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Dressed in jeans, a tank top, and a denim jacket, America had apparently taken Lara at her word in regards to attire. It's taken a bit of directions and a turn about, but luckily she'd tried to come a little early anyway. Peeking through the doorway, the girl sees she's the first one there outside of Lara herself.

Hefting up a plastic grocery bag that smelled distinctly like baked good, she greets the other woman with a cheery, "Hi Miss Lupin! I brought a crumble! Peaches and pecan!" It'd been tempting to ask Nasir to whip up some of his own sort of culinary magic for her, but after a bit of thought, the girl felt that if she was gonna put a good foot forward with these folks, well, it should be her own foot. At least this time.

Placing the crumble down with the rest of the food with an appreciative dang for all of it, America starts to move toward the Deathslayer, ready to coo and baby talk at the adorable beastie. And halts abruptly when she sees his little vest. With a quiet oh she instead, after an awkward what do I do with my hands then, proceeds to salute the fellow and take a seat with a chagrined look.

"How many others are gonna be coming?"

Swapping schedules was a b***h and a half and Melina had been halfway through her usual pre-work routine before she remembered that she wasn't working today. She'd traded her day off (a Sunday!!) for this meeting. She hadn't intended to come, not originally, but the bird was still there, following her, watching her, and she could always tell.

With all the respect of a full-time student she hadn't really dressed up for the meeting, wearing her PINK-brand sweats and a slouchy tunic made from much the same material. The pants were searing neon, offensive to the eyes, and her very favorite.

Swinging a box of donut Munchkins from her fingertips onto the table she grinned at the box of Joe and immediately poured herself a cup, filling a napkin with six of the little donut holes before plopping into a chair. "So are all of you being stalked by animals or are you the ones seeing things?"

Well... The upsides so far were that he wasn't the only one shaken and upset... Downside was that he was potentially the only one who wasn't aware if he was being followed by his... Spirit animal or whatever.

"Wait you guys know what animal is messing with your head? HOW?" He protested, sitting forward and frowning. He was itching for that bit of validation that it wasn't a joke; that he wasn't going crazy.

"Rylan," he said, taking a bite out of his bagel and lifting it to identify himself. "Born here. Left for college and the military for a bit, but came back a couple years ago."

If they paid attention to the news, they might have recognized his name or his face from some of the rescues he'd done in the past. But he didn't mention it. He'd never loved public scrutiny.

Folding his rather large frame into a chair, he took another bite out of the bagel and looked around the room at the other gathered here, wondering how they had each gotten pulled into this mess.

"And, uh. There's a little bird with my eyes that keeps showing up in places I'm at," he said, looking at Falco. "I got pulled into him by accident the first time, but I'm pretty sure the second was no mistake." Maybe more like a fluke.

"I found three of us," said Lara brightly, even after Falco spoke. "Besides you and I. Hello, Falco. Melina. And there you are, Lieutenant!"

She smiled around the group once they'd all come in, and rose to shut the door. "We're all somehow connected to an animal," said Lara without preamble. "My warg is Cerby, he with the little blue vest." Cerby's ears pricked forward at his name. "Rylan has a little bird, a shrike? And I think Melina's got a bird… As for you two, I don't know!" She smiled at America and Falco, quite brightly. "But Cerby says they should be around here, so I think our first job is going to be properly catching up with our warg animals; how does that sound for everyone?"

Oh jeeze, a Shrike? He kind of hoped the guy had given it some kind of Hannibal related nickname, it just seemed too.. pop culture perfect not to. And ok... so... hunt for their surprise-animal-buddies. Oh god, this should be exciting. Was he going to have to explain to his uncle when something followed him home?

"Ok so one stalker-bird, and two... whatever.... yay. How are we supposed to catch up to them? I mean, if there are animals wandering around... what then? And what if it turns out to be something crazy like... someone else's service animal?"

"I dunno... I mean... do we just go... walk around and see if anything wanders our way?"

He wanted to get to the bottom of this, but he wasn't sure what the first step was. Lara had apparently come with a bit of a short cut, but he wasn't sure how he and America were supposed to catch up to something they hadn't really identified. He was.... well he'd partially ruled out Bird, unless it was like a vulture or something. Birds didn't, he thought, have much sense of smell, but he wasn't exactly deeply versed in animals either so...

"Sorry. I don't know. Surprise animal buddy hide and seek. Sounds great. Lets get started."

America's look was not lost on Rylan but was Melina's look lost on Lara? Certainly she looked incredulous, then a little disgusted, at how ~~surreal~~ things were getting. She was a bit of a daydreamer, true, but daydreams were just that: dreams. That her eyebrows hadn't taken off towards the heavens was a wonder of the modern world, they were raised that high.

"This is ridiculous. I need to say that. Literally incredible." But she gestured towards the door. "The damn bird is probably pressed up against the wood, though. If it were a woodpecker it'd be knocking to get in and I'd be in the corner, balled up and sobbing." She didn't handle the unnatural well and weeks of being watched had taken its toll on her nerves. Lina was short-tempered and the lack of nerve showed in the way she pressed her fingertips against her eyes, hardly believing that she was indulging this sort of madness.

But the bird was following her and Lara had known about it and seemed to understand how to deal with it. That there was some significance to the fact, whatever the hell a 'warg' was she was apparently one?

Disgusted she may have been but Melina was curious enough to stick it out and see where this was going. If nothing else she was better able to cope with the insanity of it all in a group. "Calling it now. America's got a bear."