The Deucalion Restaurant

🍜Chapter 14🍜

"The Wunder burger?"

"Ah, yes, thank you, miss."

Morrigan smiled as she placed down the plate in front of a middle-aged woman dining alone. "Have a good day, ma'am!"

"You too, dear."

Taking the table number, Morrigan walked back to the preparation room, where Jack was leaning against the doorway, waiting for her. As she drew near, he brought his hands together to give her a small applause.

Morrigan rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to shove him as she walked through the door, not that it would have done a lot anyway – Jack in his six-foot glory was a lot for a 5'4 Morrigan to take down. Still, she'd try again someday.

"Didn't look half bad from here, trainee," he said, following her into the kitchen.

Morrigan smiled. "She was very nice."

Jack nodded, "She comes here often... not enough to be considered a regular, but once or twice a month."

"Do you get many... uh, you know – less... uhh, less friendly customers?"

Jack chuckled. "No, not often, fortunately, but when we do, they tend to be pretty bad. Or at least the ones I've seen have been. I was unlucky enough to deal with one on my first day working here."

"Oh, how did that go?" Morrigan asked, a small grin tugging at her lips. She hadn't known Jack for very long, but he seemed the type to rather enjoy dealing with difficult customers.

Jack shrugged, a grin of his own forming on his lips as he began leading their conversation to the kitchen. "Can't say they'll be coming back anytime soon – and not just because I pissed them off. Uncle Jove was kinda... let's just say he doesn't get like that often, but when he does, you best stay out of his way for a while."

"..I thought it would be Fen who deals with difficult customers," Morrigan said as the two entered the kitchen.

"Oh, she does – she can usually spot them out before they even get a table. And then it's up to them; stay and be a decent human or take their miserable ass and get out of our restaurant. Jupiter says that's why we don't get many – they don't want to be civil, and Fen is terrifying. What table do you have?" Jack asked as he picked up a couple of plates for table eleven.

Morrigan looked at the order on the piece of paper. "Nineteen."

"Right, that's just up the platform on the left. Good luck." He smiled at her, taking the plates out of the room, leaving Morrigan to follow slowly behind.

Heading left, Morrigan quickly found the small platform Jack had directed to her. Walking up the few steps, she weaved between the tables until she found a table number that read nineteen and began to dish out the plates on her tray.

~

About an hour passed before Morrigan found herself talking to somebody who wasn't a customer. She had just cleared a table and was bringing the dishes back to the preparation room for washing up, when she was stopped just in front of the sink by no other than Noelle.

The taller girl stood between Morrigan and the sink with crossed arms and an expression that told Morrigan she should've walked away while she still could've.

"Uhm, could you move, please? I need to put these in the sink," Morrigan said, seeing as Noelle was making no move to speak nor move. She had a bad feeling about where this was going.

Noelle smirked. "Hmm, I don't know. Last time I  had my arms full of plates, you crept up behind me and made me drop them."

Morrigan scoffed, "It was one plate. And you threw it seconds after you saw me – saw me standing there because I was lost."

A moment passed, and the two girls stayed silent, glaring at each other as if hoping to shoot lasers from their eyes to burn through the other.

Finally, Noelle broke the quiet, tense atmosphere.

"You know what, Crow?"

Morrigan stood up a little straighter, ignoring the slight cramping in her arms, still holding the plates.

"No, I don't, Noelle. And frankly, I don't care."

Noelle sneered. "Well, I don't care that you don't care. If you just apologised for earlier, maybe I'll let it go."

"Yeah, I highly doubt that, but yeah, sure. I'm sorry you thought throwing a plate would be a good idea."

Noelle's expression darkened, and she took a step toward Morrigan. "I know who you are; Corvus Crow's misfortunate firstborn. You probably know Jupiter. He probably knows you and must think you're just a perfect little girl. I don't know why he would; he's obviously been misled. So how about you step aside and let me make a good impression?"

Morrigan stood stunned. "Excuse you? I've never met Mr North before, and even if I had, it would have no effect on how he views you. You don't need my interference to make an impression here."

"You little-"

"Aha! There you two are!"

The two girls spun around to find Jupiter standing just inside the doorway.

"Oh, hello, Mr North! I was just about to help... uh, Mo... Mor- Morrigan with these plates," Noelle said, her cheeks flushing as she grabbed a few plates from Morrigan and took them to the sink.

Jupiter raised an eyebrow at Morrigan. She shrugged in response.

"Right... anyway, both of your shifts are over, so feel free to grab your belongings and leave."

"Thank you, Mr North." Noelle bowed her head towards him and then left the preparation room.

"That was... interesting," Jupiter stared after her, then turned back to Morrigan and clapped his hands. "Anyway! Thank you for coming in today, Morrigan. You did very well, you are also free to go. Oh! And tell your family that I say hello!"

Morrigan smiled, "Thank you, Mr North, and I will."

Jupiter smiled at her. "Please, call me Jupiter."

Written: At some point in March but completed on June the 16th. 

Published: 16 June 2022

Uhmmm. Hi. 

Surprise, I updated? 

I'm working on the next chapter of this story as you're reading this, don't worry. But I am going away for a week soon so I don't know how often I'll be able to write and update. And I'm sorry for being so inactive - school kinda just took over everything and I've been finding it really hard to feel proud of what my writing.

 So yeah, I hope you stick around to see how this story ends - though I'll tell you now, I'm not even sure if we've reached the middle yet. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It took way too long to get right, and I'm still not exactly pleased with it, but it's here!