Hello, Blue Candle new hires! You may notice we have updated our menu with more options for both lattes and smoothies. Below you will find description cards for two of our seasonal specials. Please be sure to make these additions for yourself in order to recommend them to our loyal customers! 

(Reminder that employees pay full price for all drinks)

The Passed Stone

This decadent latte includes more milk and less espresso than a typical order. One ristretto shot of espresso grown from the finest terraformed groves of Mars, mixed with Magenta fruit syrup and a healthy 40oz of grade-C semi-pasteurized milk.

The One True Smoothie 

Featuring every fruit yet discovered by humanity. From Angel Fruits plucked from the mountains of the Fantastic Realm’s abandoned anime pastiche district, to members of the sapient grapefruit species who managed to escape their containment procedures. Available with chunks.

Please let us know your feedback! We are always open to hearing your concerns. Please place them near the office’s shredder for convenience in finding them.

Thank you! 

At a high school there was always one thing you could guarantee: changes. Whether it was new slang, new fashion, or the latest drug making its way through the popular crowds, it would happen. What Rachel Bradney hated the most, however, was new members of staff.

From the moment they started, they came in with their way of doing things, not thinking for a moment that it might not be how things work around here. They’d ruffle feathers, and clash with the students, before making one of two decisions: get with the program, or find somewhere else to go.

Judgement was still out on Mr. Cwej, who was firmly rooted in that initial stage. Rachel had worked with him in a couple of lessons so far, overheard a few conversations in the staff room. Apart from asking way too many questions about the missing students (have a heart—we did know the kids!), he very much screamed newly qualified. Still, at least he was sort of cute in that, straight off the shelf Barbie way.

Rachel looked up from the desk of Tommie, the boy she was supporting, at the teacher’s desk. She had no idea what Mr. Cwej was trying to teach—something about motorbikes as best as she could gather—but the way he went about it was… bizarre to say the least. 

He’d started by making crude drawings on the whiteboard, before then seeming to realize there was a computer in the room—the same one he had taken a register from at the start of the lesson—and began creating a 3D model using some of the Tech department’s rendering software. 

Tommie had long since lost interest, much as he usually did, and had started to doodle in the back of his book. Whilst Rachel tried her best to bring him back on task by asking him if anyone at home owned a motorbike, she noticed that most of the rest of the class had also disengaged from the lesson. A group of girls at the back of the room were a fair few minutes into a discussion about whatever the latest gossip was around school. 

She looked to see if Cwej had noticed, and to her surprise, it seemed he had. However, instead of confronting the behaviour and getting the students back on task, Rachel was shocked to see he almost seemed to have some interest in what they were saying. Every time he finished talking about… whatever it was he was “teaching” at this point, he paused, eyes lifting up over the monitor of his computer, spending several moments listening in to what was being discussed. Then, instead of prompting the girls to listen, he returned to his screen. “You’ll find that motorbikes in World War Two era France had much different…”

Rachel zoned out of the lesson, as a familiar pang of anxiety arose in her stomach. If a member of the leadership team happened to be passing by and saw Mr. Cwej’s… disinterest in keeping the pupils engaged in the lesson, there would be hell to pay, and as another member of staff in the room, the blame would fall the same on her as it would the one leading the lesson. Unlike teaching staff, classroom assistants were ten-a-penny, and if anyone was to be used to make an example to the rest of staff around school, it would be an assistant. Last month they had already fired Daniel Jefferson for failing to stop a fight, despite an Art teacher and the Vice Principal being in the same room, and closer to the students involved when the fight broke out. For her own sake, Rachel had to take some accountability in case Cwej unintentionally placed her head on the chopping block. 

Marching over to the girls in a manner that said, ‘I’m onto you, now shut the hell up’, irritation took root in Rachel’s bones as she found that, in spite of the girls noticing her approach, they decided to continue their conversation regardless.

“Girls,” Rachel said, softly, but loud enough for Cwej to hear should he choose to intervene. “There’s a lesson going on here, and you’re a part of it. Mr. Cwej is new to our school, time to show him some respect.”

“Miss Bradney,” Cwej called across the room, “were those girls talking?”

Finally, he’s taking charge of the lesson. “That’s right, Mr. Cwej, though the girls have assured me they’ll be listening intently from now on.” Rachel shot them a look as if to say, ‘I’ve covered your ass, now don’t fuck around’. 

“Thank you, Miss Bradney. What were the girls discussing, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Rachel blinked. Had he seriously just asked that? Unless she was mistaken, he was here to teach a lesson, not get involved in gossip.

“From now on it’s going to be your lesson, sir,” Rachel assured him. 

“Thanks,” he replied. “But seriously,” he continued, now addressing the group of girls. “What were you talking about?”

Rachel’s eyes grew wide. She didn’t know how to react, and neither did the students. A moment of silence followed, before Maisy Wilson, Gossip Queen, spoke up: “We were talking about what happened to Megan and George, Mr. Cwej.” She then regarded Cwej as she did most people, like an animal who had taken a dump on her designer heels. 

“And what are your thoughts on the matter?” asked Cwej.

Again Rachel balked at the man’s sheer unprofessionalism. As did the other students in the room, who began to chatter amongst themselves about the teacher who seemed to care less for what was being taught than they did.

Rachel decided it was time to speak up, before the students gossiped about her joining in on… whatever this was turning out to be.

“Mr. Cwej—”

Her protest was caught short by the loud shrill of the bell. The students rose from their seats and flooded from the room like it was on fire. It was lunchtime—who could blame them? Rachel waited for the room to empty, intending to speak to Cwej about what the hell he had been thinking, but to her dismay, as the room cleared, she found that he had left with the others. 

Rachel felt the anger build inside; her face flushed. In the end, she’d been nothing more than a fly on the wall in that lesson. If the Principal heard about what had happened, both she and Cwej would be looking for a job by the end of the week. She had the right mind to walk right over to his office and make the complaint of a lifetime, shift all the blame onto Cwej before things hit the fan. As she left the room, that was exactly what she intended.

However, on the walk through the school’s overcrowded corridors, the anxiety took hold of her once more: was she making all of this more than it was? Cwej was the one who didn’t know how to teach a class—she’d done this job for years, proved herself amongst her colleagues. 

She stopped in her tracks, blocked out the noise of the boisterous, hungry students around her, and drew in a deep breath. 

Maybe she was being too paranoid. Sure, other members of her department had gotten the sack before, but there could have been other reasons she wasn’t aware of to explain it. The students in the class sure as hell weren’t going to say anything: they longed for a teacher who gave them an hour to mess around. And like any employer, the Principal had never taken to those who rocked the boat in the past…
​
Whilst it challenged her morals to do so, Rachel had to prioritize herself. She decided to keep quiet and hope that, before long, Mr. Cwej would be caught out and down the road before someone else took the fall for his shortcomings as a teacher. After all, there was another hour to go after lunch, and lots of things could happen in an hour…

​

Sang Mi stepped out of Martha’s car—it was a weird noisy thing that spewed smoke out the back. Well, that seemed to be the general case around here.

“See you tomorrow, Sarah!” Martha said.

“Yeah! See ya!” she replied, and walked up the concrete path to the house. This in itself was different—she’d lived in an apartment her whole life after all. There was no glint of glass-polymer between herself and the sky, no occasional sound of the habitation dome's air circulators kicking on. She put that out of her mind, and opened the door. 

“Welcome home!” Chris called.

Home. Well, for a little at least. “Thanks.”

“Kinda weird you’re getting home after me.”

“Welcome to High School sports. Hey, did you know that all the sports teams use the school mascot? Like everyone is a stoat? And for some reason the mascot has a roman helmet on?”

Cwej walked into the entryway from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “Yeah, I don’t really get it either.”

She set her stuff down and stretched out. “Can we speak Korean tonight? I'm getting tired of English.”

“Of course,” he replied in Korean.

“That's a relief,” she replied, also in Korean.

“Dinner is ready.”

She didn't waste time, and followed him to the dining room, and was taken aback. “Were you reading my mind?”

He’d set out a bunch of dishes—bibimbap, tteokbokki, kimchi pancakes, white rice, bulgogi beef… “Maybe a little,” he replied.

She danced her way to her seat, and started serving herself before catching her error and stopping to say a very quick prayer, and then resumed piling her plate.

“I figured you might be getting a little homesick, so I ordered a bunch of take out.”

“This is great—though ‘dinner is ready’ sort of implied you cooked it.”

He chuckled as he started serving himself. “I'm just glad you’re enjoying it.”

She glanced over at a pile of papers sitting by him at the table as she shovelled some tteokbokki in her face. “I still can't believe they use so much paper here. It feels so excessive.”

“I guess there has to be ways of doing it with less environmental impact.”

She shook her head, “I don't know anything about that, I just mean like, there are so many trees here. There’s literally one in front of this house.”

He stopped. Right, of course. “That would have to be weird for you.”

“I mean, it’s not like I see no trees. They have them in parks, and there are some whole indoor forests and stuff, but they just… show up places here, like boom, there’s a tree.”

“Welcome to Earth, I suppose… actually, I’d been wondering something Sarah—sorry, Sang Mi—I was worried I was going to have to compensate for gravity for you. Your bones and body structure didn't grow up under this kind of gravity on Gongen after all. But you said it would be fine.”

She nodded, her cheeks full of rice like chipmunk, before she chewed and swallowed. “Yeah, we took a field trip to Earth a while back. It was this huge thing. We had to get injections and gravity therapy treatments and take all these supplements, so I figured I'd still be alright.”

“How’d that trip go?”

She shrugged. “That's a story for another time.”

“Fair enough.”

She stirred some of the food on her plate around. “You're from Earth right? But like, the future?”

“Something like that. I was born in the Spaceport Five Overcity. They call it London at this point in history.”

“They call it Londonplex in my time. I guess it’s sort of an inbetween.” She set her fork down. “Hey, so, you work for someone right, you always just call them your Superiors? And one of them was that guy in the office we met, right?”

He nodded, and looked a little anxious where this was going.

“Are they like some sort of... time cops?”

That made him laugh. “They’d absolutely hate to hear you say that.”

She nodded. “We’ve met a few times now. When I saw you with the deer, later when I helped you with the kitten, then when you came back during the storm… do you remember my friend Saki?”

“How could I forget?” he deadpanned.

“You remember how she gave me the drugs, Delirium? At first I thought those were just like… drug trips. Not that I have a lot of experience with that mind you but… eventually I realized that the Delirium really was messing with reality. That when we took it during the cosmic storms that we could go to places our bodies weren’t in different times, or move ourselves to different places far away, or change the world around us…” She bit her lip. “I know that Delirium can’t be a secret forever. Will we have like… time cops stop us? Superiors, or whatever?”

A strange look came across his face, and Sang Mi couldn't tell if it was pity or envy. “No. Where you are, there are no Superiors. Heaven is empty, and so is Hell, for better or for worse.”

“Well not literally,” she said.

“Nothing shakes your faith, does it?”

She shrugged and returned to the bibimbap that was just begging her to eat more. “I'm a good Catholic girl, didn't you know?”

“Yeah, I think I heard that somewhere.”

“Do you believe in anything, Chris?”
​
He stopped, fork halfway between his plate and face. He thought for a moment, his eyes distant. “Maybe,” he answered finally.

​

Placing the dish of cat food down, Sang Mi watched as the monochrome cat begin to chow down on it. Chris watched the whole affair from the side of the room. 

“You gave that cat way too much food,” he said.

“I've never had a cat, this is a new experience for me. Anyway, she seems to be having a good time.”

“Yeah, she is.”

Sang Mi smiled up at him. “Kinda weird, isn't it? We've got everything all set up here. But it's just till the investigation is over.”

He crossed his arms. “I guess I hadn't thought about it that way. I go between a lot of places. It’s… kind of my bread and butter. Going between places. When I finish an assignment, I move on. You enjoy the time that's there, you go somewhere else, meet new people.”

Sang Mi's smile turned thoughtful. “Haven’t you ever just wanted to… not?’

He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, have the same friends you can count on. Have family you can count on.”

“If those things were so important to you, why are you running from both of them? You're about as far away from home as you can get right now.”

The monochrome cat started purring, and she ran her hand along its soft fur. “I don't know. I’ve got a lot of bullshit, what's your excuse?”

“A lot of bullshit as well.”

“We should probably stop doing that, it seems to be a mutual problem.”

“Probably.”

They laughed, and Chris went over to the refrigerator, pulling out some ingredients: cherry tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil. Setting them down on the counter, he then proceeded to pull out pasta, olive oil, salt, and a dried spice mix.

“Dinner?” she asked, and he nodded.

“The cat is getting it, only seems fair we do too.”

“Can I help?”

“Can you boil water?”

She scoffed, and crossed her arms in an imitation of him earlier. “Do I look like I failed home ec to you?”

“A little, yeah?”

“Well I didn't.”

She went over to the cabinets and pulled out the pot, filled it up with water, and put a dash of the salt Chris had gotten out in it. Then she set it on the stove.

“Heat to boiling,” she said.

Nothing happened. Chris watched closely. She quickly examined the knobs, before giving Chris a look that said ‘haha very funny’, and turning the knob.

Nothing happened, but it made a clicking noise. She looked back at him, brow furrowed. She could tell: he was waiting to see if she'd figure it out.

She turned it off, and back on again, and leaned in as it clicked. There was a smell—some sort of gas.

Ah. It was some sort of primitive stove like a campfire that would light gas on fire to heat the water. She turned the knob back and forth, and quickly found it would try to light it before the lowest setting, and she got it lit. 

Chris smiled—and it wasn't patronising, he seemed genuinely pleased, like she'd passed some sort of test. And she felt her heart beat faster, and a smile pass her own lips. She'd done it right.

When it boiled, he put the pasta in, and she started cutting the tomatoes and the balls of mozzarella up. Chris strained the pasta, and tossed it in olive oil, salt, and the dried herb mix, then added the cheese and tomatoes Sang Mi had cut up. He plated it, and topped it all with the fresh basil, and served it with wine for himself, and juice for Sang Mi. Still, they got to do a little toast.

“This has been fun. I didn’t think I'd been cooking on this whole excursion.”

“It's been good to have the help. To teamwork, then.”

They clinked glasses. “To teamwork.”

Sang Mi said a prayer, crossed herself, and they dug in. It was a simple meal, but a delicious one, and they had to shove the monochrome cat down a few times from the table as it tried to get at their plates. 

“What will happen when this whole thing ends, this mission? I know that, you know, I probably won't see you again for a long time.”

He couldn't deny it. “No, but we'll still be good friends.”

“Okay, just… don't forget about me.”

“I won’t, we’ve definitely established I'm not doing that. And we have a bond now from tonight, we’re boon companions.”

“Oh? How so?”
​
“Meals make companions of us all,” he said.

​