Omniscience

The Celestial Limit: Part One

"This jewel is a fake!"
I blink. Immediately I paste on a bright, customer-friendly smile. By now, it's instinct.
"Are you certain about that?" Another thing that's instinct is pulling out one of several pre-made phrases to customers.
The minotaur huffs. "My eyes of revelation don't lie!" He insists.
Um. What? I paste a politely confused expression on my face, but this only angers him.
"You idiot!" The minotaur shouted. "Eyes. Of. Revelation. They show me stuff!"
Ohh. Another one of the dime a dozen "heroes". Hooray.
"You-" The minotaur spits out several creative curse words.
Now I'm annoyed. "Please. Leave." I deadpan. "You are disturbing others."
He snorts. "What others?"
A quick look around and unfortunately, he's right. No one is around. The jeweler's shop is abandoned.
A threatening tone appears in his voice. "You know... I could do anything I want with you. No one around here is strong enough to stop me. Want to see?"
Gods above, I can't breathe. Or at least, I can. But not deeply enough.
"Anyone could defeat you."
Oh my gods. Did I say that? A thunderous expression takes over his face like an invading army. "What. Did. You. Say."
"That you're weak." There, I said what I was thinking out loud. I know it's crazy stupid, but the only thing I can think of right now is that he's like a wild beast, and I'm throwing rocks at him. It's just angering him, but am I going to risk stopping? Hell no.
Mr. Carver suddenly appears beside me. "What did you do?" He whispers in my ear.
"Ahem." The minotaur clears his throat. "I believe you're going to fire her?"
"Of course, of course." Mr. Carver simpered.
Wait. What?
Mr. Carver turned to me. "Miss Risa, you are fired."
"I understand." I snap. "Now get out of my face." And with that, I leave the jeweler's shop.

See, the problem with Mr. Carver is: he isn't strong. I mean, I'm not either but at least I don't give up so damn easily.
Unfortunately, something like this happens a lot. Some stupid, overpowered jerk just saunters in, and when we don't "respect" him enough, he forces others to make life hard for us. Or he does it himself. Mr. Carver is just one in a long line of people who do the same things over and over again bowing to people too strong for their own good, and doing everything possible to accommodate them.
And, I really needed that job. It's not like I have some sob story about my family being poor or anything- it's just hard to find work when you're not insanely talented, overpowered and too good to be true.
I turn the corner to the street on which my house faces. Speaking of facing, I'm not looking forward to telling my parents about this last mishap.
They're always all "if you stopped blaming others for your own mistakes, maybe you'd actually get somewhere in life". Okay, maybe I poked the bear when I kept on annoying him. But he threatened me. And I did the exact same thing with him that I did with another customer, and Mr. Carver couldn't care less!
It was just because he was one of the "heroes" that he even cared.
Who cares about us non-heroes, right?

The confrontation with my parents went about as well as expected.
First, my mother started in on me, ranting about "respect" and "honor" and gods know what.
Then my father started mumbling something to me. Something along the lines of "please don't do this again". I mean, at least raise your voice with your daughter, okay?
No, I'm being mean. They just want me to hold down a job for more than three weeks. I mean, their philosophies are totally wrong,  but at least they care.

I pulled out a weed, panting under the hot sun. After my fiasco at the jeweler's shop, my parents had made me do gardening work.
Hurray.
A couple of weeks before, I would have been fine with it. I would have thought it was a useful skill, in case I ever went on a journey through the realm.
Now, though? I'm just irritated.
"I hate this." I mutter. "I really, really hate this."
"Less muttering, more working!" My mother said shrilly.
I would have killed to be able to say something snarky back, but I just bowed my head and got back to work.
I didn't notice the time passing, only the slow darkening of my surroundings. I worked in the garden for what felt like hours, but she still didn't let me back in. When I tried, she blocked the door. And so I kept on working. And working. And working.
At first, I thought the light meant I'd worked throughout the night, as stupid as that was. I sincerely didn't have any idea what else it could be.
As it turns out, a floating ball of light.
It was mesmerizing, a kaleidoscope of different colours floating and mixing together in a tight ball. The center was white, so blindingly bright I couldn't look at it straight on.
Looking at it out of the corner of my eye, I heard it speak.
"Hello, Risa."