During their surveillance Lucky and Raymundo learned as much as they could about the people they chose to impersonate.
Lucky thought they covered everything, family, friends, hobbies, opinions, political stances, medical and education histories, but they had overlooked one thing.
Food. Favorites, dislikes, likes, loves, and never want to put them in my mouth again food.
While Miss Giovanni loves sauerkraut so much she would smother her bratwurst in it and her taste buds Lucky was mimicking gave off all the good and pleasant signals from Lucky's first bite, Lucky was not Miss Giovanni. Lucky was Lucky, or rather Lucky was Leama of Qwortar on a mission to rescue their child and their planet.
And Lucky's mind was having a hard time getting over the idea of eating food that had been purposely fermented, rotten in a sense, a food sour and limp, reminding Leama of both the mushy bits of plants left after the virus infected them and lost tentacles from battle.
But the few Miss Giovanni ate her lunch with were staring at Lucky, too polite to ask why it was taking Lucky so long to swallow and why they were pressing a palm against their lips.
Mind over matter.
Leama was the most accurate laser cannon operator ever recorded, at any given moment they were in charge of hundreds, if not more, they lived through Cosmos Stalemate 346 (the bloodies to date), and had pulled themselves through the ranks from med bay cleaning technician to General. Leama didn’t back down from challenge. So they were not going to let some sauerkraut get in the way of this mission!
You know this isn't deadly.
With a tight squeeze of their eyes Leama swallowed the acidic mush left in their mouth and pulled their hand away. "Ah." Parting their lips and sticking out their tongue brought chuckles to the table, eye rolls too, but all that mattered was the sauerkraut was eaten and no one was going to question Miss Giovanni about eating them anymore.
Playing it off as inhaling some of the juices from both fermented cabbage and sausage and fighting back choking curbed all questions and Lucky was able to eat in relative peace.
Even if every bite was filled with the struggle to swallow instead of spit.
I hope we get Skylar out before the next bratwurst day in the mess hall.
Word count: 396
Happy Veterans day! Thank you for your service.
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