[Adelie]

It's just another typical morning - wake up to the ever-present creaking and rustling of the old house, stumble blearily through the hallways until one open door reveals the bathroom, bathe face in cold water until reality sets in.

When that's finished, he takes a quick look at the painting on the wall - today it's soft, black-and-white watercolor, abstract blobs of ink splayed like a Rorschach test. If he looks closely, he thinks he might make out a lighthouse in the background; if he looks closely, though, he could make out practically anything he wanted to see.

Useless, as usual. Since he'd inherited the house, he hadn't been able to deduce a pattern to the painting. His grandfather's will had said it would be important - but then, his grandfather's will had said plenty of things.

Rubbing the last bits of sleep from his eyes, he heads downstairs into the coffeeshop. There's only a half-hour to get things ready for opening, after all.

[Silver]

'There must be a reasonable explanation for this.'

That's what she had said, and she was sticking by it. As an ominous dark fog rolled over the lands, she continued to insist that there was something reasonable to explain it. Something at its heart that would make this all make sense. The others could say it was a mystery, it was an unexplained magic, but they could be proven wrong.

Bonnie grabbed her best backpack, put one of her favorite... pets to work in her lab, and headed off campus to see what was going on. Plenty of the students were abuzz about the possibilities. None seemed to notice her as she wordlessly left the school in search of answers. Or at least samples.

It was far too late into the morning and subsequently her journey when she realized that she had forgotten something quite important: coffee. Bonnie, like many scholarly minds, very much hated a morning without coffee. She hiked toward town and decided to see if she could find any place that looked like it would serve her some.

[Adelie]

There's always something to do before opening - inventory to check on, things left to clean from last night, the store cat to feed.

Today's - well, he's had worse days. But there's an extra bag of coffee beans he doesn't remember from last night, from some artisanal provider called 'Cat & Cloud Coffee,' and all the records in the back display cabinet of the store have been replaced with various recordings of Debussy's Nocturnes - specifically the Nuages movement - and Janacek's V Mlhach piano cycle.

It's almost like the shop's trying to tell him something.

He only has the time to file that thought in the back of his head - a note to himself to reread grandpa's journals and see if there's anything about European compositions from the turn of the century - before returning to set up the shop for the morning. Since they'd started offering milk tea recently - his first business decision as the manager of the coffeeshop and quite the success, as far as he could tell - there's an awful lot of tapioca to heat up first.

[Silver]

Bonnie was clearly not having the best morning so far, since she walked past a few places that probably served coffee already. Her thoughts were wandering elsewhere, so she walked around a bit distracted. She was busy scanning her brain for any scrap of memory that might help her investigation of the strange phenomenon.

It was probably a coincidence that she looked up at the right time to see the cafe. Bonnie was quickly reminded of her side mission to get coffee. This was probably as good of a place as any, she reasoned. Perhaps there was a reason that she decided to look up at just that moment, but she wouldn't believe it was more than coincidence.

She smirked at her good fortune and took a few steps toward the place. Then she stopped and looked at the front of the shop. It seemed a little... off. Were they even open?

[Adelie]

He putters around the store for a little while - doing a little of this, a little of that. It's not exactly perfect, but it's probably the best he can accomplish on his own.

The coffeeshop's not the most noticeable - it's nestled between a much flashier building and a parking lot - so he's not that surprised that it's quiet in the morning. After almost an hour with not a single customer showing their face, though, he's a little suspicious. College students might like sleeping in, but usually not this late.

It's only when he sees the woman standing in front of the shop and looking in, confused, that he suddenly remembers he'd forgotten to flip over the sign from CLOSED to OPEN.

He's not even sure what to do about that. He could just walk over but - well, she's standing right there; nothing's even happened and he's already burning with shame. He could wait for her to go away and then open up the shop - but that's even more awkward. What if she notices?

There's nothing to do but suck it up. He walks over, trying his best to smile, and flips then sign over, then opens the door. Should he apologize? Or just live with it? It's hard to say.

[Silver]

The best place to figure out whether or not the shop was open was likely the front door itself. Usually, such information was neatly posted for everyone to see. Just as she scanned the door to look for a sign, she saw one moving. Bonnie was startled by the sudden appearance of someone just on the other side of the door. It was just her luck that they were, at that very moment, turning the sign to indicate that the shop was now open.

This was all turning out a little weird, but she was too caffeine deprived to really pay it much mind. This was either a series of odd coincidences or she was paying too little attention to notice otherwise. Either way, she was closer than ever to her cup of coffee.

"Hello," she said after pushing the door open. The guy who just opened the shop was still standing nearby, so she addressed him directly. "I'm hoping to grab a cup of coffee, if that's okay?" She was desperately hoping that the shop wasn't too freshly open to brew her a quick cup. She knew some places took some time in the morning to do it, but it seemed a bit late for that.

[Adelie]

'Oh!' he says, like he wasn't expecting her to actually order a coffee. Technically, he's justified - most people wait until they reach the counter to make their order. 'Yeah, sure. Come on in?' Holding the door open with one arm, he gestures vaguely at one of the empty tables.

'It might take a moment, sorry,' he says, scurrying to get the coffee machine in order. Honestly, he's at a bit of a loss as to what to say - clearly he hasn't really been on his game all morning and the sheer awkwardness of the situation has completely scattered his wits. It's not like he's new to working in a coffee shop, but by the way things have been going - he wouldn't be surprised if people came to that conclusion.

With no better ideas in mind, he turns to small talk. 'So, uh, how's the weather?'

[Silver]

Bonnie was glad that he confirmed that coffee was, indeed, available for purchase. She followed him to the counter without really looking around the rest of the shop. All she wanted was a nice, simple coffee and maybe a place to spend a few minutes sitting down and considering her options.

"That's fine, thank you," she said. She was happy to wait for him to sort out the coffee. After all, she had showed up right as he was opening the shop.

She stood idly near the counter waiting for her coffee when it occurred to her that it was fairly late in the morning. Didn't coffee shops usually open up really early? It seemed strange to her, but she did her best to ignore it. The guy seemed a little nervous, so perhaps he was just running off schedule.

"The weather?" Bonnie never liked that question, because it never had a good answer. Today it felt like a particularly strange question. Was he making a cheeky comment about the fog?

"Well, other than the strange, creeping black fog, it's just delightful," she said with a smirk. Her tone was light, though clearly sarcastic.

[Adelie]

Dark roast beans, black coffee, black fog - one of these doesn't fit in with the others.

Honestly, when he heard her mention the 'strange, creeping black fog,' he didn't really think much of it. It was just another link in the long chain of black fog-related things he'd been seeing all morning - paintings, records, and now off-hand remarks made by customers. Just another normal day in the life, y'know?

But if he thought about it - it didn't make sense for some regular person to know about this kind of stuff, unless they were in on some elaborate prank. Perhaps it might be best to get some clarification on the subject. 'Creeping black fog?' he asks, a little on guard. 'What do you mean?'

[Silver]

It really should not have surprised her that he knew nothing about the strange weather they were having, but somehow it did. She tilted her head slightly, trying to process the information. How could someone be as clueless as he was? Maybe he was just having an off day or something. She hoped for his sake that that was the case.

"Are you serious?" she asked. She tried not to sound too shocked or condescending. She was, after all, a teacher. Students asked weird questions all the time, and she made a habit of answering them with a straight face.

"Have you been outside today? There's this black mist showing up everywhere. I'm out to collect samples, but I was in such a hurry that I didn't grab any coffee this morning. That's why I'm here."

[Event posts end here]