have i told y'all about the klingon chef? here’s something about the klingon chef.

on qo'nos he wanted to be an opera singer. he used to listen to them, loud, and close his eyes as he sat in the window and let the warm breeze and the music wash over him. there’s something vital about klingon opera, he still thinks so, but he realized in his youth that the vitality comes from conflict. to sing opera you must be a warrior first. and he never was the warrior type.

an offworlder would never know by first sight, but he’s all kind words and soft edges. he loves to make people smile, and even more than that, he loves to comfort them when they can’t smile. he found a way to do that with food. when he stopped sitting in the window, he bought a little cart and filled it with the things he’d learned how to make through the osmotic process of living among klingons. everyday klingons. klingons who never got operas sung about them, who cleaned the opera halls and changed their lightbulbs instead. he’d wheel his little cart around and make songs out of flavors.

when he heard the cardassians had left that beat-up old space station in the heavens over bajor, he saw a way to add lyrics to his songs. he sold his cart and his apartment and his shoes and found a place on the promenade instead. he makes his meals and sings his songs and sometimes a human comes in and says something about how everything is always so fresh, not like that replicated stuff, but he’s never really cared about that. he sees the honor in the everyday, in the frightened starfleet ensign trying gagh for the first time, in the occasional klingon crew joining in his singing (they always behave themselves in his restaurant), in the friendly words he shares with the other shopkeepers at the end of the workday. he never made it onto the stage but sometimes he looks around at the song he’s woven around himself and he just has this feeling that someday he’ll be serving gagh in sto-vo-kor, and he’s content.