Revival: Of Cethore ✔

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten: When Things Go Wrong

Mornings in the temple were somewhat tricky, but Samari was ready to take on the tasks laid before her. It was the third day of her life in the guild. The routine was the same every day, which made it easy for her to become comfortable with her work.

She arrived at the kitchen a bit earlier than she needed to, not wanting to be late even by a minute. The first hour was preparing for breakfast, but most of the food was prepared the night before. The only thing left to do was to cook it all, which was done in no time with the entire team working together.

Samari seemed to have been permanently assigned to serving duty. Apparently, she was rather adept at it. Her cheerful disposition was a welcome sight first thing in the morning.

Many people somehow sensed that she was new to the guild. They introduced themselves when she greeted them, trying to make her feel welcome, although she would still have to work on actually remembering people's names.

Near the end of lunchtime, she had an unexpected visit from her noirette boss.

"Good work today, Samari. Why don't you grab yourself some food and head off for the day?" she suggested.

"Well, my shift...is only...for another twenty minutes. I might as well finish...it," she contended.

Nya abruptly walked behind the counter and hip-checked her out of the way.

"Nonsense. Your first class is today, isn't it? You have to arrive early and be prepared if you want to make an impression of just how amazing of a student you're going to be!"

Samari stammered at the words. She wanted to insist on staying and doing her work fair and square, but if she had learned anything about her boss in the past day, it was that her word is law.

"Alright then. Bu--but this will be the only time!" she demanded. "It makes me...feel bad to leave ea-early and let you guys, uhm, do the work."

The noirette laughed at her timid remark while preparing a plate for her. "You work hard enough for two people anyway. Letting yourself go early is the least you could take for yourself."

With a grin, she handed her the plate and shooed her away. Samari couldn't help but smile all while she ate her lunch.

It was definitely true that was a hard worker. Back at the orphanage, she had often picked up the slack that the other kids left in order to get them to like her. Her acts of kindness had not given her the results she had longed for.

Here it was different though. People didn't sneer at her and exclude her. They were all enthusiastic about wanting her to be their friends that she didn't quite know how to deal with it sometimes.

Well, almost all of them.

She was already used to doing extra work, so she just did it, partially out of habit. The other part of her wanted to do something nice to thank them for being so nice to her, so she did it the only way she knew how. Any other way and they would brush it aside.

"It's just how we Mystics are."

The light thoughts in her head swirled around as she got ready for class. Having spent several hours browsing through the library the night before, she had a couple that would give her a good starting place in her room.

As much as she had hoped against it, Lorilie was in the room when she got there. She was sitting at her desk sorting something--Samari couldn't tell what it was because she hid it as soon as the mina opened the door.

"Don't you knock!" Lori snared, her tail flicking up and down in agitation.

If she hadn't been covering whatever it was she didn't want anyone to see, she might have pounced on the intruder.