Amused by Gavin's whining, Kiwi nodded. "Yeah. Just be careful not to drop the full trays, okay? If something gets too heavy for you, just call me for help, all right?"

As soon as Kiwi stopped speaking, people began to file in to collect food. He stayed with Meriel, watching the trays closely. They had to be replaced quickly. On such a large ship with such snooty passengers, he'd had complaints within seconds of people seeing empty trays.

Gavin pouted as he was doing dish duty and kp...again.

Meriel nodded, smiling at Kiwi as she decided to do her best, wanting to impress Kiwi.
As soon as something got dangerously close to being empty, she replaced the food with a fresh tray, careful not to spill, although she came close when some snooty female nearly bumped into her, one of the twins to be exact.

Kiwi did notice, but he kept to his work, seeming like your typical diligent worker. He would help Meriel if she did indeed spill a tray or completely tripped, but he would otherwise focus on his work. The boss hated him enough already.

Meriel never spilled a single drop of sauce or a single leaf of salad. While she was unused to the human world and a stranger to all the customs, she was by no means clumsy. Smiling and wiping the sweat from her brow with her sleeve, Meriel worked dilligently and carefully, looking at all the humans and feeling rather out of place and small when some of them looked at her funny.

Kiwi was quite proud of her. He hadn't been so sure she really wanted to stay up on land with him--she was giving up so much back down in her home--but she seemed to be doing okay...better than okay.

He was visibly proud of her, for he smiled more often than he would normally while working. He wasn't an aloof worker, but he wasn't all that cheery, either. So, a smile for him on the job was rather rare, unless he was dealing with a nice elderly couple or...a very attractive woman.

Meriel smiled, seeing Kiwi smiling at her made her happy. Brunch was almost over, and Meriel had managed to do her job well. Placing a tray of fruit into it's spot on the table, she took the old tray with a few stray squished fruits and the fruit juice left behind. Walking to put it back in the kitchen, someone knocked into her, rather rudely. "Hey watch it!" snapped a young woman, brown curls going to her waist and her grey eyes flashin in irritation. Her fur lined coat had two droplets on the bottom hem. "Look what you did you clumsy pig! Apologise!"

"'Scuse me, ma'am."

Kiwi was immediately right there to help her. "I believe it was you who so carelessly knocked into my fellow employee, making the collision your fault. There's a security camera directly overhead, so I can prove it to my boss, who can bar you from the dining hall for the rest of the cruise for disrespecting and/or harming an employee. I can call him right now, if you want to challenge my statement, but it's kinda a rule...and I wouldn't want to put you through the trouble."

His voice was pointed, but reasonable. To top it off, he was smiling rather charmingly the entire time. His charm and good looks often worked well on women, and sometimes men, of all ages.

((My interwebs is back!!!!!))

"Meriel is sorry...." murmured the startled, no longer smiling female. Meriel was happy to see Kiwi, but hoped the mean lady wouldn't snap at him or be mean, Kiwi was a kind, handsome human!

Seeing the handsome looking emplyee, the young woman's face softened a bit, but she still frowned once more as she looked from Kiwi to Meriel, who was cleaning up the mess.
"Well, I won't complain this time, But she started it! She needs to watch where she goes, we pay for excellent service, not some feeble little wench to get in our way and mess up!"

As she spoke, another male employee, one with messy hair that rivaled even Gavin's in the morning, shook his head. He had been snapped and bitched at by the same girl the day before, and felt bad for anyone she chose to target. Sadly, she snapped and complained to and about many people, more than half the staff.

The brown haired drama queen flipped her hair back in a charming gesture, smiling a bit at the handsome fellow before her. Someone worth her time, in her opinion. "Really now, she seems mentally disturbed or handicapped, Why must people insist on hiring incompetent retards? In any case, she seems unfit for such services to a high class ship as this. You however, you have potential, all they need to do is get more of you." Glaring at Meriel once more, the sweet sugary fake smile dissappeared. "You're lucky girlie, I could've complained and reported you, but fortunately for you, this gentleman here advocated for you, and you only spilled 2 drops of juice on my new coat."

((Sweet!))

"I would be careful what you say, if I were you...if she seems a little off to you, it's because..."

Kiwi once again shuffled in, somewhat dramatically, so other people couldn't hear, and explained that Meriel was from Russia, and that their customs weren't the same. He also explained her lack of knowledge of the English language, and that she had a right to seem out of it, seeing as she had been abused by a nasty man back home.

He hoped this would cool the woman down. Otherwise, he would fetch his boss and claim this woman was giving Meriel a hard time and had her on the verge of tears. Surely he'd feel sorry enough for her to intervene?

He didn't miss the flirtations. They were something he often got, and in a situation like this, he took advantage of his good looks to keep the peace.

The female seemed to only half listen to his story, paying more attention to the male and thinking about how to get him to flirt back than anything else. By this time, She had all but forgotten about Meriel, eyes completely on Kiwi.
"Details details, I shall forget the incident. In any case, tell me, what kind of jobs do you do? What are your duties on this ship?" as she spoke, several of the other cruisers avoided her as well. This woman...was worse than the twins combined. While many of the ship's occupants were of higher class and snooty or stuck up, some of them were more oblivious to their status or simply didn't care much, only complaining if in a bad mood or showing interest if they needed something.
This woman however, complained about everything. Beautiful, but nasty on the inside.

Gavin grumbled and placed the newly washed plate in the rack, head banging against the counter. He was stuck with KP duty and dishes.....again. Always dishes. He didn't know how, but he always got stuck..with dishes. "Dude, take over for me will ya!" whined the young man, fidgeting. Granted, he didn't hate cleaning or doing dishes, and he was good at cleaning them, but he liked doing other stuff better. Gavin decided to daydream about Deckle for a while, a spacy look in his eyes as he failed to notice his boss walking by to inspect his workers.

Kiwi glanced over at Gavin and sighed, seeing it was too late--the boss had already started reaming him out.

"Well...most of the time, I just work in here. Or I fish off the side of the boat for fresh fish, for the chefs to use. Everyone on the ship except for the engineer-types and the captain multitasks, because we're short-handed. So, yeah, I do a variety of different things." As he spoke, he was still helping Meriel finish up with the last of the customers. Indeed, he multitasked quite well.

Unlike most of the crew members, Kiwi didn't mind dealing with overly-friendly or flirty guests most of the time. He enjoyed some attention, if it meant cooling them down a bit.

Grumbling, Miles sighed as he got back to work, wishing he could be talking to Deckle instead. Or maybe working down there with her! Great idea, except he was about as useful as a pile of dog shit when it came to machines.

Meriel scooted closer to Kiwi after she had cleaned up, hoping he was ok. About to ask if there were further instructions when one made a mistake and to inquire about his status, Meriel was met with a scowl. "Look, can't you see, we're talking." the woman gestured with her hand as though it hwere a jaw going up and down and pointing between her and Kiwi, making sure to lightly poke his chest in the process.

Kiwi turned to Meriel, smiling. "Once the last customer leaves, all the trays need to be cleaned up and emptied of contents. I'll take care of the hot trays. Any excess food, if it still seems fresh and there's a lot of it left, goes in the freezers. Put the empty trays on carts, and someone will come to wheel the carts away to the dishwashers."

With that, Kiwi started to clear out some of the hot trays. He was still multitasking.

With a nod and a smile, Meriel began to clean the cool trays as Kiwi did, careful once more not to spill or mess up. While her spirits were lifted at the attention and the smile, the brown haired woman looked infuriated.

"Excuse me! I believe you were suppossed to be talking to me! Surely this bumbling ninny can get the rest?" she snapped in agitation.

Meriel frowned at the curly haired human. She decided she did not like this human female. The mermaiden hissed softly, instinctively tempted to bite or retaliate to another creature if she viewed it as a threat, predator, or food.

"I need to help her work this area. I'm still talking, aren't I? I'm capable of multitasking. No need to snap at me. My voice is not restricted to one singular person."

Kiwi's voice was pointed and dry, but painfully polite. Once the trays were cleared out, Kiwi sighed, slipping his apron off of him. He didn't look like he felt too wonderful...it was almost like he was getting sick. He seemed very thankful that his work was finished for now. He didn't have to help out at lunch most of the time. Usually, he just helped out at breakfast and at dinner.

Meriel had enough. Docile for the most part, she did still however posses the dangerous nature her kind was known for. Walking over to the unpleasant woman, she earned quite a few surprising looks as she glared in her eyes.

"Stop it! L-Leave him alone. You're not nice. Bad person, very bad person!" her fangs came out slightly as she frowned at the stunned prima donna.

Gavin continued washing dishes, hating being stuck behind for another good 20-30 minutes to clean up after everyone had finished and the trays were cleaned up. Groaning, the brown haired male gave puppy eyes to any other employee who passed by, silently begging someone help him, or better yet, relieve him of his post.

Kiwi blinked, then stood next to Meriel, worried that the woman might lash out at her. He felt sorry for Gavin, but he couldn't risk this woman hurting Meriel in any way.

For once, he was thankful to see his boss walk by. Never thought that would happen. He waved at him, pleadingly. "Um...sir? We have a situation, here...this customer is being really rude to our new employee. This woman bumped into her--it seemed like it was on purpose--and then proceeded to distract us both from our work. She also upset our new employee..."

Kiwi sounded like he felt sorry for Meriel--he was intent on keeping up that 'emotionally frayed because of the abuse' going on. He hoped his boss would see that any sort of emotional distress from unreasonable employees might make Meriel's supposed depression over her supposed incident worse.

((by the way, feel free to take turns playing the boss if you have any particular idea on how he should react))

Before Meriel could speak or get a shouting from the woman, the boss scowled at the woman.
"Madam, if you cannot control yourself and behave around my employees, I will have to ask you to leave. I will only ask you this once. If you harass my workers again, I will have you banned from the dining facility."

"What?! You can't do that! She started it! He's taking her side! Those two were harassing me!"

"L-liar" Meriel hoped that was the right word. Hugging Kiwi's arm, she resisted the urge to bite or kill the human.

((I'm usually terrible with authority figures, but I'll try if I get a good idea!))

Kiwi politely shielded Meriel from any possible retaliation from the woman, scuttling over closer to his boss. He seemed to like her, so he was hoping this woman would be forced to behave, or just be banned from the dining area.

"Ma'am. This really is no place for a fight, or for petty squabbles. This is a place where we work hard to serve you and the rest of your passengers food. Without us, you'd be left to fend for yourselves, okay? She's working just as hard as I am, so there's no need to disrespect her, or me. If you're that concerned about your coat, be advised that there is a dry-cleaner on board, a good one, that can take care of it for you in just a little bit of time."

He smiled, charmingly, and politely. "Please try to refrain from bumping into us when we have trays. They might have piping hot food in them, and you or one of us could get injured, or even slightly burned. It's for your own safety..."

He had a protective arm around Meriel, and was watching the woman carefully, concerned.

Meriel smiled happily at Kiwi's closeness, calming down a bit.
About to protest, the boss could see things were going to be difficult with the woman. Without a word, he signaled the security guards to escort her out.

"Ma'm, if we have wronged you, the tapes will show it, now let's review them so we can settle this." he said, leaving no room for argument as he and the security led her away to look at the security tapes.

Meriel relaxed as they left, smiling at Kiwi. "Meriel doesn't like her. Meriel thinks she deserves to get bitten."

"Well..." Kiwi paused, then reconsidered his words. "In human society, most of the time, it's against the law and against rules to use violence on someone else unless they make the first strike, making it self-defense. But personally, I agree with you."

He sure hoped Meriel wouldn't get in trouble for what had happened. It hadn't been her fault, and he would blame himself if something did indeed happen. He didn't want her to get hurt.

He patted her head, smiling. "What do you say to getting some treats after this...incident? Have you ever heard of ice cream before?"

"Ice cream? Meriel doesn't know ice cream. Will Kiwi show Meriel ice cream?" she asked, eagerness and excitement in her eyes.

Hearing a loud curse and grumble, Meriel looked concerned for a moment. "Is friend Gavin ok?"

sorry for shortness!))

((It's okay! :D Sometimes short is better.))

"Sure," Kiwi agreed, grinning. "But we have to stay in here until the issue with that woman is resolved. At most, we might have to do some extra hours of work or mop up. But everything should be all right in the end. The ice cream machine is over..."

He'd been about to point it out, when he heard Gavin. "Huh...I wonder if he dropped something. Let's go check it out." Kiwi walked with her to find Gavin. If he was done with his work, he'd invite him to go with them to the ice cream machine.

"I never wanna see another dish again!" whined the slumped over Gavin, having tossed his apron, scrub brush, and sponge off into the cleaning bins, letting them ricoche loudly against the sides as they fell in.

Giggling at Gavin, Meriel smiled and waved, then looked at Kiwi once more. "What is ice cream? And what were those scary looking boys in the funny clothes?"

Kiwi grabbed Gavin from behind, quickly, before he could notice him. "Rrrraaapeee!" He joked, letting him go after a moment. "Having dish issues? Isn't this like...the fourth time this week you've been assigned dishes? Also, Meriel and I are gonna go get some ice cream from the machine. Want to come with?"

Kiwi chewed his lip and glanced at Meriel. "Ice cream is a very sweet, sugary food. It's very tasty, and comes in many flavors. My personal favorite is strawberry and cookie dough ice cream. You can try as many flavors as you like. The ice cream machine is free to employees. And do you mean the security guys? They make sure everyone on the ship behaves. They're supposed to, anyway. They usually just hover around the dining hall."