Welcome to Gaia! ::

With a soft grunt, Kova managed to lift the large cabbage from the step in front of the shop and back in through the door, her tail pushing hard to keep it from swinging shut on her. Then, with a complicated sort of dance, she slid more fully into Twilight Designs, protecting both tail and cabbage from the sudden closing of the door. She beamed, clearly pleased with herself as she held the plant. "Well, leafy-puss," she announced. "This is where I work. It's usually quiet on a Monday so I figured you could come in and hang out with me and see what I do. Isn't everything in here so pretty?"

Even as she spoke, she padded further into the store and moved the cabbage around as if she were showing it the various bits of jewelry in the cases. "Mr. Athan and Miss Reyna are really good with this and have great taste. Maybe you'll get to meet them."

For a moment, Kova paused and squinted around her. Finally, she settled on the heavy, wooden table that sat beside the case which was her usual haunt. The glass case held her favorite pieces - tanzanite and gold and amethyst and an unusually carved bit of opal. Using her elbow, she managed to push aside the bottle of glass-cleaner that sat on it and gently lowered the plant to its temporary home. "There you go, leafy-puss," she cooed. "You can see everything from there." Fondly, she stroked one broad green leaf.

"Oh, yes! Of course!" Giving her cabbage a final, cheerful pat, Kova skipped over to oblige. She held it wide and was careful to stand out of his way so he could move through easily. "How are you today, Mr. Athan? Is that new shipment?"

"Oh." Kova's face immediatly lit with one of her usual mega-watt grins and she allowed the door to swing shut. "It's mine," she explained. She crossed back to pat the leaves gently and then shifted it a bit, fiddling with the placement on the table. The leaves rustled quietly. She looked up, brown eyes bright. "I got it from a lab and I have to take care of it because it'll probably turn into something. I think it might turn into a kid. Or a cat or a dog or I don't know. Things here on Gaia are always turning into other things, aren't they?"

She paused and tilted her head, studying the cabbage. "It doesn't have a name yet, though," she sighed. "You can't tell if a cabbage is a boy or a girl."

"Thank you." Judging from Kova's warm smile, it was the right thing to say. Stepping around the case and abandoning her cabbage, Kova held out her hands in an offer of continued help. "I'm glad you came in today, though, Mr. Athan. I was just telling it that I hoped it could meet you. You and Miss Reyna or, oh, Mystic!"

Kova nodded and, somehow already attuned to her employer's needs, moved to retrieve a little crinkly packet from the pocket of her cargo-skirt. "But I can usually kind of feel him. I don't know." Whether that was strictly true or not, Kova seemed content with the notion that she just might see him later and get to introduce her cabbage. She held up the packet. "I got coffee on my way in. It's... I think the guy at the shop called it Arabian Crack?"

"Oh, really?" Kova looked at her boss with wide, dark eyes, completely innocent. "Well," she finally ammended as she wandered over to again aimlessly pet her cabbage, the packet of coffee in her other hand, "maybe feel is wrong? I don't know. Maybe it's just 'cause I really like him or something. Or because I'm around him so much. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to."

"Like bein' in deep space," Kova suggested. "You just have to kind of... Feel it." She disappeared into the back room to start the coffee machine percolating and then, almost as if she feared to allow her cabbage out of her sight, she came back to lean in the doorway, once more in full view of both Athan and vegetable. "D'you think I'm crazy to feel shadows and talk to cabbages?" she asked suddenly.

"I told you he was so very nice." This was directed at the cabbage. Athan, on the other hand, was suddenly the receipient of fewer words and more actions as Kova crossed the space between them in a few strides and threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you."