Before Cledwynn even had a chance to respond, the dragon-like creature began talking to others. A real fireball of the party, that's for sure.

Then again, he wondered where the fun was in talking to someone who responded to a question one hadn't yet asked. Most people, he felt, wouldn't find it sporting to talk to someone that already had the means of knowing way too much about them.

It was means to tick people off.

It could have been a good thing, he figured, especially for people who were easily amazed. It could be the greatest of party tricks.

But here, in this scape, in light of what was going on.. It only made Cledwynn more uneasy about being here. After all he'd been through in past lives, and now he was here, watching the End from within a restaurant of freaks, geeks, and spooks.

Then he remembered that he was all three of those things.

Soon after, more of his boring gazes painlessly and unnoticeably inflicted the others. He just kept examining the other people here. To him, they looked like a normal group.

Then again, by his standards, normal was the new crazy, and freakshows were in. He'd let his eyes be subject to them, and to the Restaurant, and to the End.

All that was left now was what he'd saved for last, the man behind the counter whose name was unknown to the mecha-apparition. But as he looked to the tender of this place, he didn't notice anything even remotely stunning about the man. He was, in all intents and purposes, dreadfully mediocre.

And Cledwynn found that to be awfully wrong, given this place, its residents, its whereabouts.

But he couldn't just go up and ask the man, 'Say, why do you look so normal?'

Even thinking about it now, a person that looked as generic as that could take offense to such a question. Then again, maybe he'd been asked this before. Maybe he had a reason.

Then it came to Cledwynn that maybe he looked so normal to contrast the others he expected would come here. It wasn't likely that he'd just get any usual astronaut. Was it all a big scheme? All part of Mr. Normal's master plan to catch the most attention?

Because if so, he was succeeding in spades. After all, Cledwynn had been staring at the restaurant keeper for some time now, entranced with how normal he was. Perhaps, this polter-bot wondered, he had a normal name too. Like Bob. Or Tim. Or James or Bobby or John or .. or even just Man.

The more he thought about it, though, something like 'Man' or even 'Mr. Man' was definitely bizarre.

Though he was certain that this barkeep had a one-syllable name. His bets were on Bob.

.. He laughed at himself in his head. How crazy were things right now? Here he was, a ghost with metallic prosthetic legs, a beating human heart and fully functional brain, devil's tails stretching from his back as he sat alone, away from some strange abominable dragon, and two girls- one that looked and sounded battle-hardened, the other not-so-much as he sat at a table here in a restaurant at the edge of everything, where atoms somehow both collided and split, where the concept of time could be void. All of this could have been some strange lucid fever dream or a chunk of his insanity gone rogue, turned to sickest reality.

But he was confident that all of this was really happening. It was one for the books, he was sure. Not that he wrote books, anyway. It was certainly an idea to consider, though.

He didn't let it distract him from the fact of everything that was going on and-

Wait, was he STILL staring at the barkeep? Yet, he couldn't help himself. That man was strangely common. Like the base of a Create-a-Hero in a typical MMORPG. Cledwynn's thoughts were led astray and back to this man who he was sure held a name like Tim. Or was it Bob..? He didn't care to remember.

... Or, rather, he couldn't remember. It was almost like he was forced to forget the aspects of the barkeep the moment his eyes were gone. He'd just have to try harder to remember he who looked so commonplace. It was really all he could do.

Besides, it was better than being under the whim of those with telepathy. Granted, it wasn't that dragon's fault for being able to read his thoughts, nor was it Cledwynn's.

It just wasn't very sporting to have one's mind read. There were secrets he wanted to keep.

So, instead, he gathered his ghastly courage and resolve, and practically stomped over to the front stand of the restaurant, saying nothing, but extending his transparent hand to the barkeep.

Nothing like a good handshake to break the figurative ice.

POMPF!

was the sound that the flash of purple-green-yellow made as it spat the stout figure unceremoniously onto the cold ground below. It could, perhaps, have been described as a BLOMP! or a SPOOSH!, but neither really carried the soul-crushing weight of a good, old-fashioned POMPF!

The figure stood, dazed, but otherwise was considerably less affected by having just appeared out of thin air than they ought to have been. They at the very least looked humanoid, but any sex, age, or even race was left extremely ambiguous due to their entire body being covered head-to-toe in clothing, from the hood covering their hair to the thick-soled boots that were currently boosting their stature upwards of maybe two whole inches - even then, they were perhaps five feet tall.

They were just about to do what those who pop in and out of places they shouldn't do; assess their surroundings and plot a logical course of action afterwards, when suddenly the most delicious smell wafted through the thin bandanna wrapped around their nose and mouth. Small eyes squinted in confusion. Usually, they would be incredibly suspicious - however, the loud growl from their stomach protested otherwise. God, they were starving. The last time they had eaten was approximately two teleportations ago, in which they stole a food item off of a Galra soldier that was almost, but not quite like, a sandwich.

They turned around and nearly cried at the sight, not even bothering to read past the words "The Restaurant". Food. Glorious, glorious food - in abundance and ripe for the taking. Oh, thank the gods. It was the smell of coffee and pastries, of cheap liquor and distinguished rosés, of numerous other food items to supply the much-appreciated calories to this tiny, waifish figure.

They pushed open the door with their right hand without hesitation, even as their left dropped down to rub anxiously at the leather pouch secured to their ankle. It carried their most prized possession - a tiny morningstar, small enough to be concealed, deadly enough to escape in a pinch. If they got lucky, there wouldn't have to be too much of a fight...

"What...happened to the Earth here?" Sandra was asking.

John had to think about it. "Well, hmm. I'm not sure, actually. That was a long a time ago. The sun has blown up---oh, don't worry about it. All stars do that, eventually. But people have found a way to travel to other stars, so in away, I guess there's plenty of other Earth-like in the Galaxy." He smiled at the thought. "Say, you need to travel more, Miss! The universe is much bigger than that little blue-green planet."

At around that time, another newcomer walked into a bar. A ghost, from the waist up, and mechanical from the waist down. He hovered around, seemingly too nervous to settle down.

He was also looking very curiously at John. The barkeep was not very used to being stared at, except maybe by drunkards or troublemakers or undercover police who's trying too hard at finding their target. The newcomer didn't seem to be any of them. In fact, he looked nervous and awkward and possibly perfectly harmless.

When he came up front and extended his hand, John shook it and beamed a welcoming smile.

"Welcome to the Restaurant. Please, just make yourself comfortable. If the drunk telepath is bothering you too much," John gave a piercing glare to the dragon amoeba, "just tell me, so I have a reason to limit his alcohol intake." He smiled again and fiddled around with some glasses. "And, what can I get you?"

Right behind him, the door opened once more and another newcome came in. The figure was short and covered entirely in fabric. John was quick to repeat his line, "Welcome to the Restaurant!"

The figure, who at this point was going by the alias Pridopus, stopped with comical suddenness. They weren't expecting to be spotted so...quickly. They turned around, eyes frantically scanning the area outside for an escape - but...oh.

There was nothing outside.

The restaurant seemed to be floating atop a tiny plot of land in an endless void of stars, planets, and ancient galaxies. How- how were they even breathing?

Pridopus decided not to pursue it. One thing that they had learned from their frequent interstellar travels was that if you come across something that you do not understand, just don't think about it. Thinking too hard about things made you vulnerable, and besides, you were very, very unlikely to actually learn much of anything. Especially when you are liable to POMPF into a completely different plane of existence at any moment.

Pridopus spun back around, walked in. The door closed behind them with spine-rattling finality. Their hand had still not left their leather pouch. Their hood fell slightly over their eyes as they took a passing glance at it, and their other hand came back up to push it back. They looked back in the direction of the voice: a genial enough face, if unremarkable. They felt the tension from their shoulders loosen.

And then their stomach growled again.

A bearded 33-year-old man with long dark hair in a sports jacket and tie sauntered lazily into the bar, followed by a petite teenage girl with pointed ears and a skin-tone that looked almost pink; she wore a knee-length black skirt and dark blue long-sleeved blouse. He stood just inside the main entrance and looked around, obviously not to keen on being there. He rolled his eyes and half-turned to his companion, arms crossed over his chest.

Before he could verbally express his disappointment, the shorter female said, "You never know, you might enjoy it here."

"Stop it," he retorted. He then glared upwards. "You stop it."

The girl smirked as she looked to him. "Levi, loosen up. You're supposed to be on vacation."

Levi turned to speak to her as she headed for the bar. He closed his mouth and sighed, and then followed her, not removing his stubbornly crossed arms. "I don't like anything you just said," he grumbled miserably. Then he muttered under his breath, "You pointy-eared pink skank."

She turned on her heel, angry. "Hey!"

Levi slowly walked up to her. He sighed. "Sorry, Yylya (pronounced Yi-lie-ah). How am I supposed to be on vacation when nothing I do matters?"

"That's why we came here," she replied, more softly. "Yes, the Author controls you and I, but not the others here. Other authors control them. So you can actually interact with people -" A hulking blob of an entity moved behind her, causing her to pause and clear her throat. "- sentient beings, without feeling like you're talking to yourself or like you have no purpose."

Levi nodded slowly, finally unfolding his arms and scratching his head. "Alright," he relented.

They headed for the bar.

"hello levi"

Cledwynn, at least for a moment, was taken aback and by the utmost of shock. During his time in past lives, he hadn't had many good experiences with bartenders- or, rather, not just bartenders, but communities as a whole. Maybe it was his fault back then, but he'd not seen many positive faces, not ones like the face of the man before him. So this served to be quite the surprise- for this male's smile gave forth such an amicable aura about him. Not only that, but his voice was fittingly soothing too- not in the romantic sort of way, mind, he didn't swing that way.

Not entirely, at least. Not that he quite understood what he preferred. Though, who'd love a ghobot anyway? Yet, that was a monotonous monologue of a sonata for a different day. No one wants to hear about unrequited love that was never reached in the first place. Cledwynn didn't know what love was, anyway.

That aside, Cledwynn's attention was drawn back to the bartender like a tractor beam on an unsuspecting human specimen. Promptly, he let go of the man's hand, trying to avoid holding it for too long like an awkward walkabout.

He thought about what the man said for a moment, especially the line about the drunken telepath. Cledwynn knew immediately who he meant, and he glanced from the corner of his eye at the hulking mass of dragon-like specimen managing to talk to practically everyone at once. From the bartender's tone, Cledwynn deduced three things-

one- that this dragon was intoxicated, and probably heavily so.
Two- that he- it- had to be annoying others at least somewhat.
Three- that this dragon was possibly only a bit of a nuisance WHEN intoxicated.

Cledwynn sure as hell hoped that he was only like that, if he was truly like that, when intoxicated.

He wanted to give a bit of a chuckle at all this, but there was one more line from the man he had to address before he let himself forget. It was the last thing the man said.

Ah, yes. 'What can I get you?'

The words sent a twinge of disdain through his form, though. A frown crept upon his lips. He could even feel his devil's tails straighten out and stiffen via the combination of despair, embarrassment and overly dreadful disappointment he felt at the moment.

"I, uh.."

It was bad enough that he was already evasive to most things. He really disliked doing and saying things that had the chance to cause hubbub. Still, he inhaled, politely placing his hands behind his back.

"I don't have any money.."

He could feel the tails at his upper back droop slightly, laying against his skin. The man before him could say anything. He might ask, 'Well, why are you here if you have no money?' or something similar. Or he could tell Cledwynn flat-out to leave, and while that would be understandable, it wouldn't feel very nice.

His worry was heightened the more people came into the restaurant. A small man clad to the brim in clothing, and a sport jacket-wearing fellow accompanied by a small.. pink..? girl.. to name a few.

For now, Cledwynn ignored their presence.

After all, it was obvious that the drunkard-dragon would certainly occupy them for the time being.

The Authoress

There was definitely something different about this dimension. Of course, there was always something different in every dimension but it wasn't often that the Authoress took the liberty to visit this type of dimension - the kind where other multidimensional beings could gather for their individual purposes. Most of the time, she was far more focused on keeping the balance in dimensions of the linear timeline type. It tended to be disrupted in those moreso than the others.

"Ah." 'Sandra' wasn't quite sure how to respond to the bartender's explanation. She'd never wandered into a version of Earth that was...not on Earth. Deciding to focus on his comment on her journeys instead, she flashed a sheepish smile. "Well, I haven't quite figured out how to do that. My power's always just taken me to alternate Earths. I-" She stopped abruptly when a...sort of cyborg? A guy with metal legs and weird hair had just come over, with some unneeded stumping, to shake the bartender's hand. Her eyes were particularly attracted to his hair, which didn't seem very hair-like. While he was nowhere near the weirdest person she'd ever seen, he still came across as pretty unusual.

How strange - his body was ethereal but he retained a physical heart and brain. The Authoress was mildly impressed by the fine tuning of the curse she could see wrapped around him. Though the key word to note was "mildly"; she had seen far more complicated magic in other realms.

Should she drop the Sandra act? She wasn't sure if her current self-indulgent pet project would bring about more effect than if she were to simply experience this story unroll as herself. More individuals, unique in their own sense, from their appearances down to the lingering remnants of their respective dimensions'...'scent' was the word that described it most in layman terms, were coming into the Restaurant. The Authoress made a mental note to visit said dimensions later. They were all unfamiliar to her and that in itself was quite rare. She was not averse to change, however. In fact, she welcomed it. Finding new stories to explore helped her to execute her job more effectively.

"I like your hair," blurted out 'Sandra'.

Perhaps she would keep her act for a little longer.

@Night_ Star
Pridopus was absolutely terrified.

It had taken them a moment to truly take in not only the amount of people in this building but the diversity; from mechanical spirit-creatures that clicked and whirred with clockwork parts to blobby dragon-shaped creatures producing slurred speech as it downed another odd-colored beverage. Well, if nothing else everyone looked...nonthreatening.

Their hand left their pouch.

Pridopus walked the rest of the way inside and began the slow stride to the bar. They...honestly had no clue who to ask for something to eat, but if nothing else maybe they could down something fruity enough to fill their stomach for now. The clockwork creature was shaking the hand of the plain man, and Pridopus didn't want to make things awkward by interrupting. After all, if things got nasty than two against one would be absolutely terrifying on a floating rock-island.

What about that self-possessed lady, the one who'd been speaking just now? Pridopus was rather drawn to the calming blue of her clothing.

They walked up to her, head cast down, and, in a voice muffled heavily by the cloth over their face, asked,

"Uh...pardon me, madam...?"

"Wha-..?"

The sudden, new voice nearly startled the man. It being so close, with its keeper looking directly at Cledwynn's hair, he could only naturally assume that the person who said it was talking to him.

Upon hearing it, he turned to look to the speaker. It was the girl that had been initially chatting with the bartender.. had he interrupted their conversation? From a distance, it seemed like the bartender was managing talking to multiple people just fine, but now it didn't seem that way. Still, if there were a problem, wouldn't this girl have said something?

Speaking of saying something, didn't she just talk to him? The concept of what she had said, for a moment, had initially figuratively bounced right off of him with the intensity of a small child rebounding off of a spring mattress after someone heavier jumps onto it, with the child, of course, surviving, since most people aren't monstrous enough to do that with the intent of harming a child, much like in Cledwynn's case, he wouldn't let this notion fly away from him completely- that is to say, in short, he eventually stopped being so infatuated with the cataclysmic constructs of his carried-over-mind and remembered to give the new speaker his attention.

Though, addressing what she said.. it was getting more difficult to respond to what he realized, now, was a compliment. It wasn't that he didn't know how to respond to compliments.

It was just that, given his past(s), and how little time he'd spent with others due to how utterly repulsive he once was, he was never given compliments.

So yeah- he didn't know how to respond to them. That point was exemplified in his current life as well, given that his hair only vaguely resembled a regular, human hair-like shape- it looked more like a slow-flowing goo. 'Sludge' could have been an appropriate term to describe it, and normally Cledwynn would have elaborated on it with such a word, but with a term like that comes the notion and connotation that his hair, through assumption from the word 'sludge', would smell and/or taste bad. And while tasting hair was a very niche thing to do, smelling it- or, rather, coming into the scent of it by natural 'accident'- was not so niche as the former counterpart.

Then again, perhaps it was only niche because no one had tried it. Hair could, perhaps, taste rather swell. He briefly thought about elaborating on this, but knew he had more pressing matters to attend to.

Finally finding the appropriate wording, albeit seeming the smallest bit bashful about having being complimented since he was now slightly tugging at the sleeve of his clothing.

"Ehm, well, thank you..! That's very nice of you to say, especially given its.. somewhat amorphous look."

He certainly wasn't wrong. The hair of his almost looked sentient, like it would start forming shapes at the snap of a finger.

Though maybe that was why she enjoyed it so? Honestly, Cledwynn internally hoped that this was the case. What he also hoped for, though, was that he could start perhaps an intellectual conversation with her- and perhaps the bartender too, since they shared words only moments before.

Levi and Yylya entered the bar area and Levi was shocked, not only to being verbally accosted by an amoebic dragon, but also because this creature knew his name. Levi glared at Yylya, who shrugged.

"I didn't tell him."

Levi leveled a leering look at the lard-like life. "No thanks...whatever you are."

He moved around the creature and headed over to the bar, quickly grabbing John's attention behind the counter. "Please, for the love of God, get me a beer."

"You don't drink!" accused Yylya as she crossed her arms.

Levi spun at her angrily. "Take it up with your boss!" He then turned back to John. "Is there a quiet place I can go to be alone? Perhaps a sensory deprivation chamber?"

The robot-ghost and Sandra seemed like they'll be able to get talking, which was a relief to the barkeep. More customers are coming in, and despite all that he'd done to the Restaurant, he only had one head and one pair of hands. Seeing that the robot-ghost was nervous, uncertain, and would probably take a very long time choosing what to have even if he was told that all the food is free, John quickly poured a glass of the Unassuming Drink*. He put the glass in front of the robot-ghost, "It's on the house. Everything here is. Just call me up or any of the waiters if you need anything else."

The fabric-clad newcomer seemed to be just as nervous as the robot-ghost. That's not really an odd reaction for someone who was suddenly transported to the Restaurant; John had gotten used to it. But he wasn't sure how to respond when the first person they asked for was another customer instead of him, the guy who's actually behind the bar. Ah, well. Maybe he ought to let them talk a bit. Let him have the awkward greetings.

There are two other newcomers in the bar, after all: a perfectly normal human man in a sports jacket, and a small teenage girl with pointed ears. Not the oddest of duos, as far as John had seen.

"Please, for the love of God, get me a beer."

A decisive customer! Even if the only decision he had was of the simplest alcohol. John quickly served him up a glass. "There you go. And, hmm, a sensory deprivation chamber? We, might have something like that...?" John had no idea. Maybe one had built itself into the Restaurant when he wasn't looking. "You can wander around, if you like. This place is pretty big, I'm sure there are plenty of quiet corners."

* (The result of an alchemical accident John was always grateful for, the Unassuming Drink is non-alcoholic, neutral colored, just tasteful enough to make you happy. It's the perfect drink to both shut someone up or to keep them talking. As far as it has been tested in the Restaurant, it has no side effect on anybody yet).

---

The Authoress

"You're welcome!" said 'Sandra' with a cheerful grin. She didn't mind its amorphousness. It was its ethereal essence that fascinated her, the way it seemed to glimmer slightly under the restaurant's light. "Amourphous or not, it still looks nice."

Her gaze drifted down to his metal legs. Was he a cyborg? No, that couldn't be. From what she could tell, his upper half was supernal. Prosthetics, then? But why would a spirit need prosthetics? She looked back up at him, brows furrowing slightly. It was then she realised that he still seemed a little restive so she gestured to the seat next to her.

"Why don't you have a seat? There's nowhere else to go anyway, what with this place being in space and all," she added, glancing over at the windows to see the shattered remnants of a collapsed star burst outwards. 'Sandra' took another sip of her coffee. It was then she heard a voice address her and she looked down to see a pair of bloodstained black gloves-

It took the Authoress some effort to refrain from breaking character. She looked again.

It was a midget of some sort, completely smothered in clothing, with the only visible part of its body being a pair of brown eyes tucked under bushy eyebrows. The gloves they were wearing were ragged, worn from use, but they were not covered in dried blood. They were not a biologically 11-year-old child. They did not have black hair. They were not Erised. It had been irrational to think that her adversary was here; her watch hadn't beeped once.

"Yes?" answered 'Sandra', her smile as polite as ever.

How well that the two events lined up so perfectly.

With more unneeded tromping- since Cledwynn was still the slightest bit nervous about the whole situation, and about the general thought of being around this many people, he tended to do that- he decisively sat himself down in a seat near the girl. Regarding this girl, Cledwynn somehow didn't feel as detached as he would when it came to others. That is to say, somehow he felt more comfortable with her- probably because of her welcoming demeanour. Perhaps, like the dragon before, she was a clairvoyant? Cledwynn could only assume so. But only if they'd hit it off beforehand, during a time he wasn't within the Restaurant. After all, it was likely that whatever that dragon was, he wouldn't be the only one with supernatural abilities. After everything he'd seen so far, his assumption now was that everyone here had some interesting perk about them. The dragon was a telepath. Something had to be up with the bartender too, since he knew the dragon could read minds. The more he thought about it, the possible answers were, one, that the dragon told him. That might not have happened, since when Cledwynn insisted to know how that dragon knew his name, the only response he got was more proof that the creature was a telepath. Either that, or the bartender deduced this the same way Cledwynn did- through the evidence he was given. The third option was that the dragon was a return customer, which Cledwynn almost completely ruled out as impossible. This place was in the middle of nothing, at the end of everything. It didn't seem like there was any way someone could manage knowing how to get here, but it was entirely possible. It just didn't seem that way to the mechageist, though. Still, if with his own life coming back to fruition as a concept in his memory, he had reason to believe that anything was possible.

Which led back to the unassuming girl sitting before her. There had to be something about her, now that he thought about it. She couldn't just be normal. After all, she was here. And this place was deep in space somewhere.

So how did a girl that looked so genuinely regular manage getting here? There was obviously nothing overly strange about her aesthetically, so by now, Cledwynn knew that if there really was something abnormal about her, it had to be internal- and when it came to internal powers of the supernatural, the first to come to mind was anything mental.

But he wouldn't pry. If he did, there were a few things the girl could do in response- perhaps dodge his inquiry, or answer it truthfully if she were hiding something. He would never know for sure, though, since he wouldn't pry if she didn't want him to. If she were a telepath, though, she was definitely hiding it well so far.

"Thank you again for the compliment about my hair. I don't exactly hear things like that very often, so it came as a bit of a shock to me. Well, initially, anyway."

He was trying his best to speak out as much as he could, but that sociable facade could easily fall rather soon. Not that he wanted that to happen. Knowing this, he figured the best way to keep conversation going was to give names.

"Uh.. My name's Cledwynn. Two D's, one N. ... Wait, no, no, it's the other way around, two N's, one D."

He laughed awkwardly for a moment, pushing his scarf up to cover his mouth a little. It slipped back down to his neck almost immediately, but the premise of what he intended to do was definitely there.

He began to ponder again, this time of what the bartender had told him. 'It's on the house. Everything here is.' He would have to ask the bartender what they served when he was next given a chance. That, and the man's name. Constantly identifying him as 'the bartender' or 'the man' was getting tiring, and it started to feel bland- he knew very well that if he were trying to describe the bartender, or elaborate on his own thoughts about him, constantly calling him what he was and not by his name could easily make listeners- or readers, if he were writing things down- feel like it became redundant and repetitive, much like describing any one thing as both redundant and repetitive since they both generally meant the same thing.

Following his train of thought, however, Cledwynn noticed that he was served a drink in a glass. A clear liquid, lacking of any colour, of smell, and possibly of taste as well.

Water. That was an easy guess, and it made sense to serve him this as a starter. After all, the bartender didn't really know Cledwynn's tastes.

He could certainly use a drink, he was thirsty for some time. He picked the glass up and placed his lips to it, drinking for a brief moment, though when he relinquished the glass, he let out a content yet amazed sigh, his eyes widening a bit.

It became immediately clear that this wasn't water.

It had to be something else, because its taste was off the scale. He couldn't really describe the taste in full, but it perfectly matched what he was craving. It didn't taste anything like any drinks he'd had in past lives. It was something new entirely, and probably the most delicious thing he'd had in quite a few lives. It took all his resolve not to down the entire glass, but as he drank more, his vocals released a gentle yet amiable hum of joy. He would certainly have to get more of this- he hoped it wasn't alcoholic, though..

As he drank, occasionally the sound of scarce amounts of liquid splashing against damp metals sounded forth from his legs.

That was an interesting noise to boot. He hoped the girl before him couldn't hear it.

"And you?"

Pridopus suddenly found themselves frozen to the spot. They couldn't even remember the last time they addressed anyone on purpose, let alone this slightly off-putting woman towering over them. Words suddenly lost them; so fast that they didn't bother to question how it was that everyone in this establishment seemed to be understanding one another perfectly, regardless of their starkly contrasting appearances.

They met the woman's gaze dead-on and felt a strange chord of intimidation. They were just so...blank? No, no, that wasn't the right word, not nearly the right word, for there was something in those eyes, but nothing like anything Pridopus had seen before. And they'd seen plenty of eyes, usually furrowed in a deep glare as they watched the tiny figure scamper off with two handfuls of "supplies". They'd seen tiny red eyes that flashed in warning; green eyes that twinkled and dazzled anyone who saw them; rows upon rows of blank white sclera emptily gawking from the maw of a cave-sized hellbeast.

The point was, these eyes were not like that. But they were eyes not unlike their own. There was just a certain wizened quality to them, almost as if the figure above were saying you think you've seen some crazy shit? I could one-up you a million times over.

And why stop here?

What if this woman could travel of her own volition, not subject to the will of some kind of experimental cosmic force?

What if she was just stopping by, and if they didn't act now then they would lose the chance-

The chance to go home?

...Or maybe Pridopus was just reading too much into it.

This was probably just a normal human person.

Oh wait. They still hadn't responded yet. So they have just been...staring into the eyes of this innocent person with unsettling intensity until now. They blinked; tears had begun to well up in their eyes from said prolonged staring. They struggled, raking through their brain in attempts to latch on to some semi-coherent string of words to throw back at this nice lady to prove that they weren't some kind of shady robber about to take their stuff.

(At least, not in this moment.)

Their eyes suddenly latched on to the trail of steam corkscrewing around itself in the air in front of them; it, as well as the intoxicating aroma of...whatever that was, took their eyes to the mug in the hands of the other. There we go. "W-...Where did you get that?" As they croaked out the words it became increasingly obvious that they hadn't had a prolonged exchange in quite some time; their voice was not dissimilar to the sound of an old chair being sat on. The bandanna really didn't help much in terms of comprehensibility with the damper it put on the already weak sound.

Levi sat in a dark corner and observed the patrons as he took a sip from his frothy beer. And immediately spit it out. "Why do people drink this crap?"

Yylya sat in a chair beside him, glancing around slowly, as if she was bored. "I dunno," was her irreverent response.

Levi nearly dropped his beer and dove under the table when the universe exploded, the first time since he'd been there. His eyes watered and he cleared his throat, looking around at anyone who may have noticed his shock. He casually wiped the spilled beer off his jacket sleeve.

A couple of individuals chatting at the bar caught Levi's attention, and he noticed the male's awkwardness. "If only it worked that well in real life."

"The WorldWeaver is frustrated," the Author's Ambassador told Levi, finally looking at him again. "You should go talk to people before he sends in The Infamous."

Levi's eyes widened. He set down his mostly-untouched glass of brown on the small round table between he and his companion. "He wants to send D'ren here? He'll blow the place up for the sheer enjoyment of it!"

"No he won't," Yylya sighed. "John's writer controls the Restaurant, and besides, that would be cliche and stereotypical."

"The Infamous is a very cliche and stereotypical villain!!!" screamed Levi.

A few patrons a couple meters away turned, screwing their faces up in the most obvious attempt to tell him to be a little quieter without actually having to verbalize it.

Levi nervously ran his hands up and down his thighs, which were, ironically, clad in black Levi-Strauss jeans. He shook his head in disbelief. "This is crazy," he mumbled. "Your boss is a sick, sick man!"

He stood up and inhaled deeply, forcing the knot in his throat to go back down into his stomach where it belonged.

Yylya grinned. "Go on. Socialize."

Levi gulped before walking over to @Lady Selune an armored woman sitting at the bar. "Greetings," he said. "I'm supposed to do this experiment for this artsy megalomaniac with an unhealthy obsession for nicknames, so...do you want to talk?" He threw his hands up, gesturing to the finality of particles that were slowly fading away from view through the windows. "I mean, nothing matters anyway, we may as well get to know each other...I guess." He shrugged.

There was a split second as the otherwise drunken mercenary turned full-on bounty hunter, scooping up one of the cubes, a pistol materialising in one of her hands, before realising where she was. "Sorry. Force of habit. Heh. Force. And I'm a space bounty hunter. Boba fuckin' Fett over here." She giggled to herself. "Sandy Caine. What's yer moniker?"

The Authoress

Ah. The midget was beginning to catch on to her game.

Perhaps she should stop calling them a midget. They weren't that small; their height resembled to that of a child's. Perhaps they were affected by dwarfism? Then again, it could just as well be the norm for others of his kind to maintain similar statures. Or it could be a side effect of their planet's gravity. It wouldn't be the first time she'd seen any of those things happen and more. She wasn't interested in looking through their mind for the answers. That would be cheating. In any case, it didn't matter what she called them. Thoughts like this were nothing more than products of her current idleness.

They didn't seem to be responding, seeming to settle for searching for something in her eyes, with the intensity of the end of the universe that kept replaying itself beyond the windows of varying models adorning the walls of the Restaurant. The Authoress knew, however, that they were merely lost in thought. She may not be eager to delve into the depths of someone's mind needlessly but she had no qualms about skimming through a person's thought process - discreetly, of course. After all, it gave her the full experience; when reading a story, one often knows what each character is thinking, things that other characters are often not aware of.

But 'Sandra' knew none of these things. 'Sandra' was only a teenager from the average masses, except that she had the ability to walk between alternate Earths. So, with an uneasy grin, 'Sandra' shifted her attention to...Cledwynn, he had said?

"I'm Sandra," she said. Then, with a teasing lilt to her voice, she added, "With two 'A's and an 'R'."

The Authoress hadn't missed his suspicions on 'Sandra'. His thought process was of the analytical sort, the kind that took apart every action, every word, every little detail piece by piece. She'd expected him to sense something off about 'Sandra' sooner or later. Just as she had expected it when his body refused to sustain any of the drink he'd just consumed. The curse that had been placed on him, as she had thought, had not been tweaked to its fullest, possible potentials. It was most likely done so deliberately as it was, after all, a curse, not a blessing, or even a spell.

'Sandra' opened her mouth to say more after that but the midget who'd been staring at her finally decided to speak up, asking her where'd she get it from.

"Wha-?" Her eyes followed their gaze to her mug. "Oh! I got it from the bartender over there." She gestured towards said bartender behind the counter. Then her brain registered what she'd just heard and she winced, shooting the midget a sympathetic look. "Do you want some? You sound like you need it." The mug was still warm in her hands as she offered the mug to the midget. "It's coffee. Black." She'd read somewhere that coffee soothed sore throats once.

The Authoress had made a decision. She'd continue her little charade until someone called her out on it. It'd be far more interesting than simply making chit-chat with the other patrons. She didn't suppose Zig counted; having telepathy, after all, was cheating.

That's not funny, Levi thought about her Boba Fett pun.

He replied, "I'm Levi McLeod." He sighed and went to sit at the bar, head in his hands.

Levi really did not want to talk to a drunk. He stared off into space for a moment until his companion sat beside him, also staring off into space.

Yylya whispered something about the woman called Sandra, but Levi didn't care.

Amidst the hustling and bustling of the restaurant, the voices carrying through the air, and the overall ruckus, a door, medium in size, without a doorknob or handle, one that hardly directed any attention away from the rest of the building, was pushed open. It only opened partway, however, before closing once again. A few seconds later, the door opened again, and, like the first time, it closed. The third time, however, the door opened all the way, to reveal a fairly normal looking woman holding two plates, one with a mountain of steaming, freshly cooked french fries, the other with a large hot dog, drenched in chili, struggling to hold open the door with her rump, as she slid out of the room beyond, which appeared to be a kitchen of sorts.

"Hey, uh, boss," she said, her eyes directed at the bartender as she made her way towards his bar. "Do we got any of them nifty MedBot things lyin' around? One of the cooks got a faceful of boiling chili and plate shards."

As she finished speaking, the woman slid behind the counter of John's bar, squeezing past him to reach a masculine yet attractive looking woman brandishing a gun and talking to a curly-haired man. She placed each plate in front of the woman with a gun, one at a time, before putting on a charming grin.

"Sorry about the wait, sharpshooter," she said, "There was an accident in the kitchen. Someone slipped, and your chili dog got thrown into someone's face, so we had to make you a new one." There was a hesitant pause as the woman glanced to the side, before looking back at the patron. "It, uh, wasn't me if that's what you're about to imply."

@Lady Selune@Pseudo Stygian