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 Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 9:03 pm
((ONCE AGAIN, EFF YOUR POSTING ORDERS. CHAOS REIGNS. ETC.))
It just wasn't Sofi's day. It wasn't her week. It wasn't her month. October almost ended on a high note-- ALMOST. But then all that downright creepy junk happened and then it led straight into the uh-oh that was right this second.
The so-called "anomalous readings" her dad was warned about. The nightmare she'd had. The piece of paper with the cryptic short story that gave her a papercut on the palm of her hand that STILL itched. The freaky FREAKINESS that was going on at Fa'e HQ. The little snot at table ten that used his spoon to launch a catapult of whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and mashed banana RIGHT INTO HER FREAKING EYE from across the Jejune June-- her Aunt June's cafe. They were all linked together!
Well, except for that last one. Even if his annoying "HA-HA" laughter made her angry enough for steam to leak out of one of her ears.
She didn't get it, she didn't get it, she didn't get it. Was it a terrorist organization? Was it an evil witch? Was reality folding in on itself due to the high concentration of awesome in the vicinity of the Fa'e?
...Was it break time yet? sweatdrop
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 9:23 pm
Faye wasn't really sure herself what had gone on, really, having not really been around when things happened. Tsu had temporarily gone missing, then returned with someone, babbling about immigrants and mail order brides, there had been a slip of paper of her own (Faye wasn't sure where she had put it), and uh...well, that did seem to be the gist of it, minus having her Halloween plans more or less put to waste.
Er, right. So in any case, having left behind a squabbling Tsu and a high wizard, Faye had been on another of her 'walk around town and do nothing productive' ones when she had spotted the Jejune June, a cafe the rabbit fa'e hadn't visited before...not that she usually was one to visit cafes.
Oh well. Figuring she'd stop in and get something to eat, the youth headed inside the building.
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 9:30 pm
Break time, break time, break time... it was all Sofi could think about.
BREAK TIME.
"Yes, yes," June had answered, tucking a fresh tiger lily (rather than her usual silk daisy) behind one ear as Sofi's obvious discomfort became nearly tangible. "Business is starting to slow down for the night anyway, so go ahead and--"
The ding-dingaling of the door opening cut her off as she automatically entered owner-mode, a bright smile on her face as she called out:
"Welcome to the Jejune June! Would you like a table or a b--"
"--Bunny!" Sofi immediately cried out, eyes widening in recognition. Bunny! Her VERY FIRST friend! The friend she hadn't seen in AGES! And now she was HERE in the biggest coincidence of the evening! "Omigosh! Bunnyyyyyyy! Bunny! Bunny, do you remember me? Hi, Bunny!"
Maybe it was her day after all!
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 9:54 pm
"Oh, er..."
Faye had been about to answer that unfinished question when Sofi had called out to her. It'd certainly been some time since she'd seen the teen, more than a few months, at the least- Faye could say that she hadn't expected to see her here, to be honest, but then Faye couldn't really remember if had known that Sofi had a job or not.
At least it was a friend, though; Faye had only a small amount of friends, fa'e or not, but she didn't see them too often, either.
"Hi, Sofi," she said, waving to the other girl, "How have you been?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 10:06 pm
"Well, um... um...!" Sofi struggled with the words, wanting to say everything and nothing at once. There was just so much to say, so little time to say it in... "Well, GOLLY," she finally stated, bringing a hand to her lips. "There's just been so much going on!"
"Maybe your friend should be seated so you two can talk," June prodded gently, reaching for a menu. "Now, as I was saying... Would you like a table or a booth?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 11:25 pm
"A booth, please," Faye told June, while Sofi struggled with a reply. Turning back to the younger fa'e, the youth nodded slowly, understanding.
"Lot of stuff's happened lately, too, sort of, for me," she told Sofi, "But maybe you should explain one thing at a time?"
"Er...whatever you'd like to talk about, anyways," Faye corrected herself, shrugging.
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Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2009 11:55 pm
"Oh, um...!" Sofi immediately whirled to flounce toward one of the booths before stopping dead in her tracks and turning back to June. "Oh! Menu! I'll--"
"--You're on break, remember?" came the teasing reply from June. "I'll handle it. Go ahead and sit."
Well, when Aunt June put it that way, how could Sofi resist, really? She resisted the urge to grab Faye by the wrist and lead her to the booth, instead seeming to forcibly dim slightly in order to keep from scaring her friend away. "This way, okay? I guess Aunt June's gonna wait on us both" A pause. "You remember Aunt June, right? She was there when we met in the park near here my first time here on Gaia. This is her cafe, and I've been helping out and stuff, but since I dropped out of school, she hired me on as an actual honest-to-goodness waitress!"
She finally came to a stop, gesturing at a booth before taking a seat at the opposite side. "Aunt June needed the help anyway since the cafe went from being a little coffeehouse to a place like this!" She gestured to her costume, a frilly cross between a waitress and a maid's costume. "And we've got like, cosplay nights and stuff where mostly we get boys who like to look at our dresses-- I think maybe they're into making costumes or something because sometimes they'll ask what size our waists or hips or busts are! I feel kind of like a fashion model!" Another pause as June set down a menu in front of Faye. "--And there are girls and boys who like to dress up too, and it's really fun on cosplay nights! You should come sometime! You'd be really popular, Bunny! --Oh, pink fizz please, Aunt June-- And check out the menu! All of the desserts and stuff are really good, and we've got coffees and teas and sodas and stuff from all over Gaia, and from the world I came from, too! They're alien drinks."
--Well, so much for turning down the brightness. Sofi seemed to be as bright and cheery as ever, now.
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:20 am
"You dropped out of school?" Faye asked, though she didn't seem to be all that...concerned? By that news. Wasn't like Faye had actually ever really gone to school, anyways. The fact that Sofi worked here, and that this was apparently Sofi's aunt's cafe, though, interested her.
"Ahh...so you like working here?" she asked, picking up the menu, "I haven't really been cosplaying in a bit- I have a costume, though."
That she had been planning to wear on Halloween, and never got to. Lame.
Glancing at the menu, she took a bit to decide, before telling June her order. "Cream soda for me," she said, "a slice of chocolate espresso truffle cake."
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:33 am
"Got it," answered June, who quickly left a suddenly somber Sofi to fidget awkwardly in front of Faye.
"Well that's... well..." She tucked a lock of stray hair behind her ear. "At last year's prom, I wished for empathy because everyone on Neilan is and I'm not, and when I was growing up and stuff, everyone treated me different. So I got it, and it marked my face and suddenly everyone thought I was touched by the GODS, right?" Fidgetfidget. "So I went home to finish school and everyone treated me so nice, but it was all fake. And it was so horrible; I could hear every lie in every nice thing they said and it was HORRIBLE. Since I was in my last year anyway, I just left and came back to Gaia. And there was this little girl back at the amusement park who let me have backsies on my trade, and I'm all better now!"
Sofi brightened considerably at this, but her earlier irrational exuberance seemed to have been tempered by the serious turn the conversation had taken. "Otherwise I'd just have to repeat a year, and I don't wanna do that. Neilani schools are farther ahead than Gaian and Earth ones, anyway. So I'm just as smart as the next person! So there."
"So what about you, anyway? What all have you been doing?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:44 am
Faye listened to Sofi's words, coming to the conclusion that Neilan was far more complicated (and advanced) than Gaia was, among other things. "I see," she said, nodding, "That sounds like it really sucked."
And it really did seem like it sucked; Faye certainly wasn't lying about that. The rabbit girl couldn't really imagine what it was like for something like that to happen to her, but ah...she didn't think she'd ever want to experience it.
As for what she had been doing?
"I haven't been doing much," Faye confessed, shrugging, "Tsu vanished a few weeks ago, though, so I was staying with someone else. She came back a few weeks later, though, with someone uh...some 'high wizard' or another. Said something about immigrants and mail order brides."
"Other than that, not much at all."
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:13 am
"Mail order brides..." Sofi couldn't quite wrap her mind around it. And then suddenly... "Oh! I know someone who might want to order a bride! Tomorrow when it's his shift, I should tell him! He says no one wants to marry him, so maybe it'll be good news!"
A beat.
"--Did you see what happened to the Fa'e building?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:37 am
"Oh, um..."
Faye hadn't quite meant it in that way, had she? Then again, she didn't really know what Tsu had meant by it, either, and didn't feel like trying to make sense of it.
There was a pause, and then the next question caught Faye off guard. The Fa'e building? What?
"No," the youth answered, shaking her head, "I haven't been there since the night before Halloween, I think?"
"...what happened?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 1:53 am
"I don't know..." Sofi wrung her hands together. "I went there the other day and... the place looked kind of like... I don't even know how to describe it. It looked like something in a..." She paused. "I know it sounds stupid, but it looked like something in a nightmare I had!"
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 11:24 am
Bhel fiddled with his new phone, using the little directional pad to scroll through all of the icons. Compared to the new top-of-the-line cells, his prepaid one was hardly cutting edge, but he could call his guardian on it, and he could call Mommy on it, and he had stored Nyoka's and Naolin's numbers, too, even though he had no idea who they were. It also took pictures, which made it easier to keep track of all the little riddles he had collected so far.
All four of them.
He felt pride that he could read all the letters in them, though - the bull Fa'e had been struggling somewhat with reading at school, so this was quite an accomplishment. Perhaps it just took the crisis to jump-start his learning centers. For now, though, he did not need to go to school (hence why he was just sort of wandering around); Kumoru had submitted a request to the school to grant the boy leave (whatever that meant). It was nothing strange or new in Gaia for children to suddenly have to skip a few weeks of school to help resolve some problem or another in their homeworld, so the Fa'e's guardian had only needed to fill out the paperwork.
Kumoru himself could not get such time off from work, though, which left Bhel alone for today.
... Or, well, almost alone.
Bhel wanted to help, and figured he would wander around and collect more riddles to show Kumoru at the end of the day; he trusted his guardian to take care of the smart-people grown-up stuff. But he was not allowed to wander alone. Lucretia accompanied him as he walked down the streets of Barton, blessedly quiet for a change, but hell-bent on protecting him. It made him feel better more or less, but the young Fa'e thought he would have preferred having Kumoru along with him instead.
The scent of baked goods reached the bull's nose then, though, and he looked up from the phone as he sniffed the air, trying to determine the source. ... He had had his mother's cookies at home, and they had made him feel better, but more cookies could only help more, right? The boy walked over to the cafe and pushed the door open, glancing around as he slowly let himself in.
Once the door was open, Lucretia grasped it and held it for the Fa'e, peering around blankly with her dark eyes as she followed him in. She was wearing a white sheet today, wrapped around what torso she had just below her breasts and fastened with a safety pin, but as usual, it did not reach all the way to the floor, leaving a space of about a foot and a half between the bottom of the sheet and the floor.
The Ice Rose Raeven perked up a little as she saw the decor of the place, though, and smiled faintly as she followed Bhel into the cafe.
"Hello?" At least it was not too crowded.
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 5:08 pm
Two more menus; check. June had intended to allow Sofi's break to run a bit longer than usual, seeing how excited she'd been to see "Bunny" again, but at this rate, she'd have to cancel that thought...
Well, maybe business would not pick up THAT much, she thought to herself with a smile. And besides, at the moment? It's nothing June can't handle.
"Hello there!" As Bhel was the one who'd greeted her, June put on her most cheerful face, leaning forward with her hands on her knees in order to bring herself closer to his eye level. "Table for two?"
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