Lala's day had been absolutely fantastic in a string of other such stupendously marvelous days! No. To start with, she had to wake at the ungodly hour of 9AM for the disastrous meeting of the century, she also had no money and no food. Her fridge was empty, as in there was a jar of mayo in there that may or may not have contained actual mayo but she'd rather not give it the sniff taste, or, God forbid, the taste test—actually, she kind of didn't want to come near it with a one foot pole, reasons for which it had been in the same spot for the past few months. Besides the empty fridge, which in all honesty was all the reasons you could need for having a cranky Lala, there was also the matter of her current client. Her newest employer was such a lovely bucket of sunshine... and plain, incredible stupidity. You know how you think some people may have been dropped on their heads when they were babies? (Lala did actually know of one such spectacular specimen: her upstairs neighbor, one grumpy-like-shite baker by the name of Sander Blackwell.)

But, anyway, her newest client—well at this point it was rather, the client that was supposed to be but wasn't and will never be, had driven Lala to new levels of I want to watch you burn and then dance on your grave. And after three days of owls sent back and forth, containing prime examples of stupidity, unaccounted for smugness and downright ridiculousness on the client's part, Lala finally cracked. And at their one and only face-to-face meeting, after an hour of the most tedious and ludicrous monologue on the client's part, Lala simply asked: "Excuse me, but when you were born... were you thrown in the air, hit the ceiling, bounced off it and then fell out the window? Because being dropped on your head doesn't seem to cover it for you." After which, she had stormed out and seethed for the rest of the day, killing nazis and zombies and nazi zombies in her guilty pleasure game BloodRayne. And that's when her stomach kindly reminded her that she hadn't eaten actual food in about two days. And chips and Skittles did not count! She was stressed and hungry—and, oh, did I mention hungry?

And that's when one Layla Styles, morphed to a superb I will rain fire on you, your children and your children's children hairstyle, namely straight, black and red ombre with bangs[1] and anyone who could read Lala's moods by her hairstyle and eye color (currently icy blue), knew that was one bad omen. After grabbing the first clothes in sight, she apparated to Hogsmeade.  She owed too much money and too many lunches to her friends in London.

She entered the Three Broomsticks with a face that said I will rip you to shreds only to instantly light up with a bright Colgate smile upon seeing one Beth Ellis. She waved ecstatically at her, flailing both arms in the air and stalked across the pub in a few long strides—and that's just a manner of saying, because short people bordering on dwarf-sized do not actually have long strides. Lala couldn't really be arsed with common sense and borders, so the second she reached the doorway to the kitchen were Beth was leaning, she proceeded to jump on the spot one time then give a deep, long, FML sigh and basically tentacled herself around the barmaid, hugging with both arms and legs... sort of. "Feeeeeeeeeeeed me, oh perfect and most kind Beth! Feeeeeed me!" she wailed into the other girl's shoulder.

Once Lala had her share of hugs and her point made, she seated herself at the bar, messenger bag abandoned at the foot of her stool and scowling face cradled in her palms. "Ever have one of those days where literally everything pisses you off?" she asked Beth with a musing voice, but a frown deeply seated on her face. "Someone could be all Look at that rainbow! and I'll be like Whatever the bloody hell you say" she continued, now fervent tone and arms wildly gesticulating. "This is one of those days" she sighed and returned her head on her palms. "These days should come with a warning label: Today's gonna suck, so skip the coffee and go straight to vodka" she muttered before giving a dramatic sob and hitting her head on the counter of the bar. "OTL. Today I met my worst, stupidest client, yet" she said, words muffled by the counter currently in her face. "I'm not saying let's go kill all the stupid people..." she exclaimed, as she raised her head suddenly, cringing. "I'm just saying let's remove all the warning labels and danger signs and let the problem sort itself out." She crossed her arms and pouted, before wrinkling her nose and rolling her eyes, the idiot's face still burned in her mind and to be forever associated with village idiot. Or, well, London idiot.

"Do you think it's socially acceptable to throw water balloons at people who annoy you? Like, I don't necessarily want to hurt you, but I do want to ruin your day..." she then asked Beth in all seriousness, mimicking the throwing of a balloon, before falling into an awkward sudden silence. "Soooooo... How are you?" she asked, suddenly chipper with a big smile, stretching her arms in front of her on the bar. "Also, food? Maybe? Pleaaaaaseeee? If you feed me I'll love you forever. The way to my heart is through my stomach. If you feed me you'll never get rid of me. I'm gonna be everywhere: at your workplace, in your home, in your bed, in your bathroom... BUT HEY! I will love you!" She grinned a shit-eating grin, with her hands forming a heart over her chest, and just in time, a horrible sound bordering on the monster under your bed coming for your soul-sound came from her stomach.

1.

Like so.

Bethan Ellis was minding her own business because, for a change, she didn't have anyone else's business to mind. It was the blessed hour of nearly-3:30-in-the-afternoon, which was frequently an hour of boredom and solitude when you worked in a pub. It wasn't quite lunchtime, and it wasn't quite happy hour, and people didn't tend to slip in looking for heavier fare at 3:30 – well, usually. On a different day the energetic barmaid may have been clawing at her eyeballs when the place was so deserted, begging the stars for any distraction from her boredom, but today she was happy to stand around listlessly and rest up in anticipation of her far busier evening shift. She leaned against the kitchen door frame, keeping her eye on the door to the establishment. She was nursing a mug of hot chocolate, which was resting on the counter just within the confines of the kitchen, and quite enjoying her 'break-but-not-a-break', feeling devious. She wasn't always able to get away with something so luxurious while on the clock. She grinned mischievously as she took a sip from her mug, then set it down in its super secret hiding spot. That grin vanished from her face the moment she heard the bell above the door ding-a-linging, which usually meant she had to actually do her job. Ugh. Jobs were so inconvenient sometimes!

She brightened considerably to see that the patron who'd ding-a-linged had been someone she actually knew and didn't immediately despise. Beth may have been lazy as hell, but she did love company, and when company and working overlapped, it was far easier to get her up off her arse and doing what she was supposed to. “Alright, Layla?” she greeted brightly, taking a step away from the door jamb (and, by proxy, away from her delicious, delicious cup of chocolatey love). She wasn't chipper for long, however. The second the artist had her hands on her, Beth's face immediately went dark, her easy grin transforming into something like a snarl. She had no qualms about peeling her fingers off of her using her own fingernails, and she proceeded to free herself from the human calamari – and not gently. “Oh, I'll feed you alright,” the bitter barmaid snapped, grimacing and swatting the other girl away, “I'll feed you to a dragon – how's about that? I'd only be doing the world a favor, ridding the place of leeches one at a time.” Grumpily, the changeable witch tromped back over to her regular spot behind the bar, happy to put some professional distance between herself and the handsy moocher.

”Ever have one of those days where literally everything pisses you off?”

“Without a doubt,” Bethan replied bluntly, looking wary as she stood back from the bar, her arms crossed defensively over her chest. “I might be having one right now, but it's too soon to tell. Really depends on if you try groping me again, to tell the truth,” she spoke with a snort and a smirk, looking far less cross. “Go on,” she encouraged, anticipating a story. It wasn't a story so much as it was a whiny (but amusing)  diatribe, and by the end of it Beth was chuckling. It wasn't entirely clear whether she was chuckling at at the girl or with her, but it didn't seem to matter. “I'm warning you now - I can't hand out liquor, like, so if that's what you're looking for you just might have to take your bad day down to the bank and cry to the goblins.” Lala was a hoot, but Bethan didn't plan on loosing her job over someone else's stupid client.

“Here's what I can do for you,” she began, speaking frankly, once the other witch had made her pathetic plea for food. Even the stray that she fed down in diagon didn't beg with the same amount of gusto as this girl did. Layla could really learn some tips on subtlety from the dog. “The nuts are free,” she explained, setting a bowl of peanuts down in front of her, “But you can't eat all of them, because you never know what might come up. The water's free, too. And, today only – and I mean that - any soup that's left at the bottom of the tureen is free, assuming you like lukewarm split pea with ham. I'll zap it with my wand for you, if the temperature is a turn off.” Beth didn't mind going back into the kitchen for a bit, if only because it meant another few blessed seconds with her cup of cocoa. Plus, she had to clean out the tureen anyway. “I don't reckon my parents will fancy you coming around my house, though, mostly because they're home more than I am. My mum'd feed you, though, that's for sure. It's what she's good at. You might just want to work on getting adopted. That, or getting a job that pays in money, like."

"Rude" Lala huffed at being called a leech. She was not some invertebrate blood sucker, thank you very much, she was merely a person that knew how to go about getting the things she wanted with the least amount of effort and, more importantly, with no finances involved in getting said things. "Here I am, trying to show you my undying love and devotion through a hug, you know... the physical activity of wrapping someone else in your arms to show them affection, and you go on about groping" she sighed, with a wounded look on her face. "That was not groping. If it was, you would've known by my hands getting all friendly with your ass, sunshine" she said smiling leeringly and wagging her eyebrows.

"I don't want your booze, woman" she sighed and let her had fall into her hand. "While I strongly believe that the best friendships are built on a solid foundation of alcohol, cake, sarcasm and a dislike of the same people, and I would never say no to liquor, right now I need foooooooooood and I blame my bad decisions on being hungry" she whined long. The days when Lala preferred food over alcohol meant earthquakes and tsunamis somewhere on the other side of the Earth. She was sure of it. "Besides, I don't do Jägerbombs before 6PM and days like today demand at least ten of them."

Upon seeing the bowl of nuts, Lala's frown suddenly turned upside down and her hair slowly started to lighten and change shape, ending up to a bright, and sunny pink-platinum ombre[1] complete with her usual shade of doey hazel eyes. And, in seconds her mouth was full of nuts, grinning wildly at Beth that only kept the good news coming. Water was good, sort of, even if Lala felt like it was definitely bad for her insides and would somehow rust all her interior... But soup, and soup with actual meat (which she hadn't had in over a week) was like someone suddenly sent a beacon of light right on the stool Lala was sitting on and everything was draped in warm, radiant light and the world was at peace and everything was right with it. She raised her hand, victoriously in the air and spun on her stool with a big grin full of nuts. Once she was back face-to-face with Beth and seemingly, calm, she again raised both hands, waving them about, shimmying in her seat and repeatedly saying "Soup" with passion and—well, it was more like moaning than saying.

"Did I ever tell you you mean so much to me that you're the one I want running beside me during the zombie apocalypse?" she asked, adoring look on her face, then let out a heart-warming sigh. "Ha" she said unamused. "I think I have more chances getting adopted..." she hook her head before catching it between both her palms, and dragging her cheeks to the front, creating the perfect example of a... fish face. "The last time I had an actual job, with things like schedules and pay days and all that other nonsense I punched some lady in the throat because of her sheer stupidity" she dead-panned, before extending one arm across the bar and collapsing her entire upper body on it.

"But, you love me, right?" she batted her eyelashes and angled her head to look at her from below. "And I'm not saying you should adopt me..." she raised her head suddenly and clasped her hand over the counter. "But I have perfectly good reasons of why I'd be the perfect pet: I have soft hair, I can be very quiet, I am a proficient cuddler" she continued batting her eyelashes and grinning with all teeth. "I'm very easy to care for, all I need is some food and a dark spot to sleep in. I can make you artsy stuff, I can even cook, provided I have ingredients, I'm horrible at housework but I do a mean dish washing job and I'll give you my unconditional luuuuurve" she clasped her hands to her chest, a mockery of excited 40's housewives. "Please take me in, else they'll make me go back in the real world and make me do the whole responsible adult thing." To complete the whining she put in motion her now perfected puppy eyes technique. "Pleaaaaase."

1.

Like so

When Lala took it upon herself to go into detail regarding groping and arses, Bethan just stared at her, a perfectly blank, unamused look on her face. She stood sucking her front teeth and trying to decide what on earth a person was supposed to say to a remark such as that. It was rare that Beth Ellis was struck dumb, if that was even what was going on in this instance. In reality, the baffled barmaid was just mildly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation and didn't want to encourage it – but, being who she was, couldn't just leave comments like that alone. “Well, don't hug me,” she declared bluntly, eying the colorful moocher bitterly and trying to prevent her hand from creeping toward the wand in her apron pocket. “You're lucky I know you're good people. I've hexed people for less.” It was true, too. Beth hadn't been quite as heavy on the wand waving in recent months, probably because she spent most of her time at work, where hexing idiots was generally frowned upon, but she didn't think she'd lost her knack.

She was much more comfortable talking about alcohol and whatever green sludge was left half burned at the bottom of the mostly depleted soup tureen she was supposed to be emptying out in about half an hour. Frankly, she found talk of her body and implications about her sex appeal about as fascinating as she found pea soup. She listened to Layla's energetic ramble about why she didn't want a drink, or why she did want a drink but not yet, keeping her arms crossed over her chest. She was throwing a lot of words at her, and Beth was beginning to understand what it was like to be on the receiving end of one of her own fascinating monologues. The thing was, Beth liked being the one that talked too much. She had built a name for herself as that smiley barmaid who never shut up. When other people talked their heads off like that, she sort of wanted to murder them. It was a bit of a double standard, sure, but it was true, and the petite blonde behind the bar found herself grinding her back teeth together, biding her time until it was her turn to spout enthusiastic nonsense.

"I'd say see you tonight, but I don't reckon you have an elderly relative who might kick off before then and leave you enough to afford it,” she smirked – at long last – once Layla had finished her speech. The Three Broomsticks wasn't really a 'ten jagerbombs' sort of establishment, as a rule. It didn't tend to attract that sort of crowd. She was really just saying so to hammer a point home, that point being: 'you're poor, and don't forget I'm doing you a favor.', Ellis didn't always feed hungry street urchins, but when she did, she wanted to be appreciated for it. Watching the girl go wild over the bowl of nuts was fairly rewarding, and she watched her cram them into her mouth with the amused smirk of a kind and benevolent goddess. Whatever Layla thought, Bethan clearly had the power right now and it felt good. “Don't choke. I can't save you if you die,” she remarked drolly as she set about fetching the girl a glass of water and setting it down on the bar in front of her. She really didn't have to be prompt about it, she realized. It wasn't like this girl was a paying customer. She was more like a stool warmer. Even the dust motes floating on the air took precedent over leeches – whether Layla wanted to admit she was one of those or not.

”Did I ever tell you you mean so much to me that you're the one I want running beside me during the zombie apocalypse?”

“Running?” the wide hipped witch asked incredulously, her hands finding her way to those hips of hers and settling there. “Do I look like I run to you? The only reason you'd want me running by your side is because they'd get me first, and that's a fact. I understand self preservation and that, but that doesn't sound like much of a compliment from where I'm standing,” she snorted, giving her head a slight shake. She was quick with a wand, she was self sacrificing, and she wasn't afraid to get messy, but athletic? Not so much. She was working on it, though, in between scones from Puddifoots.

Of course, the other girl just soldiered on, going from throwing inadvertent insults to rolling all over the bar top and gushing about something. Both girls were clearly social creatures, but very different kinds of social creatures. Beth was friendly, and she definitely talked too much at times, and she certainly derived her energy from interactions with others, but she liked to think she was less obnoxious than the over the top specimen of neediness who was currently rubbing her face all over the bar, waxing poetic about her lack of people skills, and begging to be adopted.

“Don't you have parents?” Beth asked the pathetic creature, her eyebrows darting upward questioningly, seemingly unfazed by the puppy dog gaze. “I know heading back home can't be great once you've escaped, but they generally have food there and I reckon they'd feed you, unless that lady you punched in the throat was your mum,” she laughed. “I'm lucky my mum cooks, and it helps that she likes me, too, but she's not stingy with her own kids. My sister still stops by for dinner all of the time and she's a hell of a lot older than you are. No shame in that. Hell, my brother's married with kids and he's been by!” Beth sometimes took for granted that she came from a stable home with an incredibly supportive family, but she really didn't know anything else.

“So what are you going to do for me if I bring you that soup?” Beth asked, folding her arms smugly over her chest, once again enjoying the power she still held over this girl. “You'll owe me a favor, that's for sure. I just want to make sure it's worth my time, is all.”

Lala eyed Bethan incredulously. Obviously, her passion for the zombie apocalypse—which was, definitely coming at some point in her lifetime, thank you very much— and zombie shooter games, and zombie literature, and comics was not shared by Beth as well. That was sad. So sad. "Do I look like I run?" she asked skeptically furrowing her eyebrows. "What I meant was, normally, when one was faced with brain-eating zombies the best course of action would be to be constantly on the move. So.... running, because there's supply runs, and swarms of zombies, and seeing both our builds, I'd reckon we'd be best with long range rather than melee combat, so we'd need distance and—" she started explaining ardently, as she always did on the matters of her passions. "NM" she sighed deeply before scowling. "My tropes are wasted on you" she swiped a faux tear from the corner of her eye.

"Of course I have parents, but they're back in The Pale—Dublin. But they're not doing any better" she hummed supporting her head on her hand. "And we don't really have that kind of relationship, ye know?" she said looking in the distance, before she remembered herself and shook her head, plastering a big grin on her face. While Lala talked with the speed of a football commentator, she talked about everything but not anything of consistency on all matters Lala. Social as she was, nobody could really say they actually knew Layla Styles. "Your family sounds pretty cool. Must be nice" she said twisting a strand of hair, thinking on how unusual her family was compared to others. But she'd always taken it as the norm, her mother was awesome, okay? And even if Lala was not built the right way, and had no idea how the actual concept of family ties worked, her ma, and grandma were still awesome by her standards, but she'd never felt that... love you were supposed to feel for family. Anyway, her mind was being an arse... again. There was food to be talked of!

"I can do dishes and help you on your shift?" she smiled genially. "I've been busing tables since I was 15, and my accident prone behavior actually shoves off when I do that, so you won't have to worry about me damaging anything" she batted her eyelashes, smirking at Bethan. "'S that work for you?"

Yeah, it was safe to say that Bethan wasn't following any of Layla's zombie chatter. The only zombies she knew about were inferi, which were sick and terrifying and made her want to dig her stubby fingernails into the waiting eye sockets of anyone who dared to call them cool. It was the darkest of dark magic, and one of the most grotesque things a human person was capable of doing with a wand, and, frankly, if it came down to it and there was a real danger of an inferi attack, she sure as hell wouldn't be running away from the reanimated corpses – she'd be more likely to run toward the twisted arseholes who thought it was okay to inflict terror on the world by murdering people and using darker than dark unforgivable curses on their corpses. So no, Bethan was not amused, and she did not look the least bit amused as she stared the artist down with a bitter, grumpy look upon her face, her arms crossed over her chest. “I'm not fond of zombies, to tell you the truth,” she admitted, and left it at that. Hopefully she got the idea.

“Yeah, my family's great. Better than most people's, I'd reckon, since all you really hear about is people not getting along with their parents and that,” she remarked once the conversation came back around to families. It was the truth, and probably had something to do with why she wasn't so fond of thinking about the people she loved most in the world being turned into flesh puppets in the hands of some dark wizard somewhere. “Not that it's any of my business, but I bet it wouldn't be the worst thing for your relationship if you stopped by for tea sometime,” she suggested with a shrug. Estrangement was not how you fixed things. Beth knew that to be a fact. Estrangement was how you dealt with broken things you didn't want to mend. It seemed like parents should be different, though, and she was lucky hers were. Maybe if Layla had been closer with her parents someone would have been able to tell her that you needed a job if you wanted to eat. She didn't know anything about Maslow or his hierarchy of needs, but she knew that it was a hell of a lot harder to follow your dreams and pursue your passions if you were living in government housing and couldn't afford food. In her mind, it seemed much more practical to be, say, a waitress and an artist, or a barmaid and an artist, or even a maintenance employee and an artist than it was to be, well... dead of starvation and an ex-artist. There was passionate and then there was just dumb, and she was glad she'd had parents around who'd taught her the difference.

”I can do dishes and help you on your shift? I've been busing tables since I was 15, and my accident prone behavior actually shoves off when I do that, so you won't have to worry about me damaging anything. S that work for you?”

“Not quite,” Bethan smirked. “I'm working bar. I don't bus, and you're not allowed to handle the booze unless you're on the clock, and that doesn't help me, seeing as you don't actually work here,” she snorted. “I do clean the glasses, but I can do that with my eyes closed, like, and it keeps me busy when it's slow.” She definitely wasn't making this easy, but if she was going to make her work for her lunch, then she was going to work! “How's about I feed you now, and once I have enough saved up for my tattoo, you help me out?” she asked. Artists had to be good for something, right? The trouble was, Beth wanted something huge – and beyond that, she had no idea what she actually wanted. She was that client from hell – the sort who wanted what she wanted, and only what she wanted, but is completely unable to articulate what that might be, or why what you've given her isn't right. “Think you could draw something up for me?”

"Heh" she chuffed bitterly. "Mum's not that kind of person—definitely not a tea person. She doesn't really cook either" she mused. "She's not a mother person either. We get along. We get along brilliantly, actually" she lowered her gaze to study the pattern in the wood of the bar. "Just not like how you see mother and daughters normally get along, more like an aunt and her niece, or sisters. We don't really get in each others business" she hummed, before snapping back to reality. Most people couldn't relate to her situation and therefore couldn't really understand which is why she preferred to keep quiet about her family most of the time.

Her face radiated haring Beth's proposal, now that was something she'd gladly do. "That sounds orsum! I didn't know you wanted to get a tattoo" she grinned at Beth. Tattoos were hot. "I could most certainly do that" she nodded fervently. "Do you have any idea what exactly you wanna get? Or is it more in the need tattoo asap stage at the moment?" she asked shaking her head, and having it turn a bright teal. "If not we can definitely work on something from what you might want to accomplish with it... like if it means something to you" she explained still nodding and gesticulating wildly. "Sooooo—how about that food now?" she batted her eyelashes innocently.

It was hard for Beth to swallow the thought of a mother not, well... mothering. As far as she could tell, having a child was a fairly complex process, which involved getting the right pieces into the right slots at just the right time and then, if a person was lucky, they got to hold their breath for nine months, stop drinking booze, and then push a porcupine through a pinhole. She knew accidents supposedly happened (and that she was supposedly one of them), but the more she thought about it (though she tried not to) childbirth really, really didn't sound like something that could happen by accident. You had to want to be a mother. Bethan herself had no interest in that role. She loved kids. She loved her nieces, she'd loved messing around with first years back at school, and she still had a weakness for aimlessly running around after balls like an overstimulated puppy. That didn't mean she want to be a mother, though, and it didn't mean she should. Motherhood meant accepting whatever you were stuck with, and giving up what you wanted. She really didn't think that was for her – at least not yet. She had things to do first. She had no comment for Layla regarding her relationship with her mum, as rare as that was for Beth. She didn't know the woman well enough to judge her. In fact, she was pretty sure she could relate more to a terrible mother than she could to a good one.

Tattoos were much more interesting anyway. “Alright, alright,” Bethan muttered, stretching as she started back toward the kitchen. Once she brought the other witch her food she figured she'd have a captive audience for a while, and she thought she could use a captive audience who actually knew what they were talking about. The more she thought about tattoos, the more she liked the idea of getting one. She was excited as she ladled green, bottom-of-the-tureen soup into a waiting bowl – so excited that she made an effort to deliberately pick up a ladle mostly full of bits of ham. It was going to be the saltiest, most lukewarm bowl of soup the Broomsticks had ever served, but it would provide a heck of a lot more calories than your normal bowl of soup, and only paying customers could send food back. She grabbed a spoon on her way back to the bar, and then ceremoniously presented her with the bowl of chunky sludge. She was sure that, on some planets, they called that 'lunch.'

“So, about my tattoo,” she started with a grin, launching right in as soon as she'd provided her end of the deal. “I'm thinking a half sleeve to start, just to see if I like it and that – shoulder to elbow, just here,” she explained, indicating the area on her left arm that she had in mind, which was currently (and almost always) covered up by her shirt sleeve. “I don't know what to get, but I want it to be cool, you know? Not something people just think is cool. I don't want skulls or dragons or anything like that. Everyone's got skulls and dragons. I want it to be different than what everyone's got, but still cool.”   

The second the bowl was in front of Lala, the game was on. She was so hungry she couldn't care less how edible whatever she was shoveling down her throat was. "Ermeh—gawd" she managed to make out between mouthfuls. She gave up on chewing, and decided to just swallow everything, chunks and all. She was pretty sure the thing was rather... hideous. But look at aaaaall the craps Layla did not give! Food was food. Food was glorious. Five minutes after starting, the bowl was empty and Lala thought that was the perfect moment to let out a pretty obscene moan.

"Mmmmhh... I have stumbled upon the realization that I love food more than people" she said with a blissed-out face, completely lost in her own little world while rubbing her stomach. Styles knew that sometimes the things that came out of her mouth bordered on douchey, but let not one say Lala's blunt truths made any sort of exception. Plus, only the few truly gifted could both insult and be charming at the same time. "Thanks, ye'r awesome" she finally beamed, as she raised her wand to cast a cleaning charm on the bowl.

"Well, le'see..." she mused, squinting her eyes at Beth's arm, as if she had super X-Ray vision and could actually see something forming in her brain. Her face did a thing where it kind of went all directions: eyebrows up, mouth slowly forming an O and her nose crinkling. And then she was... attempting to recover her bag at the foot of her stool, only the stool was kind of high so the best Lala could do was grunt as she stretched her body downwards, tips of her finger nowhere near the actual bag. She stood and hmph-ed and extracted her wand to accio the damn thing. Douchebag genes and bloody shortness.

Bag safely on her lap, she extracted a heavy, thick sketchbook that had obviously been used and abused for a while, seeing the wrinkly corners of the hardcover. She placed the pad on the counter with a thud and inserted one hand into the bag, squirming it around with an obviously frustrated face. Her tongue was apparently trying to find its way into her nose and her eyebrows were obviously very confused as one shoot up while the other came down. She was no Mary Poppins, but her bag was a bottomless pit... "AHA!" she finally exclaimed as she extracted a metal pencil case and placed it on the scetchbook. She threw her bag down at the foot of her stool as if it had mortally offended her.

"O-kaaaay" she said, deeply immersed in art-mode Lala. "Does the tattoo have some deep hidden meaning?" she asked with her business face on. "As in... are you commemorating or celebrating something with it? Or is it just a thing you wanna have done?" she continued gesticulating wildly. "No skulls or dragons, I get that, okay. But, ye know skulls can be really awesome. Say, if you go with sugar skulls for example: prettyful, colorful and other things ending in -ful" she let that one sink in before continuing. "Which gets me to the next question. Do you want it color or black and white? Also, do you want it static or wizarding—wizarding-y? Is that even a word?" she shook her entire body, as if to say not the point Lala, stop going on a tangent. She sighed and inserted the tip of her crayon inside her mouth, which was disturbing bite mark-free. Until now, that was.

"Something more feminine? Like I don't mean the subject itself, but the color scheme can be more girly, you know..." she said around the pencil end in her mouth. "Or more gender neutral? Or, you know, bad boy... rwar, manly-man. Something black and white with red accents" she explained, obviously not able to help herself mimic a claw and  imitating a dying feline's roar. "I'm not seeing you as a Japanese motif kinda gal, so probably no koi fishies or geishas. Oh! But they do have orsum demons and stuff, ye know?" she said enthusiastically, but still caught in her own little world.

"Floral motifs can be pretty awesome for sleeves... whether stylized for black an white or realistic for color. But, yeah..." she finally came out of the whirlwind in her mind and actually looked at Beth for the answers, but not before shrugging. "It's a tattoo. Sleeves are usually a mass of randomness that somehow gets nicely put together. Soooo, we could incorporate a shitload of things into it, without having it look, eh, odd" she tried to explain, while gesticulating frustrated. Lala always had trouble actually putting her thoughts into words, mainly because the speed with which her mind worked was way too much for her ability to spout words. And given the speed with which Layla talked, well that said something...

Once Layla's sketchbook had successfully made its long and arduous journey onto the bar top, Bethan leaned forward to see it better. She rested her arms on the counter as she craned her neck to try and get a look at what the other witch was doing with her artistic implements of mystery and wonder. Beth was no artist – not even remotely. When she was small she seldom looked twice at crayons, and it had been a struggle to ever get the energetic and developmentally stunted child to learn to control a pencil. It was still a complete mystery to her how anyone managed to make their drawings look like actual things. Even Beth's simplest stick figures tended to look like they'd all been in terrible, crippling accidents. 

Her lack of actual knowledge became obvious once Layla began asking all sorts of questions about color and content and meaning and whatever else, and Beth just stared at her dumbly, her mouth hanging open slightly. She let the girl get through her entire, minutes long spiel before she even dared open her mouth, and at that point she'd heard so much that she wasn't entirely sure where to start. She began with the points she was most definitely, adamantly passionate about: “I don't want anything too girly, I know that, like. Definitely no flowers, whatever they look like,” she insisted firmly, not leaving any room for ambiguity there.

“And, erm, I like purple enough, I suppose,” she added with a shrug. “I just want something cool – that's all. Just... it doesn't need to mean anything, really, but it has to go right here.” She indicated that area again, running her fingers from her shoulder to the crook of her elbow. It was easy enough to imagine that she was just strangely picky about where she wanted her first tattoo, but that wasn't the case in this instance. Honestly, Bethan wasn't entirely sure that flesh as scarred up as hers could even take ink, let alone become the canvas for some huge, elaborate design. The skin was rough, puckered and discolored, and it wasn't just her upper left arm that was affected. She hoped she'd eventually be able to cover up the rest of the scarring, too, one day, where it covered her entire back, her hip, and a big chunk of her stomach on the left side. It was hideous. Nobody had said so, but she knew better. The scarred area had only stretched and distorted as she'd grown, and she'd spent years changing in the loo so she wouldn't have to talk about it. She'd thought that maybe, if she got it covered up with something cool, she might be able to do something totally wild, like wear a short sleeved shirt in public for the first time since she was five years old. Maybe it could eventually become something to be proud of instead of the thing about her that she despised the most.

“I don't want a thing, you know? I don't want it to look like anything. I just want it, erm... you know. I want it to be cool,” she explained, using the same completely vague phrasing for what felt like the millionth time. “Just, you know, a decoration, like. Something... well... just not a demon or a flower or anything. Not pretty, but I don't want to make it look like I'm trying too hard either, isn't it? Just a cool tattoo.” Frankly, she probably should have given this more thought before dragging another person into it, but how was she supposed to know what she wanted tattooed permanently on her body for the remainder of her life? She wasn't an artist!

"Sooooo..." she said after a moment of silence and dumb-founded staring with her mouth hanging agape. "You sort of, kind of, maybe have no idea what exactly you want?" she asked slowly, with her eyes squinted, looking in the distance as she tried to wrap her brain about this. "You just want this mad skills, cool, maybe purple thingamajig" she finally concluded with a serious face and ended with a frustrated face raising her shoulder, then her arms, and shaking her head in a full-body WTF.

"Uhmm" she finally said, lowering her arms, before quickly lifting one to aimlessly scratch at her face. "You need to gimme somethin' to work with... I am not the tattoo whisperer. I am a poor—" she raised her index finger and frowned "both in the miserable and ha ha ha ha, look at me I can't even buy bread sort'a way" she explained with a miserable sort of voice "—illustrator and unless you give me complete free reign over this I can't" she stopped and stammered through a few unintelligible words before crossing her arms swiftly. "I just cannot with this" she finally grunted before turning into a sweet, embarrassed little smile. "You get my drift?" she asked apologetically. Her brain was spouting images after images, not willing to settle on any of them, all in various shades of purple and she was kind of lost in her own creative mind.

"You know... I might know a tattoo artist" she finally huffed, willing to admit defeat for once in her life. "We could hold a deep philosophical threeway conversation over your tattoo" she mused, doodling some purple fantasy creature on her sketchbook.

“Now, listen,” Beth said firmly, and perhaps not entirely kindly, to the over the top leech sitting at her bar, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She wasn't fond of the way Layla was gaping at her like she was some idiot. She may have been way out of her element when it came to this art business, but that didn't impair her ability to read insulting body language, and she wasn't taking kindly to the witch's sass. “I'm not an artist and I'm not trying to be one, so you can help me or not, but you're not going to insult me in my own place of business here, alright?” the barmaid grumped crossly. Merlin, this girl was good and exhausting, wasn't she? “First thing I said to you is I don't know what to get. You don't get to act surprised. I laid it all out for you first thing. You're the artist, not me,” she reminded her. Bethan wasn't about to kowtow to this snarkmeister just because she had a fancy drawing book. If Layla didn't draw her something then someone else would. Mostly (as was the case in most instances, when it came to Bethan Ellis) she just wanted to talk about it because it excited her.

”You know... I might know a tattoo artist. We could hold a deep philosophical threeway conversation over your tattoo.”

“I might know a lot of people,” Beth retorted, “Do you or don't you?” The girl smirked, clearly just teasing. She was only feeling superficially irked, really, though a few more superficial irkings and things could certainly turn genuinely cold. “I wanted to find someone for myself, if you don't mind. To do the tattooing, I mean. Some things a girl has to be particular about, and deciding who gets to rip into my skin with a big old needle is one of them.” Tattoos were still seen as subversive amongst muggles, let alone amongst wizardkind. Beth's concern didn't actually have a thing to do with needles or cultural taboos, however. The pain receptors in most of her body had run away screaming years ago, and she didn't have sensation in any of the areas she wanted tattooed. Her parents knew about her intentions and, given the circumstances, were okay with it. She was really just worried that whoever she went to with this job was going to take one look at her and laugh. She had to pick someone decent and someone good, not just someone.

Lala was about to rain fire on Beth for obviously not understanding her position, but then she remembered she had been fed by said Beth and unless Lala was about to part with one possible future food source, that would not have been a wise decision. So she huffed and shook her head and ground her teeth a few times until she was sure her mouth would stay shut.

"There's this guy Zeke?" she finally said musingly, eyes cast down on her sketchpad adding some green accents on her purple thing. "He's a brilliant artist and a very very nice bloke... We get along. I could put you in touch with him for a more private meeting and you can decide whether he's game or not" she shrugged, filling in some runes in the skin of the creature her mind was currently unraveling. She then raised her eyes and gave the blonde a rather confused look. "Also, the needle isn't very big, it's quite tiny actually. Very tiny" she frowned. "Teensy, tiny needle..." she continued, squinting her eyes, then shook her head to get herself back on track. "Anyway, he has a light hand and he's inked some of my designs in the past, for friends and such. They've all been very satisfied with the final thing" she muttered, tongue out touching the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on adding some conceptual, minimalistic designs around the purple creature.

"I can swing by the place he works at sometime later today and talk to him, if you wanna?" she asked raising her head to look at Beth questioningly.

“I know Zeke,” Beth countered immediately. “You mean Gryffindor Zeke, yeah? Zeke Abraham? Only went to school with him for about five years of my life,” she grinned teasingly. Ever since she'd arrived on the Hogwarts scene as a miniature, nudgy eleven year old who'd never been in a proper school before, Beth managed to put herself on a few radars. She'd been an often energetic - but sometimes grumpy - mess of a girl with fly away blonde hair and a mischievous grin who wasn't afraid of anybody – and, in hindsight, not much had changed since those days. Beth picked up friends by accident all of the time! She'd seen Zeke on a few isolated occasions once he'd finished school. Though she hadn't seen him in a while, he was definitely a mate, and it was easy to imagine they'd pick up where they left off.

“Does he... you know... I knew he was doing tattoos and that, but he's... he's young, like,” Beth spoke, sounding a bit hesitant, not wanting to come off like a total jerk. “I just want to know he's legitimate. That's all I want to know,” she explained, trying to sound less like a skeptical chicken, even if that's exactly what she was.  “Can't hurt to talk to him, I suppose,” she added, “Need to catch up anyway, isn't it?”

"Oh, yeah!" she suddenly jerked with a big grin. "You totally were in the same house" she continued with a hum and a nod. For the better part of her fourth through sixth year at Hogwarts, Lala had been in her extremist, rebellious teenage phase—hanging with the bad rep scene and not really too mindful of whatever else was going around the school. While neither Beth nor Zeke were exactly the sort of crowd she mingled with back then, she'd still known them and of them. It was only after leaving Hogwarts that Lala... upgraded her circle of friends.

"He may be young, but he's pretty kickass" she said confidently with a big grin, before burying her head back in her sketchpad, adding some random elements around the design. "He is, he's really really awesome, and he's dedicated. He has the natural flair for it but he's still constantly studying and experimenting and researching... He really works it, ye know?" she said with a little smile. She had enormous respect for artists that went above and beyond what was naturally given to them. She should be doing more practicing herself. But there were so many games and series and movies and mangas and—animes... Priorities.

"There ya go" she looked back at Beth acknowledging that catching up was always a good idea. "If ye want we can swing by together when you have some time?" Lala asked with a grin. "I'll have something sketched out for you by Sunday, probably..." she half-cringed. Inspiration was a feeble, horrible thing.