himself and Eris with his spoon before continuing to eat as he talked. "We don't wanna be here just as much as you don't want us to be here. Soon as we're allowed to hightail it outta here we absolutely will. Say…" He pointed to Morg's empty seat across the table. "Did he order the chicken, the beef, or the vegetarian?"
"Chicken," muttered Aunor.
"Oh good! that means we'll be able to try all three! He ain't eatin' nothin' any time soon after that." Drifter smirked, starting in on his second bowl of soup.
"You know this from experience?" Aunor asked dryly.
"Ha! Nah. Out of all the times I annoyed her with my yappin' she ain't never done that to me." Then he turned to Eris. "That's the difference between flirtin' and bein' a dumbass, sayin' shit you shouldn't say."
"Tsch."
The four ate in silence for a while, steam from the hot soup and people's breaths visible in the cool air as the last vestiges of sunset illuminated the skyline with brilliant colours. Gentle snowflakes continued to slip down on top them while the fires in the Dawning braziers kept everyone from becoming too chilled.
Eris finished her bowl of soup as Drifter started in on his third. She nibbled on the most recent bun he had buttered and given to her.
He smiled at her empty bowl and looked up at her as he continued eating. "You like this one?" he asked between swallows of soup. "Got tomatoes growin' on the Derelict. I can make it for you if you want."
"Perhaps. It is not as good as your regular soups but… it is palatable."
"It's hard to get somethin' tasty when you're serving this many people. They did all right. Would be better with a little bit of cream in it, but cream's expensive and for this many people that'd be a lot. Tomato's nice and simple and the basil in it does a lot of the heavy lifting, flavour-wise."
"Is that the leaf?" Eris asked him idly, as though she had not just frozen the tongue of a Praxic Warlock with Darkness while her new pet mauled him in front of everyone a short while before.
"Yes and no. That particular specific leaf in the middle is a garnish. It just put on top to make it look nice."
"But… you just ate it."
"Well yeah. Perfectly good leaf. No point in wastin' it. But there's a bunch more of 'em in the soup all shredded up and cooked into it that's makin' it nice. It's good with the bread."
"Hmmm…." Eris took her last piece of uneaten bread and reached over to his bowl.
He looked up at her quizzically and then his eyes widened and his face gradually shifted to pure joy as Eris playfully dipped her bread into his soup, tapped it at the edge of his bowl to keep it from dripping, and then placed the soup-dipped bread into her mouth in front of the surprised faces of Aunor and Chilliwack.
After chewing and swallowing it, she told him dispassionately without the slightest smile, "You are correct."
Drifter could not keep the shit-eating grin from his face.
They were part way through the main course (Drifter having finished his own meal and was now starting on Morg's Chicken) when Eris sensed a change. The energy near her shifted dramatically. The two Warlocks across from them were still begrudgingly eating. The diners all around them were all focused on their food and their dinner conversations. Eris looked over to her beloved companion. He was chewing slowly. His eyes, fixed on a point somewhere in the distance of the crowd, had taken on a look she knew well, that of a snake tracking prey.
Eris watched as Drifter calmly put his cutlery down and in a motion that was extremely relaxed, without taking his eyes off of whatever he was watching, he slid his hand over across the table onto Eris' wrist and squeezed it four times firmly in succession. He waited a few moments and then did it again.
One. Two. Three. Four.
GTFO.