December 27th
Diagon Alley
Alohomocha
Early afternoon

Marida ducked as she entered the Cafe, getting good at avoiding human sized doors. If Marida was to enter the Olympics, she would a centaur limbo master. As she clopped her hoofs in, she straightened her jacket, having a black leather jacket that stayed close to her body, revealing her midriff but covering everything up to the neck. She could be in worse though, she has received numerous comments from her assistant. First it was she has to wear something, then it was you can't wear such a revealing bra, then it was you can't wear something with something that inappropriate on it. Humans have such annoying rules on nothing. She thought to herself in frustration.

She looked about the small cafe and seemed somewhat...unimpressed. A few days ago she had encountered several people drinking a foul, burnt smelling drink. She had of course encountered several people drinking the same thing, however it finally got to her and she asked them what the drink was. They said it was coffee and she should try it, that she would love it and the best place is Alohamocha. Then as she walked off she heard them laughing, she still doesn't know why they laughed. Calling after her that the flavours would blow her mind. Oddly she had encountered several people who had laughed after helping her, although the things they told her to do was very confusing and frustrating to do.

As Marida gazed towards the board and reading the section labelled 'Coffee' she may of finally understtod why they laughed. They were mocking me. She gave a frustrated huff. What do any of these drinks even mean?  V knee shon, Ma ch e a toe? Is that coffee? Are any of these a coffee? She clopped a hoof in frustration without realizing in her frustration. A very confused look upon her brow as she continued to stare into the board, she stood placed before the door, enough room to get around her to enter and leave, however it is only about shoulder width.

She muttered the names of the drinks under her breath as she kept re-reading. It didn't help that she can't really read very well in the first place, a couple of months isn't enough for her to figure out the english language, taking several botched attempts at some names before she just let out a frustrated groan. "I just want an coffee..."

Ordinarily, Elixa Mordent would be somewhere knee-deep in Swedish snow at this time of the year. Her family would all be together, including brothers. But they understood the importance of what she was doing in Britain. Her parents were both healers, and she had followed their footsteps, albeit with a punctuation until last November. Benedick, even as a squib, worked at the same Swedish hospital their parents did. His twin brother, Belarius, was the only one who’d bucked the healing trend and become an obliviator.

She was indulging. The morning had seen her final healer’s exams and she felt pretty good about it, truth be told. The only dismay - bar missing her family at Christmas - was that she had to go back to work that afternoon. The number of cases of witches and wizards exhibiting a lack of magical potential with flu-like symptoms was increasing by the day and had struck a couple of her colleagues, isolated away to reduce the possibility of it spreading. Last night she’d woken in a cold sweat, dreaming she’d turned up to her exams, also infected, but Merlin had been merciful.

It was near impossible not to notice the centaur. She literally filled the coffee shop, and mothers crowded their offspring away from the hind-legs in fright. Despite herself, Lix looked this one up and down with more of an appreciative eye. She wondered what Eva’s view on centaurs was…

“I just want an coffee…”

Ahhh, the confusion of many a customer at Alohomocha. The drinks menu was extensive, and often needlessly difficult.

“What do you want, we’ve got flat white, americano…” the figure behind the counter began to reel off from a well-rehearsed script. A heavy clop of a hoof on the floor drove a mother to drag her table even further away from the hindquarters.

“Do you want just coffee, or coffee with milk?” Lix raised her voice from the nearest table, unable to hold her tongue through curiosity and a caffeine-fuelled high at finishing her exams.

Marida looked towards the new speaker and thought about it, why do Humans drink milk? Isn't it just for the young? Why do they pour the food for the young on weird dehydrated food in bowl for breakfast even at 70? Why dehydrate the food if you are going to add milk anyway? So many things about humans made little sense to her.

She returned to the person at the counter and approached awkwardly. "Without milk." She says confidently, she was determined to drink a Coffee, not a Coffee and a Milk. Surely humans must like the basic coffee if they have so many variations of it right? They must just be ways to make better for you. Like how the humans add weird stuff to their bread, the idea of meat in bread she nnderstood, saved time then eating separately. But Marmite eluded her, what was the purpose of such a thing? One day she may uncover the mysteries.

Now another problem arose, she knew the drink would cost 1.5 Sickles. But someone told her about tipping, where you give extra money. They gave some numbers about it, but it was complete nonsense, they said to divide. Why did humans have to make such a complicated system just to pay someone extra? How much should she give extra? After some debate she decided on the correct amount, she retrieved from a pocket a Galleon and placed it down on the table. "Yes, a Coffee with no milk." She said confidently.

Despite her confusion at human, she did not seem completely unaware of the people trying to move away from behind her, she knew why people would, after all she knew about horses, but she was not a horse, she was a centaur. But despite knowing she didn't show that she did know. So when one parent who tried to keep their distance hurried past, no one would ever be able to prove that her tail did intend to hit them as they moved.

As she waited for her drink order she looked towards the person who was helped her, and started mapping a route, so that once she had received her drink of an coffee she could easily make her way over and rest her hooves.

The centaur seemed to give it some real though, Elixa noticed. But she decided upon a black coffee. The figure behind the counter decided on the specifics with that information, rather than hold up the queue any further.

As the centaur waited, Elixa realised the attention was back on her. Given she was sat alone, with an almost full drink, and the largest slice of Christmas cake she’d seen, it would only be… polite… to invite.

“First time in here?” She asked, remembering her manners. “Care to join me? Let me move the table a bit…” she withdrew her pear wand to lift the table across a bit. Not a huge amount of room in the hipster coffee place, but a bit more for a four-legged customer not to have their backside on the counter.

Marida retrieved her freshly made coffee and placed down another galleon for the employee, making her way to the woman as she moved the table for the centaur to lay down. She placed the drink down first on the table before her body rested down so that they can talk face to face. She had learned over time that humans usually find it uncomfortable to talk to someone that towers over them.

To the question she gave a slow nod. "Yes, i've never been here before." She looked down at her dark drink. "I noticed people in the ministry constantly drinking this weird smelling thing. Then I asked a few nights ago, they said to go here." With a gentle sigh. "They were most likely mocking me."

She cleared some hair from her face and extended her right arm. "I am Marida." She says softly to her for an introduction. She looked the witch up and down as if assessing how much of a threat she is, although only by physical stature, in her time working with humans she has already learned that magic makes them much more dangerous. She has already seen a very portly fellow turn another person into a bunny and back again. Although its not Marida's fault that the bunny almost transformed into her dinner, how was she to know they were turned into one and not replaced with a bunny?

“They were most likely mocking me.”

“Oh, surely not,” Elixa responded, hoping for the best in people. “Elixa,” she seized Marida’s hand and shook it formally, smiling politely. Marida’s gaze swept up and down Elixa’s short figure. She was wearing something a little more practical than the norm, jeans, warm boots, a warm fern poloneck.

“I don’t think the people at the Ministry were mocking you by sending you to Alohomocha,” she assured the centaur. “It’s one of the most popular places to get coffee in Diagon Alley.” She gestured to the busy tables around them with a friendly smile.

“I would leave it a minute, let it cool a little.” She cautioned Marida, unsure how seasoned she was to observing witches and wizards drink hot coffee. “What brings you to Diagon Alley? Just the coffee?”

"They laughed as I left, they must of been mocking." Marida said bluntly, although she had no way of proving it so, maybe they were just laughing at a joke. But she found it too convenient. "I've been looking for some items, and I got told to come here for coffee." She sighed and adjusted the leather jacket she wore. "I've been constantly told I don't dress well, that I am not wearing anything, or that I can't wear just this one thing, or that another thing isn't appropriate, or another is not professional."

With a shake of her head Marida finished adjusting. "Its not my fault humans wear such weird items. I got told lots of people wear leather corsets for all sorts of things." She put her hand into a pocket to retrieve a piece of parchment. "I got told what is on this, but I still don't know really. Something to do with food, where to get them and some other items like books and another clothing place." She placed it down onto the table and shrugged, not really seeming to care about it.

She felt the side of her drink and retracted her hand quickly, just as Elixa said to wait. With a small huff she glared at it as if the coffee was now a threat to her. "Yes, I may have to leave it, all I really know about it is that its some sort of bean and humans drink it excessively. Why they don't just drink cider or mead makes little sense to me but there is alot of weird things I've been told about."

With another look over Elixa she narrowed her eyes a little, as if she was trying to judge what she was. A human, definitely a human to be sure, but what job. The clothes didn't strike her as anything, but then she still doesn't really understand the differences in clothing. "I would guess by your build and features. You are a...Diviner?" She guessed, ultimately being unable to read the person very well, she guessed.

“A diviner?” Elixa’s dark eyebrows lifted in surprise at this suggestion. “I guess part of my job is a bit like divination, yes.” She grinned. “I’m not dressed for work, so perhaps that is throwing you off.” She gestured to her outfit with both hands.

“Normally I wear a set of rather smart green robes and have my hair up,” she explained. “I’m a healer at St Mungo’s hospital. As it happens, I’ve just come out of my final exams to qualify.” She lifted her drink as if to toast Marida and celebrate with a sip. “But I’ll be back there in a little over an hour, so this is my mini-celebration. Glad you could join me.” She reached out in a familiar way and braced her arm against Marida’s, her hand on the arm of the centaur’s leather jacket.

“It sounds like you’re having a bit of a time navigating the world us witches and wizards built. Forgive me for the curiosity, but London’s not a centaur’s usual habitat, let alone a coffee shop. Are you researching?”

Marida pondered the question, yes she's always had a fascination with the outside world from her colony and had left to explore, but now it was more muddled as to why she left, ultimately she deemed it to be a good thing she did leave, she longed to return but she knew she could do more for the colony in the human world. "I wanted to explore, meet people. I did not know it would force me to constrain my body though in such ways."

She looked down at the grip on her arm, and moved her other hand gently on top of Elixa's hand, the soft skin resting down, not entirely sure what she was doing but deeming it harmless. "Ultimately it is likely for the best, we are losing more territory each winter, humans, or what you call Muggles. Have been encroaching on our land more. Atleast here I can maybe do something, before my colony has had enough and declares war." She sighed. "It is hard enough to find food to hunt there,  we've had to resort to hunting farmed creatures often."

With a swish of her tail she looked towards the dark liquid in her cup. "The elders said it used to be better, but at the same time there were periods that were much worse. Giant forms in the sky, explosions and fire raining down. Millions of humans taking up land."

She soon returned to look at Elixa. Seeming curious about her job. "Congratulations on passing your trial and becoming a healer." She said in an honest tone. "What sort of things are you expected to heal? I would assume bones and cuts, but would that be plagues and illness's also?"

“Thank you,” Lix replied to the congratulations, though her mind was still caught up in Marida’s account of her habitat. “I specialise in potion and plant poisoning, well, that’s the ward. But I’m a potioneer and apothecary, so I can help in most cases.” She smiled, though the expression didn’t indicate a willingness to talk about herself after hearing about Marida’s background.

“I had no idea about your territory,” she continued more thoughtfully. “Does the Ministry not protect your territory, as they do dragons and other…” beasts she was about to say, but reconsidered, “… magical populations. Are there many in your community?”

Marida looked down and considered, in her memory there hadn't really been many attacks on the colony, but there certainly were risks. She gently brushed some hair to the side as she thought about it. "My colony can call on them, but we often do not have problems outside of decreasing territory. We live on what humans call Dartmoor, its mostly hills, we used to think a good amount of humans were patrols, so a number have gone missing." She pulled a..carrot from a jacket pocket and bit into it. "It gets blamed on the conditions usually." She shrugged nonchalantly.

Finishing her bite on the carrot bit she swallowed then looked towards the coffee again. "I suppose we could always ask the Ministry, but the colony hates any outsider interaction. Most of your kind who do get close are scared away when arrows start flying." She leaned her upper body back and pondered the other question. "I don't fully know how many are in our colony. We all heard tails of when we were bigger, at one point we were told we could of over run your world." She bit into the carrot again and pondered in her mind, seeing as how cold and dark what she had seen of London was, maybe it would of been for the better. "I would say only a few hundred, at most. Likely far less." She shifted her jacket about, still uncomfortable in such restricting clothes.

“… we used to think a good amount of humans were patrols, so a number have gone missing…” Marida explained what happened to humans who strayed too near to her colony back on Dartmoor.

“I suppose we could always ask the Ministry, but the colony hates any outsider interaction.”

Lix lifted her drink to her lips and resigned herself to listen to the centaur’s story, since she’d asked.

“Wow, that big. No wonder you keep running into humans, your territory must be sizeable.” The healer tried to imagine based on what little she knew of Dartmoor, and ended up imagining the vast amounts of space in Sweden instead. She had no idea what the centaur population was at home or how the Swedish wizarding population helped or hindered.

“I was under the impression the Ministry sorted out these things for you. No good running a country for witches and wizards if you can’t look after the rest of the magical community, hmm? Don’t you know the wizard Balfour Spectre?” She asked, referring to her cousin’s fiancé. “He’s a wonder for this sort of thing.”

Marida gave a small smirk, feeling her coffee again but not touching the side of it. "I have met one, but not interacted much with them. The last time I tried I believe it was..." She thought for a few moments then nodded. "Believe it was when I had a few letters written to be sent to him, I'm currently living with a Sasha? And I tried inviting Balfour, I received a reply saying he is too good for me apparently as my" She turned into a slightly mocking but playful tone. "Superior."

Marida let out a small laugh then shook her head. "I bet he can't even run faster then a child."

She let off a sigh and then looked down at the coffee. "As for the Colony, where we live is a very large and open area, the only cover usually being stones. And Humans have infested alot of it so even in areas far from others, we come across some structures, one we have thought about reclaiming is apparently a prison." She said about their thoughts of conflict casually before taking another bite of carrot. "The ministry may well of involved themselves to protect us. But the Colony would never outright accept help."

“… I’m currently living with a Sasha…”

That name sounded vaguely familiar, like she’d heard it just by first name before. Someone had mentioned it to her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“… I received a reply saying he is too good for me apparently as my superior.”

Lix was a little confused about this invitation lark and Balfour being superior. Nothing had been quite straightforward about this conversation though!

“I bet he can’t even run faster than a child.” Lix’s eyebrows shot up towards her thick dark hair and she managed to suppress an initial retort into her mug. She’d keep her word to the wise to herself and maybe mention it to Balfour next she saw him, or Joh whichever was sooner.

Marida further elaborated about her upbringing and the herd - sorry - Colony’s habitat.

“The Ministry may well of involved themselves to protect us. But the Colony would never outright accept help.”

“Hmm…” Lix replied, giving herself a chance to think. “Not sure if you’ve, you know, encountered any Muggles other than those Dartmoor hikers.. just that if they ever came across a half woman, half horse they might use something worse than archery equipment before they attempted to dissect you.” Typical healer, considering the vaguely scientific nature of an encounter with a new species.

She gave Marida a toothy grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Your coffee should be good to drink now.”

Marida gave a small huff. "I don't see what weapons they could have, our bows and spears are adequate enough to take out a human easily, you are fairly fragile and cannot run that fast. And its not like muggles have access to magic, which is your main advantage." Although she seemed very proud of the fact she could easily take out a rambler. Infact she seemed to take it as a matter of pride that she could.  The idea that muggles with bows and arrows could take her out seemed somewhat insulting but she admired the woman's naive optimism in her species.

She picked up her coffee and gave it another sniff, not seeming fond of the smell still as her nose recoiled at the burnt bean smell. She lifted it up to her lips and took a large swig.

That was a mistake Marida would never take again.

She swallowed but placed cup back down on the table, coughing as she did. "You drink this? How? It tastes like burnt death!" She kept coughing as she leaned forwards, trying to clear her throat of the taste. "How do you humans manage this concoction? Have you lost all sense of taste?"