Rabbit

Emmeline, 16, Court of Baudelaire

"Did all of you bring your grimoires with you? I would rather hope so, if I am to be honest. I'd rather not be returning to school at this point in time." Some time had passed, and there was less than a block left before the cafe came into sight. The rest of the group simply nodded, having kept theirs on their person. "Good, we may need them later, but for now I suppose that is nothing more than an afterthought." Behind her, Lavinia reaches up and plucks a flower from a cherry tree, and tucks it into Emmeline's hair. Henry hides his smile behind his sleeve, and they continue to walk to the cafe, cherry blossoms both underfoot and overhead.
"I wonder if Alice is taking pictures of these... she has always loved the spring, as I have," Henry murmured to no one in particular, simply stating something for the sake of saying it.
"Your sister probably is, do you think she'll collect them like she did last year? The things she made were so lovely, and she was able to preserve them so beautifully with her aura. She's a talented little one, you know." Cecile turned her head to him as she spoke of this. "She'll be very powerful one day, a lower matriarch I bet." Henry smiled fondly at the words spoken of his younger sister, bowing his head slightly.
"I hope she does." He shook his head slightly, as if to clear out the sentimental thoughts, and hummed softly. At this, Cecile ruffled his hair and gave him a nod. She, like Lavinia, reached up to pluck a few blossoms off the trees and tucked them behind Henry's ear. Henry just laughed at her while she stared blandly back at him and blinked her milky white eyes at him, followed by flicking him in the nose.
"Sorry, my hand slipped." was the only explanation she gave before flicking her wrist to put it behind her back and keep on walking. As expected, Henry simply sighed and looked back at the rest of their friends, who were following them in tow. Watching their friends mill around and play with each other brought an unfoundly large amount of happiness, and Henry would like nothing more than to keep things like this forever. Perhaps love was not the right word for what he felt towards them, but he couldn't quite think of the right one.
Lavinia arched a slitted eyebrowed and pointed towards the cafe, saying nothing more than, "We're here." in a soft voice. Cecile dipped her head at Lavinia, who smiled in return and laughed a little, the high and tinkering sound carrying through the wind a great distance so that other passerbyers would turn slightly to see who caused such a lovely noise. The sign for La Vie en Rose came more clearly into view and Emmeline dipped so that her head was rested on Lavinia's shoulder and hooked her arm around the other girl's.
The beige front of the cafe can be seen between the cherry trees, soft pink awning flowing delicately in the wind. Glass windows and doors show bits of the inside of the building, and among things that can be seen are the gauzy pale pink curtains that loosely fall against the windows. The bricks of the outside that are painted in the beige contrast with the dark tinted windows and pink accents, yet somehow the entire shop manages to not look tacky and more adorable instead.
The crosswalk to reach the cafe is next to a bike rack and busy intersection, many students using it after school to go various places, with the small college town being able to be easily walked around if one needed to go somewhere or was simply bored with their life. There was a group in front of them, having already arrived at the crosswalk before the latter came. The green light changes to red and the sign post changes from stop to walk. Groups going through the walkway to wherever they need to go, hanging onto their friends
"I suppose we shall go now? It seems that our beloved cafe is going to be crowded rather soon, assuming it is not already. Although, given the crowd in which we are in, I do wonder how much more full the cafe would be, " Henry blathered on, no one paying any particular mind to him as he prattled on while walking across the street.
Prim, bright Lavinia hurried (or rather as quickly as she thought to be proper) to the door, and opened it so to usher the rest of her friends inside. Hair lighting up fire red in the spring sun, the green clips stood out strikingly so against it. Stepping over the threshold of the door, the smell of coffees and pastries baking hit them in the face, lazily creeping out of the shop and spreading to the surrounding areas. Cecile stuck her nose up and sniffed, rather loudly, not caring if people stared or judged her, simply content to soak up the bakeries aroma.
"Shall we order soon? I'm feeling rather hungry and well... I'd not wait until the line grows all too much longer. Find a seat for us, you two, and Henry and I shall order for you both." Lavinia nodded and rummaged around her messages bag before pulling out a wallet and producing three crisp bills.
"Green tea tart and strawberry latte, iced, for me please." Cecile simply nodded in response to this and turned to Emmeline.
"Taro milk tea with cream cheese foam for me, I don't understand why you bother to ask at this point really, I've gotten the same thing every time we've been here since we've started coming." To this of course, the others snorted and Cecile patted Emmeline on the head, who just laughed in response to her. The two retreated to find a table amongst the crowd of milling highschool and college students. Cecile trotted over to the line, Henry following in tow, both not completely focused on the present and each zoning out as much as the other, although Henry was eyeing the cake display with little subtlety. She sighed, knowing once more that the other boy would most likely be on a sugar high later, but if it made him happy, she supposed she could suffer a bit.
The line moved rather quickly, and soon enough it was their turn to order. The most odd thing was the boy behind the register and his pink eyes. Odd in a way that they'd never seen him before yet people seemed to accept the fact that he'd always been there. Because Henry was himself, this made him forget all the previous orders their friends had given them, causing Henry to look at Cecile in a way that said 'I have forgotten what our friends told us they wanted and now you have to order for us'. However he managed to fit that all into one glance, she may never know, and in turn gave a long suffering sigh before reciting the orders their friends had given them.
"One medium taro milk tea with boba and cream cheese foam, a strawberry iced latte, medium as well, and green tea tart." She looked up to make sure the poor boy at the register got all of that, only to find him blinking innocently as if to say, 'what's next?' "A caffe latte as well, hot please."
"We have two roasts today, Indigo Moon and Falling Sun." The boy, who's name tag said 'Pretty Boy' in lieu of an actual name, chirped at them.
"Indigo Moon please." She then turned to Henry who was still staring off into a vague middle distance and was not paying attention in any capacity, his face looking like he wanted to do nothing more than fall asleep right there. The correct course of action Cecile deducted was to step none too lightly on his foot, causing a startled Henry to finally be aware of his surroundings.
"One medium iced condensed milk latte please and a slice of rainbow cream cheesecake please. Falling Sun for the roast, if you may." Cecile just scoffed at this, knowing that even if he wasn't there mentally, the day Henry wasn't polite to a tee was the day the world ended. 'Pretty Boy' smiled at them and gave them their total, to which Cecile handed over the bills in her hand, some of which were her own.
"Okay, you're order 142, have a good day." Still smiling, Cecile finally noticed the other off putting things about him, the sharp canines and pink tipped hair that seemed to float to its own breeze. Perhaps that is what was bugging her, but then again, perhaps not.
Henry and Cecile took to finding the table that Lavinia and Emmeline found for them, grateful to be away from the main stretch of people. Snuggly against a wall, the booth was situated so that most of the cafe goers could not see them, yet whoever sat there could see most of the cafe. Most of the reason for this came from the gaudy potted plant that was placed excessively close to the booth that blocked most everyone else from sight, but that was really neither here nor there. Indeed, there were other matters to deal with at hand. Sliding in next to Henry, who had already sat down, she quickly set up a silencing ward before sighing.
"One of these days someone ought to find a way to use a way to use auraic magic without it flaring... there are dampeners of course, but one still has to flare to use them, and I do think that defeats the purpose of setting them in the first place." Henry nodded along with her, as did Emmeline, albeit only half paying attention, as she was far more invested in twisting Lavinia's hair around her fingers. Lavinia pretended to care, but whether she actually listened was rather up in the air due to her blank face. Perhaps now was not the right time to bring such things up. "Switching topics entirely, what should we do about the being in the school? I do wonder what it is, and if it is indeed as dangerous as we suspect it to be."
"I have been pondering that as well, and if I am to be honest, I'm not sure what I would prefer the outcome to be. Do you think we would need to get another sect involved with this? If any one of them were to be joined with our forces on this, I'd rather the Yue sect as we have the strongest alliance with them." Saying this, he set his head on his hands, blinking up at the rest of them. Sighing, Cecile reached down and patted the silky hair and pondered over this notion.
"While the Yue sect is the closest to us, I do believe it is too early to get another involved with this. We shall tell Miri and work from there." Still nodding along with her, Emmeline wondered if perhaps her sister would know what to do, if at the very least maybe the right strings to pull, yet she did not voice this.
"At any rate I doubt it will do much good to mull over this, seeing as it seems like we are getting nowhere, and most definitely not going forward. Shall we come back to this later when we are, I suppose, not in a cafe?" The others simply just agreed with her, Emmeline at this point having gotten bored and laid herself over the table, Lavinia staring at her with a small smile and ran her fingers through her hair. Being as it was, their short attention span led to them flopping over the table in rapid succession like dead fish. Lavinia alone being straight backed among their friends, the rest caring too little about their reputations to be embarrassed about their positions, and would probably fight anyone who said otherwise.
"Oi, you can see the... other barista from here," Emmeline said with what can only be described as a feral grin. Henry and Cecile instantly whipped their heads around to look for him, stretching the necks in an attempt to see him. "Wow, you have the subtlety of a giraffe in a tiny house." To which they both whipped their heads back around and glared at her, to which she just held up her hand. "My bad your highnesses."
"Sometimes I don't like you."
"Love you too," her tone carrying the lilt of singsong mockery. Cecile could only snarl before looking away and slumping in her seat.  Sometimes she thought that this was the timeline that god abandoned, whether or not that was true was doubtful.