Knead the Bread Bakery i threw it on the ground

[Jack Valentine]

Winter was an easy time of year for a Siberian tiger to pad leisurely through, if they wanted to. Snowfall and brisk breezes made it especially so, whether by giving them an excuse to wrap up cosy at home or by providing an enriching canvas of ice and drift to amble through in the wee hours of the morning, breaking the first trails in glistening white fields.

There hadn't been very much snowfall lately, though.

Which was fine; it wasn't like the Siberians needed snow for survival. Really, Jack just liked running out into the nearest open space to make snow angels and build snowmen and maybe write his name in bold yellow under the nearest tree - to satiate the territorial urges, of course.  Not because it was simple childish fun or anything.

...okay yeah, it totally was for that reason.

A little like getting up late in the day to toddle off out into the city to grab a dozen cookies for breakfast - something that wasn't exactly good for anyone, but that in wintertime evoked nostalgia, memories of sitting under the Christmas tree with a cookie in each hand, cartoons buzzing away on the television while presents were passed around.

Not being home was one of those strange paradoxes. It felt good to stretch the legs and move on out into bigger, newer spaces. But it was hard to be away from the security of home.

Maybe as he aged it would get easier. Out of the awkward puberty-adjacent phase of clinging to what was familiar, needing his mother to show him how to operate in the big wide world. Maybe he'd never get over the desire to have a connection to Old Territory.

It didn't seem like a relevant stream of thoughts as he bounced out of the bakery with a dozen chocolate chip cookies tucked under his arm, but it was distracting enough for the tiger to zone out his immediate environment for a moment, woollen scarf still imbued with the scents of fresh baked bread, vanilla, cinnamon and seasonal fruit. He almost didn't notice brushing against someone on their way in - out? in? - and the way the ground below suddenly felt uneven.

...had he just stepped on someone's foot?

Light, sound, ambience and activity flooded back into the tiger's brain as he turned, lifting his feet comically high, scampering back like a cat with a sticker stuck on its paws.

“Sorry, I didn't--” he began, turning so sharply that his bag of cookies tore open at the bottom, spraying at least six of them across his turning path and onto the ground below. Thinking nothing of it, he crouched to gather them up, swiftly stuffing the safe treats into a vacant pocket. “--I didn't see you, I'm so sorry--” Almost as though to shut himself up, he stuffed one of the cookies from the floor into his mouth with a sheepish smile at the stranger.

Followed by a thoughtful pause.

And a fistful of crumbling concrete cookies offered out to the stranger as an olive branch.

Real orange cat hours.

[Juniper Gray]

It was no coincidence that Juniper was standing there, in the bakery, eying the handful of crumbled cookie in the man's fist. The moments leading up to this might've been. The young tiger had been biking past the tiny commercial district on the edge of the Fens, thinking of window shopping, or buying lunch--at least two grinders, maybe three, so it was a bit of an investment--when she caught a stink.

It was a stink she couldn't parse, because at first, it left her head buzzing, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Then she realized it was familiar, but familiar in the sense of catching the smell of your own perfume on someone else while out and about. If the perfume was a strange animal musk. In any case, it was the sort of moment where you don't know the person, but you know that scent. It left a person wondering if this was a kindred soul? Or just a coincidence?

That said, everything after catching a whiff of that not-quite-familiar familiar smell was not a coincidence. Juniper locked her bike up and followed her nose. She followed it to the door of Knead the Dough, just in time to watch the source of this stink trip over another customer, scatter his cookies, and then frantically try to pick them all up.

Juniper pushed inside the shop, and stood over him, her expression narrowed, almost accusatory eyes, and perplexed interest. He shoved one cookie in his mouth and then offered her the crumpled remains of another.

“No thanks, bro,” the young tiger said, squinting at the guy and trying to make sense of him. She held out a hand to help him up, half-expecting it to feel like a shock of lightning, but dismissing that notion immediately. Maybe he would just disappear into a fine mist. It was just that she couldn't really believe she was smelling another tiger. Without knowing him, she didn't know if she ought to be happy about it, but cautiously, she was pretty intrigued. “Are... you new around here?”

[Jack Valentine]

Surely he could be forgiven for not quite realising that the source of the extra-tigery scent wasn't his own scatterbrained (scattercookied?) panic over his well earned treats crumbling around him. These weren't exactly cheap cookies! So he was busy thinking it was her loss that she didn't want a not-quite-floor cookie, chewing the one hastily stuffed into his mouth quick so it wouldn't cause an obstruction when he had to speak.

Because she was asking him a question, and it was kind of rude not to answer.

And she was holding a hand out to help him up, which would have been even more rude to smack away, so he didn't do that.

Taking it firmly, that was the moment he figured it out, swallowing his cookie and filling his lungs with cat-scented air, like his mother, but not like her.

Actually he more air he took in, nothing like her, but tiger all the same.

His owlish eyes widened somehow more than they already were, a contrast to her almost squinting glare.

Tigers!

How had he never picked up on tigers around here before??

“Oh - wow - I mean yes, but kinda,” he said, which explained a lot and nothing. Stuffing the crumbling cookies into free pockets - gross, he hated the thought of having to clean these jeans later - he dusted his palms off and then wiped cookie debris off his shirt. “A few months. I've been here, I mean. You? I mean I'm guessing you're not new, because of the whole, like. The thing.” The question, and the tigers.

[Juniper Gray]

Their hands touched and the other tiger didn't disappear into the aether like hopeful wisp of a dream. He was quite real, his hand warm and solid, and the animal part of Juniper stirred, deeply curious about him. She stowed that, though, the dominant human part of her reserving judgement as she would with any other new person. She let him go and gave him some space to clean himself up.

He seemed the thrifty sort as he started stuffing cookies into his pockets and Juniper didn't bother to hide her dismay at that--the thought of all those crumbs made her squirm, but that would be his problem, eventually. She looked up as he brushed off his fingers, and nodded solemnly, absorbing his answer. New here, by a few months.

Stepping to one side, so they weren't in the way of the door, she answered, “Yeah, I've been living here a few years. Um- Well, welcome to Easthaven!” The tiger tried for a friendly smile, but she was not the most personable individual. It came out a bit stilted, but earnest all the same. “I'm, uh. Juniper. Call me June.” She offered her hand again.

[Jack Valentine]

The stranger was a little bit awkward but that was okay. It was hard to meet new people and tigers were sometimes just Like That in his experience. Something in the solitary nature of the tiger that seemed to make tiger-people forget how to do the people part every now and then.

Jack had never quite been like that himself, but maybe he was still too young, too cub-like. Maybe it was a thing that happened as you got older and further from your family. Honestly, he really hoped not. Who wanted to be the guy in the band everyone hated because you were impossible to work with? Then again, those were often the people who got the most attention in the history books.

Not that Jack was concerned with making history, just music.

Oh, this was still an interaction.

Maybe tigers were just all easily distracted ginger cats.

Swallowing like a captive snake having trouble devouring its frozen pinkie mouse meal, Jack tried to make sure there were few crumbs left to the front of his mouth as he offered a wide, white grin.

“June. June! Thanks, June - I'm Jack!” he declared, rolling her name around on his tongue like he wasn't sure it quite fit her. But if course it did, because it was her name. “What brought you out here to Easthaven, then? Anywhere I should check out?”

[Juniper Gray]

The man seemed quite occupied with eating his cookies, so Juniper withdrew her hand, awkward, but grinning still. She got it--this was really exciting for the both of them. Or, she at least hoped it was mutual. How often did one find another tiger in a cookie shop like this.

Jack introduced himself, though, and her grinned broadened, happy to have a name to a face. As for why she was in Easthaven. The young tiger's gaze flickered away as she sought out something close to the truth, but not quite. She'd come to Easthaven on Exchange parole, and just stayed. But... she didn't really want to dump that on a stranger.

“Honestly? Foster care system,” she said, shrugging again, like it was no big deal. “Then I stayed after I moved out--I like it here. And I bet you...” she trailed off, looking Jack up and down and trying to get a good bead on his aesthetic. He was kinda grunge, kinda... musician-like wasn't he? “You look like you play guitar or something.”

Wild guess, on her part. But if he did, maybe he'd like the hipster band scene.