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What a god damn day. It seemed like everyone had decided to call off leaving the store so poorly manned. In fact, Juniper, who usually tended to the women's or men's department was now also taking care of the Home department which, let's be honest, meant she was practically in charge of more than half the store at that point. Needless to say the woman was not at all happy about this work shift. Not happy one bit.

Plus to add insult to injury, she had just dealt with a customer who was irate at the fact that Juniper wasn't normally in the home department and could only help her to a certain point in finding a vacuum that would do a very specific thing. How the hell am I suppose to know how heavy a vacuum is or which was the best one to use when it came to traveling? I don't study that s**t.

So, after being yelled at by the woman, Juniper had eventually called for a manager and walked away. She'd barely kept her own tongue in check and as she turned the corner of an aisle was when she ran smack dab into Zac.

A string of curse words almost flew out of her mouth in the moment, but she bit her cheeks. "I am sorry. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going." She apologized, it was her fault, but she still was not in any mood to deal with customers. But still, she offered Zac a smile. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Well, kudos to him for not right out yelling at her. Not that every customer did that but she was in one of those moods. "Iam fine. " She offered him a smile, a real smile, this time.

"Um, I think we may have some of those over two aisles. " She sighed. "Sorry, this isn't my department so Iam only half way helpful. But I'll definitely help you find them, I know I've seen something like that."

"We are. Very short handed. Apparently people thought it was a great day to make call offs." Her voice dropped with the resentment she had for her coworkers who had apparently all decided to take the day off and not form her. "Sorry, Iam being rude."

"Anyway, I definitely know cats. I've got one of my own who thinks he rules the apartment. " She chuckled. "Amd only the best would work for him. So...." She stood and pondered for a moment, pausing to give him a raised brow at the mention of clowns. "Well I think you're in luck. I don't think I've ever seen any clown patterned blankets." So the guy was one of those who were afraid of clowns. Interesting. "Maybe your cats would like one though. " She winked.

She gestured for him to follow her as she led the way to another aisle where she thought the blankets might be. "So how many cats do you have?"

"Ah, so three cats in one space? Oh I bet they keep you two entertained!" She grinned. "Especially with a kitten too. I don't know whether to be sorry for you or jealous."

A brow went up at the mention of a bookstore. "Oh? Which bookstore? This may be a bit random, but do you happen to sell scripts there? I am always on the hunt for new plays to read." Not that she could always afford to purchase them, but it was always worth the time to look!

"Mogget? What a cute name! Star tends to join me for outings too. He's well versed in the harness and leash now. Though, he does have his days where all he wants to do is laze about and do nothing but warm up the window sill. Or the bed." She shrugged. "Oh to have the life of a well taken care of cat., right?" She winked as they walked down the aisle where she had, miraculously remembered that the blankets were in.

"Um, there's quite a few here. I don't know if these are what you're talking about?" She reached out and grabbed a neatly folded blue sherpa blanket that was tied up with a basic, brown ribbon. "These are pretty soft."

While she showed her customer the blanket, Juniper started to wonder if she had met this guy before. Something was tickling the back of her mind, but wasn't quite ready to surface itself. She bit her bottom lip as she squinted at him momentarily.

"Oh. I've heard of that place. I never went in there though." Of course, she didn't mention her lack of exploring the store was because she knew she probably couldn't purchase anything there. "Maybe I'll check it out next time I go past it."

As he checked the blanket and voiced his concerns, she glanced around at what else was on the shelf. Blue eyes landed on tightly rolled fleece blankets. Some had patterns of dogs, footballs, leaves and snowflakes while others were solid or had a basic geometric pattern on it. She reached down and grabbed one of the solid colored ones and handed it to him.

"I don't know if that would work? It's still soft but doesn't have as much of a knapp to it. Hopefully they wouldn't lick that to death like the poor panda." She grinned. "I have a few other solid colors here. Um. Blue. purple, green and....black I think."

As she stood there, watching him check over which blanket might work for him, her brain seemed to finally catch up. "OH!" She said abruptly. "You were there. At the ball. That's why you looked familiar to me."

Juniper's eyes widened at the mention of that clown room. "No! No you're not! I even had dreams about clowns for a week after that, too. And, I am not even afraid of clowns."

She reached over and nabbed up two more blankets after taking the one from him. One of the blankets she handed him was in a rich sapphire blue while the other was a dark black. She placed the first blanket back where it had originally been.

"How are you faring after that? You knew about, um...other ashdown beforehand, right?" Juniper had gotten the impression that a few people had no really known about the other ashdown until that ball.

"Some people are quite upset about the whole thing. I don't blame them. I wasn't happy either, really. Still not, to tell the truth. I find myself more upset about what was done to the tithes when I think about it."

"I definitely didn't see the actual clown there. Damn." His description of the centipede creature of Ashdown had Juniper nodding. "I think we're find here in Ashdown. At least...I am pretty sure we are." She hoped they were, anyway. That had not been something that was ever brought up in conversation, if Other Ashdown residents did or even could visit their normal Ashdown.

"Use to be blue? What happened?" She questioned him, completely curious about that little story. What happened that his eye color got changed? Was it magic? Could he do something now? See better, perhaps? Juniper was very intrigued by the whole magic thing that was part of Other Ashdown and the fact that they could do magic here, in their own town, was just fascinating to her!