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theladywandererTia Y’Shyroth Omrani, Princess of Kel’tai, General of the As’shya legions, destroyer of galaxies, stares blankly at the woman standing in front of the host stand.
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Tia Y’Shyroth Omrani, Princess of Kel’tai, General of the As’shya legions, destroyer of galaxies, stares blankly at the woman standing in front of the host stand.
“Excuse me?” the woman says, snapping her fingers in front of Tia’s face. “Are you listening? I said I had a reservation for twenty people for two o’clock.”
“It is two-thirty,” Tia points out. “And you are not twenty people.”
Dulce half-chokes from her place at the front server station.
The woman has turned a concerningly splotchy red. “What did you say to me?”
“In so many words? You are late,” Tia says bluntly. “You are the only—” she checks the reservation list “—Johnson here. The tables are being used. You must wait.”
“I will not,” the woman says loudly, attracting stares from people sitting in the bar. “I wish,” she continues, with the self-satisfied glee of a diplomat who knows the molecular codes of the local defense shields, “to speak to your manager.”
“Okay,” Tia says, and then waits. The restaurant is slow, the lunch rush over and the dinner rush not quite started; she has the time.
“Well?” the Johnson woman says after a minute or so of strained silence, now almost purple. “Where are they? Where is your manager?”
“Right here,” Tia says, and taps the magnetic name tag clipped to her shirt, where it says ‘TIA - STORE MANAGER’ in chunky block print. “Are you unable to read? Is this common among the Johnsons? Is that why you are late?”
Dulce, who at this point is blatantly eavesdropping, snorts.
“How dare you treat me like this.” The Johnson woman is shaking, her phone clutched in her hand, the screen glowing through her fingers. “I will write to corporate—”
“We’re independant,” Tia says, bored.
“—Yelp!”
“I wish you would,” Tia says, “It would be far more interesting than this.”
“The local news, the Post!” The Johnson woman is shaking a finger in Tia’s face. Tia breathes deep, resisting the urge to reach out and break it. “I will tell everyone how dreadful this place is, how—how—how disrespectful the management is, I will put you out of business.”
Tia brightens at that. “Would you? I have been wishing to go home, but so long as this place remains solvent, I cannot, within my honor, do so.”
“Unbelievable!” The Johnson woman is shrieking at this point, and their audience has increased to include half the serving staff.
She goes on for a little while longer, before Tia feels compelled to interrupt. “Will you be leaving soon? Only, it is almost dinner, and you are blocking the door.”
“No, I will not—!” Tia’s almost impressed; she hadn’t known human voices could go that high.
“Very well,” she says, and then pushes the button on the underside of the host stand. “Please do not come again.”
The Johnson woman dissolves into the tell-tale sparkles of a molecular disassembler, as Tia turns back to the rest of the lobby, and to the black clad mass of her personal legion-turned-serving staff.
“Well?” she says. “Those Ghra’bali half-steaks won’t run themselves to the tables, not in this galaxy. What are you standing around here for? The novelty? Go.”
They get.
