The room seemed bigger in the candlelight. The tan stone walls fell away into the dim shadows of the long rectangular dining space, their unadorned surfaces shuffling into the nothingness without even a whisper. The bones of the house knew their place as they silently bowed into the corners of the flickering candles, allowing the large circular table with its curling knots and myriad of ancient stains to draw all the focus. Several metres across and purportedly hand-shaped from the grandest tree in the nearby forest, the table was older than the house.

Supposedly.

Its dark patina only served to support its claim, and the patchwork surface bore tell-tale signs of ten thousand or more meals. Everything from simple conversations over soup to shocking confessions over the foie gras. From romantic suppers where the food had gone cold from endless conversation, to silent memorial dinners where nary a word could be said over the keening. It was the heart of the house. And now it was to host one more meal.

“How do you think they got it in here?” Harrison mused as she placed a polished knife down at the next place setting, its silver surface turning to brass in the dancing, golden candlelight.

“The table?” Varen muttered as he fluffed a leaning flower in the centrepiece.

“No, the silverware.” Harrison stopped in her tracks and levelled the fork she had been polishing towards the man. “Of course, the bloody table Varen.”

“I don’t know, why does it matter?.”

“You have spent the last 4 weeks going on about how amazing this ranch is, and how it’s all so wonderful. You spent a whole afternoon telling me about this table.” Harrison tapped the wooden surface with the tines of the fork, eliciting a sharp twang of metal.

“It is, in fairness, a very nice table.”

“I agree, it’s very impressive. I’m just wondering how they got it in here.”

“I would imagine through a door.”

“That door?” She motioned with the fork to a squat archway that could barely fit a person, let alone a grand dinner table. With a whip-like motion through the air, she pointed towards a similar door in the shadows of the opposite wall. “Or that one?”

“What does it matter Anyanka?” Varen hissed as his brow narrowed in frustration. The long stem flopped idly to the side despite his continued attempts at buoying it up alongside its siblings.

“It’s an interesting question, that’s all.” Harrison placed the fork into position, twisting it minutely into perfect alignment with the rest of the setting. Satisfied her work was complete, she slumped into a nearby seat as Varen continued to fumble with the floral arrangement.

“Maybe they brought it in parts.”

“Maybe, though I don’t see any seams.”

“Maybe transporters.”

“That feels like cheating,” Harrison murmured in disappointment. “People keep solving everything with transporters nowadays.”

“Perhaps they built the whole god damn house around it. Who the hell cares?” Varen cried angrily as he ripped the offending bloom from the arrangement and slammed it onto the table surface, abandoning any hope of bringing it into alignment. The slap of his hand against the worn wood thundered into the endless shadows around the edge of the room.

Harrison, long accustomed to surprising eruptions of vociferous opinions from passionate officers who did not agree with her, did not flinch at the man’s sudden outburst of annoyance.

“Well, you would normally care. You’re obsessed with those sorts of trivial titbits.” She tapped the base of a knife nearby that had become dislodged by his outburst, pushing it back into alignment with a long manicured finger. “I only asked because normally you’d go on some long spiel about how it was actually carried in on the backs of targs, hand-reared by Vedeks or some such nonsense. But clearly you’re not yourself. Something bothering you?”

“Is it that obvious?” Varen conceded as he dropped into a comfy chair, its dark red varnished joints absorbing the sudden weight with a minute groan of protest.

“I’ve known you for over a decade, I know when there is something eating at your insides.” She nodded to the crushed flower in his hand, its bruised and battered petals twisted at painful angles. “Also, you’ve been fussing with that bouquet for about twenty-five minutes.”

Varen issued a long sigh, twirling the wounded flower between his fingers idly.

“What if no one has anything to say?” He finally confessed nervously. “What if we all just sit here staring at each other in silence. I wanted this to be a chance to reconnect.”

“Then they’ll eat.” Harrison joked with a light laugh. “You’ve hosted a hundred dinners, including no small number between supposedly implacable enemies. This can’t be any harder.”

As Harrison pushed herself from the chair, the slender turned wood arms seemed to rise in assistance in the dim flicker of the candles.

“Are you really concerned that these people won’t have anything to talk about? It’s not like it’s been a quiet year. Stop being such a worrywart.” She threw the polishing cloth over her shoulder and began towards the squat door that led to the building’s living quarters.

“It’s hardly dinner conversation, is it, never-ending crises and galaxy-level disasters?” Varen bemoaned. “I wanted this to be a good night, not more dark tales.”

His mind alighted on the face of MacColgan, still unsure of her new biotic limbs. Then Tikva, who despite her continued positivity, had been forced to chase the enemy into their stronghold and had not come back unscathed. He thought of Aryanna, who had almost lost not only her life but also the multitude of lifetimes she was guardian for in the Rigras symbiote. Harrison herself had been forced to watch powerless in orbit of Risa as the Vaadwaur scored the surface without mercy. And finally Harper, who had been faced with the unenviable choice between one friend and another.

Dinner conversation it was not.

“I’m sure you can find something to talk about.” Harrison offered him a smile, her tall form silhouetted in the light that beckoned from beyond the doorway. “Or you won’t, sometimes the silence is as useful as the talking.”

“I’d prefer conversation to silence, at least that is steerable. Any suggestions?” His tongue was dry at the thought of the conversational elephants that threatened to crowd the table.

Harrison shrugged her sharp shoulders.

“Maybe the table?”