Lovely. Should they bring their pets?

The pets can stay on the ship. This is a special night for just the two of them.

Kiss. "Alright, darling."

Off to the hotel! The suite is truly extravagant, consisting of no fewer than six rooms and taking up the entire top floor. The dining table has a dumbwaiter in the center that the food is sent up in when they request it, so they needn't be disturbed by waitstaff. In the corner of the dining room is a person-sized box.

Eliese pulls Acererak into a dipping kiss. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."

Cling! And deep kiss. "Awww, you're sweet."

"You bring out the best in me."

Heeeee. "Rather hard, with how great you always are."

"You are very talented."

She kisses her girlfriend, stroking her cheek. "We both are." Nuzzle. "What do you have planned for me?"

"Dinner, and then you can open your present." She nods at the box. "We should probably get to that in the next... oh, two hours or so."

Giggle. "Then we should start dinner soon. Wouldn't want to be rushed."

"Of course." To the dining room. She presses the button to signal the start of the meal. "I've ordered us a four-course galactic sampler, so I hope you can find some new favorites."

"Sounds delicious." She settles in at the table, grinning at Eliese.

She grins back. The food rises up in the middle of the table.

"Let's eat."

She tries a bit of everything, of course, eating leisurely and commenting on the food - she likes quite a bit of it (especially anything sweet, sour, or fruity), isn't fond of some of it, is very fond of Eliese...

Eliese saves the best bits for her, and provides snippets of commentary on the history or cultural milieu of the dishes.

Acererak's interested in that! And in hearing Eliese talk. She's grinning the entire dinner, and laughs fairly often at this or that amusing tidbit.

It's so nice to see her happy.

Eventually, they've eaten their way through everything available.

She kisses her girlfriend.

"Time for my present, then?"

"Just about. Best not to wait any longer, I think..."

Kiss. "I'm excited." She stands, offering Eliese her hand.

She takes it and leads her to the box, moving it to the center of the room.

She bounces and goes to open the box.

Inside... is an enormous tiered cake! Beautifully decorated in climbing roses, intricately detailed with tiny droplets of crimson falling off each delicate thorn. Strapped to one side of the dismantled box is a theatrically large knife to cut the cake with.

"Start from the top," Eliese advises.

"Oh, it's gorgeous, darling..." she says, picking up the knife and tapping her chin. "Almost a shame to cut into... But it does look rather tasty." She grins at her girlfriend and goes to slice into it - slowly, from the top.