Rise

Hermes and Nightsong took a seat at Tian Tian’s table. Nightsong looked at all the plates already on the table and grabbed a small pastry from one of them. He aggressively bit a chunk of the pastry, savoring it as he chewed, and said, “Holy Cannoli! Literally! This cannoli’s so good! Good thing I was smart enough to steal it from you, eh Roundy? Don’t worry, there’s a couple more of them on the other plates. I checked.”

He wasn’t lying. There were five plates spread out on the table, all within arm’s reach of where Tian Tian was sitting. All of the plates were piled high with different kinds of pastries and sandwiches. It was honestly more than a little impressive. Each plate contained enough food to feed a family for several days, and utilized a genuinely creative organization and stacking structure to achieve this. Nightsong and Hermes both took a minute to look at all of the food on all of the plates. For different reasons. Hermes was awestruck at the volume of food and how much was packed onto each one. Nightsong was making sure there were more cannolis like the one he’d stolen. He figured there would be when he said there were, and now he wanted to make sure. Once he confirmed there were, that’s when he saw the bigger picture.

Nightsong’s eyes popped out of his head as he gasped, “Good lord! I know you like to eat Roundy, but what the hell is this? I could literally make a life-size sculpture of you from all this food! This ain’t all for you, right? The rest of your team is coming down? There’s no fucking way you can eat all of this! The UN doesn’t even give Africa this much food! Please tell me you got this for the rest of your team because you got here early! God damn! If I was into food like you were, I’d have a boner all the time!”

Hermes shook his head. Well, at least Nightsong didn’t tell him he’d be trash if he got fatter. He looked at Roundy, “Nightsong’s got a way with the words, right? But you can really pack it away, Roundy! That is so much food! How can you eat all of that!”

Tian Tian shrank into his chair and slid a little more under the table. But he didn’t fit. The table tilted and some of the plates started sliding off. He jumped back into his chair and set the table right, but his face was completely red from embarrassment. “Hahah, yeah. I’ve always been pretty big. Got a large stomach, ya know? So I need to eat a lot…” His eyes fell on the chocolate mousse cakes on one of the plates. The energy he lost a moment ago was back in full. He grabbed two cakes and gave one each to Nightsong and Hermes. “Here! You guys have to try these! They’re super delicious! Probably the best thing they have here right now!”

Nightsong looked at the chocolate mousse then at Tian Tian, amazed. He had no words. He let out a long sigh. “Damn. You’re crazy, man. Completely cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Wait! Shit! Don’t go get cereal now because I reminded you of it. But god damn! I got a big dick and everything, but I’m still freaking out about Worlds right now. Here you are stuffing your face with pastries and sausages, telling me about how good the chocolate mousse is. I gotta know. How big is your dick? Gotta be huge, right? I mean, I can barely keep food down right now! You either have a monster of a trouser snake or you’re chillin cause you’ve been here since Season 1.”

Tian Tian waved his hands and shook his head. “No no! You’re wrong. I’m really nervous too! Maybe you can’t tell, but I’m freaking out!”

“So why are you eating here all by yourself?” Hermes interjected in an attempt to bring the conversation back to a more normal vein. Then he chuckled to himself and added, “I’m sorry but I need to ask. Did you eat your teammates?”

Tian Tian rubbed his hair. “Oh, them… They went sightseeing around the city. I think I heard them say something about a theme park? I don’t really know.”