Mint

It was two in the afternoon on a surprisingly dry Wavecrest day, and Mint already wanted to crawl back into bed. It seemed like today everything was destined to go wrong, somehow. Like the Eleven had decided that today he should be miserable.

First, when he arrived at the news office it turned out the fax machine had magically broken overnight. Yesterday it was working just fine, but today it just did nothing. And Dravite was out for a scavenging trip, so they couldn't even call the clan's only mechanic to repair it (Seaweed wasn't an option because it was just as likely that she'd break it further as that she'd fix it, and Noa only worked with vehicles). Great. Wonderful.

But wait, there's more! It turned out that not only did the fax machine break, but Salvia also somehow managed to lose one of the articles meant to go into this week's issue of the Signpost. They had to print the thing tomorrow. And Mint had to be the one to write it, because Snow was sick at home with a fever and their other writers quit months ago (they still hadn't found anyone willing to take the post).

So no. Mint was not having a good day.

But back to the present. He was currently making his way across the Square; he was on break, and desperately needed to get some fresh air. Though his feet felt like they were made of lead he continued walking, only half paying attention to where he was going.

He realised he should've probably paid more attention when he crashed head-first into a sign post, because clearly he'd been cursed today and nothing was going to go right for him.

Rubbing his head while looking around, recovering from the rather painful encounter, his eyes fell upon an unassuming clay building, a sign denoting it as Woodwind Tea. The teahouse had been there for as long as he could remember, though he’d never been particularly interested in visiting. But today he was willing to try, if only because it couldn’t possibly make his day worse than it currently was.

A bell chimed as he opened the wooden door, drawing the attention of the crouching, eye-searingly green and white Gaoler cleaning a low table. She waved at him, a bright grin on her face.

“A new customer?!”, she asked, surprised and excited, and when he nodded the grin got wider as she pointed towards one of the other tables, a motley pile of pillows sprawled around it.

“You can sit here, then! I’ll go grab a card real quick.” And just like that she was gone, leaving the cleaning rag behind in her hurry. A minute or so later she was back, a simple yet elegant sheet in her claws. She handed it over to Mint, who looked over it with a bewildered expression on his face. He’d never really been to a teahouse before, and he’d never really drank much tea in general either.

She noticed his confusion and smiled, clearly reminiscing about something before pointing at one of the options.

“You should give this one a try! It’s sweet and mild, good for beginners.”

He looked up to her and asked: “The strawberry tea?”

She nodded. “Yeah, that one! It’s one of my favourites, if I’m being honest.” The waitress laughed, her high-pitched voice resounding through the more-or-less empty room.

“I’ll take the strawberry tea then, I suppose…” He trailed off, unsure whether or not to say anything more.

She nodded enthusiastically, took the menu and walked to a small door hidden in the back; it was clearly meant for dragons much smaller than her, but she managed to push herself through with a surprising ease. Her enthusiasm was near polar opposite of his current state and a bit overwhelming, but Mint found he didn't mind it all that much.

The pillows were quite soft. He wouldn't mind sitting here for the rest of the day, actually... Mint yawned. Surely it wouldn't hurt if he rested his head on the table, right? (well, maybe it would hurt his back with how low the thing was, but it was worth the risk...)

Only the sudden sound of a cup being put down on the table stopped him from falling asleep right then and there. Startled he looked up: the waitress had returned with a large, hand-crafted mug, deep blue in colour with a small cloud carved near its base. The scent of the tea inside was sweet and inviting, and he could feel himself growing drowsy again.

"Here you go! I got you some extra; you looked like you needed it. Don't worry, it's on me." She smiled.

It took Mint a couple of seconds before he remembered to respond. "...Thanks."

"No problem! Just yell when you're done, 'kay?" And just like that, she was off again, leaving him with alone with his thoughts (and also with tea).

(wip)