Ohashi, by Losyark
Ohashi
By
losyark
Challenge: Dating Challenge
Rating: PG
Characters: Miko Kusanagi, Ronon Dex, little bit of John Sheppard.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to
beatrice_otterand
blacksquirrel, for their conversations in the comments for “Tadaima”, and the proffered carrots to the plot bunnies. It's a start for now, we'll see what else the plotbunnies bring.
This is the fourth in the “ Nihongo" series, Zoh-Onna Omote, Tadaima, and Kizu.
Summary: Ronon just wants a civilized meal.
***
“Here. Try these. They work great.”
Ronon stared at the flat, blunt knife, the shovel-like fork. Tools meant for fields and gardens, not for dinner tables. It struck him, suddenly, how crude these young pretenders were. These posing Ancients.
Ronon took them anyway, because it made The Shepherd smile.
Then he mentally corrected himself. The man’s name was Sheppard, his rank was Lieutenant Colonel, Military Commander of the Atlantis Base.
“The Shepherd” was still easier and shorter to say. And a more accurate description, anyway.
Ronon watched as The Shepherd cut away pieces of his meat with the blunted knife, lifted it to his mouth, skewered on the tines of the miniature hay-fork. It was barbaric, but effective. At least it explained why none of the food was served onto his plate in pre-cut pieces.
Ronon missed his proper eating utensils, lost more worlds ago than he could count. Maybe he could make more, if he ever found a tree or a branch or something even remotely natural in this artificial city.
***
Ronan noticed her on his fourth meal in the City of the Ancestors. She was small and delicate, nothing at all like a hardy Satedan woman, and she wore the Blue of Those Who Were To Be Protected rather than the Black or Grey of Those Who Protect. This was one of The Shepherd’s flock.
Or rather, one of The Mac Kay’s. All his flock were the Blue ones, but they all benefited from the protection of the Greys.
She was so little as to be barely noticeable to Ronon, hunched down in her chair behind a potted plant, but the flash of her long dark hair, the caramel of a high cheekbone, intrigued him. She was different looking than a Satedan, or an Athosian, or most of the people in The City from The Shepherd’s herd, now that Ronan thought about it. Ronon had seen different people on different planets with darker or lighter skin or hair or eyes than his own, but never so many mixed all together in one place.
Ronon noted the woman, her Blue status, and was ready to leave it at that, go for more food and practice with the hay-fork and blunt-knife. Then he saw her hand.
She was using proper utensils. Satedan utensils.
Did that make her...? No, Ronon shook his head. He and he alone was the last of the Satedans, and this woman must have learned this method of delicately moving the small pieces of finely diced food from her artfully arranged dish to her mouth from someone who had learned from a Satedan before his world was culled.
Keeping her in the corner of his eye to make sure that she did not leave before he could approach, Ronan filled his tray in the food line with as much as he thought he could eat without having to resort to the metal shovels, and then made his way slowly, cautiously, to the shadowed corner where the woman sat.
She clearly was wearing Blue for a reason - she did not sense his approach at all, and it took Ronan clearing his throat for her to even look up away from her computer-scribblings and see him.
“C’n I sit here?” he asked.
She made a small squeaking sound, sunk a little lower in her chair even as her liquid brown eyes got bigger behind the overlarge spectacles. She nodded.
Ronan pulled out the chair, plopped down his tray, and sat. He pointed to her utensils.
“You have a spare set of those?”
The woman squeaked again, but this time dove for the bag hanging off the back of the chair and came up with another pair. They were long and slender, tapering into a point perhaps too fine for a man’s set, but Ronan was not going to begrudge that when he finally had a civilized manner of eating at hand again. They were made of a dark and polished wood that looked a little like his native sakanius tree but probably wasn’t. The woman took them delicately on her slender fingers and offered them to him with a little head dip that seemed to make the motion ceremonial.
Not wanting to disrespect the woman, Ronan wiped his hands on his pants, dipped his head in return, and took the utensils with both hands.
Then he cupped his palms to the air and said, “Ancestors be thanked for this meal,” and dug in with a relish.
Finally, after seven years on the run, a real meal. Good food, eaten at his own pace, with proper utensils. Ronan felt almost human again.
“You are very skilled at using chopsticks,” the woman said after a long pause and Ronan looked up, watched her slip a piece of meat past her own lips with finesse.
“These?” Ronan asked, lifting the utensils slightly to indicate them.
The woman raised a hand to her mouth to cover it and nodded once.
“We used these on Sateda. Where did you learn?”
“We use chopsticks in my home country,” the woman said softly, her hand still over her mouth though she was no longer chewing.
Ronan wondered if it was for some sort of taboo about teeth or eating and if he should be covering his mouth as he ate as well. A quick glance around the Mess Hall told him that no, it was only this woman who was doing it. Habit, then.
“Chopsticks,” Ronan repeated, not sure he liked the word.
“Ohashi,” the woman said and Ronan blinked at the nonsensical word. “In my language,” she went on, “they are ohashi.”
“Ohashi,” Ronan repeated again, liking this word better. There was more musicality to it. “What does that mean?”
The woman set aside her ohashi, carefully balancing them on the rim of her tray with the points facing away from either of them, and said, “ ‘Hashi’ alone means ‘wood’ or ‘bridge’. Adding the prefix ‘o-‘ to a word means ‘honourable’, literally, and functionally makes the thing more important or more sacred than the regular form of the noun.”
Ronan blinked. Her accent was tripping, filled with sounds caught at the back of her throat, and her words were more sophisticated than he’d been used to in the last seven years. Ronan was no idiot, but the last time he’d used words like ‘functionally’ it’d been with Melena.
This woman seemed to see his distress, though he knew he’d kept his face carefully and unreadibly blank, and she added, “For example, Sake means alcohol in general, and ‘osake’ is Japanese rice wine. ‘Yasai’ is vegetables, but ‘oyasai’ is vegetables offered on the altars to gods. You see?”
Ronan nodded. He did see.
“Ohashi, then, means ‘honourable bridge’. Something important that takes something from one place to another.”
Ronan grinned at that description and carefully placed another glob of mashed potatoes into his mouth with the ohashi as if to prove a point.
They were an unlikely duo. One small and timid and thoughtful and the other large and intimidating and made of action.
When the meal was over, Ronan tried to give the ohashi back. The woman would not take them. “Keep them,” she said. “I will order a better, stronger pair for you on the next Daedalus run. Until then, please keep them.”
She dipped her head again, said something indecipherable in her musical language which Ronon did not understand but sounded a lot like “go see the sow doing the dish, Dad.” Then she stood up, shouldered her satchel and picked up her tray.
“C’n I eat with you again?” Ronan blurted suddenly.
The woman’s high cheekbones turned delicately pink. Ronon dropped his eyes hastily to the table. It had been a very long time since he’d made a woman blush and he wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.
It felt a little bit like he was killing Melena all over again, and a little bit like he was finally lifting away a yoke.
“I normally eat at six o’clock,” the woman said softly. “Can you read the clocks?”
Ronon kept his head lowered and said nothing.
“The same time tomorrow evening, then,” she said. “And I will bring you a watch, teach you to use it.”
“I’m Ronon Dex, by the way,” Ronon said as he sensed her walking away. He heard rather than saw her stop.
“I know,” she said. “I am Kusanagi Miko.”
Ronon kept his head lowered, but smiled slightly. Kusanagi Miko, the woman in the Blue flock, She Who Should Be Protected, and wielder of proper utensils. Ronon was looking forward to tomorrow’s dinner already.
End.
Next: Kijuuki Sachi