#does this come off as a rude recollection? i dunno its the best I got lol

[thedarkmistress16]

Can you share a story about a rude customer?

So typically I come across customers who're already in a bad mood, but very few of them have entitlement issues? Like one woman entered during our opening hours (barely anyone was in the store that morning so I was stocking) and asked me questions about a specific charging cord that told me she doesn't go to this store normally and only stopped in for one quick thing without realizing or knowing what store she was in? (more on this later) I told her where the aisle was, how far down it was and what side it was on, turning back to my task. And a few seconds passed before the lady answered in a "well can you help me?" with attitude in her voice and in a way that implied she expected me to guide her over to that section and be one-on-one with her? Which is fine but the more you spend talking to customers the less time you have for your other tasks and bada bing you've got a long line of customers (time is money). Plus, the lady immediately gave me: oh she's a bitch vibes when she addressed me and my internal defensive measures had me being curt but courteous with her while answering to the best of my ability (I've been there a few months at that point and our electronics section is really hit or miss, on top of me not personally using those products in particular because of the kind of store this is and typical product quality).

Soon as I was talking with her my manager stepped out and took over, and I moved back to my original task. I overheard snippets of the woman's attitude and my manager's underlying and growing frustration and shortness with her, so I knew it was the customer being problematic and asking unnecessary questions (ex: our prices are clearly marked in that particular section). Stuff like the customer saying "yeah that's what I meant" as if the employees are stupid or didn't specifically understand the question to answer it correctly (or, what the customer wants to hear).

Eventually, my manager walked to stand next to me and the customer came up in line and directly asked me how long I've been working there (implying like I had no idea what I was doing). Without missing a beat, I held eye contact with her and I resolutely responded with thin patience: "Oh I've been here for a while/a few months now," as my manager oversaw the transaction and the woman's surprised "Oh." back. She didn't say anything else more to me. When the customer left, my manager and I shared the same kind of look that everyone who deals with those kinds of customers do and stated along the lines of: "I don't know what her problem is."

But then she came back in again and asked my manager about some directions? So I dunno if she was rushing around and didn't look at any signs for our store or lived outside of the area or just running an errand or what, but whatever it was had her looking for a charging cord in a general-type store with a tiny electronics section that only works for specific ports. Yeah, I dunno.

[believerindaydreams]

@exoplaneeet some fic for you, cos I felt bad about your lack of CS/FL fic...well, actually it’s more SS than FL, with a post-game Tireless Mechanic. (If some of the lore’s off, please note that I have not actually played that much of CS yet...)

The Unrepentant Smuggler leaning against her study wall looks wry and relaxed, from neatly groomed mustache to mildly anachronistic boots. He does not, the Cynical Herald reflects, seem like a man who spent half a Zee voyage raving mad and tied up in his own hammock. Then again, the mutual friend who introduced them is a player of the Great Game; appearances count for less than nothing. 

“Ever since our trip to the Shattered Citadel,” he says. “I tried to loot something that the Mechanic told me not to, and, well, things got a little sticky.”

“No promises, you understand? Secret histories are fraught territory at the best of times, and I’m not even a Know yet.”

The Smuggler shrugs with evident lack of comprehension. “Better than nothing. We’ve been trying honey, laudanum, warm airag- do you know how foetid warm mare’s milk is? And none of it’s done any good. I just keep on dreaming.”

“If nightmares frighten you, go back to the Surface,” the Herald says indifferently. “Or simply wait it out. Even in the Neath, you’ll find that dreams have a tendency to cycle into complacency eventually.”

He glances her over, with the practiced eye of a born hustler, and speaks one word: “Illopoly.”

After that, __ it, she has to listen. 

A blackened engine warms the Physius to a nigh-intolerable point; the launch’s warm is very welcome to her bones, after years of witnessing Kingeater’s cold. Anyhow, their after-dinner Sangiovese is perfectly chilled, after a stint in the iceless ice box. 

“I take it the Mechanic’s as inventive as ever,” the Herald says, cutting herself neat slices of imported Parmesan. “To say nothing of thoughtful- I wouldn’t have expected such an appropriate tithe for my trouble. Or any at all, come to that.”

“Oh, well, that’s Ma- that’s the Mechanic for you,” the Smuggler agrees. “Do you mind if we get down to business now? Only I’d rather get it all out of the way before he wakes up. Talking about nightmares makes him real nervous.”

She studies the sleeping engineer, blissfully comatose now the ship’s safely docked, and nods. “All right. Is it always the same one? Are there patterns?”

“It starts with a desk. Faded viric-”

“It would have to be.”

“Which is far from my favourite colour,” the Smuggler says irritably, “but in the dream, I’m hanging on to the thing for dear life. Because there’s nothing else in the entire universe- literally nothing else to look at, except this desk and a pack of cards. So obviously I start laying out the cards for a game of solitaire, because what else are you going to do? Only that’s when it gets weird.”

“Trionfi,” the Herald murmurs, and draws a small case from her pocket. “Do you recognise any of these, by chance?”

He rummages through the pack. “A few. The Sun-in-Rags, that’s familiar. The Watchman. The Red Grail-”

“You needn’t invoke them,” the Herald says rather sharply, over the sleeper’s choking snore; she brushes an unkempt lock from his face, and he breathes easier again. “How new to the Neath are you?“

“Couple of years.” The Smuggler smiles crookedly. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it, however groovy the zeppelins are. Sorry. Only I don’t know what else you’d call them...”

“Don’t. Just point, and describe your symptoms.”

He does, for the following hour, while she takes notes in graceful Italian script. Possibly he is probing her knowledge of the occult for his own purposes, but the suspicion ebbs as she listens to his fraught accounting; clearly the Smuggler’s unaware of the greater import of his dreaming, and just as clearly doesn’t wish to. 

“After a while I’m not myself any more. The longer I’m playing, the more natural it feels to me- if I spend nights walking through city streets, I find myself weary to exhaustion. I tend people’s wounds with hands that understand scalpels better than control columns. Wake up expecting to be young and beautiful and ravenous, when I shouldn’t be any of those things.” The Smuggler picks up a worn, brimmed cap, strokes it absently. “Simple hypnosis would be a piece of cake by comparison. So. Can you help me?”

Putting off the answer will be false kindness. “I can guide you, certainly. Lead you through the Mansus, bring you to apotheosis, but there’s a price. Though one,” she says, not looking at the innocent in the shadows, “that you might find easier to pay than he would.”

“Go on,” he says, with ready eagerness. 

“Death,” she returns. “Not yours, other people’s. Acquaintances, friends, lovers. Special constables who’ll trace your trail. The prisoners who gave away everything they were, to be broken for your plans- and you will break them, before all’s well. The great appeal of Seeking,” the Herald says, as she links up wood-whispers, “is its solitude, the joys of private watches in the night and hugging secrets to your own heart. Cults are another affair altogether. But perhaps none of this worries you.”

“Not so much, now you’ve put it that way,” the Smuggler says, sober for a moment. “Sounds like I’ll just have to put up with this. Doomed to a lot of tedious clerical work every night, whoo.”

“Then the dreams will continue. Worsen, I should expect. Best improve your shining Hours, or find yourself consumed by them.“

“Which is the Neath all over, isn’t it...so it’s spending every night of my life wrapped up in these visions until I pay off the sacrifices?”

“Yes.”

Improbably, the Smuggler is smirking. “Guess I’m gonna have to ask the Mechanic for the recipe to that Darkdrop mess of his. He did warn me it might come to that.”

“A little more than that. Consider yourself under a geas from now on, as far as cardplay goes.“

That’s when he heaves the sigh. “Aw. Well, that’s okay. I never could beat anybody at Texas hold-em, anyway- hang about. How am I supposed to get by in London without the arcana? I mean, I wouldn’t be able to chat up factions, or find the way to my club, or anything...you sure that’s necessary?”

“There are...unspoken resonances,” the Herald says. “Lore has a way of drawing like to like, water always finds its level. You’ll find yourself making these connections whether you want to or no.”

“How about no,” the Smuggler mutters, and abruptly downs the remainder of his forgotten wine. “Okay. So it’s a strictly undercover, jati existence for me from now on- well, that’s okay. I wasn’t exactly a society highlight in the first place. Anyway, the Mechanic will always have my back.“

The affection, the swaggering intimacy, of the expression he casts at his partner takes the Herald off-guard; not for what it says about him, but herself, the unfamiliar kean of jealousy. Conversations left studiously unspoken, natural shipboard camaraderie and what goes for more than that, her ceaseless vigil at the loneliest place in the Neath. Necessary work, of sure and certain applications, but evidently more corrosive than she’d observed. 

Here is a man, persuasive and fascinating and brimful of mystique; and here is his lover. Suffering from an affliction so exotic, no London physic could possibly promise him a cure. 

“He came all the way here with you,” the Herald says, in a flat tone that threatens no more than it promises. “I wonder why. Kingeater’s Castle is about the last place anyone would seek refuge.”

“Yeah, I asked about that. He said...something about Dockers,“ the Smuggler says, chewing thoughtfully on his mustache. “Your being shipmates together, before, he trusts you. And didn’t want anybody else getting hold of me, in case...well, I dunno, they wanted to turn me inside out to rip a hole through the space-time continuum, or something kooky like that.”

That reasoning, now, sounds like a certain spy of her recollection. “In short, you’re at my mercy.”

“Completely,” the Smuggler agrees, with perfect self satisfaction. He winks. 

She grimaces.

There is very little for the Mechanic to repair at Kingeater’s; but he finds a pile of murder-dimmed knives and busies himself sharpening them to usefulness. Which is just about typical, the Smuggler figures. 

“...so. All’s well?”

“Uh-huh,” the Smuggler says complacently. “Slept like a top last night- or should I say, slept as hard as you? You were sure out of it yesterday. Missed a nice roasted blemmigan.”

“Hey, nursemaiding you here from Godfall wasn’t an easy job. To say nothing of sacrificing all those zee-stories.”

The Smuggler shifts uncomfortably. “She says you’re a damned optimistic fool, by the way. Well, not in so many words, it was more elegant language, but you know what I mean.“

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Said that it was ridiculous for you to think that a curse like this could be lifted without any blood being spilt, but fortunately she was clever enough to dissipate it harmlessly. Bully for your old navigator and all that.”

“That’s not what I had in mind at all. Not that it’s any of my business, but I thought she’d try to take it herself. I mean, look at this place,” the Mechanic says, waving at the castle’s ruins. “It’s ghastly, it’s freezing cold, and the only company is an occasional batch of half-dead zailors, who’ll probably try to eat you on sight. Some quiet warm dreaming about cities and real people would have done her a lot of good, I thought. But if she decided it was too dangerous, I suppose that’s her decision.”

“That tool,” the Smuggler says, voice suddenly edged with hostility. “The one you told me not to touch.”

“What about it?”

“You specifically pointed out that thing in the Citadel, just to warn me not to touch it. Me. Your notoriously greedy, treasure hunting buddy.”

“Now, I wouldn’t have said that. It’d be rude.”

“...did you hijack me? Did I spend a month blithering out of my skull so that you could get a curse from A to B, just to cheer up your ex-shipmate?”

“Don’t be silly,“ the Mechanic says loftily. “If it was that important to me, why wouldn’t I have done it myself?”

The Smuggler considers. “Cos messing around with dreaming on that level might have earned you unwanted attention in Parabola again. What ever happened to that worm, anyway?”

“What worm?”

“The one you put in the suncatcher. The one that was trying to kill you, so you couldn’t sleep for ages. That worm.”

“Oh,” the Mechanic says, with relief. “We gave it to the Khanate to get rid of, they’re good at disposing of stuff like that. And that was a snake. Not the same thing at all.”

“You sure? I know I’ve seen that in old fairy tales- worms are dragons, dragons are snakey sort of things...”

Above them, in a half-ruined tower, the Herald makes a note to herself. 

A preposterous suggestion. And yet, and yet- if the Khanate’s unwanted visitors were merely cast off elsewhere, does the war of illusions continue on another plane? Will I find my Mechanic’s foe there, reincarnated as some viscid ouroboros worm?

Strange to say, but I look forward to finding out...