Crushed Love || Open ||

Quitting time. It had been another uneventful shift at work, for which Tish was always grateful. Having seen business slow down almost to a halt last year, it was great to see it picking back up, but with more customers came more dramas. The soup wasn’t hot enough, the soup was too hot, the pie wasn’t evenly brown, the fork wasn’t shiny enough, there wasn’t enough sugar in the ice cream. All genuine complaints she’d had over Christmas and New Years. That was all easily managed, she just had to smile, bite her tongue and get replacements, or in the case of the too hot soup, take it back to the kitchen and wait a minute before bringing the exact same bowl out again. Honestly, it was as though some people lacked the all crucial common sense. But that was still preferable to the arguments. Most of them never escalated beyond a bit of voice raising, some, however, did. Those were the ones that Tish had to get involved in, she tried to ease the situation as best she could but sometimes people had to be removed. Despite Tish being stronger than she looked - a lot stronger in fact - there was always another staff member that did the evicting. Katya in particular dominated the scene whenever she got involved. Was the accent? The death stare? The ‘don’t fuck with me I’ve killed before’ vibe? Tish wasn’t sure, but it worked, and people usually did as she told them.

Had the restaurant not been full of love-birds this afternoon and the place decorated to reflect the day, Tish might almost have forgotten it was Valentine’s day. Well probably not. She’d had some of the regular customers ask her a time or two if she had plans, suggesting a pretty girl like her shouldn’t be alone for the day, but Tish just chuckled and waved them off before taking their orders. She didn’t mind so much. The regular customers were sweethearts really, and besides, she always knew that her restaurant family would have her back if she ever needed them. One never-seen-before customer had the audacity to ask her out and grab her arse. Needless to say that when Katya had seen such an action the bloke had been thrown out, head first, and told never to come back. Tish could have handled it but she didn’t say anything, she just thanked Katya and was genuinely glad that she had friends where she worked, although she knew Katya would do that for any staff member, not just her friends.

Since she’d worked the afternoon shift, she wasn’t needed in the evening. She’d volunteered but shifts had already been sorted and swapped around, she just wasn’t needed. She had no plans for the evening. Having few friends left her with few options so it was probably just going to be the same as any other Saturday night. Avoid noise, get home, read a book of some kind. She’d finished her latest one, an interesting little thing about ghosts, the afterlife and what awaits. Tish wasn’t sure what would await her in the afterlife, after all she was half-vampire, but she hoped, despite the mystery, that it would be the same as everyone else. She didn’t wish to become a ghost but maybe that was what happened to people like her. There wasn’t a whole lot known about half-vampires, they were a rare breed indeed.

Tish hit the cobblestones, walking in her work outfit and only a cloak over her shoulders, clasped at the front but her hood was down. It was a measly 3 degrees and there was frost as far as the eye could see. Magic kept the cobblestones from frosting over but if it hadn’t people would be breaking their necks every which way. Tish passed couples huddled up together in warmer clothing than she had on. Luckily the brisk cold didn’t do much to her and her cloak was illusion enough to have people think that she was warm beneath it, which was somewhat true, she would have been fine without it, though. Looking at her watch she saw it was just a little past 4:30pm. It was getting darker meaning sunset was probably less than an hour away. Winter always brought the early sunsets but as they were headed closer to spring it was good to see sunset slowly creeping back to later in the day. As she continued walking, heading towards the Leaky Cauldron end of the Alley, she heard a couple having an argument from behind her. They'd just stepped out of a shop and Tish tried her hardest to distract herself and not eavesdrop but it was near impossible as the couples spat turned ugly and the woman threatened to break up with the man and he dared her to. Tish wished that she'd pulled up her hood so she could just have that little extra anonymity.


Tag: Open
Notes: <3
Outfit: Moving Along