It was not the first time that Shoshana had seen the restaurant, but Phoenix had been sure to show it to her before when it was quite empty, so as not to overwhelm her. She was still too young to understand how to behave in a setting like that, and he didn't want her upsetting customers. She was a curious thing that had no problem getting into people's faces, and he was anxious about what would happen when he brought her to work when it was busy. But he knew it had to be done, and today there'd been no choice. No one was free to watch her or Zoe, and Phoenix had been phoned at the last minute to help with a crazy rush that had come out of nowhere. No one else had been able to be reached, so the boss man had to step in.
Upon arriving Phoenix immediately looked at Shoshana when he saw how busy it was. He swore he could see her eyes double in size, and worry immediately grew in the pit of his stomach. He could see she was itching to rush inside, so he grabbed her hand in an attempt to steady her.
As they stepped in, a bright-haired, small employee stopped on her way past the podium. "Well I'll be damned! This what you were talking about, boss?" She changed course and approached the trio, holding out a hand to Shoshana. "Aren't you just the prettiest thing? I'm Miranda," the assistant manager introduced herself, grinning from ear to ear. She didn't appear to be the slightest bit put off by the strange being before her.
"Hello, pink-haired woman!" Name, lost. "I am Shoshana. It is very nice to meet you, yes! Do you work here?"
Miranda laughed. "Girl, I may as well live here. Now, I gotta go on and get back to work. They're killing us in here. You listen to your pops, okay? He's a good guy." She made sure to thump Phoenix on the back before hurrying off to whatever it was she'd originally been doing.
Shaking his head and smiling, Phoenix lead the girls through the bustling aisles of people enjoying their meals. He could feel Shoshana pulling gently as she slowed down to look at everything and everyone around her. The smells were also completely overwhelming her, and she wanted to rush to the source of it all -- the kitchen. But she followed as told, with Zoe bringing up the rear, until they reached a booth in the back.
"I'll get some snacks and drinks out to you girls, and some coloring pages. Hopefully this won't take too long. I'm going to try and get things under control and then we can go home, okay?"
Both nodded, and Phoenix planted a kiss on each of their heads before hurrying off to fetch an apron and help get things back in order. Once alone, the girls looked at each other.
"It was not like this before, no. It was empty. Are there many times when there are a lot of people?" She smiled and thanked the waiter that immediately brought them glasses of water and kid's menus with crayons to color with. She took a long drink.
"Sometimes. Most of the time, I guess," Zoe said with a shrug. She picked up a crayon and started coloring. "A lot of people like dad's food, so it gets busy a lot, but not always like this."
They spent a few minutes coloring, Shoshana looking up frequently as people walked by. They were seated directly next to the kitchen, so it was incredibly difficult for her to focus.
Eventually it became too much for her to handle. Zoe was distracted with her coloring and didn't even notice when her Raevan sister floated out of the booth and turned sharply into the kitchen, unaware that she was not supposed to be there. For a brief moment she remained unnoticed, as the crew busily hurried about prepping and cooking, and she hovered there gawking at them. It was just like when Phoenix cooked, but more! What otherworldly foods required so many people to cook at once? And the smells, oh, the smells!
Just as one of the cooks shouted, "Hey!" she lunged forward towards a rack of fresh bread, inhaled deeply and sighed. By then everyone else in the kitchen had been alerted to her presence, but most said and did nothing as she zoomed back and forth to look at everything. She hovered over their shoulders, examining what they were doing, and rushed about over all the food and equipment, her ribbon dangling dangerously close to the stoves as she flew over them. The one thing she refrained from doing was touching the food, in case she got carried away and ate any of it.
"You're not supposed to be back here," asserted one of the prep cooks, moving towards the Frei as she leaned in to smell some meat being grilled. She straightened up just before her hair brushed the flames and saw the man, and immediately backed up in alarm. When she did so she backed straight into a tall stack of trays with rising dough and sent the whole thing clattering to the floor.
"Oh no--" A hand flew to her lips, and the Raevan hurried away from the scene as everyone scrambled to clean up the mess and salvage what they could before it hit the floor. She ducked through the other entrance to the kitchen back into the dining room, where she promptly forgot the mess she had just made and was distracted once again by the excitement all around her.
Her first order of business was to examine the food that had just been brought out to one woman. The poor thing gasped when Shoshana zoomed up, hovering right over her food. "What on earth--"
"That looks very delicious, yes! What is it called?" Before the woman could do any more than stutter the Frei took off, casually wandering through the tables. Wherever Phoenix was, he was not yet aware of what was happening, and Zoe hadn't come looking for her either.
Shoshana's next stop was to slide directly into a booth next to a young man who had a sharp spike right through his lip, along with a number of rings in both ears. With a look of awe she reached forward to touch the spike, then gasped at the feel of it. "Hey!" The man exclaimed, looking outraged that anyone would dare touch him without permission.
Completely unaware of the chaos she was causing, Shoshana continued to disrupt guests in this manner, asking them all sorts of questions, touching clothes and hair and causing a great deal of people discomfort. The more she went on the more it seemed to give her a sort of energy, and nothing anyone said or did alerted her to the fact that was she was doing wasn't okay.
Finally, after a good portion of the restaurant was filled with grumbling and several people had stood up to find someone to complain to, Miranda came rushing towards Shoshana with Zoe in tow. The little girl looked worried, and Miranda seemed to be alternating between concern and mild aggravation. "Hey! Girl, what are you doing?"
The Frei didn't quite understand the question. She smiled at Miranda, then when she saw the woman wasn't doing so back her grin faded slowly. Suddenly she looked rather concerned herself, and she lifted a hand to bite at her knuckles. "I did something bad, yes?"
Miranda sighed, understanding all of a sudden that this creature was nothing more than a child. "You can't go about bothering people when they're eating," she explained gently, putting a hand on Shoshana's back and leading her back to the booth. As they went on she apologized to the irritated guests while Shoshana gave them sheepish smiles. "People come here to eat and be comfortable, and to be left alone. They don't like it when they're disturbed, and they especially don't like being touched without permission." She stared at the Frei sternly. "That's a very, very important lesson for you to learn. You never touch other people without permission. Got it kid?"
Shoshana looked down, feeling ashamed at her behavior. "I am sorry. I will stay out of the way now, yes," she mumbled solemnly as she slunk back into the booth.
"Hey, chin up kid," Miranda said brightly. "Everyone has to learn one way or another. Now, I'm gonna go find your dad and break it to him gently that his restaurant is full of angry customers," she said with a laugh, suddenly grateful that she had a good relationship with a very understanding boss. She noted that Shoshana was lucky she had such a sweet guy for a dad, because this was going to take some smoothing over.
A Halloween carnival had popped up near Ambrosia, and Shoshana found herself wandering the attractions on the evening of Halloween. It had an occult theme, with witches selling potions in bottles, (which are just ciders of all kinds) bobbing apples in cauldrons, a fortune telling booth, and even a tent where a supposingly witch is telling tales of Halloween to kids and teenagers. Sadly missing is a haunted house attraction, although they have a small museum of oddities. What would Shoshana do at the carnival? And what tales would she learn about this spooky celebration?
Not even a month old and Shoshana found herself tagging along with the Argyris clan to something called a "carnival". Phoenix had had some reservations about bringing the baby Frei to something so chaotic and full of people, especially after the incident at the restaurant only days prior, but the girls were too excited for him to say no (even if Shoshana wasn't entirely sure what was going on).
The sun had already gone down as they approached the park where the carnival was being held. The trio wandered in and were immediately swarmed by children rushing between various attractions.The whole place was lit up by strings of lights between the old-fashioned lanterns and trees, and various tents and booths glowed welcomingly.
"Anything you girls wanna do?" Phoenix asked, his attention drawn to a table of candy apples just begging to be devoured. But he held his ground, wanting to attend to the girls and their wants first.
Zoe's little eyes immediately honed in on the pretty potion bottles, and she grabbed both Shoshana and Phoenix's hands and dragged them to the table. "May I have one, please?" she asked politely as her father paid the woman running the booth. She handed over a fun, festive plastic bottle with a cork in it, which Zoe immediately sipped. When offered one as well both Phoenix and Shoshana politely declined. "It tastes like pumpkin," Zoe noted as they continued on.
While they moved through the park not much seemed to draw their attention in general other than Shoshana's usual excitement at seeing new things. But as they approached a fountain at the center of the park they saw a great deal of people gathered. Someone seemed to be telling a story!
"Come, let us see!" Shoshana urged, always eager to hear a story. As she approached she saw the storyteller seated at the edge of the fountain, dressed in dark robes and speaking animatedly.
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 7:56 pm
part 2
Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:15 pm
Solo - Sho meets the grandparents. Up until now family dinners have been cancelled due to them not wanting to meet her, but they've finally made plans to do so (early November)
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:17 pm
solo - phoenix decides to postpone the vacation to greece, much to the dislike of his parents, causing another rift - june or july??
Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:19 pm
prp - bookshop bonding
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Posted: Fri Aug 11, 2017 8:44 pm
solo - sho talks to phoenix about meeting laurel and is surprised at what she finds out
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