A Woman Scorned

Entering the restaurant did not reveal any abundance of empty tables he’d somehow missed, nor did it do much to ease John’s social awkwardness. The place was every bit as bustling as it had looked through the windows, and despite the fact that he was no longer leering in, he was catching a rather unnerving amount of eye contact from the patrons. There were quite a few tables with only one person sitting alone at them, but that still made for dozens of faces to scan over. It took John a few moments to find Layla’s seat in the area she’d pointed him to, though it was rather hard to miss her piercing gaze for too long... once he **** himself to ignore all the eyes turned his way.

"Geez, this place is really crowded. I thought the Abyssal side of Springfield was turning into a ghost town!” John gave Layla a smile as he slid into the seat across from her, slightly tense as he did his best to keep his gaze focused forward. The table was a pleasant and well-polished marble that matched the exterior, mostly barren save for a quaint little flower display, their silverware, and a bowl of croissants with an admittedly mouth-watering aroma that seeped over him as he settled in.

“Don’t mind them. Just forget about them, we’re going to have a wonderful time,” Layla said, smiling as brightly as ever. She reached out across the table and took John’s hands the moment he was comfortably at rest, her thumbs grazing the back of his hands while her middle fingers teased the creases of his palms.

“I’m sure we will. I don’t mind the noise, or the crowd, I just thought that most people had started to leave. Even the Market itself isn’t usually this busy, from what I’ve seen since I came back.” John’s voice fell to a quiet murmur at the last part as he allowed himself one darting glance to each side.

“A few have returned, what with all the rumors about the war’s front coming to a standstill. But I think most of these people are actually mercenaries, actually,” Layla said, not bothering to quiet her voice at all – even going so far as to speak the last words a little louder than the rest. “Hired by the Order, if I’m not mistaken.”

“So Glen already called in this much help?” John mused, doing his best to rub Layla’s hands in return without grinding his thumbs against her. He’d already been unnerved, but having the matter stated so plainly was enough to really put him on edge. “They already tried this restaurant fake crowd bullshit once, they ought to get some new tricks…”

“I think they’re actually hungry this time,” Layla said, unable to hide her smile. John started to scoff at the idea, but when he took a second to actually look around, things were a bit more different than before. People were actually eating, paying, even standing and leaving, if he waited long enough. There was still a tenseness to the atmosphere, but it wasn’t the kind of hair-trigger tension that had permeated the cafe, as if the entire room was one dropped fork away from exploding in a catastrophic storm of mana.

“Guess mercs gotta eat too,” John allowed, turning his head back to Layla again. For all her obvious awareness of the situation, Layla was far more relaxed than John, hardly a muscle or vein in her body showing the slightest tautness. “You all really do trust them to not try anything, don’t you?”

“Mana gems speak loudly, and their reputation speaks louder.” John didn’t miss the cheer of agreement that came from a few tables over, his eyebrow twitching at the fact that nobody was even bothering to pretend they weren’t listening in. “They came here to work for the Brightons and the Order. They won’t harm one of their allies. Assuming that she cared enough about you to stipulate that in the agreement…?”

“Shit. Did she? Those negotiations went on for so long, I’m not sure if I remember all of it. Did I mention the bounty on my head to Moira? I don’t even know how much it is.”

“I guess I’ll get used to it. Probably,” John said begrudgingly, avoiding giving an answer he wasn’t quite certain of.

“There will be plenty of good food to distract you, don’t worry.” Layla let out an airy giggle, genuinely appearing unbothered by anything outside of their shared space. “You’re going to try running off on me in just a couple of weeks, and I’m not going to let a little bit of a crowd spoil our fun. This is my favorite restaurant, mundane or Abyssal. Seriously, you have no idea what you’re in for. Try these while we’re waiting, even the table starters here are to die for.”

John’s tension eased a little bit as Layla goaded him into finally grabbing one of the croissants. True to her word it was something almost heavenly – he wasn’t sure if magic was involved in the baking, but it certainly tasted enchanting. Flaky, golden-brown croissant met with layers of butter that were somehow perfectly kept just shy of being fully melted.

True to fashion, it didn’t take long after his mouth was full for their waiter to pop in with the menus, forcing Layla to handle the appetizers and order her drink first, while John scarfed down the last few bites just in time to awkwardly mumble out a request for black tea.

“Every time,” John wheezed once the waiter had vanished again, unable to resist licking his lips even then.

“You’re so ridiculous,” Layla tittered out, hiding her giggles behind a hand as she watched John’s exasperated slouch. “I love it. Here, have another. You should actually get to enjoy at least one of these. Open wide!”

John gave Layla a rather skeptical look as she lifted one of the croissants up to feed him, but he relented after only a moment. It was, after all, an official date. Might as well try to be-

-2 HP!

-romantic.

The damage readout that popped up was the only thing that stayed focused in John's vision. Everything else became a blur of motion as John's head twisted from the **** of the impact. Despite the low damage, the pain and shock were enough for John's adrenaline to surge, sending him back into the combative mindset he'd been in for nearly two days straight. Muscles clenched and his heart started to race in the same beat that his mind decided on an instinctive counter strike. The assailant came from the right, though they had reached all the way over the table to slap him across his left-

"Wait. I just got slapped?"

John managed to stop himself halfway out of his seat, his left hand gripping the table for balance while his right was already clenched into a fist and cocking back to retaliate. His fight-or-flight response had his heart pounding in his ears, but the realization of what had happened made him hesitate.

-2HP!

And for that hesitation, he received another slap. This time, John wasn't caught completely by surprise, though he was still in too much of a stupor to properly react. His head hardly moved from the impact, and his head continued a slow turn to level his gaze at the face of his assailant.

It was a woman, a pretty one at that, and a complete stranger to him. She had smooth mocha skin that was darker than Lerianna's by a few shades, but her hair was bright blonde, bordering on a golden yellow. It fell in long, natural curls that framed her face...

A face that was absolutely livid, furious in a very personal way that John had never experienced from a stranger before. Her eyes were wild, and tears pooled at the edges while her lower lip quivered with indignant rage.

"So this is him? That really all?"

Well, perhaps he wasn't a stranger to her, anyway...

"Tessa, please don't-"

SLAP

Whatever Layla had been saying was lost in the resounding report of the woman's palm finding flesh once more. This time John moved to block it, but it was Layla's arm that intercepted the blow first. Her intercession drew John's attention back to her for the first time during the rapid exchange.

Layla’s expression, a gut-wrenching mix of despair and ferocity, was difficult to read, but told John enough for him to realize that whatever was happening here wasn't actually about him. At least... not as much as the aggressive slapping would imply. A shadow seemed to hang over the pale, raven-haired mage as she clung to the wrist of John’s assailant, her eyes cast down to the table as she spoke.

“Tessa, please. Don’t do this. I don’t want this to be how things are.”

“Well, it’s just too fuckin’ late for that, ain’t it?” Tessa asked, her lips pursed in a righteous smolder. “You made your choice. I told you what was gonna happen if you left like that one more time. An’ you obviously knew how bad you fucked up, considerin’ you ain’t even come by to pick up your stuff since you hauled ass out of town with this flunky.”

John bit his tongue for the moment, getting a sense of what this might all be about, and feeling suddenly very uncomfortable. Never had he felt so much like a third party to a conversation that was directly about himself, but, well, that wasn’t even the most unsettling part of it.

“Tess, I didn’t…” Layla’s words failed her for a moment, her lips wrapping around thoughts that couldn’t vocalize themselves, ideas that only rang as excuses. “This isn’t how I wanted things to go. I never wanted to hurt you, I just wanted-”

“You just want to be happy,” Tessa finished, cutting off Layla’s attempted deescalation, finally pulling her wrist free of the other woman’s grip. “And more importantly, after all we fuckin’ been through, after we practically carried each other through the Academy together over a mound of fuckin’ corpses, you’re happier with him than with me now. Yeah, I get it, Lay-Lay. I don’t fuckin’ like it, but I get it. You know what?”

Tessa huffed, tossing a palm up toward Layla, grimacing with a sudden look of disgust, her anger fading to a simmer behind the contempt that now bathed her posture.

“This was a mistake. The way you bailed on me, I should be thankin’ you for savin’ me the heartache. Hurt bad enough gettin' left by the girl I loved over some hussie who she knew for a whole month, can't imagine if you'd pulled this shit in a few years."

Tessa half-turned to leave, Layla still silent, seeming less willing to defend herself than she had been John. Before she started to walk away, Tessa turned her dark brown eyes down on John one last time, her gaze roving around as if re-evaluating him.

"If I couldn't sniff out a mind-control spell or an influence charm a mile off, I'd be slammin' your head into this tile floor right now," Tessa said, her voice perfectly level, and as cold as the grave. "I don't know what you did to win her over, but you best know that whatever it is, she's just with you 'til the next guy or gal can pull it off better. You'll know it happens when she takes 'em out to the place you went on your first date. Ruin my fuckin' life and the memories too, while you're at it…"

Tessa muttered the last part to herself as she finally started to walk away, her heels clicking so loudly on the floor that John thought they might outright shatter them. John did his best to keep his eyes on the woman's impressively righteous figure until she was gone - not because he was worried about her turning around, but because even if he hadn't been able to see many of them in his peripheral, he could quite clearly feel every eye in the restaurant now turned their way.

"I'm pretty sure the vast majority of you are here working for Glen to protect the Order and its allies," John announced to the restaurant loudly, keeping his eyes trained on the door. "So exactly when was anyone planning on stopping another mage from attacking me in public?"

The faint rustling of cloth against leather filled the air as everyone shifted away from the scene, turning back to their forgotten meals.

"I get the very distinct impression that every person in this room just so happened to be out on a smoke break when I got hit..."

John gave a shuddering sigh, all the uncertainty and tension in his body still very much present, but not quite sure how to release itself. He turned back to the table at last, finding himself confronted by a very awkward server arriving to deliver their appetizers, and an even more awkward looking Layla. The older girl nervously fiddled with her silverware, seeming torn between her desire to avoid John's gaze at all costs and her need to see what he was thinking, what his reaction might be to this unexpected occurrence.

"I... I'm so sorry, John. I thought that Tessa and I had sorted things out, but it seems like she still has a bit of a grudge," Layla said, her voice almost lilting as she took on a slightly higher-pitched, nearly sing-song voice. "She and I... we were dating, up until a few weeks ago. If I would have known that she was going to go this far, I would have warned you about my ex."

"Layla," John began, sighing as he stared down at the food he couldn't decide if he even wanted anymore, "you need to tell me the truth. And I mean all of it. I've had bad experiences in the past, Layla."