Table 12

[William Blake]

Table 12

Blake, William
Brooks, Kiri
Fairholm, Natalie
Gwyther, Penn
Man, Unicycle
Tyler, Katherine

--------------------------------

No posting order.

[Natalie Blake]

Will pulled out Natalie's chair for her when they arrived at their table, calling her "darling" as he did so. She bit her lip to stop from grinning, though she couldn't help the blush that dyed her cheeks pink. She wasn't sure what his intent behind it had been, but she secretly sort of liked it. None of the guys she'd been with over the years had been close enough to her to every bother with calling her anything beyond her name and the occasional "babe".

"Why thank you, dear," she shot back, smirking a little herself as she sat down. Her hair fell forward over her shoulders while she took her seat, and she flicked it back impetuously. She glanced back at Will curiously, who then moved around to take the seat next to her.

The others joined them shortly, Katy claiming the seat between herself and the Unicycle Man, and Penn took the spot next to Will, frowning a little at the empty seat that belonged to Kiri. Natalie had almost forgotten that she had yet to show up, and did a quick glance around to see if the brunette medical officer was anywhere to be seen. No such luck, as of yet.

"Hopefully the food here is better than it was at the last formal dinner I attended," Natalie commented conversationally as the food and wine was served, "I swear, they must've made that chicken out of cardboard or something." But the food certainly looked good here, so she was fairly certain she'd have nothing to worry about.

[William Blake]

Seeing the blush in Natalie's cheeks made Will chuckle, she'd obviously liked it. Noted. "You're welcome, sweetheart," he said in the same vain, smiling to himself as he took his seat beside her, leaning back a little. Her blonde hair swished across her shoulders and something caught his eye. Was that a tattoo? Smirking, he gently ran his finger across her shoulder, pulling her hair back into place, getting a closer look at the tattoo, it was a pentacle. Small and understated, and somewhat sexy. How had he not noticed that before? This backless dress was certainly good for something.

Other people took their places around the table and he saw that they had a good group. The other table looked like it was going to be chaotic, and they were close enough to hear if anything happened. He gave a friendly nod to Penn who sat down next to him, then looked past him to the empty chair, wondering where Kiri had got to, surely Penn would be missing her.

"It can't be as bad as the food synthesisers on board," Will pointed out, glad that they almost had the new kitchen installed. Fresh food and good meals were going to be so much better in comparison, and hopefully the equipment would cause him and the other engineers less trouble.

[~ ADMIN]

Tapping the mic with her forefinger, the ever beautiful Melanie Dow, award winning scientist in particle physics, caught the attention of the audience, smiling her winning smile.

"Welcome, everyone, to the 56th HAPPY Awards. My name is Melanie Dow, and it my pleasure to be presenting the awards this evening. Now that the food has been served, and you're all suitably merry from the wine, we are going to get this ceremony underway."

Person after person took to the stage, happily accepting their awards for their humantarian or peace keeping acts, giving their short, prepared speeches before taking a seat again, celebrating with their friends and colleagues.

"And now, finally, the prize for The Robert Yetholm Award for Universal Humantarian Efforts. There are several exemplory persons or groups of people nominated for the award this year, and the decision was a hard one. But, a decision was made, and without any further ado, I can proudly annouce that the winners of this award are...

...the crew of the Star Ship Venia."

Applause burst out from the other tables, and Melanie looked expectantly to see who from the crew would come up to accept the award.