If You Serve It, They Will Come
Posted on Thu 23rd May, 2013 @ 6:03pm by
881 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
http://sb109.sim-station.net/index.php/sim/missions/id/4
Location: Orchids & Jazz, Deck 400
Timeline: MD 01, 1130
Orchids and Jazz was filling up rapidly. The people entering were mostly strangers to Reon, and that made him a little wary. Although there were almost 100,000 sentients on Protector, only a small percentage of them walked through the doors of the jazz club. To see so many unknown faces ... well, it made him leery.
"What's with all the visitors?" he asked Jenna. "And all the unusual clothing. Do we have a super tourist boat docking here?"
Jenna shook her head. "Nope. I've talked to a few of the ones I've seated. They're with a circus that's visiting."
"A circus? What's that?" Reon asked suspiciously. "It doesn't sound good."
She laughed. "I did a little research on it after I talked with Jade this morning. Apparently, it's a traveling group who perform unusual feats of daring, and have many wild animals. Oh, and there are supposed to be some funny people called clowns, too."
The doorman scowled. "I don't like the sound of that. Traveling groups mean trouble. Usually, thieving. They have no ties to the station, no reason to stay honest because they move around a lot. No one can catch them once they've made a clean sweep of items they want. Lock up anything valuable you have."
Again, Jenna laughed. "You are so suspicious! They seem like perfectly nice people to me, and I, for one, intend to go see them perform. It sounds exciting. They wear costumes and risk death, and -" Another small crowd came through the door and the two were busy for a while.
"Oh, my dear, you simply must come!" the petite Betazoid woman insisted. "The high wire act is simply marvelous! Of course, that's because I'm the star," she confided, "but the others are worth watching, too. We swing high above the heads of everyone, no grav equipment, of course. That would be cheating! It would be at all traditional. Do say you'll come. I know tickets are still available for tonight's performance. We'll be here two weeks, of course, but you must come early, in case you love it so much you want to see it again."
"Actually ... I was invited by a friend to attend tonight," Serena confessed. "And I don't think there are any more tickets for tonight. He said he got some of the last ones available."
The woman nodded, "There, you see? What did I tell you? The circus is very popular everywhere we go. If you like it tonight, and how could you not, you'd better get another ticket for later, before they're all gone."
"Cotton Candy Pie?" asked a tall slender man who was seated with a short, plump woman and two children, one who looked like each parent. "How do you make cotton candy into a pie?"
Jenna smiled and said, "I'm not the chef, so I couldn't tell you, but I had a piece and it is amazing. Sweet, spun sugar that melts in the mouth, a layer of strawberries underneath. Trust me, it's really good. It's part of our celebration of the Circus coming."
"Huh. We're with the circus. Cotton Candy I know, but in a pie?" He seemed doubtful.
One of the children, a boy, piped up. "Let's try it, Dad. You always say we can't lose anything by trying!"
"I'm caught by my own quote. Who imagined you ever listen to me?" the father teased. "Alright. Four pieces of Cotton Candy Pie, it is." He glanced at his wife, who nodded happily. His daughter seemed pleased with the choice, too. "Yep, four pieces."
"These cakes are just shaped like the animals, right? They don't actually have any animal parts in them? They don't taste like meat?" said the man who was a lion tamer for the circus. Right now, he was dressed like any other civilian on the Promenade, but in a few hours, he would stand out in the ring dressed in black imitation leopard-skin tight suit, and awe and amaze the audience with the feats he and his tigers did.
"That's right," Jade assured him. "Our chef has invented four special cakes in honor of you visiting circus. I believe the Targ is chocolate based, if you are a fan of chocolate."
"How will I know it's the Targ, with only a piece of it?" he asked, with a smile. "You could just tell me it's chocolate cake, and I'd never have guessed."
"Oh, no," Jade assured him. "Each serving is a miniature cake. You get the whole Targ."
"Hmm. What are the other cakes again?"
Patiently, she went through the list again. "Elephant cake. That one is a vanilla base with cream cheese frosting. Fire Beasts of Sallus is a swirl of raspberry and orange flavors, frosted with vanilla icing colored from blue to orange to yellow. The Kyronian Tiger cake is carrot cake frosted with a gold cream cheese frosting with licorice stripes. And of course, the Targ is a dark chocolate base, swirled with a lightly mint-flavored vanilla, and frosted with chocolate fudge."
"You make the choice very difficult," the man said. He thought for another minute and finally decided. "I'm having the Kyronian Tiger cake ... this time. Looks like you'll be seeing me in here again, though."
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