I am a total sucker for Garashir lit-fic (this is a sub-genre) and for any and all Garashir by @tinsnip, so of course I love this one. Here we have Julian, left to his own devices, discovering a book Garak as “accidentally” left out. He goes to investigate and, hmm, practice his Cardassian. Let’s just say the book contains a message.
Excerpt
He traces a finger along the top of the page, where Garak’s hands have worn the edge to thinness, where the corner of the page is bent. That’s something: it’s actually, purposefully bent. It’s a bit sacrilegious for Garak to treat a book that way. For a Cardassian without deity or religion (or so he claims), Garak’s books are very nearly holy artifacts.
Over the page his finger moves, circling around the block of text sitting in the middle. It’s not very complex, actually. That’s a nice surprise. God knows the average page of Cardassian text looks a bit like a circulatory system pulsing away on the page, defying his hesitant eye. Hardly something I want to unravel…
But this he can follow. It starts… here.
He sounds it out to himself, alone in the house.
“Way… the way, all right, a specific way… The way your… lover? To… embrace? Or kiss. Probably kiss.”
He stops there, realizing what he’s saying, then smiles and speaks to empty air.
“Garak, you’re a fraud.”
Metadata
Title: The Taste of Fruit
Author: tinsnip
Year Posted: 2014
Approx. Word Count: 1,400
Chapters: 1
GB - Slash or Platonic: Slash
My Rating (1-5): 5
Keywords: Poetry, Literature, Language, Romance, Post-Canon Cardassia