![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
FIC: Shah's (Rift)
TITLE: Shah's
FANDOM: Rift (RPG)
RATING: PG
WORDS: 970
NOTES: Backstory ficlet, about how Dava and Nik (and thus Nine) met each other before, as mentioned in 'he who plants thorns'. Apologies for the way this just ends - my inspiration ran out, and didn't seem to be coming back.
Shah's
Moujgan Zareh and Daria Rahim go back a long way. They had played in the schoolyard together, argued in the university quadrangle together, and fled the country together, running through the airport with Daria’s husband; Moujgan and George holding Daria because Daria was holding the baby.
So when that baby turns up at Moujgan’s door fifteen years later, pale in spite of genetics and the Australian sun, the least she can do is give the poor girl a job.
--
Shah’s Palace has been around since 1975, owned and ran by Iranian immigrants who had moved to Vancouver in the sixties. Most of them tended to head to the North Shore, as the mountains reminded them of Tehran, but the Yalchins had decided that there were better business opportunities on the other side of the bay. They moved into Kitsilano with the Greeks and set up shop on Broadway. In 1981 they closed for three days, but that was because Akbari Yalchin was getting married to Moujgan Zareh, so that was okay. Soon, Shah’s developed a reputation for being a place with a friendly atmosphere, good food, affordable prices, and Farsi music that was either folksy or pop depending on who was the manager.
Ono day in December, 1994, Arianna and Vlad Thornehart took their thirteen-year-old twin sons to Shah’s for a treat.
They told the boys to be nice to their waitress, because it was probably her first job and everyone makes mistakes.
--
Dava got better at waitressing.
Nikola and Luca just got taller.
--
Summer holidays in Melbourne means that Dava works during winter in Vancouver, something that she regards as being more than a bit unfair. On the other hand, if she isn’t working, she doesn’t exactly have anything else to do except worry about her dad, and besides, if she spent all her time around doctors, she’d go stark raving mad. Sometimes, you just have to deal with real people. Not to mention that it’s useful practice for being cheerful, because no one can fake a smile that much and this way, she earns her own allowance.
The latter reasoning is something that she doesn’t tell her Greek cousins, because they are rich and younger than her and wouldn’t understand. Because I can and I like being busy and I can practice Farsi, is what she says, and has to demonstrate because Dice says please and Aras has pleading eyes that’d put a lab puppy to shame.
--
Thursday nights are soccer nights, and their folks work late, so every other week, Nik and Nine (he’s Nine now, not Luca) eat out at Shah’s. Sometimes, it’s just the two of them, sometimes the rest of the team, and they get a smile from the staff the way only regulars can.
--
(Later, years later, Dava will observe that it’s not surprising that Nik didn’t recognize her; it wasn’t exactly her face that he always looked at)
--
“Why are they being mean?” That is Aras, aged ten, gazing wide-eyed at a table at the back. Dava had been taking a break to chat with her cousins, but now she frowns and twists her head to look over. The soccers, as Shah’s staff have dubbed them, fifteen and sixteen year old boys, and when Dava finds out who let Pari deal with them, she’s going to skin them.
“I’ll be back,” she tells the Elkyones, and smoothly appears next to Pari the way only managers can. Pari, who is new, offers her a grateful smile through the rapid blinking back of tears. “Go out the back,” Dava tells her in Farsi before raising a perfectly curved eyebrow at the team and asking, “What seems to be the problem?”
Dava is nineteen, just finishing her gap year, but they’d finally managed to convince Akbari and Moujgan to take a holiday, visit family in Los Tehrangles, because we can handle the shop for a week, just go, boss, and her cousins are here, and Omid’s screwing Leila when he could be with her, and she’s not inclined to be pushed around by a bunch of rowdy boys trying to get out of paying for everything.
She gets the captain to write the cheque, smooth as any street hustler, and once she has it in her hand, she lets her eyes sweep the group. Some of them are looking more obviously uncomfortable than others, the twins included, but the captain is just looking scornful as only a teenage boy can when being told off by a girl. He gets to his feet, ignoring the protests from the others; Dava raises her eyebrow again and looks back.
“Now, you boys are regulars, and we are more than happy to serve you,” Dava says, expression pleasant only because she’s lost her temper, her now-Iranian accented voice steely, “however, if you make one of my girls cry like that again, I’ll have you thrown out. Is that clear?”
“Thrown out?”
“That’s right.”
They match stares, and his nerve is the first to break. The team leave, and Dava returns to her cousins. “Boys,” Dava observes, “are useless creatures.”
Amon and Dice look offended, but Aras just grins.
--
“Chick was even shorter than most of us,” Jake muses as the team start to split up and go home.
“Would you have backed down?” That's Nine.
“Hell yeah. I got older sisters. They’re scary when they’re pissed.”
--
When Nik and Nine come back the following week, the chick who told them off treats them with the perfect politeness of one who is only being polite because it is her job.
Nine, always the emotionally smarter of the pair, apologizes for last week – big game, beat their main rivals, won’t happen again.
He gets a wide, dimpled smile for his troubles.
--
FANDOM: Rift (RPG)
RATING: PG
WORDS: 970
NOTES: Backstory ficlet, about how Dava and Nik (and thus Nine) met each other before, as mentioned in 'he who plants thorns'. Apologies for the way this just ends - my inspiration ran out, and didn't seem to be coming back.
Moujgan Zareh and Daria Rahim go back a long way. They had played in the schoolyard together, argued in the university quadrangle together, and fled the country together, running through the airport with Daria’s husband; Moujgan and George holding Daria because Daria was holding the baby.
So when that baby turns up at Moujgan’s door fifteen years later, pale in spite of genetics and the Australian sun, the least she can do is give the poor girl a job.
--
Shah’s Palace has been around since 1975, owned and ran by Iranian immigrants who had moved to Vancouver in the sixties. Most of them tended to head to the North Shore, as the mountains reminded them of Tehran, but the Yalchins had decided that there were better business opportunities on the other side of the bay. They moved into Kitsilano with the Greeks and set up shop on Broadway. In 1981 they closed for three days, but that was because Akbari Yalchin was getting married to Moujgan Zareh, so that was okay. Soon, Shah’s developed a reputation for being a place with a friendly atmosphere, good food, affordable prices, and Farsi music that was either folksy or pop depending on who was the manager.
Ono day in December, 1994, Arianna and Vlad Thornehart took their thirteen-year-old twin sons to Shah’s for a treat.
They told the boys to be nice to their waitress, because it was probably her first job and everyone makes mistakes.
--
Dava got better at waitressing.
Nikola and Luca just got taller.
--
Summer holidays in Melbourne means that Dava works during winter in Vancouver, something that she regards as being more than a bit unfair. On the other hand, if she isn’t working, she doesn’t exactly have anything else to do except worry about her dad, and besides, if she spent all her time around doctors, she’d go stark raving mad. Sometimes, you just have to deal with real people. Not to mention that it’s useful practice for being cheerful, because no one can fake a smile that much and this way, she earns her own allowance.
The latter reasoning is something that she doesn’t tell her Greek cousins, because they are rich and younger than her and wouldn’t understand. Because I can and I like being busy and I can practice Farsi, is what she says, and has to demonstrate because Dice says please and Aras has pleading eyes that’d put a lab puppy to shame.
--
Thursday nights are soccer nights, and their folks work late, so every other week, Nik and Nine (he’s Nine now, not Luca) eat out at Shah’s. Sometimes, it’s just the two of them, sometimes the rest of the team, and they get a smile from the staff the way only regulars can.
--
(Later, years later, Dava will observe that it’s not surprising that Nik didn’t recognize her; it wasn’t exactly her face that he always looked at)
--
“Why are they being mean?” That is Aras, aged ten, gazing wide-eyed at a table at the back. Dava had been taking a break to chat with her cousins, but now she frowns and twists her head to look over. The soccers, as Shah’s staff have dubbed them, fifteen and sixteen year old boys, and when Dava finds out who let Pari deal with them, she’s going to skin them.
“I’ll be back,” she tells the Elkyones, and smoothly appears next to Pari the way only managers can. Pari, who is new, offers her a grateful smile through the rapid blinking back of tears. “Go out the back,” Dava tells her in Farsi before raising a perfectly curved eyebrow at the team and asking, “What seems to be the problem?”
Dava is nineteen, just finishing her gap year, but they’d finally managed to convince Akbari and Moujgan to take a holiday, visit family in Los Tehrangles, because we can handle the shop for a week, just go, boss, and her cousins are here, and Omid’s screwing Leila when he could be with her, and she’s not inclined to be pushed around by a bunch of rowdy boys trying to get out of paying for everything.
She gets the captain to write the cheque, smooth as any street hustler, and once she has it in her hand, she lets her eyes sweep the group. Some of them are looking more obviously uncomfortable than others, the twins included, but the captain is just looking scornful as only a teenage boy can when being told off by a girl. He gets to his feet, ignoring the protests from the others; Dava raises her eyebrow again and looks back.
“Now, you boys are regulars, and we are more than happy to serve you,” Dava says, expression pleasant only because she’s lost her temper, her now-Iranian accented voice steely, “however, if you make one of my girls cry like that again, I’ll have you thrown out. Is that clear?”
“Thrown out?”
“That’s right.”
They match stares, and his nerve is the first to break. The team leave, and Dava returns to her cousins. “Boys,” Dava observes, “are useless creatures.”
Amon and Dice look offended, but Aras just grins.
--
“Chick was even shorter than most of us,” Jake muses as the team start to split up and go home.
“Would you have backed down?” That's Nine.
“Hell yeah. I got older sisters. They’re scary when they’re pissed.”
--
When Nik and Nine come back the following week, the chick who told them off treats them with the perfect politeness of one who is only being polite because it is her job.
Nine, always the emotionally smarter of the pair, apologizes for last week – big game, beat their main rivals, won’t happen again.
He gets a wide, dimpled smile for his troubles.
--