Backpost: Chocolate Milk and Oranges

Posted on Mon May 19th, 2025 @ 5:31pm by Lieutenant Irynya & Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant Chaali

Mission: Seven Souls
Location: The Rosaline, The Grand Delphinium, Risa
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 0000

[The Rosaline, Outdoor Patio]
[The Grand Delphinium Resort and Hotel]
[0800, the morning after Off the Well Lit Streets]

There were a number of places to eat at the Grand Delphinium, but the patio that was attached to The Rosaline had always been Irynya’s favorite. And, since she’d barely had time to collapse onto the bed in the room she’d been assigned after what had turned out to be a raucous last night in some of the more lascivious locations in Delphi, she was glad her parents didn’t mind coming in to the resort for breakfast.

There was the other part of it too. Breakfast, homemade by her mother at the table she’d sat at for years of breakfasts before it, felt too close. She was leaving. Again. And every leaving had been hard. For this one she wanted the space to breathe and the slightly less home-like environment of The Rosaline as a buffer. She’d already said her goodbyes to Marteli, and Elwe, and Wrena, and Tal. And even to Rami and the others in the group that she knew less well. Her parents were the last ones, like unwinding a thread that was caught on a splinter. She wanted to leave with everyone happy – or at least as happy as could be managed.

“Have you decided?” The tall, and scantily clad, young man that had approached her table barely caught her notice. He was as Risian as they came. Dark tan skin, a golden ja’risia, well formed features, and no shirt to speak of. Or… well… nothing that would normally be considered a shirt off world. She didn’t know him–didn’t know most of the servers anymore and the strange feeling of being out of place in a place she belonged slid through her chest making her tense for a moment.

She pursed her lips, reaching for a menu that she hadn’t yet bothered to read and rubbing an eye with the back of her wrist. “Umm, no, not yet,” she said before adding, “Actually. Coffee would be great. Steamed milk if you can and liquid sugar.”

The server nodded, “Of course,” and then was gone, back toward the building and the indoor kitchen.

Sighing heavily, Iry let the menu drop back to the table, keeping it in her hand, but not bothering to raise it to read. The view from The Rosaline’s patio was the main reason she’d always loved it best. Just beyond the paving stones that made up the large rounded area was the beach. Palms and other green trees waved lightly in a breeze that kicked up warm fresh smelling sea scent. The water of the ocean glittered in the early sun and the next nearest island, a protected nature preserve that was serviced by the battery of scientists stationed in Delphi, looked like a jewel-green mass on the horizon.

To most it was an idyllic paradise- like many a piece of sculpture its raw state had been beautiful but when put into the hands of Risian designers, they had composed a masterpiece. And most would have come for the view and the warm hearts and low inhibitions of its people. But for the one who, in a moment, coalesced in a matter stream it wasn't the view. It was the promise of breakfast.

Cadet Noah Hyman Balsam breathed in his first natural, un-sterilized air for the day. And almost immediately he felt the clock ticking- for however long his allergy hypo was going to stave off the unknown histamine vectors of what was, yes, a beautiful world. But beauty was always viewed through the lens of an individual's peculiarity. Noah Balsam preferred the clean and well-crafted lines of a starship. But he did, as a novelty, wiggle his toes in the sand. It reminded him of his recent trip to France's Mediterranean.

Risa was similar in climate... and yet wholly different.

He was dressed simply. Noah was obviously trying to blend in and yet he was impossibly obvious. Here as a pale and skinny thing, his arms folded over his chest with more inhibition than any native. He'd found a shirt someone had called a "native style" take on a Hawaiian shirt. It was billowy and seemed to lack any way to fasten it up. The shorts he'd chosen were expressly Earther in design, and stopped below his knees. To some they could have been pants. Noah was quite lanky, betraying his offworld and low-gravity origins.

The same warmly brown person with no shirt and a strange gold disc on his forehead slowed as Noah began a sort of 'I am hopelessly lost' wander. The stick bug cadet looked like he'd seen very little sun in his life beyond a starship's approximation. "Are you lost, Tuula?" His eyes were warm and they settled on this strange obvious offworlder. "All that is ours, is yours."

Noah blinked and stopped. He put on a too-wide smile, and he radiating a sort of awkwardness. The breeze swayed his shirt open to show the delta-shaped depression in Noah's chest- pectus excavatum- and the angularity of his ribs, the soft firmness of his stomach. "Uhh..." His ULT translated Tuula for him, mean guest in a sympathetic or affectionate way. "No... um... just... trying to find some breakfast. Our replicators are offline." Noah pointed up at the sky, a gesture that the Risian followed.

The waiter blinked and nodded. "Please. Seat yourself in a spot of your pleasure. We have much to share here." He bowed. "One of us will be by shortly." Again the waiter bowed and moved away. Noah self-consciously pulled his shirt a little more closed and shoved his hands in his pocket. But that didn't last long. Around his neck was a cable with two ear-shaped devices on either end. He ventured over to a table as he pushed one of them into his ear and let the other, for the moment, hang off his shoulder. He tapped it awake. "Play Balsam morning mix number five..." he said to it.

A breeze played across the patio, running delicious fingers of movement through Iry's hair. It was unbound, trailing down her back and ending just below her waist line. She'd considered a complicated bun or something equally ornate--her hair was as liable to find itself in snarly knots as wavy beach-ready locks--but she'd wanted to feel this one last time before stepping back onto a starship. She let her eyes flutter closed, trying to tune out the murmurs of conversation around her in favor of the waves; to take this in one more time.

Normally she was good at this. Normally she could just sink into the moment and experience it. But on that morning her ears seemed to catch on every snatch of conversation. Every scrape of a chair against the pavers. Every sounds of footsteps. She'd barely managed 30 seconds before the scrape of a nearby chair made her sigh and give up. Twisting in her chair she craned her neck in hopes of spotting her parents. Maybe they were early. Instead, her eyes landed on the long-limbed form of one of the newcomers she'd met on the beach the night before. What was his name?

Unable to help her curiosity she scooted sideways in her seat, hoping that sitting that way looked more natural than craning her neck. Milk pale skin shone making him stand out against the burnished tones of the regular guests. That, if nothing else, would give away his foreignness. Though foreignness wasn't entirely uncommon at the Grand Delphinium. It was a tourist destination after all. He seemed to be concentrating on something she couldn't see. Dark hair flopped forward, nearly obscuring his face with the exception of the long aquiline point of his nose which, despite the curtain of curls, seemed determined not to be covered.

Niall? Nelson? Something with an "n" sound, she was sure of it. Nolan?

She waited, patient, until his body language shifted to give away that he'd spotted her. Or, at least, that he realized he was being watched, and she leaned slightly in his direction with a warm curious smile. "You beamed down with Chaali last night, right?" she asked.

The young man turned a moment later, blinking while he pulled out his earphone. He recognized the woman addressing him. She seemed to know Lieutenant Chaali well, the Bolian who had captained the Sojourner to Risa. "Uhhh... yes Ma'am." Noah nodded. The salty breeze kicked at his shaggy brown hair, ruffling the rings, curls and waves enough that he had to comb a few strands of it offer what was a very pronounced aquiline nose. He couldn't remember her name. He'd honestly been in a bit of a hurry to get back up to the ship when he'd arrived. He couldn't remember her name. He mostly remembered that he'd mistaken her as a belly dancer. "Uhh can I..." Noah began. "I-I haven't seen Lieutenant Chaali yet Ma'am. But... I -I don't think she beamed back up last night. I was on duty in the transporter until 2300."

Eyes widening Irynya shook her head, a rueful smile pulling at her lips. "Irynya," she said, correcting him. "Just Irynya here. I haven't been aboard yet and I don't think I even count as a ma'am until I've checked in. Besides..." She tilted her head indicating the space around them, "Formal feels weird in a space like this." She watched him, realizing belatedly that by interrupting him she'd set off one of the Academy-born reactions that comes from years of drilling in the importance of rank. It was important. Sometimes. But she remembered thinking that some of the stricter folks at the Academy had been sticklers to the point of sadism. She wondered, absently, if they'd had any of the same instructors. Surely they had. "Remind me what your name is?" she asked, putting on her best open and welcoming voice and shifting even further to face him until she was perched on the chair with only one cheek.

"Oh. Um..." Noah set his earphones back to dangling around his neck as he followed her gesture about their surroundings. "Cadet Balsam. Technically, I'm a Midshipman when the Captain takes command tomorrow. I-I'm starting my cadet cruise." Noah struggled with the idea of calling an officer two ranks higher than him by her first name. He watched her change position even as the waiter approached him.

"Are you hungry sir?" The waiter said, sliding a gaze toward Irynya. He was the same scantily clad man who had spoken to her a few minutes ago.

"Umm... do you have chocolate milk and oranges?" Noah asked, torn between who to keep eyes on and who to address. So his eyes kept shifting between the two. "Sorry." He said apologetically to Irynya.

Realizing that her chair perching was only making things more complicated Irynya stood, pulling out a chair at the cadet's table. "Do you mind if I...?" she let the question trail off, waiting to see if it was ok if she sat.

"Oh. Uh... no no I don't-" Noah gestured at the seat at his table. "If you want." He looked up at her.

The sever waited patiently, looking as if he had literally no where else to be and nothing else to do despite a growing population of diners. "Absolutely, sir. Do you have a preference on your milk variety or would you prefer a Risian milk?"

"Risian milk?" Noah's eyebrows rosy under his shaggy bangs. He glanced at Irynya as if she might have insight. But he also felt like he sort of had to try something Risian in front of two actual Risians. "Uhh... R-Risian is fine?" He wasn't sure what he was committing to. Again the breeze, a fresh saline waft, blew at his clothes and their hair. His gaze was furtive at his table's new companion. "Anything for you, Lieutenant?"

She made a face. "Irynya," she corrected him with gentle amusement. To the server she added, "If you'd deliver my coffee here. And. Umm. The seasonal berries with, umm... Yogurt." She darted a glance at the dark haired cadet. It felt impolite not to order something and she wasn't confident he would eat if she didn't also have something. "Thank you," she said to the server, inclining her head in a gesture that seemed to echo some kind of local manners or even deference.

"So Midshipman Balsam," she began then stopped short. "Is Balsam your given name or...."

"Oh no. I'm... well, Noah. I was named after my Dad and Grandfather. You-you might have heard of them? From the Bright Thinktank? They work a lot in artificial intelligence or..." Noah frowned. "Did."

If Irynya had heard of them she couldn't, in that moment, call them to mind, so she smiled kindly and skipped right past that comment to the frown that had just appeared. She studied him for the minutest of moments, appreciating the expressiveness of his face. "Did?" She asked, being careful to vocalize the question as innocent curiosity so as not to be misinterpreted as a judgment. She had the distinct gut feeling that there was something more to his frown. Or maybe she was reading into it since she was waiting on her own parents.

"Oh." A brief blank look crossed Noah before he realized what he was addressing, while it had broad implications for the Federation, his world's chunk of it was somewhat niche. "Mars." he said with a tilted frown. "Synthetic Ban. It's brought um, basically any kind of AI research... really even computer interface research... development... uhh... to a stop. Pretty much to a stop." Noah sat back with his nose wrinkle. That big beakish nose squiggled between eyes that suggested this person might be Betazoid. "Sorry, I-I talk a lot of shop. I'm not... well, its something I'm working on. But uh." He hunched some. "So... are you waiting on people or...?" He casually reached up and brushed a small insect off his cheek. Then he sniffed.

She was half a moment to late to realize that had she not been examining the expressiveness of his face she might have put two and two together without asking. The synthetics ban wasn't top of her mind, but it was, of course, well known. She nodded along, though, her face a picture of understanding and interest in his explanation. "No apologies needed," she offered when he offered one up. "I did ask."

Noah grimaced and nodded. "Yeah. But... still. Sorry."

She shifted slightly in her new seat, turning her body so that her body language was more open, an almost unconscious reaction to the cadet's body language. She was about to explain that she was waiting on her parents when a new server arrived, this one a woman with an almost sarong-like wrap tied about her waist while a banded bikini-style top covered her chest. Her skin was lighter than the last server, but still bore the telltale tan that indicated a lot of time in the Risian sunlight. "Coffee with steamed milk and sugar?" she asked, bringing a tray around in front of her and lifting the ceramic cup from it. "That's mine," Irynya confirmed and accepted the drink gladly, taking a tentative sip to check the temperature. The milk, the same that Noah himself had ordered, was thick in consistency, closer to cream than cow's milk from earth.

"Chocolate milk and oranges?" the server asked, although at this point it was a less necessary confirmation.

Noah had been glancing and then glancing away from the woman who'd joined him. She was shockingly pretty in a way that... it wasn't intimidating so much as Noah wondered if this was kind of standard for all Risians. It was an exotic sort of aesthetic that Noah did not fully comprehend and had no native frame of reference from his home colony.

For example, he didn't really understand the symbol in the middle of their foreheads, but it seemed to identify someone as a Risian. Indians had Bindi... some people on Enceladus still wore a yamelka. But this Risian thing seemed to have subtle variations to it. There was more: their demeanor, their dress, the way that expressed emotion and used their bodies to communicate was... exotic. It wasn't Human... it was more... Noah couldn't put a finger on it. Relaxed wasn't the right word. It was something more about... confidence? Noah felt sort of clumsy and inarticulate around their sense of ease. Noah talked with his hands and used lots of filler words and sounds.

The waiter had proven to be a good cover for a cursory and chaste appraisal of this person.

"Oh um... milk. Calcium and all. Oranges... uhh... have-have a lot of vitamins. I have to take my..." Noah began and he sort of grimaced again, and wrinkled his nose. "Uhh, nevermind. Nothing too, uh, important. Just I guess what they say is... a growing body needs calcium and vitamins so.." His glance caught a pass bird, but he looked back, "And also, chocolate and orange tastes good together." He shrugged his sloping shoulders and then he began to peel his orange. The young cadet seemed to have fingers that were long and slender, though not excessively or strangely so. But they seemed to fit his character. In build he wasn't so much freakishly disproportionate as someone who was just naturally thin and lanky. But his arms and legs did seem to have a slenderness.

Irynya too had been taking in her new dining companion, though less carefully than the Cadet seemed to be doing. She didn't outright stare, but Risians were rarely abashed by attention and used to holding eye contact so she perused his face and its various expressions along with all the rest of his body language in the same way that someone learning a new language might listen carefully to the way words are pronounced. She nodded along as he spoke, making the appropriate noises of acknowledgement without interrupting.

He looked down at her drink as the Risian sun passed through a cloud and back into open morning sky. He winced an eye which sort of winced his face with a hint of a dimple or crease to his mouth. "So... Risians drink coffee? I-I noticed some of the resort sort of... um... feels..." he wavered on if he wanted to say this. "Pan-quadrant... inspired? Like there was a Vulcan m-mocha tree growing over... uh..." He twisted and pointed at a lovely purplish-red tree reminiscent of a Japanese maple, bearing juniper-like green berries. "There."

It was impossible to stop the knowing chuckle that bubbled up out of her. "You have a good eye," she said, and the laughter seemed to coat her words with a warm carefree air, inviting Noah to join her in the amusement. "Most guests don't point it out if they notice it at all. Our resorts are..." she paused to remember the human anachronism she'd heard used, "... Risa light. Like... A scaled back version of the planet. Did I use that right?"

"I think so?" Noah sounded uncertain. "But why?"

"We cultivate our resorts to maximize comfort for all visitors and so you will find more off world food, decor, and plant life here than in town or really anywhere else off the resort properties." The statement was so matter of fact that it almost didn't bear saying except that he had pointed it out. "What's ours is yours," she quoted in a tone that was clearly learned and might have been pulled from a travel advertisement. "That is true. But many people prefer what is there's with a flavor of what they think is Risa. And so we offer that too."

"Oh." Noah blinked, a little lost inside the logic. He sniffed, steadily feeling an encroaching itch on the soft palate atop the roof of his mouth. He began to neatly divide his orange into its segments. "So... if people want the real Risa, they have to go deeper?" He asked. "But uh if they're comfortable here then... they might stay here." He looked around. "I-I haven't seen a lot of technology in the rooms or anything either. But I guess... uh... when your planet looks like what most people try to make on a holodeck. Uh. You don't need it." Noah noted to himself he could always bring down things to tinker with.

Her eyes twinkled. "It's there," she answered. "I mean... The Delphinium is one of the lower tech resorts." She glanced about them noting the bits of tech that were artfully woven into the decor and structure. All of it was built to be hidden from the eye, giving the viewer the appearance of low or no technology while ensuring all of the comforts were still there. "Risian technology design is ubiquitous," she explained. "It's everywhere, but designed to fade away or to augment. And we have holo suites too. But they're more used by us. Risians I mean."

She pinned the cadet with a look, years of training at the exact resort where they sat kicking in like muscle memory. "Was there a technology you were hoping to encounter?"

Noah blinked. Where had he wanted to go with that, he asked himself. He popped a piece of orange in his mouth. "Um." He chewed. He finally shook his head. "Just-just noticing how different it was. To say... I don't know. Cendo Prae. Uh, Catulla. Or Mars." Noah swallowed and looked at his table guest. "I just was curious if it was a deliberate choice. On Earth, there-there are places on the planet that are tech-minimalist enclaves."

"Oh." That made sense and Irynya smiled warmly at the explanation. "Right. That is true. But there aren't really entirely technology free places here." Her mind settled on the weather regulators. "Even our wilderness is touched by technology in some way. But yeah, we go for aesthetics over function, I guess."

There was a pause in the conversation and Irynya took the opportunity to sip her coffee again, wiping a line of creamy milk from her upper lip with the tip of her pointer finger as she set the mug back down just in time for their original server to return bearing a bowl that appeared to be mounded with brilliant colored berries and sliced fruits.

Noah watched the movement, and tried to deftly look away after. He was still puzzled, as he was before.

Inclining her head in appreciation Iry selected a spoon and picked out a deep yellow ball. Beneath it the yogurt, a surprising pink color, coated her spoon. She popped it in her mouth, flipping the spoon to clear the yogurt and then sighed, chewing happily. "Oranges are citrus, right? Like a sweet sharp taste?" She'd tried them at some point she was sure, but the yellow fruit she was enjoying made it difficult to recall the flavor to the top of her mind.

"Oh uh. Y-yeah. They're one of the sweeter citruses." His lengthy fingers picked up a slice and he offered it to her, hovering over her plate and then awkwardly swaying toward her hand, then back. "Grapefruits, lemons, limes... there's a lot more. Uh, if you want to try it. This one's on the tart side."

She swallowed her bite and fixed the cadet with a warm smile, taking the orange from his long fingers. She held up the crescent shaped slice, inspecting the texture and appreciating the brightness of it. And then she scanned the table, snagging a fresh spoon from an extra place setting and using it to fish out a second ball of yellow deliciousness. There was less yogurt involved this time and she offered him the spoon's handle so he could take it from her while she held the orange slice between thumb and forefinger. "Trade?" she said and somehow her smile managed to brighten.

Noah's nose bridge wrinkled with a modicum of uncertainty. "Uhh, what is it exactly?" He asked, his eyes searching from the lump of pulpy fruit flesh to the Risian's gaze. He was embarrassed, on some level. Noah tended to live with allergies in mind when he went planetside. Noah did not consider himself an adventurous eater, weighed against his tendency for cautious curiosity. "Like a.. melon? Or a gourd?" He leaned some over to peer at the small offering before he tentatively stuck out his hand palm up.

The Risian's brow creased slightly as she considered how to describe the fruit and rhen creased further as the cadet offered his palm. "Umm..." She murmured looking once from his hand to his his face before she turned the spoon and settled the handle across his palm to grip.

"It's a melon," she confirmed, "but tastes more..." she gestured absently with the hand that still held the crescent of orange, "... it's not exactly citrus. But ... Not entirely not citrus either. Umm... It's called luhm."

"Luhm... okay." Noah raised a skeptical eyebrow while his too-wide mouth grimaced. "S-sorry I'm having durian flashbacks." He hovered his large nose over the ball of melon-like flesh and gave it a sniff. "Smells okay..." Noah had apparently been burned before. His nose wrinkled at the last moment as he detected the slightly gasoline whiff of mango. "Oh..." He cleared his throat. "OK... um..." He closed his eyes with a wince. It felt rude not to try it even though he didn't want to. In his memory the rancid flesh and rotten onion smell of durian had wormed its way toward stimulating his taste buds.

Noah tilted his head back, mouth open and palmed the fruit into his mouth like he was trying to down a set of unappetizing pills. He chewed quickly with his eyes squinted. The flavor was mostly just sweet with a neutral flavor. The texture was all wrong but it reminded him of some kind of red apple he'd had imported from north of Starfleet Academy. His chewing slowed.

Iry didn't know what durian was, but it was clearly not something Noah had liked. She hoped that by comparison the luhm was an improvement. She was tempted to study his face while he chewed, but it seemed rude to wait any longer to try the orange so a moment after the cadet began to chew Irynya popped the orange into her mouth, appreciating the texture of the fruit against her chin before she bit down.

Juice burst from the orange flesh, coating her tongue and making her eyes widen appreciatively. She chewed slowly and then, swallowing, stuck her hand in the air to wave down a server as they walked past.

"How can I help you?" The server asked slowing to a stop.

"Could I have..." Irynya glanced down at the cadet's plate and then gestured. "Another of those?"

"Of course Miss," the handsome and bare-chested server said to her in Risian. With an assent of their head, they continued to fulfill both Irynya's wish and their duties of spreading pleasantness.

Noah had meanwhile pushed a slice of the sweet and tart fruit into his mouth and had begun to masticate it. He sipped milk drink soon after as a squabble of seabirds had briefly distracted him. What he'd thought of the luhm had gone unvoiced. The youth's tendency for familiar foods favored his simple Earth navel orange. But in the ensuing months of breakfast, perhaps an orb or two would find itself on his plate.

"So... are we in your planet's capitol?" Noah asked curiously.

The Risian had been halfway into a sip of her coffee at the question and ducked her head in acknowledgement while offering a hum of acknowledgement and swallowing fast before running the back of her hand across her lips as if there were some danger of excess coffee escaping.

"No," she replied, sipping again, this time more slowly and with less urgency to answer. "That's Nuvia. It's a couple hours flight from here, closer to Suraya Bay. Delphi's one of the smaller resort islands." As if that could somehow be demonstrated by sight she glanced about them, taking it in, before adding. "I actually prefer it to Suraya Bay and some of the others. They get mobs of people there and here," a shrug pulled at her shoulders, "I guess I feel like you can breathe a bit more without the crush of people. We get to be a bit more ourselves and a bit less..." she sought out the term he'd used earlier, "pan-quadrant."

Iry watched as the cadet ate, amused by his easy distraction at the flora and fauna that felt almost invisible to her after living here for so many years. "Have you been to Risa before?" she asked.

Noah shook his head. "No, first time." he set his milk down. He sniffed and reached up to itch his nose.. "So... are you from here or.... Suraya?" His brows rose, "Or Nuvia...?"

"Here," she said with a small smile that suggested there was a lot of history behind that confirmation. My parents work for the resort, actually. It's where I first learned how to fly. And I worked here up until I joined the Academy. Not many of us move too far away from home I guess. I'm a bit of an anomaly by Risian standards."

"Oh," Noah said a slow listening nod.

Setting her coffee mug down she resumed her spoon and scooped a new fruit from the mix. This was a brilliant purple colored berry that had an almost intentionally chosen contrast to the pink yogurt making it look as though the two were related. "It's a shame we're not here for longer. You barely get to experience Delphi." It was an offhand sort of comment that seemed to spill out of her as she was reminded just how soon she had to report in.

"Oh um." Noah puzzled with his mouth and then slightly shrugged. "I-I assume we'll be back at some point though." He eyed this strange purple berry- not purple like a blackberry or a blueberry, but quite unusual. "Haven't you-you all been here quite awhile? From the uh..." Noah twisted his mouth as he searched his memory. "I met an LMH from this crew's last ship... or well... maybe some of you? I think it was called the Adelphi but- wow actually. That's a coincidence. Delphi. Adelphi. I wonder what the-"

For the briefest of moments Irynya's expression darkened the way a sky darkens when a cloud obscures the sun. But it was brief and with an in-drawn breath she banished whatever had brought on the shadow. She opened her mouth to comment on the similarity when the disembodied voice of an old friend broke in.

"Sojourner to Mister Balsam." It was a voice that Noah knew well by now.

He reached for his badge and tapped it. "Go-go ahead Lieutenant Chaali?"

Iry grinned and piped up,"Chaali!"

"Irynya? Iry is that you, che-chini?" The voice came from Noah's badge. "Tell me are on a beach or between the thighs of something beautiful in one of those Tarkalean down comforters your people call a bed-cover." There was a beat pause. "Standby Cadet. Take a walk. This is girl talk."

A confused Noah blinked and was about to slide off his commbadge to extricate himself from their reunion.

A joy-filled warm laugh escaped Irynya, unmissable by the Bolian on the other side of the comm. Her face lit with mischief and sincere humor, but she also gently placed her hand on the cadet's arm to stop him from removing his badge. For a moment she was tempted to make a quip back to Chaali about how she surely knew full well that she was not between someone else's thighs if she was coming to her via the commbadge of a cadet she'd only barely met, but had the sense not to vocalize the thought, no matter how well meant the teasing was or how well received it might have been by Chaali.

The staying touch of her hand was only there a moment, but once she saw Noah was holding off... or at least pausing... in his movement to remove his comm she spoke. "Belay that Cadet," she said with a good humored chuckle. "My parents will be here any minute Chaali. Rain check for girl talk? I'll be onboard in a few hours."

"Oh alright." The Bolian sighed with a soft edge. There was a tinkle of something metallic- likely Chaali was playing with one of her unusual wigs. "Enjoy your breakfast then! Mister Balsam, please report back to the ship." There was a beat pause. "The transporters are offline. Again. I'm sending the Spirit to pick you up."

Noah, who had been holding his breath and had tilted his chin to his chest, exhaled. "Yes Ma'am. I'll be there. Balsam out." He tapped his commbadge and grimaced a thin and apologetic smile. "We've had a lot of shakedown issues since we left Antares. I-I guess I'm done eating breakfast." Noah leaned forward, took up his chocolate milk and downed it. Then his lankiness rose just as the waiter brought a fresh orange for Irynya.

Irynya followed the cadet's movement, watching him unfold himself from his seat like a bit of long limbed origami. She wondered absently where he'd grown up or at least what ancestry had produced such a lean long-limbed person. With a bit of internal surprise she realized that he'd been rather inquisitive about Risa and herself and she'd barely had a chance to ask him questions.

She tilted her head to the table indicating that the server could leave the orange and fixed the cadet with a warm smile. "Shame I can't come with you now," she said. "I'd rather like to get my hands on the pilot's controls of that shuttle. I'm sure I'll see you around though. Don't be a stranger, ok?"

Noah smiled a shy smile. "Ok. I'll see you aboard." He tinkled a wave of individual fingers, the wind after he'd stood catching his shirt and clothes. "Hope you have a nice rest of the day." Noah looked up with a squint. There wasn't a contrail to tell him the shuttle was en route yet. But he knew roughly where to aim himself. His long and narrow feet started carrying him away. He looked back with another quick wave.

As if responding by instinct Irynya raised her own hand in a mirror of the cadet's wave, the same warm welcoming smile that she'd learned so long ago settled on her face. She watched him go,, popping a slice of her newly acquired orange into her mouth and letting out another sign of appreciation. Something about the juice of the fruit. Or maybe the texture?

Only moments later voices rose familiar to Irynya, calling her name. Two familiar figures stepped into her line of sight as Cadet Balsam disappeared from view.

"Mom! Dad!" she exclaimed, standing to pull them each into tight hugs. She indicated the other two seats where the dishes hadn't been used and then she pulled out two new sections of orange and held them out. "Have you ever tried an orange?"

A Post By:

Lieutenant JG Irynya
Assistant Chief Flight Controller

(Midshipman) Cadet Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist