~ Perfect Blossom Tea Room ~

[Nadir]

Tea cakes... raisin filled baked bready sweet products anyway... and something that bites into the nose like a Honshu Ground Squirrel*. A little like sake in fruity aroma but more so; that distinct wiff of ethanol. Probably gin.

Smells like a brewery and bakery combined. Nice.

Nadir, the enigmatically named, some would say unfortunately named, acting leader of the Kusari Naval Forces, a middle aged short oriental man with a shock of dark hair, resplendent in a crisp newly dry-cleaned uniform, entered a wide unevenly lit room filled with fashionably retro styled tables, their chairs stacked upside down over them. He exhibited a limp in his left leg. Not so much a battle wound as sitting cross legged for too long. He looked around. There was a small knot of individuals at the wall length bar next to a large complicated looking brass coffee making appliance. Bottles of various kinds with various lables and filled with various liquid were visible half lit behind.

The group included one of those floating spherical mechanicals people dreamed of owning ten years ago - good personalities but the lack of arms were a design oversight. Several droids stood behind the bar silent and unmoving: not, as the old joke went, the brightest sparks. There was a darkly lit gentleman who seemed to cast shadows with mood lighting all his own, both his hands full with beer and spirit glasses. There were a few others there but Nadir didn't immediately recognise them, though there was a man who seemed familiar. A financier. There was also the apparently omnipresent elderly gentleman Nadir did know, his name enigmatic and almost sinister, The Fool. Anything but. The disparate ensemble paused mid conversation and looked back with varying polite expressions. Except the spherical droid which spun pensively and was neither holding a beverage or wearing an expression.

"Oh, hang on, I've forgotten something," said Nadir, shaking his head. He limped off back to his ship. "Won't be a moment, " he called back. "Nice place."


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* An unintended mutation resulting from accelerated terraforming technologies. This extraordinarily short lived predator never lets go. Largely because of a ratchet arrangement in its jaw bones. It is one of the few vicious flesh eaters in the Sirius system that people feel sorry for... except people who have been bitten by one.

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