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[[div class="blockquote"]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/0|06:58, Cafeteria]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/1|07:23, Cafeteria]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/2|07:48, Third Floor Lounge]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/3|09:32, Executive Wing Offices]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/4|10:42, Site-17 Hallways]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/5|11:23, Humanoid Common Room]]] [[[Friday afternoon |Afternoon]]] [[[Friday night |Night]]] [[/div]] At the next table over, [[[scp-073|Qabil ben Adam]]] poked disinterestedly at the original batch of eggs. He hadn't found them nearly as amusing as the youngsters. "If they can make false meat from plants," he mused, "why can't they do the opposite?" "There's no market for that," [[[scp-208|Bes]]] said, shoveling a strip of bacon into his mouth. "There's me." "You don't have any money." "Yes I do." "Really?" He shrugged. "Compound interest." Bes laughed. "Oh, right. Well, I expect a yacht if we ever get..." He trailed off as something behind Cain caught his eye. Cain turned to look, and just about lost his jaw. At the cafeteria entrance stood the most beautiful woman to ever walk the Earth. She had the kind of figure that usually involves a plastic surgeon and the kind of face that usually involves a sculptor. A nearly-translucent robe concealed very little of her coppery skin, and an ornate golden headdress barely held back her shimmering waterfall of raven hair. It was the most amazing dress code violation he'd ever witnessed. "Is that..." Bes started to ask. "[[[scp-4960|Kedesh-Nanaya]]]!" Cain called, springing to his feet and waving one metal arm. He could never forget a face like that. Well, he never forgot any face, but especially not that one. Kedesh-Nanaya recognized him too. "Cain!" she exclaimed in a rich, chocolatey voice, a perfect, snow-white smile spreading across her smooth, unwrinkled cheeks. As the Sumerian goddess of love, sex, and lovely sex approached him, Cain was vaguely aware that every other set of eyeballs in the room followed her. Cain started to tell her how much he'd missed her, but there was suddenly something in his mouth. It was quite possibly the most scandalous kiss that'd ever occurred in a Foundation facility, if you didn't count Site-43. "I missed you!" she said, in ancient Sumerian. Cain would've returned the sentiment, but he was busy trying not to melt. "What's it been, five thousand years?" "Four thousand, eight hundred seventy-five," he said, automatically switching to that old language himself. "Ten months, fourteen days. Uh, sixteen minutes." She seemed a little surprised, so he hurried to explain himself. "Uh, eidetic memory, you know." "Are you //sure// you haven't just been counting the days?" she asked, shooting him a wink that could've terminated SCP-682. "Well, perhaps a few," he admitted, sheepishly. Kedesh-Nanaya stepped back to check him out more closely. "Oh, you haven't aged a...Bes!" "Huh?" Cain asked, following her gaze to the hairy little man beside him, who was also beaming. "Hey, hot stuff!" he rumbled, "Long time no see!" "Oh, Bes!" Then, to Cain's uncomprehending horror, she bent down and kissed //Bes//. Some joker actually laughed, and Cain flinched. Then Kedesh-Nanaya stood up, recapturing his attention. "This is great!" she said, throwing one arm around each of them. "My two most cherished lovers in one place." Cain looked at Bes in a way that he hadn't done in a long time. Specifically, not since the last time someone one-upped his offering to YHWH. Bes grinned. ----- "So, what have you scoundrels been doing, these past millennia?" she asked, biting into an apple that was just as round and juicy as- "Oh, not much," Bes replied. "That jerk Akhenaten stuck me in a boulder, can you believe it? I was in there for 3,000 years." "Ah! Such disrespect. I can't believe this monotheism nonsense ever caught on." Cain shifted uncomfortably. "They buried me, too, after my worshipers died out." She sighed, longingly. "I don't think I'll ever want to sleep again, after that. Were you ever imprisoned, Cain, love?" "I was digested by Anantashesha for seven years, seven months, and seven days." Nanaya squinched up her nose. "How repugnant." Then she went back to Bes. "Psst," came a whisper sliding into the seat beside Cain. A shapeshifter by the name of Jesse, Cain remembered from the time Iris had complained about him. "What?" "The Hell are you doing, dawg? You're getting outflirted by //that// guy." Cain shrugged helplessly. "He tells better jokes." "Don't you remember how to talk to women?" "Can't remember what you never learned," he muttered. "Wh... aren't you the ancestor of like, half the species?" "Courting was simpler then! You just gave her father some goats and that was that." Jesse opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind, closed his mouth, opened it again, and said something else. "So you've never, like, //dated// dated? In ways that //don't// involve livestock?" "I'm ten thousand years old! It'd be inappropriate." "So, this is your chance! Finally, a woman your age. Now stop moping and do something about it!" "Do what?" "Talk about the modern world. Bes was in a boulder for half of history; that's your edge." "But-" Cain began, but Jesse was already standing up. He patted Cain on his metal shoulder, wished him good luck, and scurried off. Cain turned back toward Kedesh-Nanaya. "So," she was asking Bes, "how is the rest of your pantheon these days?" "Well," he said, "it's been a while since I saw any of 'em, but [[[scp-3807 |Set]]] tells me he's got a legal practice back home now. [[[scp-2343 |Ptah]]]'s livin' somewhere in America, wherever that is." "Hey, Nanaya," Cain interrupted. "What are your thoughts on rock 'n' roll?" "Ooh!" she crooned, pivoting effortlessly back to him. "I love it! Such //sensual// music. That Elvis fellow must've had almost as many worshipers as me!" Cain knew that Elvis's 50,000,000 infallible fans outnumbered the entire population of ancient Sumeria - or for that matter, the entire population of ancient //Earth// - but he also knew that it wouldn't do him any good to say so. "Eh, I doubt that." He and Nanaya shared a laugh, leaving Bes to wonder what this "Elvis" guy was the god of. "Speaking of Elvis," Cain began, but did not finish. "Psst!" The noise had come from a few tables over, from someone that everyone at Site-17 - except, perhaps, newcomers like Nanaya - knew well. To her soldiers, she was a stern leader, the scarred veteran of numerous combat missions. To the other prisoners, she was an authority figure, wielding influence and privileges second only to actual Foundation personnel. To the Foundation, she was a powerful but dangerous weapon. To Cain, she was Iris Thompson. And Iris Thompson was in a very bad mood. So bad that even the friendliest skips had decided to sit elsewhere this morning. Now she was gesturing at him aggressively. //Get over here!// Cain, as one of the few people that Iris didn't usually shout at, wasn't exactly intimidated, but he wasn't inclined to leave Nanaya's shapely side either. Still, though, leaving Iris to stew would be unfair to whoever made the mistake of talking to her next. "Uh," Cain said, "I'll be right back." Bes was entirely too happy to see him go. He approached Iris confidently but nonthreateningly, like a parent to a moody teenager. Almost exactly like that. "What?" he asked, sliding into a seat near her. "Stop it!" she hissed. "Stop what?" "Drooling over that...that Sumerian skank! You're acting like you've never seen a woman before." Calling Kedesh-Nanaya a woman was a bit like calling Everest a mountain, but Cain thought he knew what she meant. "Oh! No, see, she and I were lovers long ago." Iris's eyes bugged out of her head. "What?!" Cain's eyes misted over with the recollection. "We met on the shores of the Euphrates. I was walking along the riverbank when I happened across her bathing..." "Cain!" she scolded, bringing him back to the present with a voice that was half whisper and half cough. "What?" he joked. "You didn't think I'd been celibate for ten millennia, did you?" Iris started to answer, but didn't. "Oh dear. You did." "I just..." she said, lamely. Cain waited, but that was it. "Iris," he said, patiently, "I'm an ancestor of almost all living humans. Probably even you." Her face twisted weirdly, but she forced it back into a scowl. "Well that, that just makes it worse." "Makes...what worse?" "You...fawning over that..." Iris waved her arm inarticulately in Nanaya's direction, perhaps hoping to catch more words. "...that Mesopotamian minx! Act your age." "I'm the same age as Bes," he said, defensively. "Yeah, but you're //old//." That didn't make sense, but he still understood it. Cain carried the weight of all those years a lot more visibly than Bes...Bes, who had just set Nanaya laughing again with his (actually really funny) impression of [[[scp-3740 |Ashur]]]. Cain needed to get back over there. "Well," he said, a bit more arrogantly than he'd really meant to, "if I'm too old to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, then I'm also too old to take orders from a child. Respect your elders." Iris watched in offended shock as Cain returned to his spot beside Kedesh-Nanaya. ----- "Who's that little bird?" Nanaya asked, playfully tapping Cain's beryllium-bronze arm with one perfectly polished fingernail. "Someone who kept you company while I was away?" "Pfft," Cain scoffed. "No, that's only Iris. She believes that she's got some authority over us." Only after he'd said it did Cain realize how mean that sounded. "Is that right?" Nanaya asked, smiling slyly. She looked back at Iris, who was still glowering at her from across the room. Granted, //everyone// was looking at her (or visibly struggling not to), but the shrimpy blonde with the scarred eye was the only one who didn't seem to be enjoying it. Nanaya shot her a friendly wave, which did amusing things to Iris' eyebrows. Divine preeminence over matters of the heart (and loins) was, of course, quite useful for reading people. Nanaya could plainly see that Iris wore her authority - some of it real, most of it perceived - like armor. It was supposed to turn away all those things that she wasn't supposed to think about. That armor was quite familiar to Kedesh-Nanaya. The poor, stopped-up archaeologists who unsealed her ancient tomb had worn suits much like it. Over the ages of her absence, another God had grown larger than she'd ever thought possible. Larger than His people, or His country, or His name. So large that there was no more room for her, or Bes, or even Cain, really. No more room for the sensual violence of lust. At least, that was what these Christians liked to think. But there was no life without lust. It was like water, seeping through the smallest gaps, wearing down the largest boulders, carving deep into the driest ground. There were so //many// these days who tried to deny the subtle omnipresence of it, like that poor old Abernathy fellow, but Nanaya knew far better than them. It was her domain, one that encompassed all born from mothers, and as a goddess, didn't she //deserve// recognition of her status? It was certainly a more illustrious claim than some haughty young girl. Nanaya smiled warmly at this 'Iris' character, who flinched from that subdued gesture alone. Oh, this was nothing to fret over. Long ago though it was, Nanaya had //plenty// of experience asserting her position over rulers with parchment-thin backbones. Nothing like a bit of practice, then. ----- Kedesh-Nanaya's gaze was more intense than Iris had expected. She'd hoped that, like most people, the nearly-nude newcomer would flinch first from her ice-cold glare. But the deep, warm gaze of those amber orbs swallowed Iris's daggered stare like an ocean of soft, glowing lava. It was almost hypnotic, the way her delicate eyelashes- Iris flinched, violently, and looked down before that bitch could see how red her cheeks were getting. This impropriety could not be allowed to stand. Careful to avoid looking anywhere near Nanaya, Iris glanced around for backup. There were guards along the walls as always, but it seemed that SCP-4960 had robbed them of their faculties as well. The poor guy in charge didn't even notice Iris until she started chewing him out. "Are you just going to stand there?" "Huh?" he asked, tearing his eyes away from the spectacle. "That's the most egregious dress code violation I've ever seen!" Iris waved her arms for emphasis. "Do something!" "Eh, I mean-" "Before the //Factotum// finds out." The thought of displeasing an O5's right hand finally restored some blood to the hapless guard's brain. "Oh. Right." Reluctantly, he approached the trio of ancient religious figures to inform Nanaya that she would, in fact, need to put on some clothes. Iris looked smugly on as the disgruntled goddess was escorted back to her chamber to change. She'd show that tramp who was in charge around here. 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