A Havenworlder Crew tries their best to make the Ship Humans Birthday Party great.
They bake a cake for him.
The only problem is, that they used salt instead of sugar. -- Anon Guest
Human Neis could tell that her fluffles had knocked out all the stops. They had made the extra effort, for sure. Not just securing presents and decorations, but also gathering every ingredient they could for the party food, including completing all the steps necessary to create those foods. Neis was touched. This far from Human territories and Galactic civilisation? All this had to be a herculean effort.
"Aw you shouldn't have," she cooed, completely unaware of how accurate those words would be. There was even a cake, though it didn't have candles, had flickering artificial lights probed into its pink, decorated surface. Each one enough like a candle that small tears appeared in the edges of Neis' eyes. So the banner said "Celebrate Anniversary" and the giftwrapping varied from Complete Ameteur through I Tried to I Made Someone/Something Else Do It with a guest starring of I Put It In A Festive Bag Because I Knew I Have No Clues. So some of the balloons weren't even inflated. The whole party attempt warmed the cockles of Neis' heart.
They even put together a birthday song, which devolved into a philosophical debate about the meaning of the words, with at least one fluffle insisting that Row, Row, Row Your Boat was indeed a Human song for such an occasion and they should all sing it anyway. It was, frankly, hilarious, cute, and vaguely disturbing all at once. "Come on," Neis cooed. "We can discuss this rationally after we've all had cake."
The fluffles swarmed. If there was anything they loved, it was calorically available Human food. They loved it, even if they didn't possess the full range of taste buds to enjoy it. That little factoid should have been Neis' first warning, but it reached her brain too late. Three seconds after trying her first bite of the cake, too late.
They were able to read the solid dismay on her face as her entire head froze around the contents of her mouth. Part of her was seized in the debate between spitting it out and being polite about and honest effort. The rest of her was seized up in obsession with the taste trapped there.
"Is all good, Human Neis?" asked Th'qwyr. "We obtained a Human recipe."
"We went to some trouble obtaining the flavouring crystals," added Jysh'oq.
Flavouring crystals. Of course. They had no rigging to tell the difference. To them, white table salt and white sugar were identical flavouring crystals until they ran a scan on them...
Neis managed a swallow she might regret at a later date. "...wrong flavouring crystals," she croaked.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / RuthBlack]
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