[Ensign Tora Zalos|Mess Hall|USS Challenger]
Things had finally begun to settle down. No indestructible planet-eating cones of death, no trigger-happy Romulans, no Orion ravagers, no Romulans shooting to kill. Tora could only have wished that she could have had a little of this when she'd first come aboard before her career went from one to a hundred and fifty. After everything that'd transpired since she'd come aboard, a mundane after-duty dinner was, funnily enough, just what the doctor ordered.
Maybe this was what her instructors had meant by how constantly having things to do would make you miss having nothing to do. Until she'd first come aboard Tora hadn't really missed having nothing to do.
Some kind of crop top, a colorful sarong tied round her waist, sandals. That was her usual getup when she was off duty and wanted to let her hair down, very much more Risian than Cardassian. It'd scared the daylights out of her aunt when she'd first worn the outfit out. Tora had never paid her much mind. While her uncle had been significantly more liberal with the lengths she could go with her appearance, her aunt had always wanted her to stick to her roots. Evidently she hadn't gotten what she wanted. Her top was red today, and her sarong the colors of the sun; amber, red and orange blended together beautifully in the fabric.
She strode confidently into the mess hall and ordered the first thing that came to mind: a heaping plate of fried rice made Risan style with yamok sauce drizzled over the top. Hell, it surprised her that the replicator could even manage the outlandish combination of ingredients, but then again replicators were capable of far bigger things than that weren't they? She could've sworn one or two people blinked and held their noses as she found her way to an empty table and dug in. The smell of yamok sauce, never mind the taste of it, seemed to drive anyone who wasn't Cardassian away and she'd never figured out why.
