What Little Worlds

Eighteen

Amelie checked her watch again, the third time in ten minutes. Quarter-to-six. She should have been out of work forty five minutes ago but her column still had no finished running. If she left teary she would have to repeat the entire thing tomorrow and she was almost out of the material she had run through it so it was a gamble.

She huffed and swung around in her swivel chair. After her first success at magic she was desperate to go back to the gym and practice. It had taken all of her restraint not to attempt to make little whirlpools out of every liquid solvent in the lab.

She glared at the column, willing it to stop dripping so she could escape this building.

Her phone buzzed. She rolled her chair across the lab and grabbed the phone.

Adrien: Are you okay?

She groaned. There was no way she would have time for dinner and training. She had promised Adrien though and didn't want to disappoint him after how much time he had spent helping her learn.

Amelie: Yes! Stuck at work :( Hopefully will be on my way soon.

She sighed and put her phone down.

Forty minutes later she finally hurled open the door to the gym and hurriedly weaved through the cluttered entryway. She stopped abruptly at the threshold to the waiting room. She smelled french fries.

Her stomach growled and she looked around for the source of the smell. She was about to walk into the big gym when the door opened and Adrien stepped out, holding a large McDonalds.

He smiled when he saw her and stretched out his hand holding the bag. "Dinner is served."

She grinned.

"I thought you might want to just do something quick since you got stuck at work so late. This way you have time to practice," he said.

"You are the absolute best," she said and ran over to him. They sat down on the floor and spread out their feast in front of them.

"You know McDonalds sells Oreo milkshakes, right?" She said and grabbed a handful of fries.

"Oh damn, no I didn't know that. Next time?" he said and winked.

Amelie smirked, "Next time."

"How was your day?" he asked.

She had just taken a huge bite of her sandwich so she laughed and held up one finger for him to wait. He smiled and waited patiently for her to chew her food.

"My day was fine. My boss usually is pretty hard on me but today she ignored me. Successful day in my opinion. Except I started a column too late in the day and got unlucky that it took ages to finish running," she mumbled the last part, still grumpy about the column.

"Sorry about your boss. What does you do that bothers her so much?" asked Adrien.

"I don't know to be honest. I'm just different from the rest of the women who work in the chemistry department. I wear makeup and dresses and they tend to dress more masculine." She took a sip of her rink, contemplating how best to word her dilemma to a man. "They don't really think I should be taken seriously."

"That's not fair! You're smart, they should treat you the same way based on your intellect!" he exclaimed.

She smiled at his indignation. "That's not how it usually works in the human world. Does it work differently for Elves?"

He nodded. "Elves have less sexual dimorphism; that's a fancy word for meaning males and females are biologically very similar. So we reach the same height and stuff and usually the same left of strength too. It makes it much harder for sexual discrimination to occur when males do not end up being physically stronger, like with your Sapien coworkers."