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Despite it's young, trendy appearance, the coffee shop smelled old. It was always the only thing that seemed out of place to Lochlyn whenever she came for a small, delicious cup of sunshine and rainbows (how anyone's cafe mocha with soy would look after a shift with the hellions over at the local pizza and puke party place.)

Still dressed in the radioactively bright yellow striped V-neck jumper, blue leggings, and matching yellow flats, her big floppy had discarded carelessly on the seat beside her, Lochlyn sipped her little piece of happiness slowly. It had been a long week.

Out of the corner of her eyes, one brown and one green, she caught another patron eyeing her hat. Or her costume. Or her. She stuck her tongue out at him and turned away, determined to relax before heading home.

Strange things had been happening lately and, while one or two strange things could normally be forgotten they had been happening in a frequency that was putting her on edge (random people staring at her while she was in costume wasn't one of them. That, she admitted, was pretty normal considering her work uniform.) It was little things, the sorts of things that required a moment of time and a second look to realize. Doors that she couldn't remember being there before, in a neighbourhood she'd grown up in. Parks between buildings being empty when she could have sworn she'd heard laughing from only a moment before when she was around the corner.

Just the other night she'd walked under a street lamp and then been drowned in darkness as it clicked off, the only one on the street to do so, and then three dogs had come from no where to circle her and then run off.

It bothered her because it was weird and her life was normal -- she worked part time at a party restaurant, she went to community college, she got average grades, she even was average looking (and fine with that.) She was between a blond and brunette, between fit and chubby, average height, unremarkable skin. She didn't glow, she didn't sparkle, she didn't stand out, and aside from her mother's heterochromea and her irish name, Lochlyn hadn't gotten any more of the weird stuff that her mother's family was supposedly involved with according to her perfectly normal father and half-brother.

She'd even changed her after work coffee spot when this new place (she hadn't seen it before so she was assuming it was new, though there had never been a grand opening or new business sign) opened because the spot she'd regulared before had changed their coffee size names to weird names.

Who uses the same word in three different languages for three different sizes, anyways. She scoffed silently.

Another sip, a moment of appreciation for this perfectly normal, albeit odd smelling, coffee shop, and a sharp intake of breath when a long, sleek, black tail uncurled from the back of the barista's shirt as he bent down to lift a crate of milk from the bottom of the cooler and lifted it to the counter. The barista, a (supposedly) middle aged, portly, man looked up and locked eyes with Lochlyn. He smiled.

His teeth were two rows entirely made of canines.

The barista turned from Lochlyn and started sorting the milk, soy from regular, chocolate from white, and so on. Lochlyn set her cup down, reminded of the importance of oxygen, and wondered if learning a new word for "medium" was all that much trouble after all.

Minha swept into the cafe (colloquially known as the cafe; it had a proper name, but ******** if Minha could remember) as quickly as his aching ribs would allow. Tammer eyed his disheveled appearance--black hair standing up every which way, his grey, three-piece suit was now a two-piece suit since he'd lost the jacket somewhere, the buttons had been torn off the waistcoat, and the knees of his pants were torn up. Then the ******** grinned broadly at him from behind the counter, baring his teeth because he was a goddamn menace to society, before he wordlessly passed Minha coffee that was more sugar than coffee.

But not wordlessly enough; "Rough day?" Tammer asked with feigned kindness as Minha gulped down the coffee in one go, his body snapping up the sugar in the drink.

He shoved the cup back at Tammer, glaring at the barista with a snarled, "******** you. I should fire you."

At first glance, Minha looked vaguely Asian; he was on the shorter side for a man, certainly shorter than the barista, and with a slight build... but it was Tammer who looked away first. Turning his back on Minha, tail switching through the air, Tammer deposited Minha's cup into the sink before presenting him with a second, already-made drink. It was a mocha-something-or-other, still more sugar than coffee, and Minha curled his hands around the mug while the sugar from the first gulped coffee started to hit his system, soothing the edges of his ire away enough that he could sigh into his first sip of the new drink.

He didn't thank Tammer, but the barista shot him another sly smile and refrained speaking. Instead, his tail swished through the air, flicking towards Lochlyn like a speculative tilt of the head.

Minha's dark eyes narrowed.

"How often?"

Tammer shrugged. "Regularly enough that it isn't coincidence," came his quiet reply.

Feeling almost normal--almost, but it was close enough--Minha squared his shoulders and turned from the counter. He nodded absently at one of his regulars, then brought his confectionery drink over to Lochlyn, setting the cup down on her table and abruptly seating himself in front of her.

"You're new," he observed flatly, without preamble. "Who are you?"

"Well if you're offering food, ******** if I'll say no to that," Minha graciously accepted Lochlyn's offer, turning over his shoulder to yell at Tammer to bring a ham and cheese croissant over. "It's on my new friend," he added with a grin. The way Minha's smile managed to be sharper than Tammer's, despite the lack of vicious canines, was mystery that would likely never be solved.

The smile was still fixed on Minha's face when he turned back Lochlyn. "Thanks for the croissant," he said blandly, before adding in a fit of charity, "I don't know how it is where you're from, but over here, there's not many of us here who'd say no to free deals like that. You should be careful of what you go around offering people."

Some people liked to argue that one should always consider both the words and the intent of a bargain--that one shouldn't accept bargains when the other party didn't realize they were making a bargain in the first place--but Minha laughed at those people, because those people were ******** idiots.

The young-looking man took another swallow of his sugary drink, and lords below, that did the trick; the tension in the way he held himself seemed to melt away, and he leaned back into his chair in what could only be called a vertical sprawl.

"So," he said to Lochlyn, still sounding brisk if not quite so curt. "Where are you from?"