"This is nice isn't it?" Gul Dukat posed the question to his company. He looked around himself and smiled a self-satisfactory smile. He breathed in the fresh, cool air through his nostrils and sighed happily.
Walking next to him, Weyoun emitted a sad-sounding exhale. A slight frown creased his pale brow. "I would concur, if the Founders had bestowed upon me the ability to appreciate aesthetics and smell and taste," he muttered to himself.
Dukat grinned triumphantly and slapped the Vorta on the back. "Oh, Weyoun, look on the bright side!" he declared cheerfully – too cheerfully.
Weyoun raised an eyebrow, looking up. "The bright side of what exactly?" he asked the Cardassian.
The Gul rubbed his chin in thought and took a quick, nonetheless thoughtfully glance up at the blue sky. "Of life, Weyoun," he elaborated.
"And," Weyoun said huffily. "How exactly do you propose I do that?"
Dukat shrugged his broad shoulders, the movement barely discernible due to his large uniform curiass. "I'm no expert in matters of the mind," he began, "being a leader, a soldier, a—"
Weyoun had heard enough. He held up a silencing hand. "Thank you, Dukat," he said with fake ingratiation. "But, I think I am better off asking Damar over there for advice regarding looking on the 'bright side'."
Dukat said little, only glared at him, his bright teal eyes boring into Weyoun's disinterested ones. "I was only trying to help, Weyoun," he snapped.
The clone frowned at him, and then dropped his pace; he was having trouble keeping up with Dukat's long strides anyway. So, he saw Dukat saunter off into the distance, doing whatever it was that he did. Weyoun paused his pace for a moment to think about it. That was a bad idea, Weyoun thought, trembling in disgust and confusion. Somewhere behind them, ambling as slow as a Terran tortoise, was Damar.
Weyoun wondered why he was so slow. After all, he was taller than Weyoun, and thus, had longer legs. Going by logic, Weyoun concluded, Damar should be able to walk quicker. However, that decision was worth little when Damar's pace slowed even more, becoming nothing more than aimless wandering. The Vorta also wondered what Damar was doing back there. So, he spun on his heel and regarded the other Cardassian.
"Oh, Damar!" Weyoun called out in a singsong voice.
The soldier looked up and instantly became alert. His face dropped when he figured out that Weyoun had been calling him. "What do you want, Weyoun?" he demanded.
Weyoun smiled innocently, as was customary when he felt like annoying Damar. He always felt like annoying Damar. It was just too easy and too fun. "Dukat would like to speak with you," he replied.
Damar raised a curious, incredulous eye-ridge, but let it go. He stormed up the path, past the rippling pond, past the waddling ducks, past the abandoned benches. "Yes?" he called out to Dukat.
Dukat turned around to face him, three hundred metres away. "Damar?" he called back in partial alarm.
"Sir, Weyoun said you wanted to talk to me," Damar said, now starting to get perplexed, himself.
Dukat smiled wryly. Damar studied his face and then growled in frustration. "Oh, Weyoun, you bastard," he muttered.
The Vorta clone approached them, his hands draped behind his back. "Gentlemen," he said politely. "Having a bit of bother?"
Dukat glared at him. "Weyoun, don't tease my first officer," he warned him.
In spite of the Gul's words, Weyoun simply beamed. "Of course, Dukat," he said dutifully. "But... I give the orders here." He tilted his chin up nobly.
Damar rolled his eyes and scowled. "You do, do you?"
"Do you want me to inform the Founder of your disbelief in the commanding dysfunctions of her first adjutant?" Weyoun asked mockingly.
Dukat put out a hand, blocking Damar from punching the Vorta out cold. "Now, now, calm yourselves," he said.
"I am calm," Damar countered blankly, his fists balled and teeth clenched.
Dukat raised his hands to his temples. He sighed, then waved dismissively. "I'm gonna go. You two can sort out your differences, or whatever." He then wheeled around and left them to their own devices.
Damar grunted - or something similar - then sighed.
"You look so much different without the Kanar," Weyoun observed.
Damar, though, just ignored him.
"Damar," Weyoun said in his annoyingly cherubic voice. "You answer to me."
He snorted. "No. I answer to Dukat and the Union."
Weyoun shook his head and waggled an accusing finger in the Cardassian's direction. "You don't," he argued. "We all answer to the the Founder, but that includes me. You and your kind-" He smiled insufferably "-are at the low point of the scale."
Damar pretended that he had not heard the clone, but he did. He stormed off and sat on a bench some tends of metres away.
Weyoun clasped his hands together and grinned in pure, ill-deserved self-satisfaction.
The Cardassian shook his head in annoyance. He frowned, his thick eye-ridges almost coming together. God, how he hated that Vorta. That annoying, insufferable, rude, arrogant, idiotic diplomat. He reached down to the side and expected his hand to come across a bottle. He cursed under his breath when he found no Kanar.
Some way away, Weyoun was ambling slowly down the path. He was still struggling to see what exactly Dukat - and apparently many others - found so beautiful, so mesmerising, so thought-provoking about the area. It was green. There were trees and bushes and grass. There were little birds tweeting and swooping. There were insects scurrying about on the paving stones; rabbits, deer and squirrels padding along. There was light from the main sequence star that reflected on the surface of the rippling pond.
Weyoun noted down each of those elements, but they all seemed the same to him. Obviously, there were different species and different colours, but they all elicited the same emotional response from him. He sighed and a twinge of sadness befell him.