if more of us valued food and cheer and song

[goodfella]

Robin prefers his regular staff. They're regular for a reason, after all. They're regular because they work the most like him, do the best, learn the fastest, and he likes them. He trusts them more. The fact remains that they all get two days off a week, and sometimes they get sick. Sometimes they need a personal day. If the reason is good enough, or the lie is fanciful enough, he lets it slide.

Not getting paid is punishment enough, mostly, to Robin.

"Take it back to the kitchen," he tells his server. "And when you get there, ask him if that looks med-rare to him. If he says yes, tell his ass he's fired, immediately, and he can leave his apron here. I need people in the kitchen who know what to do with a piece of beef. Especially a piece of beef."

Considering the sort of clientele that Semele's served -- varied -- it was seldom a good idea to serve an overcooked piece of meat. They might start looking elsewhere, for something a bit fresher. Violence is verboten on the premises, of course, but it doesn't hurt to make sure it never enters the equation, either. No matter Robin's opinion on werewolves and their many related ilk.

Comments

[willowed]

His disgruntled look earns a laugh from Nuriko, not disrespectful, but certainly poking some amount of fun at his troubles, which seem relatively small in the grand scheme of things. Possibly. It hasn't escaped Nuriko's notice that the clientele here is different, markedly so, but as far Nuriko's concerned, one overcooked slab of meat probably won't break any camel's back.

Though she does harbor appreciation for the way Robin takes it upon himself to finish the food, not letting it go to waste.

"Your standards are pretty high," Nuriko points out, leaning into the palm of her hand and smiling at Robin's movements, clipped and precise. "Is that something that's expected from your kind? Or just a habit developed over the many years through which you've been stealing the hearts of the unsuspecting public?"

[goodfella]

Pausing with fork halfway to his mouth, he raises a hand to one of the other servers, using his particular, Robin Goodfellow form of sign language. One finger for one bottle of red wine (a heady red will go just as well with sweet and salty fudge as it will with the fine beef). Two fingers for two glasses. Crooked palm for bring it over here and don't dawdle. True, that Robin drinks on the job, and large amounts, but he always takes it out of his own bottom line at the end of the week. He is far too shrewd to run his own business out of business.

And this is a conversation that needs wine.

"Good of you to figure it out without being told," he says, finally letting the food reach his mouth. There were at least a number of employees that still had not got that far, that Robin was not even a little human despite appearances. He makes no efforts to hide what he is, but he makes no more than that to reveal it.

"My standards are high because I've consumed a lot of food in my life. I know what's good, and I know that good is better. If it's not better, it's really not worth it. I am no fan of mediocrity when I could have a meal that I remember."

And the same would apply, from Robin, to much.

[willowed]

"People here assume humanity in everyone," Nuriko considers, swirling her spoon briefly in the ice cream and letting her gaze run more unabashedly over Robin now that her suspicions have been confirmed. Like Shouka, there's nothing about Robin that speaks much to him being anything but human; his complexion, his curls, the brightness of his eyes, they all carry traits that Nuriko would think of as human, however presumptuous that label might be. "It actually worries me. Don't know what started it, but it feels like a step back from my time. We were... pretty quick to spot others. Demons, ghouls, spirits."

With another relished bite of ice cream, Nuriko sighs, licking her spoon clean.

"I wouldn't have come here to work if the boss wasn't interesting. Funny that the boss focuses on food, of all things — it makes it pretty clear that even if I have one detail about you pinned down, that's a far, far cry from actually understanding you." She lets out a sigh, slightly playful. "I wish I was better at that sleuthing thing."

[goodfella]

"It isn't necessarily a step back in all cases," Robin says with a shrug, attention half-devoted to enjoying the meal he's currently cutting into a few more polite cubes. "Only because the playing field will level itself out eventually. The predators end up having a harder time lately, too. If you want to call them that."

He stops to chew, with a dart of his brows. A moment for both their consideration.

"And you should know that flattery will get you everywhere." He quirks a smile. "Food is an interesting thing. There are a lot of supposed vices that are essentially voluntary. Recreational sex. Drinking. Smoking. But of all of them, there are only two that you can't give up completely without digging your own swift grave. Sleep -- and eating. Everyone's got to do them. Er, with some rare exceptions."

He is uncertain that Wahanket needed either. Salome certainly does not.

[willowed]

"Ooh, but the voluntary ones are fun. Well, I think," Nuriko says, pausing slightly as she purses her lips in thought. "I drink, and I can drink people many times my size under the table. I've smoked before, though that wasn't too much fun, highly overrated. I've gambled. Sex is a little more complicated. I've pleasured others... but never the other way around." She licks at her spoon without preamble, chasing after the sweetness left before digging for more ice cream.

Watching his expression change with some curiosity — he's very expressive, after all, and in a way that Nuriko can tell isn't precisely human, though close — she beams at the end.

Exceptional is good, right?

"Also, you're looking at an exception. I don't need to sleep or eat. Anymore."

[goodfella]

"Anymore?" Robin asks, with a surprised and deliberate arch of his brows in inquisition. That's certainly not a modifier he would have thought might be necessary at the end of a delivery like that.

But Robin knows better than to be stuck on any one particular way of thinking.

Darting a finger out, he steals some of the fudge from the lip of Nuriko's bowl and takes it for himself.

[willowed]

"I passed away some months ago," chirps Nuriko, spouting out the words like they're nothing at all, not of any consequence. Which, in some ways, they aren't anymore. She passed away, there's no way to undo it, and all things considered, her existence is pretty fun in spite of that setback.

Even if she misses a few key individuals.

"I'm just using someone else's body for the time being. Well, soul. The looks are all my own."

[goodfella]

Robin's eyes widen at the reveal of information, surprised but not startled, not worried or discomfited. He is surprised more by the lack of discomfort in Nuriko's own words more than anything. Though, after a thought, he realizes that perhaps he should not be.

"Someone else's body?" he asks, all intense curiosity. He doesn't wait for an answer before slicing off another large piece of the improperly done steak and chewing. He hasn't had a conversation quite this engaging in some time, and he appreciates that even more than the food on his plate.

[willowed]

"Living inside the body of a servant of the great sage of our world. The servant's name is Nyan Nyan, and the great sage is Taiitsukun," Nuriko shares, smile broadening in spite of herself. The old hag was actually pretty friendly when she wasn't being asked for favors or to disseminate information. Nuriko only found that out after her death, soul hovering around Mt. Taikyoku, waiting for when she'd be next needed. "Nyan Nyan was created by Taiitsukun, I'm pretty sure. She doesn't put up any sort of fuss about letting me use her body here. She doesn't even react to me in any manner. So."

Nuriko shrugs, tapping her chin.

"I figure she's a woman-made shell for me to use. Quieted by something in the city, probably. Don't ask me what. I haven't tried expelling myself from the body yet; I'm a little afraid I won't be able to make my way back in."

[goodfella]

"You are a spirit," Robin observes. Many paien spirits who had no bodies of their own were parasites by nature, living off other bodies (though not always controlling them.) Darkling had been a particularly nasty example, worthy of a little mental mouth-frothing. Robin had never heard of a case such as this, though. For all intents, Nuriko would seem to be a human soul, possessing another body.

That he had never heard of.

"Don't try," Robin urges. He likes a gamble as well as the next man, but he prefers continued survival over chance-taking. For himself, and for those he has taken a shine to. "Unless there is no other alternative, I mean. It is just probably not worth the risk. You do love ice cream, after all, and I like having servers."

[willowed]

For the most part, Nuriko agrees. Her actions probably will, if nothing else; the biggest risk seems to be one where expelling herself might leave her a spirit that most can't see or interact with. It isn't the food she's after so much as companionship. A life where her voice can't be heard by those around her isn't much of an existence.

Briefly, she wonders if Robin would still be able to interact with her, were she to lose corporeal form.

"I won't try for now," she says, expression briefly conflicted. "But what happens if that's the only way for me to get out of this place? I'm supposed to be recycled soon, you know. Starting another life. Now I'm caught in this strange in-between."

[goodfella]

"Good," Robin says quickly, poking at the last bite of the steak on the plate and shuffling it through the red juices.

The mention of being recycled lifts his green eyes. It should startle him less, but he has spent too much of his life in the last few thousand years chiefly (and blissfully) in the clutches of a Western human civilization. The idea of reincarnation went largely out of fashion among those sort of people some time ago.

For someone like Nuriko, it must not have.

"To live such a liminal existence is no doubt very difficult. Having a beginning and end is more or less your birthright. I do ... feel for you."

He leaves it at that, not skilled by effusive expression of such attachment. Not practiced for some time, and easily exhausted. But he wants her to know it. That he understands, perhaps better than she might guess.

[willowed]

She stares for a bit, and perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that Robin understands. At least, he's bound to conceptualize it more clearly than the standard human would, having been exposed and choosing to expose himself still to so many different creatures and their ways of living. But it's also not the typical bright-toothed smile that he shares, nor the heated temper that flares quietly on occasion; instead, Nuriko files it away as something new, probably not often exposed, and thus to be cherished.

"Oi, boss, who knew that you were such a feeling guy," she exclaims with a sudden grin, reaching out to pat him heavily on the shoulder — heavily, at least, for a human. "Gosh, the way you're looking at me now, you'd think that you were a relative of mine! Family. Or maybe even a former lover, goodness. You know how to make a girl blush."

In spite of her light tone, there's genuine gratitude in her smile, cheeks flushed a pretty rose.

She doesn't really need the sympathy, but it's certainly nice to have.