Lunch, Friday Noon

[endsthegame]

Eating in a mess remained a comfortable habit. It was with no particular surprise that Ender found himself drifting there during the lunch hours, considering the day's options with a mildly curious expression.

Ham and cheese sandwiches, salad, and a kind of pudding that looked dangerous both in color and in shape, but he'd eaten worse things. He settled at a table that was neither in the corner nor particularly in the middle, and ate quietly.

If anything, it was a good place to watch.

[ lunch is always open. at lunch ]

Comments

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Oh, it's all edible," Cal commented as he bravely ventured a peek to investigate what might lie between the slices of bread of his sandwiches. "Grass is edible. So's dirt."

And, clearly, the sandwich passed whatever test Cal was running it through because, with that, he smushed the bread back down back in place, picked it up, and took a bit. He'd had worse. Cafeteria food definitely did in a pinch when he was feeling too lazy to go down to Luke's and reap the benefit of free employee food.

[endsthegame]

"I think they might have put some grass and dirt in the pudding." He'd seen food far more questionable back in Battle School, and at times he'd wondered, with morbid curiosity, what brand of manipulation had gone into the food; little soldiers, lined up for whatever they wanted. "But I've seen grass cooked worse."

The speech rhythms of boy banter hadn't been completely lost to him. That much was becoming clear.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Well," Cal mused; he himself had only a small portion of the pudding, "that's one way to get us to eat our greens."

[endsthegame]

"They're contributing to a varied diet," Ender said, wryly, chopping off a little bit of the pudding with his fork. He analysed its contents thoroughly. "It'll do the trick."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"And they can use the leftovers to caulk up any cracks in the roads," Cal added, picking at the crust of his sandwich. "Very resourceful, really."

[endsthegame]

Now, all he'd have to do was continue on this line; he'd forge a bridge of some kind into the local student community. And then what...? The school hadn't been where he wanted to be, but he was here now, and he might as well find a position in which he'd do some good.

"They must be planning ahead," Ender agreed, taking his own sandwich demonstratively. He wiggled it around in the air. "Better than concrete."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Tomorrow," he said, "they break ground for the outdoor basketball court made out of these things. That deck? Last week's fishsticks."

[endsthegame]

"They'll add a penninsula to the island using the pudding," he replied, carefully touching the line of the groove this conversation had fallen into. "It's terraforming at its best."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

"Terraforming," Cal repeated the vaguely unfamiliar word. "That...reinforcing the soil to make it work for plantlife and stuff, right?"

[endsthegame]

"I think the pudding has all the plantlife we'll ever need." He put the sandwich down, prodding the pudding again with his fork, as a demonstration. "Technically, terraforming means turning a planet into some place habitable for human beings," Ender said, "It could be shipped into space."

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal considered the new information as he considered his pudding.

"It could be the ship in space," he added.

[endsthegame]

"I've never heard of shooting pudding into space before." Ender let his fork hit the table again. The conversation was ridiculous, but strangely nice in its simplicity, and he wondered how long that would last.

[not-a-mused.livejournal.com]

Cal grinned a little at that. "Finally; something you never heard of. After the singing rats dressed like pirates, I though you'd have heard of everything."

[endsthegame]

"There's an infinite amount of space with an infinite amount of details," he pointed out, "There'll always be something I haven't heard of." And once upon a time, that had been a constant worry.