Charlie brandished the dagger she was ostensibly sharpening into the air.
Her new barracks roommate dodged the stray utensil easily – if somewhat oddly – with a backbend that flopped bonelessly onto her bunk.
“This calendar of yours,” Charlie proclaimed. “It’s annoying.”
Lisse shrugged with an enviable casualness. “You asked when my birthing day was.”
“The answer was supposed to make sense,” she grumbled, and tossed the knife absentmindedly toward the target they shared across the room. It punctuated her words with a solid thunk.
“It makes perfect sense,” Lisse retorted. “The Rastelli calendar, named after our honored circus forefathers” — she paused to tap her nose three times in reverence — celebrated their interplanetary colony’s delight in the sun after so long in space. They landed on the darkest day of the year, after years in space.”
“It counts up,” Charlie snapped. “And then down. At least your midyear is properly in the middle.”
Lisse propped her head up with one hand and twirled a strand of curly dark hair. “Well, sometimes.”
Charlie threw her hands in the air, leaned over the bottom bunk, and stuck out her tongue.
“If that’s the worst argument we have,” Lisse said, “then I think we’ll get along splendidly. Show me that knife-throwing trick?”
***
A weak attempt to answer Leah Kimmel’s prompt about the Rastelli calendar (a very interesting idea!) after running short on time. My prompt went to nother Mike – check more out over at MOTE.
