Tales from the Seas

"You're really going to put me to work?"

The owner of the restaurant barely casts her another glance as he draws up a shift schedule. Or at least, that's what she thinks he's doing. It’s kind of hard to tell underneath the giant braided mustache. "You ate a meal, didn't pay up, and tried to make a run for it. How else are we supposed to pay our bills, lass?"

Shiri scoffs, waving at the endless amounts of water outside of the window. "What bills are you supposed to be paying? It's not like you're paying taxes to anyone out here, it’s nobody’s ocean.”

The owner raises an eyebrow at her.

Shiri raises an eyebrow back.

A chef sets a pan aflame, and several chefs berate them for charring their uniforms.

The owner nods his head at the waiter’s apron hanging from the hook on the wall.

Another chef yells out from the other side of the kitchen that the food for table four is done.

Shiri crosses her arms.

The door to the dining room creaks open, and the head of the waiter from earlier peeks in. Their eyes search the room before landing on the owner. “Am I getting help out here or…?” they ask, in a voice that’s really asking when their 15 minute break was finally going to happen.

The owner tapes a new shift schedule to the wall next to the door and taps it, looking at Shiri.

Shiri glares, throws her hands up, and grabs the waiter's apron.

The waiter looks relieved as they take the food for table four and disappear back into the dining room. Shiri shoots the owner one last huff before shouldering her way out of the kitchen.

Okay, maybe she was a little moody. Things hadn't been going great for the past few weeks! The crew that she'd been traveling with had bailed without her from a Marine-infested island. She'd managed to sneak her way onto the Marine boat, but it had, of all places, crossed over the Calm Belt and gone to East Blue. She knew she was keeping a low profile, but how was she supposed to get back to the Grand Line now? And when she'd finally gotten off the ship, it was because the Captain had wanted to eat at some restaurant floating in the middle of the ocean. Luckily, she'd simply walked into the restaurant after everyone else had disembarked and had pretended she was another customer. Unluckily, she didn't have enough berries on her to afford a meal at the moment. (This was what she got for spending most of her berries on a new information network that hadn’t gotten her anything of use about the Orange Pirates’ location. Ugh, waste of money.) (Plus, the bowels of a Marine ship were not friendly to a pirate musician looking to make a profit. Imagine if she'd tried to hold a concert there! No thanks, she was trying to keep her head down, not make a fool of herself.)

…Alright, to be fair, trying to dine and dash on a restaurant floating in the middle of the ocean hadn't been her smartest play. But she'd seen a number of customers stand and leave, so she'd simply tried to follow the crowd. Who knew the employees here had such a sharp eye?

She looks at the notepad in her hand and redirects herself towards one side of the dining room at the behest of the other waiter. Whatever. She just needs to work for a few hours and pay off the meal, right?