The human and their beloved Gyiik companion opened a restaurant together. Their love taught them how to cook, they taught their beloved Gyiik how to set up for safe, human, parties. -- Anon Guest
"Economies of scale," lectured Sous Anne, displaying plates on the table before Thag the Gyiik. "A Gyiikish dinner plate is a Human share platter. A Gyiikish snack is a Human meal. A Human meal is a Havenworlder share platter, and our snacks are their meals. As for Havenworlder snacks," a tiny little plate, roughly the size of a dipping sauce bowl.
"Those have a use?" boggled Thag.
"Humans have a similar one for soy sauce when we have sushi. That's not the point. The point is that the tasting menu has to contain enough for the guest to taste, but not as much as to overwhelm them. We both love food, but nobody can love food on a Gyiikish level but your fellow Gyiiks."
"And the occasional Faiize," added Thag. "There's one poor fellow who's a challenge to feed properly[1]."
"I'll take your word, but we have to stay on topic, love." Anne clapped their hands in a rhythm and chanted, "Ho-cus po-cus, let's try to fo-cus. Serving sizes, dear. For a festive occasion, serving sizes are snack sizes, relative to the cogniscents assembled. Snack size or smaller. Finger food. Appetisers. Petit fours. Canapes."
"And nobody present feeds anyone else?"
Gyiikish customs centred around communal offerings. Every meal had at least one person feeding another some morsel from the table. For Humans, that was a more intimate activity. An act of love, and sometimes a kink. Havenworlders often didn't understand the pack-bonding inherent in sharing food, but they were eager to participate.
"Not usually, no. It's a little more... intimate for us."
"Do you Humans turn everything into a potential for mating?"
"Well, if we haven't already, there's certainly someone giving it a try," Anne shrugged, knowing their fellow Humans. "But for public and social situations, we limit ourselves. In the case of a Human party, it's polite to offer or fetch food for someone. We generally assume everyone present can look after themselves."
"Sounds a bit cold," Thag looked dubious. "At least, by comparison."
"To us, a Gyiik party looks horny as hell." Anne realised she'd been derailed again. "Enough sociology. On with the actual planning. We're not here to judge, we're here to be sure our guests have a publically acceptable good time. So..." the next hurdle in mutual understanding, "About the gift table..."
[1] That would be Rael, designed to be a "most failure success" - the model with the most possible errors whilst still being a functional being.
[Photo by Saile Ilyas on Unsplash]
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