What About the Cheese?

Writers: Eimi, Yvonne
Date Posted: 2nd May 2008

Characters: Harki, M'katz
Description: Harki is stuck with a very unpleasant dinner companion
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 9, day 19 of Turn 4

"So whatcha eating?" the bluerider asked as he sat down across from Harki.
Harki looked down at her bowl: brown stew with blobs of something that was probably at one point vegetables, before it was boiled to mush. A tuber floated in the gravy, and there was the half eaten remains of a slice of bread on a small plate beside her hand. Several slices of cheese fought for room on the plate beside the bread. She sighed. "The same as you are, M'katz. The same as everyone in the dining cavern."
The bluerider leaned over the table to inspect what she had in front of her. "You're not gonna eat your cheese?"
"I'm saving it."
"Why are you saving it?" he asked as he sat back down in his seat and picked up his spoon.
"Because it's my favourite. And no, you can't have any." Harki turned back to her bowl. Maybe he'd go away.
He slurped a bit of the steaming stew from the spoon. "Well, if it's your favourite, why don't you eat it?"
Harki bit back a sigh. "Because I'm saving it until last."
"But it's your favourite!" he laughed as he grabbed a roll out of the basket and dipped it in the bowl. "Why don't you eat it first? I would."
"Why are you so interested in my eating habits?" All his questions were starting to give her a sour taste in her mouth... and were turning the greenrider off the cheese that she'd snagged especially for her desert. The bluerider shrugged. "Just making conversation." He brought the sloppy wet mess up to his mouth. "So, what do you do in your spare time?" he asked, his mouth still full.
"Ummm..." Harki looked around for an escape. How, in a dining cavern full of people, could she not see anyone she knew!? "Stuff. You know.
Sometimes I swim, or visit with friends, or go skiing."
"Skiing? You like skiing?"
**Why yes, M'katz. However did you know!?** This was why everyone on her Wing avoided him - he was annoying. "Yeah. It's nice to be able to get up past the treeline with Cerillith, then ski down again."
"Why's that?"
"Because it's fast." Why else would anyone like skiing down a mountainside? For the view?!
"Well, yeah," he nodded as he took a bite of greens. "But what is it about fast? Why do you like fast?"
"I just do." Harki eyed him challengingly. "Don't you?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Why?"
She speared a tuber with a little more force than strictly necessary.
The overcooked tuber split in two. "Then you understand. Why ask me about it?"
"Why shouldn't I ask?"
"Because you already know the answer." Harki stabbed the tuber again but it disintrigrated against her fork. "So?"
"So, you _already_know_the_answer_." Honestly, talking to M'katz was like talking to a two year old! **And this is why I will _never_ get pregnant,** Harki thought.
"You might have another answer," he said as he stuffed a large piece of stewed heard beast in his mouth. "Why doz i' boder yu?" he asked around the hunk of meat.
"Because it's a pointless question," Harki ground out. "Why?"
"Because you _already_know_ the answer!"
"So?"
Harki slammed down her spoon, her appetite gone. "Because, M'katz - you are _annoying_!"
M'katz laughed, shaking his head as he stabbed a tuber. "Suuuure I am,"
he said, glancing up with a wink.
"You _are_!" The greenrider could feel herself flush with anger. He just didn't _get_ it! "You - with your stupid questions and- and you eat like a sharding herdbeast!"
"Uh huh," he chuckled. "Like a _herdbeast_, eh?"
With a strangled cry of rage, Harki abruptly stood up and dumped the cooling, slightly congealed remains of her stew over M'katz's head. "And you can eat the sharding cheese!" she yelled, then stomped out of the Dining Cavern. The stunned M'katz watched her leave. After a moment he turned to the rider next to him. "Now why would she go and do a thing like that? She could have taken the cheese with her!"

Last updated on the May 5th 2008

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What About the Cheese?