"Are you hungry, Ellen?"

Kolyat hadn't meant her name to come out with such a twist, but she flinched and Father shot him a look. Her thanks on the heels of her almost uncanny sense of why he'd decorated as he had was too much for him to accept. Shattered, more than shattered. The woman who babbled like an idiot outside the apartment from fear saw through him far too easily for his comfort. And this is another thing that led Father to abandon Mother's memory. Mother had once been every bit as perceptive, and had read Father more easily than a PDA. That he sometimes found Father more oblique than a riddle didn't ease the insult any; some human woman shouldn't have the power to decode him in ways Kolyat couldn't.

"I... I'm always hungry." She forced a smile, and half of him wanted to apologize.

"I think food would be welcome, Kolyat."

"This way." He gestured toward the tiny dining table, though it wasn't hard to miss.

"Mmm, smells wonderful," Ellen said. "Hoisin sauce? I recognize the smell of that potato-thing—asari, isn't it?"

"Potato?"

"Sorry—it's one of the Earth vegetables we raised on Mindoir. When I had a chance to try the asari equivalent, I fell in love. It's got a lot more flavor, but the texture feels like home."

He sat facing the two plates, and his little kitchen. Well, not really a kitchen. Just a stove, a small refrigeration device, and a tiny counter. Years ago, on Kahje, he'd once sat beside Mother opposite Father. Father took his seat, and she… He closed his lids and tried not to bring up the image of their last meal together, before Father…

"You all right?"

She looked down at her plate, and smiled a little as her eyes seemed to focus on the utensils. Goddess of oceans, I screwed it up! But she's not commenting... Figures she'd learn how to read drell expressions.

"Just… memory. Sorry about your 'fork.'"

"Why are you apologizing? You went to a lot of trouble just to make me comfortable."

"Just so I know, tell me how I'm supposed to arrange things."

"The fork goes on the left, and the knife and spoons on the right." She held the fork in her right hand just as Father did. "Not that it matters."

"But you use it with the other hand."

"I never said it made sense." She grinned. "You'll find that with a lot of human stuff. Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable using a lot of different eating devices, so you really don't have to bother with this. You know, naan, chopsticks, those krogan spear-things, turian levitators…"

Father, meanwhile, chewed on a bite of ghafta greens and only the faint turning down at the corner of his lips betrayed his distaste. But would he say anything? Not Father. Never. He must have overcooked them.

"What's 'naan?'"

"An Indian flatbread, and the Afghans make a wonderful equivalent."

"What planet?"

"Earth." She smiled again, but he didn't see what she found so funny.

"Humans eat more than one way?" Then again, he'd seen the human "ramen" stand customers eating with twin sticks that they used to grab long wormlike things from a pool of broth.

"Humans have about eighty billion ways of doing anything."

"That might be an exaggeration, Siha."

"Ok, make that fifty billion. The point still stands."

He tried to suppress his twitch as she brushed her head against Father's shoulder, but the shudder that ran through him as Father took her chin in one hand and kissed her cheek was far beyond his abilities. Ellen flushed and stared down at her undisturbed food. He wished she'd eat, if nothing else to get the three of them away from the plates. He'd thought that eating would make things better, but he hadn't counted on remembering. Father grinned at the bowl of eggs.

"You had these imported, Kolyat? Siha, these are a true Kahje delicacy."

He nodded as she blanched. Still, she dished one onto her plate even as she forced her features into impassivity.

"Keasha-fish. The hanar gather the eggs when they're almost ready to hatch."

His explanation didn't do anything to banish her greyness. If anything, the way Father crunched on the half-formed bones next to her as he spoke just made it worse. She pushed the egg onto her fork with a finger and popped it into her mouth. It was all he could do not to laugh as her jaw contorted to avoid crushing it between her teeth, though only a turian might be able to swallow the mouthful whole. Not that the turian could avoid convulsions after. She winced when he heard the egg pop and she choked the burst of liquid down. A single crunch, and he watched her throat contort as she swallowed the embryonic fish almost whole.

She dabbed at her suddenly watering eyes with a napkin. "Delicious!"

Father grinned. "You have never been a convincing liar, Siha."

She shoved a forkful of greens into her mouth, and then smiled as she chewed. After she swallowed, she grinned. "All right, now that's fantastic!"

He took a cautious bite. Yes, overcooked, just as Father's expression had indicated. "It's too mushy."

"But the flavor… Dios mio—that's home on a plate! Kind of a cross between 'charred' and 'bok choy.'"

"Burned?" So she did think they were overcooked.

He had to admit, her laugh was somewhat contagious. "It must sound the same to the translator. Chard is a red-veined green vegetable from Earth. The Hernandez family shared their yields with us. Bok choy's another vegetable we grew on Mindoir."

"But you don't like the eggs?" He'd used the last of his discretionary credits on them.

"Objectively, it tasted good, but…"

"But?" Somehow he sensed a story.

"But… I've never been able to stomach eggs since Dad made me try Mr. Lacan's 'balut.'"

Her face crinkled, and he laughed. "It must have been terrible if you look like that."

"Worse. Ohgod… you can't get worse than that! I'd rather eat a shipload of dextro food than ever face that nightmare again."

"What is balut, Siha?"

"You sure you want to know? It'll wreck your meal." She stared at a forkful of tuber, suddenly ashen again. She chewed and swallowed and smiled. "Damn, I'd have never thought of pairing those two things. How did you know?"

"That turian chef."

"The one who recommended that awful cheese?" Father said.

"Hm. Strange. Anyway, this is great!"

"Is someone going to tell me what 'balut' and the awful cheese are?"

"The cheese is parmesan, and it's horrible," she said. "Most humans love it, but, dios mio, I'd take a bucket of balut over it."

"It's a little strong." Father gave her a half-knowing smile.

"And 'balut?'"

"You're sure you want to know?" Her smile seemed every bit as enigmatic as Father's. Just what he needed, two of them.

He clenched his brows and glared at her.

"All right, all right. I was just trying to save you some stomach pain." Her smile turned mischievous. "Balut's an almost-hatched chicken egg. You boil it with the half-developed chick inside, and you're supposed to eat it, bones and all. Except Mr. Lacan's batch was a little too close to hatched. When Dad crunched away on his and Mom turned green, I had to swallow breakfast all over again. I managed to keep everything down until Dad spat out a beak. I barfed all over my plate."

"A bird?" He tried to imagine an embryonic bird; he'd seen informational vids at Zakera Café of chickens and their offspring. The image of an unfeathered crunchy thing with an inedible beak made his own gorge rise.

"Dad would have loved these eggs. Actually, if they were smashed and you told me it was sardine soup, I would have believed you. And probably loved it."

"Those half-hatched eggs…" He still couldn't get the image out of his mind.

"Maybe you'll believe me next time."

For all she reminded him of Mother, she was something else entirely. He hadn't expected humor or playfulness from a human: Bailey had always been all business, as was most of the human C-Sec staff. Father shot him a glance and an amused smile. By the gods, why did he always have to know everything? Especially that the three plates didn't seem quite so unsettling anymore.