Cygnus sat at the table beside Iain. Arl and Arc sitting opposite, their curious gazes mostly on her. She glanced down at the food she’d been provided, looking profoundly unimpressed. Each piece had exactly one bite’s worth taken out of it. What followed was the most fascinating series of facial responses he’s witnessed, few of them remotely positive.

“I was promised cake,” she complained petulantly.

“That isn’t cake?” Arl asked pointing at a the blue square with a nibble taken from one corner.

She shook her head.

“No, it’s not,” she told them. “None of it is.”

“We asked Skipper for cake,” Arc stated. “It said it was cake.”

“That one is a bit like a waffle,” Iain said pointing at the blue square, then pointed a round roll that was brown with white bits poking out of it. “The other thing, it’s like a meatloaf I think? I have to say it’s been a while since I’ve had meatloaf, though.”

Cygnus glanced back at him, offering an expression openly stating his remark was dubious at best.

“And that’s cake to you?” she asked.

“In a way,” he offered. “Meat cake, I guess.”

“Aren’t cakes supposed to be light, fluffy…” Cygnus wanted to know. “Sweet?”

“You have a point,” Iain replied.

The food the Skipper provided had come up with was a little short in the department of sweet.

She also wasn’t impressed with Arl and Arc, which made Iain feel better in his own assessment of the pair. Although, to be fair her behavior around him was some kind of bipolar. Cygnus would hang around him asking all sorts of things about his job, his life on Earth, and about how he’d ended up on the ship and Flirted shamelessly, while they got to know each other. They hadn’t gotten much past second base yet as it was still a pretty weird idea getting it on with an alien.

“Well, just because we seem compatible to each other doesn’t quite mean we are,” she’d pointed out.

So some experimenting was in order, but on the good side it did seem like they at least smelled good to each other. No, Cygnus didn’t quite smell like a regular human woman up close, but she did kind of smell alluring while they got into fooling around, even more so when she was the most into it.

“So food,” she said, sounding a bit unsettled when he pointed it out.

“Comfort food,” Iain quickly told her. “One of the best.”

“Huh. Don’t get that very often,” Cygnus told him, still sounding undecided if what he’d described was a good thing or not and a sign of how primitive the world he came from was.

Yeah, there were times he’d say something that caused her to gaze down her nose at him as a primitive who didn’t really have a clue. Yes, that put her about the middle of most of the women he’d known in his life, but still…

Also, for the most part, she didn’t talk at all about her own background, species etc. What he learned about her were things she said off hand during their conversations where she tended to offer up outlandish and often bizarre remarks about her personal experiences, such as when he asked her about her assessment of the Transient Void.

“No, no,” Cygnus had told. “I’ve been on starships that were much creakier than this one. One time, the ship I was on barely made it from the Massatar Stronghold to Bel Anstis. I had to hold the main power line between my teeth for half the trip just to keep the ship in hyperspace.”

She then showed off her sharp-looking chompers, chattered them for a few seconds to make her point.

“That was an experience,” she insisted. “I still get the odd jolt from time to time. I think it permanently reconfigured my nervous system. Or so I’ve been told? Yes, I’ve been told.”

Much of the time he wasn’t sure if she was even telling him the truth, bizarre though this galaxy he’d found himself in seemed. Especially when his ‘Zos, as randomly as ever, filled his brain with contradictory or alarming information.

“God the beds are weird in the bunks, right?” she’d said to him the first time she’d slept on one. “Reminds me when I slept in the Miris pods. They were Itchy, too. But they were filled with nanoscale needles so you might expect that a little discomfort, but it’s worth it. We should try it out together someday, if I can ever find my way back there.”

Miris pods are the sweetest sleeping experience, soft as down, smooth as silk, the best sleeping experience in the galaxy. You’ll never dream better wrapped up in their cocoon. On the other hand, if you allow them to wrap you up, up in their comfy grip, you might not wake up again. Ever!! ‘Cause their actually carnivorous and they’ll be digesting ya the whole time!!”