Posted by Lieutenant Kiama Naim (Chief Science Officer) in Side Sim: Friends and good food -what else does one need?

Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Side Sim: Friends and good food -what else does one need?

Posted by Lieutenant Kiama Naim (Chief Science Officer) in Side Sim: Friends and good food -what else does one need?
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

About ten minutes, Faye slipped into the Officer’s Mess and into the kitchen. Not sure what was appropriate to wear, she had opted for worn thing similar to her pizza night: Black trousers, black camisole and a sheer black blouse over top. Her hair was in its usual French braid. “Hey,” she said slightly breathlessly. “How can I help? Maybe provide some harmony?” she said with a grin, even though she didn’t know the song.

~Faye Calloway

Kiama had been so focused on what she was doing, that she hadn’t heard the door open and Faye walk in. As a result her friend’s greeting had startled her slightly, resulting in the large knife in her hand hitting the chopping board a little harder than intended and a soft squeal escaping her lips that almost instantly turned into a slightly embarrassed giggle.

“May I should have announced myself more loudly?” Faye said with a smile, though she was assessing Kiama to make sure she hadn’t hurt herself.

“I’m not sure that would have helped, to be honest,” Kiama admitted as she felt blood rush to her cheeks. “I mean, between being being a telepath and empath and knowing that you would come, I should not have been startled.” Thankfully she had learned years ago how to place her hands when cutting food so that, even if the knife slipped she generally managed to avoid cutting herself. The same held true this time. Which was at least something.

“Probably not,” Faye teased.

Turning so she could look at Faye, Kiama replied, “Hey,” while trying to stop giggling. Taking a deep breath, she continued, “You are more than welcome to provide some harmony. It’s a Betazoid lullaby my father used to sing to me when I was little. As for helping-” She gestured towards the second knife and chopping board. “You can either start with the broccoli and tomatoes or chop the fresh herbs and the cucumber.” Looking a little apologetic while her weird giggles seemed to finally subside, she added, “I may have been a litte ambitious when I planned this dinner, considering that it’s been a bit since I really cooked.”

~Lt. Naim, CSO

Faye moved to the sink to wash her hands. “Hey, ambitious food is never a bad thing. Always give yourself room for improvement or something. As for the song, if I can find the harmony line, I’ll start humming too,” she said openly. Faye was not one to sing, though not many people knew she even could… at least a little bit.

“Fair point,” Kiama replied with a grin as she went back to dicing the potatoes.

Sliding over to the second butting board, she grabbed the herbs and cucumber. “What are we making, and how fine or course do you want these chopped?”

~Faye Calloway

“We are making vegetable curry with Basmati rice and Raita. The herbs and cucumber are for the Raita and should be fairly finely chopped,” Kiama answered and then started to sing softly again, not wanting to bombard Faye with questions right away. Yet at the same time she also didn’t want her to think that she didn’t care or wasn’t interested in what happened. Finding the balance between both wasn’t easy.

“Yum, curry! I’m on it,” Calloway said with a bright smile, happy to have a task. That and her knife skills were still good, so she swiftly went to work neatly chopping the herbs. She was also looking forward to something spicy.

After maybe a few minutes, Kiama let her voice trail off and turned her head to look at Faye. Her expression was tender and full of empathy, but there was no pity. “How are you? Do you want to talk about what happened?”

~Lt. Naim, CSO

Though the knife slid a little slower, Faye still pulled the cucumber over onto the cutting board and continued to chop. She had to take a steadying breath to try and calm the sudden swirl of emotions. “Where to start…” she said softly shaking her head. “Some of it I can’t share, but…” Faye stopped chopping and looked at Kiama. “I am assigned to the Manhattan, but… I’m also with Starfleet Intelligence, Kiama. My project on the systems is through them.”

~Faye Calloway

With her knife hovering over the broccoli that was now in front of her, Kiama turned her head to look once more at Faye. “I wondered if it might be something like that. Already after the first time we met when I inadvertently tried to get into your lab,” she stated simply and then chuckled softly at the memory of that moment. Quickly becoming more serious again, she continued, “It must be difficult not being able to share everything you’d like to share. Even if it would be just to vent or to brainstorm. Then again, I grew up in a society where it is very hard to keep secrets. So what do I know.” She smiled softly at Faye, the broccoli forgotten.

~Lt. Naim, CSO

“This goes without saying that anything I say here is confidential,” Faye said seriously.

“I really wanted to talk to you when I was in the brig, but even if it had been allowed, there was too much going on and my mind was not doing great. I couldn’t risk you picking things up and putting herself accidentally in danger unnecessarily.” Faye resumed cutting up the cucumber. “The big data security project I’m working on is all good, and still very necessary, but… I had a secondary order that turned out was not legit. Very long story short, my mother arrived as apart of an ongoing investigation, and me, knowing what was at stake and what would happen if we waited too long to try and clear my name, decided on the brilliant idea of being arrested and put in the brig where, one, I’d be safe from those that might try to harm me, and two, prompt a response from those who might have been involved in the false order. And it worked! Which is the only reason I am standing here with you right now. Otherwise, I’d probably be… somewhere, disappeared and maybe dead, but mostly they likely would have kept me around until I no longer proved useful. And now this whole mess had opened up bigger things that is going to take some time and significant skill to untangle.”

~Faye Calloway