"PuqnI'be', it's good to see you are still among the living!"
B'Elanna groaned as she shuffled into the main room of the house, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Reports of my death have been exaggerated, though not by much," B'Elanna replied as she walked past the seating area towards the kitchen, where her grandfather sat at the table, reading a PADD and drinking a cup of raktajino.
Ma'Leth chuckled. "Miral said, before she went to work, that you had some trouble last night." He put his PADD down and began to stand. "Since you have nothing left in your stomachs, you must be hungry. Let me get you something. Your mother programmed the replicator with human foods for you."
B'Elanna had reached the kitchen, and waved her grandfather away. "I can manage," she replied and made her way to the replicator. It was embedded in the wall next to the more traditional methods of food preparation, including some rather barbaric looking knifes and something that looked like a plasma cutter. Why in the world would you need that in the kitchen?
B'Elanna punched her selection into the replicator. Despite her troubles the evening before, this morning she was feeling good, other than a bit of shuttle-lag. As her food materialized, B'Elanna turned to her grandfather. "You said Mom's at work already? What time is it?"
"Four hours past sunrise."
B'Elanna tried to calculate what time that meant. Was sunrise at six o'clock? Or was it seven? Qo'noS didn't rotate on a tilted axis, so sunrise was at a constant time, but B'Elanna could never remember exactly when that was. And there was also the matter of the twenty-eight hour day…
"It's just after eleven, in Standard Time," Ma'Leth supplied, having noticing B'Elanna's confusion.
Seven! That's right! B'Elanna put her food down on the table, before taking a seat on the bench across from her grandfather. "Thanks, I was having trouble remembering when sunrise was."
"I forgot that on Earth the time is not told like that. But I am sure you will adjust to it. Sunset is fourteen hours later, at twenty-one. Just so you recall."
B'Elanna nodded her thanks, before turning her attention to her food. A few bites in, she noticed her grandfather hadn't returned to his PADD; instead he was staring at her.
"What?" she asked, her mouth half full.
"What is that you're eating?"
B'Elanna couldn't decide if he was asking out of curiosity, disgust, or a bit of both. She looked down at her food and tried to think of how to describe them in Klingon. "I don't know any of these words. Do you want to just try it? This is a, um, bread covered in a sweet liquid," B'Elanna said, gesturing to the stack of light brown disks on the plate. "And this is a cooked part of an animal."
B'Elanna slid the plate across the table. Her grandfather's trepidation made her laugh… compared to Klingon food, this was a walk in the park. Ma'Leth picked up the fork, awkwardly, and tried to stab at the food. "VavnI', you can use your hands…"
"No," he growled, mostly at the fork. "I will not let this thing defeat me." After a couple more tries, he got some in his mouth - and didn't even try to hide his disgust. "It's so sweet!" he exclaimed, grabbing his raktajino. "It's like eating pure leak'Ta root!" He took another gulp of his beverage.
B'Elanna tried not to laugh at her grandfather's reaction. "Is this what I looked like last night when I had to eat the qa'Da'?"
Ma'Leth let out a loud guffaw. "You did a much better job of hiding your disgust!" The old man gestured to the strips of reddish-brown flesh on the plate. "Is this sweet?"
B'Elanna shook her head. "You'll probably like it more… and even I eat that one with my fingers."
B'Elanna thought she saw relief pass over the old man's face. He took a bite, this time only grimacing slightly. "I would like it better uncooked," he declared, before pushing the plate back towards B'Elanna.
"Well, to each their own," B'Elanna replied, turning her attention back to her breakfast.
"This is true. I'll eat all the qa'Da and you can eat all the…"
"Pancakes and bacon," B'Elanna supplied, in Federation Standard.
"Pancakes and bacon," her grandfather repeated, tripping over the strange words.
For a few moments, the two were silent, Ma'Leth going back to his reading, B'Elanna eating her breakfast.
"About last night," Ma'Leth said, still looking at his PADD, "would you like to come with me to the restaurant today?"
B'Elanna paused, mid-chew. She wanted to say no outright, just to get back at her uncle and mother. But what else was she going to do? Stay in the house all day, every day?
"What would I do?" B'Elanna asked.
"What would you like to do? You could wait tables, help me cook, wash dishes…"
B'Elanna shuddered at the notion of waiting on a bunch of rowdy Klingons. "I don't think I want to interact with the customers."
"Then you can stay in the back with me." Ma'Leth stood and headed for the kitchen. "To be honest, I don't really like interacting with customers either. They are a demanding lot. One of the joys of turning the restaurant over to your uncle is he now has to deal with them, rather than me!" He placed his mug in the dish cleaner, before turning to look back at B'Elanna.
B'Elanna mulled it over. It couldn't hurt to try, right? And it did seem like her saying yes would make the old man happy. "Okay, I'll come."
Ma'Leth's face broke out in a grin - and B'Elanna couldn't help but return his smile. "Fantastic! I will do my morning Mok'bara practice while you get ready. We'll go in about an hour?"
B'Elanna nodded. "Sounds good."
=/\=