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Luke's Diner, Wednesday Afternoon

The busboy sauntered into the dining room today, late for his shift, wearing a designer suit and carrying a briefcase. "I just want you all to know that it's been lovely working with you," he announced from the center of the dining room. "But - as you may have noticed from the lack of turnips, I completed a deal and sold them all." He pulled his sunglasses down and winked. "At a significant profit."

"Oh yeah?" the dishwasher asked. "How much."

"Five hundred thousand dollars," the busboy declared. Smugly. He pulled out his phone to show the transaction. The cook looked impressed. Surprised, but impressed. The dishwasher looked skeptical. "Needless to say, I'm handing in my notice today," he continued. The wide world of finance is calling my name and--"

"Wait, is this in dollars or won?" the dishwasher interrupted, staring at the phone. "Because it looks like you sold them for five hundred thousand won, not dollars."

"Really?!" The busboy hurried over, snatching his phone back and staring down at it, rehearsed speech forgotten. "Well. Okay. Won. But South Korea is a thriving economic powerhouse, so I'm sure the exchange rate is--"

"About $400," the dishwasher said calmly, turning back to the sink. "Give or take about twenty bucks."

"Oh noes." The busboy looked down at his suit, his watch, his briefcase. "I am never gonna financially recover from this."

Cook just tossed him an apron. "Table three needs clearing. And bring that lady her noodles and cake."

Today's Specials
Shattered Hopes
Bitter Ashes of Dreams
Cake

[No OCD]

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Octavia had time to kill before tonight, and Larceny seemed to have been pretty consistent about being at the diner on Wednesdays for the last while, so, Octavia decided to stop by and check in.

Of course, she ended up squinting at the specials board almost immediately after coming through the door.

"... Did something happen?"

"He sold turnips but now is sad," Larceny said, pointing to the still-red busboy. "I think he wanted to manage hedges, not turnips."

Okay, even people who had grown up speaking English didn't really understand what a hedge fund manager did.

"But you cannot eat hedges, so I think he made the best deal."

Octavia had grown up speaking English, but in a future where hedge funds were a thing of the very distant past. So she was a lost cause.

"Okay," she decided, after a beat. "So, usual diner nonsense."

Sorry, guys.

Maybe Duke could explain it to both of them! That would be a fun conversation, really.

"I hope it is over soon," Larceny confided. "I miss the good noodles."

She could absolutely tell the difference between regular noodles and turnip ones, yes.

Most people with tastebuds probably could.

"They've been serving bad noodles?"

Didn't sound like something Duke would approve of.

There was a lot sauce to try to hide the flavor? Look, Cook was trying here.

"These are..." Larceny poked at them with her fork. "Only 'okay' noodles."

It should be noted that she was still devouring them. Because obviously.

It would never even occur to Octavia to fault anyone for eating food that was 'okay'. 'Okay' meant it was edible! Which was really all that mattered.

She looked at the specials board again. "So which one's the noodles? Hopes or Dreams?"

"Hopes!" Larceny said. "Dreams are a bunch of spicy green things. I told him he could do better than dreaming of turnips - there's cake! - but he just told me I did not understand and sighed a lot."

And then started telling her about hedges. Larceny had stopped paying attention after that.

Iris had been out shopping--for weapons, which was the best way to shop aside from, perhaps, poisons--but the sign well.

Okay, so she was a sucker for an intriguing sign. She had to find out more.

"Just what does 'Bitter Ashes of Dreams' taste like?" she asked.

"Bitter," Larceny decided. "And garlic. And pepper."

She gestured to her plate full of collard greens. "They are tasty."

And now Larceny was going to tell everyone she ate the ashes of hopes and dreams and it was going to be a whole thing.

Iris laughed.

"That does sound a whole lot better than what I'd've guessed they tasted like," she admitted. "I were thinkin' more tar and smoke and gasoline."

Which was also a real good time. Iris hadn't said they'd be her hopes and dreams she'd be turning to ash.

"Those do not sound good to eat," Larceny said, shooting a worried glance towards the kitchen. "They will make it for you if you want...?"

"Nah, I'm good," Iris said, waving that off. "What I were talkin' 'bout ain't meant to taste good. Losin' a dream ain't no fun. Your kind of bitter ashes sound like they'd taste better."

A beat.

"Do you know anythin' that would eat that though?"

"Pufferfish will eat anything if it does not move fast enough," Larceny said solemnly. "But I do not even think they would eat that."

"I... only know what a pufferfish is 'cause it's toxic," Iris admitted. "But yeah, I don't think even they could eat that, agreed."

It wasn't like she'd grown up around an ocean!

"I'm Iris," she added. "Who're you?"

"Then I think I'm getting Dreams."

Spicy green things appealed to her more anyway. In fact, she went ahead and put in an order like that just then, before returning her attention to Larceny. "Sorry if we woke you up coming home last night," she said. Didn't even realize how easily that 'home' slipped out, right there. "It was kind of late."

Uhh...NEITHER HAD LARCENY! REALLY! SHE WAS ALLERGIC TO WATER.

"Larceny," she replied. "Sometimes Lucy, but that is a nickname." And nicknames were between friends, which Iris wasn't, having just introduced themselves. "What does 'toxic' mean?"

Another day, another word she hadn't learned yet!

"Uhhh..." Larceny froze, not about to admit that she hadn't even been on the boat last night. "You...did not," she said slowly. "I was. Sleeping. In my bed."

A+ delivery, Larceny. Totally believable.

"Why were you home so late?"

Octavia maybe paused a little, at that delivery. But then again, Larceny was kind of odd a lot of the time, so she didn't think that much of it.

And so she just gave a tiny shrug. "We had to do some stuff on the mainland for Lucifer."

"Okay."

Yesssss. Mission Distraction: Accomplished!

"Did you have fun?"

That awkwardness came just from being awkward, at least, not from her trying to hide something.

"Well, we had to intimidate people, so..."

Another shrug. But, she'd also headbutted a security guard the night she and Larceny had met, so maybe it was obvious between the lines that she didn't exactly mind that kind of thing.

"And now I'm going out for drinks with Lucifer's friend tonight."

That part was just weird.

"Lucifer has more friends?"

...That probably came out sounding more incredulous than was polite.

"... Lucifer has a lot of friends?" Octavia offered, faintly amused, after a significant pause.

She didn't actually know if that was true. He just seemed like the type. But, huh.

"At least the one I'm supposed to drink with for some reason, yeah."

Larceny's expression was politely disbelieving. It wasn't that she doubted Octavia, perish the thought. But...Lucifer. He was pretty mean and even when he wasn't mean, he was still a shark in a person suit.

"Are you going to have fun?"

There were so many more sharks in human suits around than Larceny had realized. Including the one right here, wearing a bracelet with a metal shark on it on her wrist.

"I think that's the idea," Octavia replied, with a tiny shrug. "Won't really know before I get there, though."

Look, she'd only recently gotten back into thinking fun was even something she could have.

Yeah, Larceny would disagree most strenuously with that assessment. Sure, there were a lot of predators walking around, including Octavia, just like there were plenty of other predators in the ocean. Didn't make them sharks (and nor should anyone want to be, did you ask Larceny).

"Is that what friends do?" she asked. "Go out for drinks?"

"Sometimes." Technically, in Octavia's experience, she didn't so much 'go out for drinks' with people as she went to see people and drinks just sort of happened, but anyway. "It's an option."

Larceny nodded. "We should go out for drinks sometime," she decided. "I like drinks. And we are friends."

Octavia's lips quirked into a faint, tiny smile. Almost surprised, even though she knew she shouldn't have been.

"Sure," she decided. "But I'm not carrying you home."

She remembered that three minute date thing.

They could call Duke and make him carry them both!

"My legs did not work," Larceny said, making a disgusted face. "I was worried I had formed them wrong." And then she looked a little wistful. "But those red drinks were tasty."

"So I heard," Octavia replied, faintly amused.

Before she processed the rest, and frowned just a little bit. "Wait, what were you worried you'd done to your legs?"

Larceny looked at Octavia - and then down at her plate.

"I used the wrong word," she mumbled.

"Okay," Octavia replied, frowning just a little more now, but for a slightly different reason. "It's fine, words are weird anyway."

That was a much better excuse than just now saying anything. She knew that made Duke more suspicious of her when she did that.

"And legs are hard," Larceny grumbled. "They don't make sense."

"When you're drunk, sure," Octavia allowed.

While trying to shrug off the feeling that wasn't all it was.

No but seriously, Octavia! Have you ever really sat and thought about your legs? About how hard it is to stand, balancing precariously on two sticks, each roughly half the size of your body? With knees and hips and all sorts of other jointed, flexible parts?

IT WAS SO VERY COMPLICATED.

"They are very bendy," Larceny said. "And hard to maneuver sometimes."

You know what her fins had never done? FALLEN ASLEEP ON HER.

"I guess so," Octavia said with a shruggy tone that betrayed she had never given her legs much thought, no. Except for that time she'd been shot with an arrow in one of them, anyway.

She was still eyeing Larceny a little quizzically.

Trust her, Octavia, fins were way easier.

Larceny glanced up, caught Octavia's eye, and looked quickly back down again. You know. Totally casually and stuff.

Nothing to see here, Octavia.

Yeah, she liked doing that, didn't she? It never made her seem as casual as she maybe thought it would.

Octavia's tone softened whether she wanted it to or not. "Is everything okay, Larceny?"

She didn't think she was going to get a very clear answer.

"Oh! Yes!" Larceny said, figuring they had left the tricky world of leg questions behind. "Did I tell you I am learning how to read charts now? So we can find where I am from."

"Charts?" Octavia repeated. "Like the ones Duke has?"

"Yes!" Larceny announced, pleased. "He is letting me use them to find where I am from."

Octavia had... so many questions. But at least they were ones she could distill down to just one.

"And how's that going?"

Larceny shrugged. "I am learning how to read them. But I do not know my home the way the chart does."

Which Octavia would have found a little odd, except...

"You know, I don't know exactly where I came from, either," she said. "I mean, it's different for me because there's no way back even if I was sure, but still. I've looked at my own charts."

Edited 2020-05-04 07:50 (UTC)

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Luke's Diner, Wednesday Afternoon

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