Departed

Chapter 16: Message

Morro's POV

     "Strangely enough, there are still no words from the Ninja about the temporal disturbance that took place nearly a month ago." Gail Gossip chattered on the TV. "It's likely the Ninja took their adventure somewhere outside of Ninjago. Still, we'll continue to be on the lookout for more exciting news on the matter. Stay tuned for big leads and sensations! This is Gail Gossip from the Ninjago City News."

     I tried to ignore Gail's chipper voice as I cleaned some tables. No amount of hiding my internal stress behind fake charm could stop my brain from worrying.

     Nearly a month.

     No message from Erasmus.

     Barely any clue on what Harumi and I were sent to do.

     I guess it was a good thing, seeing as it meant the future my destiny scroll showed me was still far off. I wanted to put that off for as long as possible.

     "Hey, can you get me some napkins?" A middle-aged woman came up from behind me. "My son spilled his tea."

     Sure enough, right behind her, hot tea had been spilt all over the table and was currently soaking the floor. I cringed at the sight of the bawling kid waving his arms everywhere. Why did messes always cause commotion?

     "Hey, did you hear me? My son spilled—"

     "Yes, ma'am. I'll get that cleaned up for you now." I gave her a short bow, biting back a thousand insults.

     "And I want a refund!" The woman called after me, but I ignored her.

     I ducked behind the counter, heading into the back to grab a mop. I had been let out into the front about a week ago. The first day customers saw my face the Ninja held their breaths and wished that chaos wouldn't break out. It had been forever since I was spotted by everyday citizens, and they were mostly in Stixx. No one had said a word to me and since then I had assigned a lot of duties in the front of the store. I did a better job of not yelling at people than Harumi did, so she was still stuck in the back.

     Well, she was supposed to be working in the back.

     When I returned to the messy area, Harumi was making the screaming toddler smile as she wiped up the table. The middle-aged woman was laughing at something Harumi said. I nearly dropped the mop at the sight.

     "Ah, look out little one. Here comes the magical cleaning mop." Harumi said to the toddler, who burst out in a cooing laughter. Why the woman had decided to feed a toddler hot tea was beyond me, but at least he wasn't screaming anymore.

     I made sure Harumi saw my expression before silently mopping up the rest of the mess. She merely grinned in reply, a mischievous look that stated she knew what she was doing was wrong. If the Ninja caught her out here, bad things might ensue.

     Harumi broke yet another rule by giving the woman a free cup of tea for her troubles, taking advantage of the busy staff's ignorance of where she was. The small family left smiling and promising to come back, while Harumi waved with the nicest expression on her face. As soon as they were out of eyesight, I pulled Harumi back towards the closed off area of the store.

     "You're not supposed to be out there." I hissed at her.

     Her grin was constant. "The greatest villain is the one who gets away."

     "You're hopeless." I said, shaking my head. She nudged me until I smiled. I could see it though, behind her eyes, her fear. She didn't like the life she was being forced to live, so her little moments of rebellion helped her through it. She liked it up front where no one knew who she was. It was like the Cloud Kingdom, where we could work from a clean slate. No one judged us for who we had been. We were just another normal person trying to work for a living. It was a strangely liberating mindset.