"And some flavors are more hooked to smell than others! Like, normal bread doesn't really have a taste if I turn off my smell? Same with, like, most flower petals."

"Neat! And then salty food probably still tastes salty without smell, right, because I can't smell salt."

"Yeah! I guess unless you flung it everywhere."

"Yeah, I guess maybe salt does have a smell but the crystals are too large to get airborne so nobody ever smells them. Huh."

"But then it doesn't end up part of our sense of taste."

"True. It's probably for the best that aerosolized salt isn't a thing; it sounds like a nuisance."

"Yeah, definitely."

And they draw near the restaurants. "That one looks neat," Silv says, pointing to a bistro with a few tiers of outdoor seating, some of it probably able to fit Margaret's dragon shape.

"It does!" She'll try out the seating, but if it doesn't work out she can stand comfortably on four legs for as long as she likes. Human legs are too fragile and insufficiently numerous and her setup is much more practical. Now, what's on the menu?

The wait staff can set a little platform to raise up so she can lie down and still be at normal table height easily.

The menu has a pretty good variety, mostly light fare like salads and sandwiches, often with references to native (and unfamiliar) plants and cheeses. Anything with meat has an asterisk that all meat is vat grown. There's sandwiches with assorted toppings, cheese plates, vegetable and dip plates, some cold fruit soups, teas, a wine list...

(Silv gets the heartiest thing on the menu, a warm stew, with a side of vegetables and a creamy dip.)

Margaret wants a cheese plate with four different cheeses she's never heard of and that fruit-on-a-stick thing that the person at the next table has.

Silv keeps the conversation light at first, mostly chatter about how nice this place is and the view's pretty...

Margaret agrees that this place is lovely and the view is excellent and seems unable to look at anything other than Silv.

Well, Silv's mostly looking at Margaret (and smiling) so it all balances out.

What if Margaret eats with one hand and leaves the other hand casually resting kind of on Silv's side of the table. What night that lead to.

That might lead to Silv's hand resting alongside hers, barely brushing at first.

!

Then they can be loosely holding hands by the time Margaret finishes her cheese plate.

Something Silv is rather delighted with, at least by how she's grinning.

Oh gosh, a grinning Silv, how delightful.

Well, she doesn't seem like she's inclined to stop grinning through the entire dinner. Margaret will just have to settle for being delighted.

What a perfect day. When they're both done eating, Margaret will lean across the table and give Silv a metallic but gentle kiss.

She kisses back, of course.