New Neopian Times

This is dedicated to all of you who have Neomailed me hinting, nudging, and winking that you wanted some sparks to fly between the doc and Rose... I hope this appeases you all, and no this will not carry over into my comic. 'Tis a standalone.

"Will you watch where you're going??" Dr. Death snapped, regarding the spreading coffee stain on the front of his lab coat with chagrin.

"YOU watch where you're going!" Rose shot back in a rare show of venom as she shoved past him with the stack of folders she was carrying and continued on her way to the filing cabinet. She wasn't about to take the blame for him stepping out of the break room with a full coffee mug at the same time she had been bustling down the hallway with adoptee paperwork to sort and file. The usually-sunny pink Uni had had enough of her co-worker for one day and it wasn't even noon yet. The Techo had been in a vindictive mood since he had come in that morning and it seemed as though he was determined to get upset with her.

First he had griped about her coming in two minutes later than he had, then he had gotten angry because she had left him alone up front to deal with the customers for a bit while she had hurried off for a bathroom break. The icing on the cake that had snapped her last thread of patience with him had been when she had been in the back helping a particularly choosy adopter find a pet and he had made an offhanded accusation upon her return that she had been slacking on her job to fraternise.

Since then, she had been avoiding him and quietly stewing. It never ceased to amaze her how one Neopet could possibly carry so much spite on his shoulders, but it seemed Dr. Death was a never-ending fountain of it, no matter HOW pleasant she tried to be to him.

He regarded her with a look of contempt before quietly walking to the desk and sitting down, examining the stain on his coat with a sigh. Why had he been cursed with such a featherhead for a co-worker? After years of working together under the same roof, he would have thought the two of them would have at least grown used to one another, yet RoseMadder seemed determined to give him new reasons to be annoyed with her every day.

"I hope this comes out with normal detergent," he commented for her benefit, gratified to see her cringe a bit as she continued to sort through files. The Uni bit her tongue, determined that she wouldn't take the bait and say something in return. That was exactly what he wanted her to do and she wasn't in the mood for a knockdown drag-out fight with him today.

She finished with the files a moment later and returned to her side of the desk, quietly willing 12:05 to roll around so that she could disappear for her lunch break and give herself a chance to calm down. Please...just let him keep his mouth shut for another forty-five minutes. That's all I ask... she thought to herself.

As though in answer to her plea, the door to the pound swept open and a red-haired human girl stepped inside, a chipper-looking faerie Usul perched on her shoulder. By the girl's demeanour, both poundkeepers knew she was there to adopt and not abandon before she even reached the desk.

"Excuse me, I'm interested in taking home a male Kacheek. Could one of you help me?" she asked in a voice tinted with a very slight Irish accent.

"I'd be happy to, ma'am," Rose offered instantly, standing hurriedly and glad for an excuse to get away from the doctor.

"Just like she's happy to dump coffee on people," Dr. Death muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Rose to hear him. The Uni froze in mid-step, her body tensing as she trembled with frustration before whirling on her heel and jabbing a hoof sharply at the Techo's shoulder.

"What is your problem today??" she demanded to know. "You've been ragging on me since I walked in this morning!"

"You've been LOOKING for reasons to!" she cried. The Techo snarled as he and the Uni sized one another up, looking for verbal weaknesses. This all, however, screeched to an abrupt halt as the redheaded girl spoke again.

"Oh dear, if I'd known you and your husband were having a spat, I wouldn't have come in. I'm sorry!" she said, turning and hurrying out with her Usul (who had suddenly developed a very bad case of giggles), leaving the Uni and Techo both silent and dumbfounded.

For a moment, Dr. Death looked like he was about to say something about how incredibly off the girl's statement had been, but at length turned back to the desk and began shuffling through papers aimlessly in an attempt to look occupied. Rose blinked owlishly as she climbed down from the shock the words had given her. Husband?? That was a laugh. Is that what their fighting honestly made them come off as to onlookers, she wondered?

"Are you going on your break or what?" Dr. Death asked sullenly after a moment more of tense silence. Rose instantly cast a look at the clock, finding that it was scarcely 11:30.

"Isn't it a little early?" she asked. He shrugged, not looking at her. After a moment of mental debate, she got up and headed for the door, deciding she wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Dr. Death breathed an audible sigh of relief once Rose had left. If he had had to deal with her for another minute, he felt he would have gone utterly out of his mind.

He closed his eyes, rubbing at his temples with his index fingers gently to stave off the headache he could feel coming and enjoyed the silence that Rose had left behind when she had gone. As he calmed himself, the front doorknob turned again and the door creaked open.

"Excuse me?" an official-sounding female voice inquired, making the Techo's eyes snap open as he directed his attention up front. A Fire Faerie stood, hands on her hips and flavouring Dr. Death with a rather unsavoury look through flame-coloured eyes.

"Oh!" he faltered. "I'm sorry, I though you were my co-worker..." The faerie shook her head in reply with a haughty flutter of her butterfly-esque wings.

"Nice to hear that you treat your fellow employees with so much respect," she remarked. The yellow Techo, at that moment, looked as though he wished he could disappear into a crack in the floor as he cleared his throat. Mouthing off at Rose was one thing, but he didn't like to get on the faeries' bad side....no one in their right mind did, really.

"I'm sorry," he said, sounding as sincere as was possible for him. "Can I help you?" The Fire Faerie seemed to let her guard down a bit as she approached the desk.

"I'm just here to inform you and whoever else works here about the mandatory employee seminar this weekend," she stated matter-of-factly.

"Seminar?" Dr. Death asked, quirking a brow. "I didn't hear anything about a seminar..."

"It's a bit of a spur of the moment thing," the faerie explained, sounding tired of elaborating on it as she waved one delicate hand. In a flash of shimmering red light, a piece of paper appeared, fluttering to the desktop. "All you need to know is on there," she told him. "And if you'll excuse me, I've got plenty more establishments to visit before the day is out."

Saying so, the Fire Faerie clapped her hands and instantly dissolved into a glowing orb of crimson light that zipped toward the doorway, pausing in the threshold to ease the front door shut again before disappearing. Once she was gone, Dr. Death picked up the paper she had dropped and read it over.

!!!NOTICE!!!

In an effort to bring Neopia's shopkeepers and masters of trade up to speed on what is expected of them and how to better reach our goal of continuing to make Neopia a fast-paced and helpful land to belong to, The Faerie Queen, Fyora, has requested that all employed Neopians take part in a mandatory 3-day seminar where we will better discuss ideals for work environments and collaborate on ideas with one another.

The seminar will take place from the 26th day of The Month of Swimming until the 29th and will be held at the Mountain Lodge. All businesses (with the exception of the food store and pharmacy -- temps have been assigned) will be closed for the duration of this retreat.

Employees are asked to pack accordingly as supplies, aside from meals, will not be provided and to arrive no later than 7 PM on Friday evening. Rooms and workshop schedules will be assigned upon arrival. Thank you for your cooperation.

Ugh...three days? The Techo sighed in disgust and placed the flyer on Rose's side of the desk so she could look at it when she returned. Luckily, he had no plans for this weekend (he seldom did), but the fact remained that sitting around with dozens of shopkeepers he didn't know or care to know, and listening to lectures about mission statements and proactivity really didn't appeal to him.

As he returned to his paperwork, realising that he'd be more likely to grow purple fuzz all over himself than to weasel his way out of attending one of Fyora's get-togethers, he began to compile a mental list of things he'd need to start packing once he got home. He could already tell it was going to be a long weekend.

Friday evening came quickly, with mingled excitement and annoyance from those asked to attend the seminar. For Rose, it was a welcome escape. She had always wanted to stay at the Mountain Lodge and this seemed the perfect chance to do it. No customers, no battling through the raucous food lines waiting to be fed at lunchtime, and a chance to break away from Dr. Death for a little.

All businesses had closed an hour early to give everyone a chance to prepare that hadn't already and she had taken the time to pack and reserve her transportation to and from her destination. Her shuttle had taken off precisely on time, a rare occurrence since it seemed they were almost always delayed for stragglers or technical difficulties, and had dropped her off in front of the lodge at six thirty-seven.

The pink Uni trotted up the walk carrying her single suitcase and entered the lobby, greeted by a muttering throng of Neopia's employees who were all standing somewhat impatiently as a single green Wocky called out room numbers and handed out keys. Rose's enthusiasm faded a bit as she moved to the back of the crowd to wait.

"Hi Rose," a familiar voice stated as she turned her head to see Hubert, the hot dog vendor, standing not far from her, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and looking as though he had been standing there for quite some time.

"You don't know the half of it. I've been waiting here for about forty-five minutes." Rose felt her ears droop a bit.

"RoseMadder, Neopian Pound?" The Wocky called, as though reading her thoughts. Startled, but quickly regaining herself, the Uni set her luggage aside and trotted to the front to claim her keycard.

"Your roommate has already picked up the other key. You're on the second floor," the Wocky informed her as he handed over the flat piece of plastic. Before Rose had a chance to ask whom she was rooming with, the Wocky had returned to sifting through the pile of keycards and names to call up the next employee. The Uni quickly removed herself from the crowd to keep from getting in other peoples' way as she crossed the lobby, stepped inside of an elevator, and punched in the second floor button.

Who was she rooming with, she wondered? The doors slid closed and the elevator began upwards. She hoped, whomever it was, that she'd get along with them. The last thing she wanted to hear was that she had been stuck with someone like the toy shop owner. What an obnoxious prude that red Lupe was. In the times Rose had ventured into the toy store, the keeper seemed more likely to bite her customers' heads off than to sell them any plushies. You'd think spending so much time around smiling stuffed animals would make a happier person out of someone!

The elevator lurched to a halt and the doors whispered open with a ding as she stepped into plush carpet of the hallway, breathing deeply of the air. She didn't know what it was about hotels, but all of them smelled the same...like a swimming pool with a light undertone of fresh laundry. Casting a quick look at her room key, she noted that the painted digits read "206" and began down the hallway in the direction that the room numbers ascended.

When she arrived to 206, she wasn't surprised to find the door hanging slightly open...her roommate must still have been inside getting settled, she reasoned. As she took the knob and eased the door open, the first thing to hit her was a wave of stifling warmth that made her feel a bit faint. From the wall, the heat ducts were hissing softly as they filled the room with balmy air. What in the world...?? It was the middle of summertime!

Rose approached the thermostat and twisted the knob into the "low" position, listening as the flow of warm air came to a halt. Perhaps her roommate had made a mistake and thought that it was the air conditioning, somehow.

"Hey, don't mess with that!" a voice protested from around the corner. A familiar voice. There was a sound of stirring and then someone started for where Rose was standing. "It's freezing in here and I just---" Rose's mouth dropped as Dr. Death came around the corner. He stopped short upon seeing her, narrowing his eyes. "What are *you* doing here?" he asked, quirking a brow.

"Me??" she gasped. "This is MY room!" The yellow Techo flinched as though he had been slapped.

"There's got to be a mistake," he answered quickly, snatching her keycard from her rudely and peering at the printed numbers. No, no mistake, the key's number matched the one on his own keycard. "Are they crazy??" he growled, throwing Rose's key back at her and storming to the service telephone that sat on the end table, grabbing up the receiver and punching in the number for service.

"Front desk," an enthusiastic female voice picked up immediately after the first ring.

"This is room 206 with the employee seminar. Who was in charge of room assignment?" Dr. Death demanded to know.

"It just doesn't seem very appropriate to me that you'd put unattached males and females together when you planned this out. You want to tell me why it is that I have my LADY co-worker in the same room as me???" He paused, realising his voice had escalated to a yell and calmed himself again.

"It's nothing personal, certainly, sir," the voice replied, sounding a bit rattled. "We thought it might be a bit more relaxed on everyone if we kept the different establishments grouped together so they'd be around familiar faces."

"Relaxed? RELAXED??" the Techo spat, tightening his grip on the phone as though he meant to choke it. Rose flinched a bit at his verbal explosion and was relieved when he finally slammed the receiver back onto its cradle and sat on the edge of one of the two beds in the room that he had claimed as his, looking thoroughly angry.

"Well...maybe it won't be so bad...." Rose offered, trying to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Whatever," he snorted in reply. "And turn the heat back on. This place is an ice box." Rose fidgeted, already uncomfortably warm, but turned back to the thermostat, cranking it back to where it had been when she had come in.

"I'm guessing we're going to lay some ground rules..." she sighed, picking up her suitcase from where she had set it down and carrying it across the room to drop it on the remaining bed closest to the window.

"You guessed right," he told her, flavouring her with an unsavoury glare as she began to unpack. "First of all, I don't know what you women do in the bathroom for hours on end, but I shower as soon as I get up and am done and dressed in fifteen minutes. If you can't keep up with that, then you are NOT getting the bathroom first."

"Deal," the Uni muttered, pulling her hairdryer out of her suitcase and setting it aside. "At night, the heating goes off and the window gets opened. We're in the middle of the hottest month of the summer, for crying out loud."

"You're not cold?" he asked sceptically. Rose ignored his question, digging out the washcloths she had brought with her and laying them aside in a neat stack. Techos, as reptiles, were cold-blooded and, because of which, were almost never warm enough for their liking. Dr. Death was no exception and it had become the main reason he was one of the few Neopets who constantly wore clothes.

"All right fine," he relented, and then added, "We're supposed to be at our first workshop tomorrow at seven-thirty. I'm putting in a wake-up call for six and that means we're going to sleep by ten. No movies, no gossip, none of that junk." Rose, having really had no plans for it anyway, shrugged. The Techo nodded once, glad she hadn't argued. Maybe this, somehow, was going to work out after all.