April's face lit up. "Oh my gosh, I would love to show you!" She exclaimed, bouncing and clapping her hands in delight. "It's all pretty straight forward," she continued with a wave. "The recipes are all on the wall for reference! Here,just follow me!" As she led the small girl towards the back, April wondered to herself if Amelia knew ASL.

When she was in grade school, April had known a girl in their neighborhood who was deaf. They used to play together, and, as they grew up, they communicated through writing until the young dancer inquired about the hand signals her friend used to communicate with her family. From there, the girl taught April how to sign until their family moved out of state a year later. The ballerina remembered a few signs. How to introduce herself, spell her own name, ask for water. Little things. She wanted to ask. She wanted to ask a lot of things, but decided against it for now. Maybe asking a thousand and one personal questions would be more appropriate when theyve gotten to know each other better. Making people feel comfortable and happy was always April's goal, so she pushed back the intruding ideas and put on a bright smile.

"I think you'll like it here. Oh, I almost forgot! Sometimes we like to experiment a bit and bake off menu stuff. If it sells well enough, we've been able to convince the boss to let us make it a regular menu item. He's kinda for anything that makes this place more money," April stopped in front of a counter that had the recipes above it. "Here we are!" She shouted, throwing her hands up. "These are all the ones we make daily, and over here," she said, leaping over towards the fridge and gesturing with both arms as though she were a magician's assistant, "is where we keep the wet ingredients and the fruit. And in this corner," she continued as she turned to her right, now introducing the cabinetry as though she were a WWE announcer. "We have the pantry, where keep the dry or canned stuff." Taking a quick character break, April lead forward and whispered "Flour, cocoa, nuts."

After spinning back towards Amelia, April dramatically dropped to one knee and opened a cabinet under the counter. "And here we have the tins, bowls, and liners!" Standing, April rose her arms "and, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have all been waiting for, theeeeee uuuuuuuuu-tensillllllllllls!" April slid open the drawer across from the prep station counter, revealing an assortment of cooking supplies. Closing it, she snickered and pointed to the right of Amelia, "oh, and the oven is right there. Any questions?"

Fara could only roll her eyes and chuckle softly in amusement as April took over. Between April and Matina, those two seemed to have enough energy for the rest of the staff combined, so she wished Amelia luck as she watched the pair disappear into the kitchen. With that bit of ‘excitement’ now over, she began to poke about behind the counter once more, looking for things that needed cleaning or stocking, though the previous shift seemed to have at least gotten that part right, so there was little to do.

The sound of the door opening once more caught her ear and she looked up, actually hoping for a customer for once, only to see another pair of stragglers coming in. Giving the two boys a small wave, she finished what little ‘make work’ cleaning she’d found and smiled; now that she’d been (nominally) productive for a bit, she didn’t feel so bad about slacking off. Ducking into the backroom for a moment, she popped open her bag and retrieved a small sketchbook and a mechanical pencil. She had much nicer, and pricier, art supplies and paper for her assignments and ‘professional’ work; the ‘back-to-school-special’ stuff she had on hand was more for her own amusement during slow times. Heading back out front, she set herself in an out of the way spot and opened her book.

Flipping through several pages of random sketches, she came to a piece she’d been working on for a few days now. The picture was a 3/4 bust of woman that looked very much like Fara, except for the ‘minor’ detail that the image was of a much ‘wilder’ person. The left side of her face was heavily scarred and a crude looking eyepatch covered her left eye. Her hair was long and braided, with small items woven into the braids; there was a small note beside the picture listing pistol shell casings, finger bones and beads as the items. What clothing that was visible was frayed and obviously many times repaired. Pencil in hand, she began working on a bit of shading and refining a few details around the figure’s collar.

This place was absolutely surreal. Most of Amelia's coworkers seemed to be fine just walking around and doing nothing, messing around and having fun. She supposed it made sense since they didn't have any customers but she had to wonder what a customer would think if they walked into this. Worse, what if the boss walked into all of this? She was certain that the worse offenders might not have a job for long if the man did, but then again, she wasn't sure about the relationship between the boss and her coworkers. Maybe they were one good friendly terms and thus they could get away with this behavior?

Her thoughts were interrupted when April began bouncing up and down while clapping like a little kid who had just been promised their favorite candy or a new toy. The sight caused Amelia to give the girl a small, amused smile before following her to the area that Amelia would be working in. She paid close attention to everything April pointed out to her in her own extravagant fashion. The whole display was actually amusing and actually elicited a chuckle from Amelia, especially when April got to the utensils, showing them to her like they were made of gold or something.

Except, Amelia didn't laugh. She clearly had though, as her shoulders had shaken in the manner one would expect from someone who was laughing or maybe crying, but she was definitely laughing in this case as her expression was one of amusement. But there was no sound, no chime or note in the air to make that laugh known to others or make it unique. There was simply nothing. Not a sound escaped Amelia's lips even when there was supposed to be one. This would probably, finally, clue someone in on Amelia's need for the pen and paper.

Backing away from Randy, now properly threatened, though she wasn't exactly done with him, Matina noticed XiaoBao had approached her, asking her where he should be placed. Seeing that he was attempting to fix his hair, Matina reached up and and brushed it down a few times before pulling her arms back down and smiling politely at him. She signed, faking disappointment and crossing her arms. "Why hello there, late employee. You're gonna set a bad example for the kids, not following the rules," she said, though she herself wasn't exactly being the model employee either, but of course she wasn't going to admit that. "But I suppose I'll let you off with a warning. This time. She blinked, tilting her head back, trying her best to act "leader-like", but after a quick moment, a smile spread across her face as her seriousness fell apart.

"Haha, I'm just kidding! Did I get you? We're you worried? I bet so, I was pretty intimidating, wasn't I? Don't worry though, I promise I won't tell a soul," Matina mimicked zipping her lips. Remembering his earlier question, she gasped slightly and said, "Oh! Uhh...maybe you can uh...ask Fara? On what to do? To be honest, I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doin-," and suddenly, Matina remembered her first task she was supposed to do with Amelia. "Oh righhht! I was supposed to be baking, that's what I was supposed to be doing! Haha, I totally forgot. Hey! I have an idea! Maybe you can bake with us, yeah? Ooo, or maybe we can all bake together, that sounds fun! Yes, let's do it! OMG, this is gonna be awesome! Come on, come on!" Matina said quickly, her train of thought rushing around her head as she began to try and drag XiaoBao back into the kitchen with her, but as she did that, she noticed movement in the corner of her eye.

Turning her head, Matina squinted a moment before her face lit up in recognition of Damien. "AA, Damien! You're here! When'd you get here? Doesn't matter, come with us, we're gonna go bake some stuff! Don't know what yet, but we'll get to that when we do," Matina let go of XiaoBao, moving to lean across the counter, calling out to Fara. "Fara! Fara! I just had a great idea! What if we all bake together? We totally should, it'll be so much fun, and we'll probably have extras 'n stuff and we can take it all home amd just binge eat the hell out of them, and maybe even hang out later outside of work, but come on, we should do it!" Matina then took a deep breath now that everything that was on her mind, was now off of it. Since no customers were here, Matina wanted to make the most of it.

She couldn’t help but laugh as Matina finally realized what she should have been doing, and then charging off in that direction with all her normal hyperactivity. Finishing up a last bit of shading on the piece she was working on, Fara shook her head when Matina tried to Shanghi her into baking as well. ”Thanks, but I think I’ll hang out here,” She said, flipping pages to another drawing. ”One of us should watch the counter while the rest of you trash the kitchen.”

Yawning slightly, Fara turned around and rummaged in one of the cupboards and came out with a small electric kettle. Once it was full of water and heating, she prepped herself a small teapot. Sure the cafe had a self-filling carafe that was full of very hot water that they used for customer’s tea, but she was of the firm opinion that making tea without using boiling water was positively barbaric.

While she waited for the water to boil, she began to go over the current drawing before her. It was a full body shot of the same character as the bust she’d been touching up before. Her clothing was a mishmash of cloth, leather and metal, decorated with odds and ends; everything from a series of broken watches, to a few dolls heads and a severed hand. Around the picture were notes on what colours things should be, the type of person this woman was and comments on gear that Fara hadn’t shown in the image. At the top of the page it was titled ‘Raider Queen Farahnaz’.

Matina, switching her attention once more, turned to Fara, her smile wavering a bit as she declined Matina's amazing, once of a lifetime offer. "Really? Are you sure? It was gonna be fun, I promise," she asked, a hint of sadness edging on her voice, though it was more disappointment than anything. Thinking it over, and before Fara could respond, she said, "Well, I guess you don't have to if you don't wanna, so I suppose the brownies can wait for another day, mmm, night technically." Matina shrugged slightly and made her way behind the counter, already forgetting her original job once more.

Anyway, do you need any help? I don't really have anything to do, although I feel like I did, but I can't remember...But I feel like it was important. But I can't remember. And whoops, now I'm repeating myself haha," she chuckled, standing next to the cash register, slightly leaning on it. Her adrenaline had quickly worn off, and now the tiredness had set in, making her eyelids heavy as she listened to the white noise of boiling water. Without looking at her, Matina spoke up as she rested her chin in her hands, "This is kinda out of the blue, but I just wanted to say thanks. A lot. I realize you do ninety nine percent of the work around here, and I just kinda..do whatever I suppose. So, sorry. And thanks again. You're a really good person. I probably shouldn't have this job, haha. But anyway, I'll try to uh, help more, " she gave a slight cough, turning her head to face Fara and giving her an apologetic smile. But just like that, the mood was gone as she noticed she was drawing.

Rushing over, Matina leaned over Fara, gasping as she exclaimed, "Oh my God! That's so cool! I have an idea! Can you draw me?! Or wait, is that insensitive? I didn't mean to be insensitive. They kinda look like you..is that you? Or is it a character? I wish I could draw," she rambled

As usual, talking with Matina had a tendency to leave one feeling a bit like they’d just been accosted by a very excitable small dog. Waiting for a break in the verbal deluge, Fara merely shook her head in amusement at her co-worker. ”Don’t worry about it,” She said with a shrug as Matina admitted to not really pulling her weight. ”I may be a bit more annoyed if this was a busy shift, but…” She shrugged and made a motion towards the empty seats. ”Anyways, I took this shift partially because you don’t really have to do anything.”

Before she knew it, Matina was leaning over her shoulder and looking at her sketchbook, and she could feel her face heating up. Partially it was because apparently her hormones decided she was fourteen again and she’d just found a ‘dirty’ magazine in her brother’s stuff, and Matina was quite attractive, and partially because she was rather self-conscious of her work, especially the stuff in her personal sketchbook which she always thought was way too rough to show people. Thankful that her darker skin tone at leash somewhat hid her blushing, she managed to stammer out a thank you.

”Thank you…she’s a…yes I used myself for her. She’s my character in a video game.” Part of her almost launched full force into swamping Matina with the overly detailed backstory/canon for the ‘Raider Queen’ that she’d built in her head, but another part managed to stop that before it began…no-one else cared about that stuff. The ‘draw me’ request was generally considered the bane of existence to most, if not all artists, but Fara couldn’t help but find her bubbly co-workers amusing and a tad infectious. ”It’s fine,” She said, flipping through pages until she found a blank one. ”I can always use more stuff to use as reference material.” Adjusting her position to better see Matina, she set to work after a moment. ”I don’t have my good pencils, so it’ll be a pretty rough piece.” She added as she began to lay down lines.

"You'll really draw me? Thank you, thank you!" Matina exclaimed, moving forward to wrap her arms around Fara, but then faltering as she realized she should probabaly stay still. A few seconds later, her eyes lit up as she said, "Oo, hold on one sec, lemme go get a chair. Maybe that'll be easier," rushing around the counter once more to find a suitable chair. Grabbing the nearest one, she lifted it above her head and ran back over before setting it down, the back of the chair facing Fara so Matina could lean against it. "Sorry, just had to make myself comfortable, but I'm ready now," Matina said, giving a small smile before letting her face rest.

A few moments later, her eyebrows began to furrow in contemplation. "Anyway, is it okay if I give you a nickname? I don't have a nickname for you yet, so I wanna give you one. Hmm, what about Fara-Bear? No, that's still too long," she began thinking out loud. "Something with "bear" in it. Fare-Bear? Ooo, yes I like that one. I'ma stick with that one, though it sounds kinda like a pet name, but that's okay, right? Right," she nodded.

"But that's awesome, video games are cool! I don't get to play a lot, I'm usually busy most of the time, but I'd play any game that you've designed. I bet it'd be really cool, and I only know one character!