Hanno White sighed, running a hand through his thick close-cut brown curls as he stood by the door of his kitchen and looked out into his bustling restaurant. Most chefs in his position would be thrilled with how the evening had gone. After years of breaking his back working under others, honing his skills, and building his reputation, he had finally secured the investors and the space to open a restaurant of his own - Maison Hanno. Now his opening night was all but over, and in almost every respect it had been a roaring success. The place had been packed, and the reactions from the patrons had been more than enthusiastic. And yet, he couldn’t really enjoy any of it. Why? Because she apparently couldn’t be bothered to keep a commitment, or even to send word. As if the concerns of mere struggling mortals were so far beneath her that even taking note of them was more than she could be bothered with, much less actually caring about them.

Catherine Foundling. The most feared food critic in all of Salia - and that meant in the whole country. One review from her could make or, much more often, break a new restaurant. A new restaurant like his, just for instance. Her reviews were infamously cutting - so viciously mocking when a chef failed to meet her exactingly high standards - that it was in many ways the bedrock of her reputation as a critic, although her admittedly excellent taste certainly played a role as well. Together with her distinctive personal fashion (she favored bespoke jet-black suits over fitted black shirts, which… certainly made a statement) it had resulted in her becoming known as the Black Queen in fearful, furtive whispers throughout the kitchens of Salia.

And she was supposed to be here tonight, to review Maison Hanno on their grand opening. But had she shown up? No, she had not. He had broken his back - they had all broken their backs - trying to get the restaurant ready not just for opening night, but for the much more daunting task of facing Catherine Foundling’s expectations. And now it had been almost two hours since the time she’d said she’d be there, with neither a sighting nor a word. He’d even kept the kitchens open past taking the last order from customers, just in the forlorn hope that she might show up at the last minute and it would turn out his restaurant hadn’t just been snubbed by the most prominent critic in the city on its opening night. He sighed dejectedly. At least the weather matched his mood. It was absolutely pouring rain out there.

He could barely even scrape together a smile when escorting their last customer to the door. Before the door swung shut, he could hear one of his waitstaff who’d stopped for a smoke after he let them go for the night speaking to the customer. “Don’t mind his mood; the Black Queen was supposed to show tonight, but-” was all he heard before the door closed and cut off the rest, but didn’t that just sum it all up already? The Black Queen was supposed to show, but... Well, hell take her anyway.

His sous-chef, Antigone - a friend since they were both teens, and an absolute magician in the kitchen - stopped to sign to him before leaving herself. You sure you don’t want help finishing closing the kitchen? We got the actual mess cleared away, but you know how much that still leaves to do. He couldn’t help smiling as he signed back; despite it all, having friends who had his back helped. No, that’s okay - I need something to keep me busy while I unwind from it all. With an eloquent shrug Antigone accepted that as what it was - a deflection from the fact that he needed to work through the depression before he just went home and stewed in it - and slipped out the door with a last smile and a wave over her shoulder.

Hanno stepped through the swinging doors into his restaurant’s kitchen. Just as they swung closed behind him, there was an almighty CRACK of thunder from outside, and the power failed. As Hanno stood there newly submerged in almost total darkness, he spoke aloud to himself. “Fantastic. It’s like literally the heavens themselves are telling me to be depressed.” He looked upwards and gave a thumbs-up to the blackness above. “Thanks for having my back.” He then closed his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face. “...And now I’m having a conversation with my ceiling. This really has not been my night.” Which it should have been - but dwelling on that wouldn’t help anything, would it. With a sigh, he went to go get the candles, moving by memory through the kitchen he’d spent so much time getting set up exactly the way he wanted it.

Additional frustration ensued, as Hanno went to check on the backup generators and found that while the workmen had gotten them connected to the fridges - so that was, at least, one thing off his mind - they had not connected them to the rest of the restaurant systems. So he was going to be stuck in the dark until the power came back on. So be it, then; there was nothing for it but to clean up by candlelight.

The minutes slipped by as Hanno worked by the soft glow of the candles. Antigone and the rest of their cooking crew had already gotten the food that would still be usable later wrapped, dated, and stored and had taken out the trash as well. Hanno stored all the utensils and other cookware, stashing each away in their allotted places and nooks. He moved on and sanitized the countertops and other surfaces, feeling his stress slip away as he lost himself in the comforting flow of the deeply familiar routine. He had just finished turning off all the lights (even if the power was out now, he didn’t want to have them all snap back on when it got fixed) and was working through turning off the stoves and other hot surfaces when his bad mood came flooding back like a river through a crumbling dam. Some kind of crazed asshole was hammering on the front door of his blatantly closed restaurant and shouting to be let in, and wasn’t that just the turd cherry on this shit sundae of an evening?

Hanno generally tried to practice a measure of patience in his life with how he dealt with others. But this was just one jackass bridge too far. “Are you actually fucking kidding me!” Hanno shouted as he stormed towards the door. “What about this closed, locked, completely darkened restaurant leads you to believe that we’re actually still open, and just keeping YOU out through sheer... stupid… malice,” Hanno finished, suddenly finding the wind taken out of his sails as he swung open the door to reveal the Black Queen herself - drenched, shivering, and generally drowned-rat-looking all around.

“Hey. My car broke down and my phone’s dead, but I made it. You gonna let me in, or are you too mad or something?” said Catherine Goddamn Foundling, looking him square in the eye with one eyebrow raised impatiently.

Hanno needed to take a moment to struggle with this. Part of Hanno’s mind urged him to return to yelling. If she’d left at a reasonable time to make it for the time she’d announced she’d be arriving, she’d have gotten here well before the rain. Even if what she’d said about her car and phone was true, it’s not like it was impossible to get somebody on the street to lend you their phone, so she was hardly absolved of completely stressing him out the entire opening night of the first restaurant he'd ever run for himself. But… looking at her now, soaked to the bone and shaking from cold, Hanno couldn’t help but feel that it would be like berating a puppy. An insolent, constitutionally unrepentant puppy - so really, more a kitten - but still. Instead, he sighed. “No. I don’t judge. It sounds like you’ve been through a lot this evening already. Come in and get out of the rain, at least.” As he ushered Catherine inside, Hanno realized that oddly enough the importance of getting a good review out of her hadn’t factored into his decision at all.