Fayna is kind of terrified—it’s not like she’s never been in a bar before, but she’s pretty sure her coworkers are trying to scare her at least a little, since she said she wanted something new—but Nashay insisted that this place was nice and fun, even if it’s a bit different, and she can already hear the teasing at work tomorrow if she lets on her nervousness.

Come on, Fayna. You were the one who committed to try more new things. This is a new thing. Stop being silly. You’re free now, and that means you’re safe. It’s time for you to start believing that.

She takes a deep breath as she sits at the bar with the group. She gives a small wave to get the attention of the nearest bartender. “Hey, what would you recommend here?” She’s speaking in a very thick purple accent. 

And that'd be the new face. "My favorite's the honey beer, but our most popular's the green cherry — I don't know why they call it that, the drink is blue." He's been trying to speak more neutrally, lately, but his accent is also obviously purple. 

Oh no he’s cute

Oh no his hair isn’t just dark, it’s black

“...I’ll take the honey beer. Thanks.”

It sure is!

Honey beer comes in a bottle and requires zero mixing, which is great. He pours it with kind of excessive flourish and gives the new face his very best "hope you like it!" smile before he turns back to the grey at the other end of the counter. 

She sips the honey beer. It’s nice. 

She watches him and the gray talk for a bit, panic building in her stomach, when she waves the bartender over again. “I’m sorry to be using up so much of your time, especially since I’m not a regular or anything, but— I was just curious about the hair. Are you doing a cosplay or something?”

Marlo's sweet, has been all three times he's come in. Sasha likes him a lot, could like him a lot more; couple more nights like these and he might have a shot at getting taken home. 

The new face waves him over; he goes obligingly, smiles again at Marlo when he leaves. 

"Not a problem! I'm not cosplaying, just weird." 

“...Oh. Okay.

Um, thanks for the recommendation. The honey beer is great. So is this place, actually. It’s. Really nice. Sorry, I know you’re working right now, I just—get rambly like this sometimes—”

"You are not even the third rambliest person I have talked to today. What's your name, can I get you anything? My name's Asashani but everyone calls me Sasha." 

“I’m Fayna! It’s nice to meet you, Sasha. Um, maybe another of the honey beers?” She taps her nearly-empty glass. “Unless there’s anything else this good here that you’ve been hiding from me.”

He pours her another glass with the same excessive flourish. "They're my favorite for a reason!" 

(At the other end of the bar: Marlo stands up, smiles and nods to Sasha, leaves the bar entirely. Sasha smiles and waves back, and if he flutters his eyelashes a little more than is strictly necessary for blinking, well, that's his business.) 

Fayna smiles and giggles a little at the thoroughly unnecessary dramatic flourish before looking at the closing door. “He a regular here?”

"He's come in a few times, but not really." 

“Mm.” Fayna takes a drink. “What’s it like working here? I don’t think I could ever do customer service, I’m—I’d either die of embarrassment or get into a screaming match by, like, day three. You seem really good at it though.”

"This job is good, I don't know about other customer service — if I had to be a cashier I might actually die — you meet a lot of people, the nice thing about bartending is you get to talk to some of them." And convince them to take you home at the end of the night so you've got somewhere to sleep! Sasha does not tell her that. "This bar specifically is nice because if someone walks through the door you already know they're okay wth people being a little weird, it's the kind of place that's fine with my dye job," and he gestures vaguely towards his hair. 

...Right. Okay. Fayna will not say anything about his dye job, then. “I’m glad you like the talking to people part, then. That’s the part I’d have problems with, I think? I’m getting better, though. You should’ve seen me a couple seasons ago. My coworkers have been trying to get me to come with them here since they started coming and this is my first time, if that gives you an idea—then again, you probably already knew that.” When she smiles again, it’s a bit more strained. 

"I did, I don't usually forget a face. You doing okay?" 

“Oh, uh, yeah. I’m fine. Like I said, would not be good at customer service. I do like you hanging around chatting as long as you’re not too busy, even if it might not seem like it? I just get freaked out easy.”

"Okay! Let me know if I can get you anything, Fayna," he says, and then, "so what do you do, do you like it?" 

“I’m an assembler. I help make pocket everythings. It’s okay. I don’t love it or anything but I don’t mind it either and it pays the bills, you know?”

He does know. "So you're here with your coworkers, you said?"

(At this point he's largely making small talk because he can, he's not really expecting this to go anywhere.) 

"Yeah. They come here... I don't know how often, actually, now that I think about it? You would know better than I would, I guess." She shrugs. "They're cool. Specially Nashay, she's the one that dragged me here. Said I needed to get out more, try new things."

"They come in around once, twice a week. How are you liking this new thing?" She gets a very genuine smile. 

Then he will get a very genuine smile back!

“I’m liking it, I think. It’s definitely different from what I usually do but... in a good way.”

"Wonderful!" 

There are other people at the bar now he should probably focus on people who are not Fayna, but if she's paying attention she'll notice that he keeps gravitating back towards talking to her, she's sweet in a way that a lot of people aren't. 

Fayna doesn't wave him down again, she's calmed down enough that she's fine just chatting with her coworkers (plus the gray Sasha was looking at earlier is gone), but every time Sasha comes over on his own to talk to her she does a lot of smiling and generally being sweet!