ALL NOVEL 3: A Customer’s Internal Crisis
After standing in the kitchen and enjoying each other’s warmth for a few minutes, Astrid yawned before asking Valencia to explain more about the tea shop.
Valencia, flicking one hand to levitate a few of the highchairs up and over the bar, continued to cook with her other hand as Astrid detached from her. “Well it’s more of a pastry and tea shop, but I serve the pastries kinda... irregularly. It’s a ‘whenever I make them’ thing instead of an ‘everyday’ type of thing.”
“Ohhh! That’s nice! It’s... like what we talked about back then under the stars every night...” Astrid trailed off with a reminiscing smile before motioning for Valencia to continue explaining as she made her way over to one of the stools. “But like... last I remembered, we were both students who had just graduated. Have you been running the store for the past few months? Also, your powers are so pretty as always!”
“Thank you, I’ve been practicing! But also... no, no,” Valencia clarified, sitting beside Astrid and handing her some utensils. “I just repurposed an old building that I owned when I came back here. I spent a while setting up and renovating. Then, I opened up the cafe a couple of days ago.”
“‘Repurposed an old building you owned?’” Astrid questioned before a lightbulb flickered to life in her mind, “You did mention you inherited a ton of money and property in your hometown...”
“Yeah, we were planning on opening a cafe before we graduated and since... you know, stuff happened, I just went ahead and opened one. We don’t have to keep it open for too long, and there’s no real pressure to make a ton of money anyway.” Valencia shrugged, checking the time on her phone before digging in.
“No, no,” Astrid shook her head as a smile broke out on her face, “It’s so pretty, I could never dream of closing it—it’s just how we wanted! It has a cozy theme, wooden interior, and serves tea and pastries just as we had talked about!”
Reaching over and grabbing some napkins, Astrid leaned against Valencia. “We should at least try to keep it open for a while, if it really comes down to it, we can then talk about other stuff. Since it's a city, I’m sure I could make a few trips to the hospital to practice my powers once I start to get better too!”
Deciding to change the topic after Valencia nodded and gave a thumbs up, Astrid poked at the fruit-filled breakfast laid out in front of her. “So how do you run this place? When do you open?”
“It’s pretty easy,” Valencia tapped her chin, staring off into a random corner, “I’ve been open for a bit now. I’ve initially set the schedule so that the store is open every day of the week, but I might take a couple days off the schedule so that we can go do stuff.”
Mumbling a “sounds good” through a strawberry halfway in her mouth, Astrid gave a thumbs up of her own as Valencia paused the conversation to eat her portion of breakfast.
With the clock ticking along for a few minutes as the two became engrossed in their breakfast, Astrid’s eyes widened as she blew her nose while watching Valencia wipe her mouth and stand up to put her plates away. It wasn’t unexpected, Astrid had always been a slow eater, but for Valencia to demolish one and a half plates in the time it took Astrid to finish half of her own?
Thrice the eating speed!
Pushing it off as a temporary aftereffect from the coma she had been in, Astrid kept eating her maple syrup drenched waffle as Valencia walked over to the end of the bar, grabbing her keys before walking over to the front door.
“Technically there’s still ten minutes before we open, but just for the sake of demonstration we can open a little early,” Valencia laughed, unlocking the door and flipping the sign hanging from the door. “It’s not a big deal, yeah? I can lock it again if you want to sit in peace for a little longer.”
“Well... I uh... I pretty much just woke up. I’m here to just hang out,” Astrid shrugged and looked around. “So don’t ask me. Unless you want me to start working? If so then I need a little longer to change and stuff...”
“You don’t need to do anything,” Valencia fluttered her hand while shaking her head, “I can carry you back up to your room if you want to lay down. Otherwise, you can just sit down here and hang out.? Up to you.”
“I’ll hang out!” Astrid grinned with a thumbs up, “Seems fun! Do you get a lot of mean customers?”
“Nah,” Valencia shook her head, walking back behind the bar-counter area to sit next to Astrid, “The people in the city are generally all pretty nice.”
Well, Valencia—from personal experience—knew that the people who came to her cafe were... generally quite amicable. She was pretty sure they’d be nice to Astrid as well.
Marcen’s Cliffs was a city jam-packed with deities, so being nice to strangers was a prudent move, lest they turned out to be a deity with a pastime of smiting poor mortals. Plus, because Marcen’s Cliffs had become a city where the elite of every faction gathered, a fair few people knew how to sense divinity.
For Valencia, those people were the easiest to deal with.
Bishop from the Church of Eternity? Vice Admiral from the Cerulean Dynasty? Marquis from the Federation of Obsidian? All Valencia had to do was send a glare in their direction before they’d scamper off, afraid for their lives.
Valencia hoped she wouldn’t have to do much threatening or fighting though. Her hope was to just hang out with Astrid for the rest of the morning, cuddling and laughing without a care in the world.
The store wasn’t going to get many customers anyway. Valencia opened the store just a few days prior without any marketing after all.
---
Faint footsteps.
With her long cloak and shoulder-length brown hair billowing behind her, Adelyn’s purposeful strides marked Adelyn’s path down the street at the crack of dawn. Adelyn wasn’t an early riser, but excitement had pushed her out of bed nonetheless.
Adelyn, contrary to her icy persona, was an enthusiast—a connoisseur even—of cafes. Because she had heard a new, cute cafe had opened up just outside the heart of Marcen’s Cliffs, Adelyn had carved out the morning to go visit it before heading off to work.
Chuckling under her breath at the thought of her subordinates freaking out if they knew of this hobby of hers—because it contrasted so much with her work persona—Adelyn lifted her chin to survey the street. The store was tucked away in a cozy corner down a small, out of the way street. Though tucked away, it was in a good district, one of the safest in all of Marcen’s Cliffs.
Well, chances were the owners of the cafe didn’t know how safe the district was—Adelyn was almost sure of it. Only the upper members of the major organizations and the deities who led them had access to the accurate maps depicting the city and its safety levels.
Arriving at the front door, Adelyn looked up to see an elegant sign reading [Leaves of Dawn] hanging outside the door.
Then, reaching out, she froze.
Retracting her hand from the door knob, Adelyn pursed her lips.
There was just a simple problem.
Just inside the store, Adelyn could sense there were two deities, one much, much stronger than the other, but two nonetheless.
Taking a deep breath, the thought of turning on her heel and returning home flashed across Adelyn’s mind.
But... It was too late now and it wasn’t like there were any pressing, true deal-breakers either.
The cafe wasn’t closed (she had made sure to come early to skip the line), the cafe didn’t have any pressing safety concerns (like an ongoing multi-deity brawl session), and, in general, the cafe seemed totally normal (as long as Adelyn ignored her ability to sense divinity.
It was... just... deities were scary—especially since she herself was just a mortal. Plus, all her bosses were deities as well...
“Calm down...” Adelyn broke the silence while shaking her head. “Stop thinking so much. Now is not the time to think about work you... you... argh. Just stay calm...”
And so, one deep breath later, Adelyn pushed the door open, making her way inside with cautious footsteps.
