Couldn't My Reincarnation have been more Cliche!

Interlude Two (The Black Cat) Part 1

*kaching*

[Unknown female voice] "Thank you for your patronage, please recommend us if you enjoyed your service! Ah, what's that? You're ready to pay? Yes, sorry, coming right away!"

Ah, these people came right when I was going to close down the shop. Goodness, did I miss something? Why are there so many customers coming in now?

The scene was hectic for the young woman who ran about the quaint coffee shop as if possessed.

The cold morning dew hung lazily on the window sill, the sunny morning sky cutting through the droplets hanging on the glass casting beams of light into the store.

The store had a peaceful atmosphere; a few fragments of conversation played about the air as the gentle steam of fresh coffee slowly entwined with the smell of various confectioneries. Compared to the dim and grungy concrete jungle which took up much of the scenery outside, this place was nothing short of a paradise.

In the shop, an unremarkable girl, with short brown hair and perky green eyes, worked tirelessly. Only occasionally looking up from her busy preparation of coffee drinks to check the state of the customers in front of her, making sure no one was left unattended.

{But why does she work so tirelessly, and why is she such a pretty and capable person to run such a shop so skillfully? I'm sure these are all things these lovely customers are asking themselves as they look at the wondrous me. Ah crap, there are drinks needed on table one. Ok, ok, then I can run these drinks to table five and check on those loiters at table four.}

And so the morning dragged on like this for a bit of time, a day like any other for the girl, one that was busy, stressful, and yet, if she was asked, she would be hard-pressed to say she didn't enjoy it. This shop had been in their family for longer than she could ever remember or know for that matter. As for why she was the one person manning such a busy place, that was a hard story, one she was never in the mood to tell, though it was a frequent topic of discussion between the customers.


The shop was started by her grandfather when he first came Albion as an immigrant from Dahlia, and was later passed to her father, once her grandfather started to see success as a craftsman for wardens. Unfortunately, her father never had the passion to run the shop. That was given to many other things. He was a man who would start something only to lose interest when it began to challenge him, moving on to something else. He was, at heart, a drifter, the type of man to wander place by place, caring and knowing nothing about where he ends up. Yet somehow, he always came out alright. He was charismatic to a fault, a man who would never leave a place without friends and who, despite being nothing but a deadbeat, thrived in life. And yet, he agreed to settle down and take care of the shop. Why? Simple. He had found a woman, or rather, he found love.

With a wife and pressure from her grandfather, he eventually founded a little family, and maybe things could have turned out well if it had stayed at that. Though this world is nothing if not unforgiving. He could not be restrained to such an uneventful life, staying around only long enough to half raise his son and seed a daughter. He took nothing with him, leaving everything he had saved up to his family, probably in some vain attempt to soothe his conscience, but it's hard to say that made things any better. His wife, a frail woman, couldn't handle the rejection and went half mad, leaving afterward to go after him herself, leaving her almost newly born daughter and her son to their grandfather.

Letting out a sigh, the girl looked up from the counter, cutting her daydreaming off. She couldn't help but feel a little regretful about the past, but shaking her head, she shook off all such thoughts, devoting herself back to her work.

Suddenly, the serene atmosphere was interrupted by the ringing of the bell on the door, signaling the arrival of a new customer. The bell itself can't be said to be what interrupted the calm; rather, it was the rather dingy man who entered following it. With his disheveled brown hair falling over his furrowed brow, in his eyes was the disgruntled countenance which marks a man as disagreeable to his fellows. His clothes took the form of soaked tattered armor, not so much bearing the marks of battle as disrepair. On his back, he held a fine-looking bow, seeming to be the only decent thing about him.