Covent Garden Flowers, Thursday

[okteiviakom]

This had been kind of a preserve week for Octavia, for reasons she couldn't entirely explain. Something about the previous week had just made her... not exactly homesick, because home was one of the most loaded words Octavia could think of, but it had definitely made her need to spend a little more time around the trees and less around people.

But it was Thursday, now, and so she was at Covent Garden for her shift. And the flower shop was normal today.

Octavia did not trust it. But she would take it, for as long as it lasted.

[ooc: I LIVE! SP may be likely, though, as I am still super exhausted.]

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[1000yearstoolate]

After getting a tea set for the shop Seivarden felt it was best to stop by and make sure her employees knew how to make decent tea, and just making sure they did a good job generally.

"Good morning," she greeted as she stepped through the door.

[okteiviakom]

At least Octavia had actually looked at the tea set by now?

"Morning, Seivarden," she said, looking up from where she was checking over a display of small potted cacti. "What brings you by?"

[1000yearstoolate]

"Oh, I just wanted to see how you're doing," she said cheerfully. "What do you think of the redecorating?"

[okteiviakom]

Octavia cast a mild glance across the store, and gave a tiny shrug.

"The fountain's nice."

The rest was nice, too. Octavia just wasn't very used to voicing - or even having - many opinions about the decor of any place she was in.

[1000yearstoolate]

"It is, isn't it? Tisarwat suggested it. Oh, and I bought a tea set."

She gestured at it on the table.

"I decided we should serve customers tea to make the shop inviting."

[okteiviakom]

"You said."

Back at the onsen, right after she'd ended up with the shop in the first place.

Octavia's voice was about as mild as the expression on her face. "I still don't know how to make any."

[1000yearstoolate]

"Oh, good, you remember. Well, I thought I could show you. It would be odd if your days were the only days we didn't serve tea.

Seivarden sounded pleasant, but that didn't mean this wasn't serious.

[okteiviakom]

"Why is it so important?" Octavia asked, with a slight confused frown which was still probably better than how blunt she'd been at the onsen. "We never served tea here before and I don't think it's made a difference to anyone."

Present company not included, apparently.

[1000yearstoolate]

"I'm making improvements," Seivarden said. "Tea is extremely important to make a good impression. Nell makes her own blends too, we should occasionally use those. You can pick a tea of the day when you work."

[okteiviakom]

"A good impression on who?"

Guess Octavia didn't find that a satisfying explanation.

[1000yearstoolate]

"The customers."

Now Seivarden was starting to sound a bit irritated.

"Never mind, it's an order, we serve tea here from now on."

She was actually making an effort not to treat her employees like her lieutenants.

[okteiviakom]

Octavia's expression hardened instantly, with a clenched jaw. "I don't take orders from you."

She sounded calm, but very... definite. The only person she'd ever taken orders from was a century away in a different world, and Seivarden was no Indra kom Trikru.

"If you want me to serve tea, I'll serve tea. But stop making it about the customers. It's about you, and what you're used to, wherever you came from. The least you can do is be honest about that."

[1000yearstoolate]

"I run this place," Seivarden said. "I get to decide how the customers are treated, and yes, I want more of a Radchaai standard, and that means the customers are served tea."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke swung by around what seemed to be her usual lunch time, carrying a stack of take-out containers from Luke's.

"Hey," he greeted with a smile. "Back to civilization, I see."

[okteiviakom]

Octavia's answering smile was faint, but warm in its own understated way. "For a while, anyway," she said, shrugging but just barely. "I only have two weekly routines. Figured I should keep to at least one of them."

Because she'd lost track of what day it had been, and inadvertently skipped the Wednesday one.

[betterthanaplan]

"I for one am glad you did," Duke said, holing up the take-out containers. "The pot pies would have gotten cold otherwise."

Also, you know, he'd missed her. For all of the, what, four days she'd been in the woods.

He felt a little weird about that, yeah.

"Glad to see some extra color in here this week. Shop's not trying to be a Coldplay song anymore, huh?"

[okteiviakom]

"I don't know what that means," Octavia replied, already reaching for the containers.

It was possible she knew exactly what he meant.

It was also possible she was just anti-Coldplay.

[betterthanaplan]

Which was entirely fair.

"It's not important," Duke said, setting out some plastic flatware and napkins. The containers held a couple little oyster and bacon pot pies, plenty of french fries, and a couple pieces of chocolate cola cake. "So apparently my kitchen staff has decided they have to be good or I'll burn them in effigy."

[okteiviakom]

"Good," Octavia said, far too easily. She smiled down at the food when she opened the container with the pot pies. "If it keeps them in line..."

Well, she wouldn't exactly feel bad for them. There were worse threats than that of being burned in effigy.

[betterthanaplan]

"At the moment it mostly seems to make them really passive aggressive," Duke said. "But they weren't trying to roast a deer over an open fire pit in the kitchen today, so I'll take it."

[okteiviakom]

"You have to pick your battles," said a woman who practically never followed that advice. She set the pot pies out, one for each of them, and the put the fries between them.

Then she looked up. "Anyway. How are you? Did I miss anything important outside of the woods?"

[betterthanaplan]

"I'm . . . good," Duke said, shrugging. He still woke up in a cold sweat at least once a night, but he wasn't about to tell anyone else that. It wasn't like he hadn't had to deal with that sort of thing on occasion over the course of his life. "On my way to making Evil Goat Dude just another wacky adventure story."

Like the one he'd told Lucifer on Tuesday. No one wanted to hear about how he'd gone out every night to get his ass kicked in a bar fight for almost a month afterwards, they just wanted to hear about the sex parties and art heists and the fun ending of getting rescued by pearl divers.

[okteiviakom]

If Duke had said so out loud, he would've been likely to find out 'no one' was a concept similar to 'everyone' and 'people'.

But he hadn't, so... Octavia popped a fry into her mouth. "Good." She didn't think he was being entirely truthful with her, just because she knew they weren't yet that far out from the trauma itself, but she wasn't going to push. "And on to the next one, right?"

[betterthanaplan]

Plus there was the whole habitual downplaying of his own issues thing, which she'd met before.

"Exactly. Which will hopefully be more of a 'and that's now I got my new roommate' variety and not so much the 'and that's how I found out what it's like to be roasted alive' sort."

[okteiviakom]

"Please don't get another roommate, though," Octavia drawled. Joking, mostly?