Inverted Deck

Inverted Deck (Chapter 16)

Chapter 16

I open the Diner's doors in front of my mother, and almost immediately, I'm overwhelmed by how packed the Diner is. Just about every wooden table in the large room that is the eating area is filled with plates of food scattered around, and even more groups of Orcs, Elvien couples, and families of humans cuddled around the tables, scarfing down various meats and pies as if it were their last meal.

"You weren't kidding." I say as I hold the door for my mother to walk through.

"Told ya', your father is making his signature Rib n' Sweet potato pie special today, so folks have been piling in since noon. Thanks, and you're on waiter duty again today, by the way." She responds as I close the door behind us.

"Yeah, I assumed so."

We walk to the side heading on our way to the back of the dinery behind the counter, when I feel a familiar tingle. A tingle I've felt before, today in fact. With every step I take the tingle, the signal gets stronger and stronger and then I realize it; this is the exact same feeling I got from both my Mother and Mika earlier.

"Mika's here?" I think.

Now it's gotten so strong, I can practically feel it pulling and tugging on my left eye. So I decide to stop, and turn to where the signal is pulling me.

My eyes involuntarily widen, as I lock eyes with a dark skinned Elvien across the room, with long and wild black hair like that of a Lion's mane, adorned with large red feathers, eye's as black as a starless night sky, two red feathers attached to a necklace wrapped around her neck and plump and glossy lips, smeared with what seems to be... barbecue sauce?

I quickly notice that she's eating some of my father's famous rib's, but as soon as I do she quickly stops eating and looks up directly at me, sending an instant chill throughout my whole body. Frozen in place, my environment begins to "freeze" as well. The sounds around me quickly become white noise, the Orcs, humans and even other female Elvien around get zoned out, as if they were backgrounds in a show or a photo, as far as I'm concerned the entire world is frozen, and the only thing my brain is focused on right now, is her.

*CLACK CLACK CLACK*

That focus is immediately broken, as my father loudly clamps his pair of tongs in my face multiple times.

"Hey, no eyeing the customer's." He begins, side eyeing me with his right eye full of red streaks, where the white is supposed to be.

"Who said-!"

"Time to start workin', and stop flirtin'." My father says cutting me off as he walks off with a large plate of steamy ribs.

I quickly glance back at the Dark Elvien, and see her wiping her mouth softly with a white handkerchief.

I walk over to my mother standing by the staircase with her signature hands-on-the-hips stance.

Right as I begin to walk past her heading into the staircase she says to me, "You felt it too didn't you?"

"What?" I ask.

"I saw you, you felt it. Her Observer's calling. It was strong enough that I felt it myself. I wonder what type of Observer's eyes she possesses, Astrum's perhaps?"

Without even beginning to ask what an Observer's calling or an Observer's eyes or even what an Astrum is, I simply ask, "Who is she?"

"I don't know actually, when she ordered she didn't give us a name. But my, she can eat, that's her third plate of Ribs and pie."

"Hmph, you think she can eat more than me?"

"Good question, not one you have to time to think about either."