Atl made his way to the mess hall, which was largely filled with people cleaning up from the morning meal. There were a few groups of men hunched over their soup and talking in low tones. A few people glanced at Atl as he entered but as he wasn't a commanding officer no one needed to pay him any attention.
Atl scooped the dregs of the soup out of a steaming black cauldron. He removed the thick skin that had developed on the soup with his fingers and dropped it back into the pot. He heard a sharp hiss from one of the kitchen staff and walked away quickly pretending he hadn't heard anything.
He found a seat at a table close to the one think rectangular window in the hall. The white light that streamed in through the window seemed strange and out of place. Atl idly watched dust motes drift in the sunlight, and used his breath to play with them. He dipped his wooden spoon into the soup and lifted the steaming mass into the air. It was thick and full of a dried local bean that Ecatizin had found in the stores.
Atl felt the fatigue of a night-watch in his bones and knew that he had to eat if he was going to be able to stay up for any length of time. Staying up was important, if he fell asleep anytime soon he's be up long before his shift and "dead on the walls" by morning. He brought the spoon to his lips: warm and chewy having a root-like flavour. Better, Atl reasoned, the man's doing better.
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