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“Your favorite color is beige?” said Damar. “Why beige?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” said Weyoun serenely as Odo stalked by in his beige jumpsuit. “I suppose that, compared to other colors, I just find it rather … peaceful. And rich. And strong.”
“Rich?” said Damar. “Beige is rich?”
“Don’t you think so?” said Weyoun, clasping his hands together in a beatific pout.
“I think you’re a sycophant,” said Damar flatly. He lifted his glass of kanar to his lips and nodded to Quark for another. “If that Female Founder showed up tomorrow wearing–” He jerked his head, trying to think of something suitably ridiculous. “-iridescent feathers–”
Weyoun scoffed.
“-you’d say your favorite color was rainbow and your ancestors were birds.”
“Unlike Cardassians, I am not so easily swayed by appearances,” said Weyoun, crossing his arms. With one finger, he flicked the hard plates of Damar’s armor. “Your culture’s aesthetics are so overwhelmingly masculine as to become parodic. And each of you dresses exactly how Gul Dukat dresses, as if he were the sole arbiter of fashion.”
“It’s called a uniform,” said Damar. Weyoun’s brow wrinkled in confusion, but before Damar could pounce on him for this, Quark slid an empty glass over to Weyoun’s elbow.
“You talking about colors?” he said between bared teeth. “You know, the Iclothi species selects their beverages based solely on the color of the liquor.”
“Really?” said Weyoun, leaning forward. “And what do the Iclothi consider the–” His eyes slid sideways to Damar. “-most ideal color?”
Quark half-shrugged. “You mean what do they order the most? Sort of a milky raktajino color, I guess.”
Weyoun all but pumped his fist. “Beige,” he said with zeal, his eyes sparkling. “Thank you, Quark. I’ll take one glass of your finest milky raktajino, please.”
“On the house,” said Quark graciously, which meant he would add the bill to Damar’s tab. He poured a measure of raktjino and had just started on the milk when Damar cleared his throat.
“What’s your favorite color, Quark?”
“Gold,” said Quark bluntly.
“It does have a nice glimmer to it,” said Weyoun with a polite smile. “Not that I can see the glimmer very well.” He swiveled on the bar stool to face Damar, his chin up. Wearing his most annoying expression – diplomatic curiosity – he said, “What about you, Damar? Cardassians can see an entire wide range of colors, I’ve heard.”
Damar snorted.
“You can simply list the ones that you appreciate,” said Weyoun helpfully, “if you can’t narrow it down to just one. I understand that non-Vorta often struggle to separate the, ah–” The universal translator scrambled his Dominionese metaphor into something Cardassian but so archaic that Damar didn’t really understand it. “-the wheat from the chaff.”
Whatever that was, it sounded bitchy. Damar drained his glass of kanar and nudged Weyoun’s fresh-poured raktajino closer to him. There was a flash of violet from Weyoun’s tongue as he drank, the same purple tinge that colored his skin and made his eyes flash. Sometimes, under the lights, Damar thought he could see lavender shadows under Weyoun’s eyes or in his hair. The color of old Cardassian kings. And of bruises. He looked back at his kanar, thick and black, but knew that with the more expensive vintages, it came thinned-out and more intoxicating, the color of wine, of grapes.
Weyoun snapped his fingers. “Favorite color, Damar. Any time now.”
“Blue,” Damar said.