Takum walked into Nikki's hair salon. The place was always full of funny smells. Sometimes they smelled too strong. Other times, they smelled like the chicken gizzards Disgusted would give him. Well, like blood and fresh meat. Not like chicken. He looked for the familiar female and called out to her with his cub like call.

Nikki appeared in the doorway of the 'roughing-up' room in the back, latex gloves up to her elbows dripping soapy water. Someone had actually lived tbrough a particularly nasty round in there, but you'd never know it from the quantity of spilled blood she'd had to clean up.

Seeing the young cat as the source of the sound she'd heard, ​​​​​​she pulls off the cleaning garb and approaches him.

"Well hey there, little guy. Come for a visit?" She asks, giving him a tickle behind the ears.

Takum leaned into the touch and closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, he noticed the sign was flipped differently than when he was usually in there.His ears twitched then looked up at Nikki. The place was usually somewhat busy but now it appeared to be empty and the other humans that worked there weren't anywhere in sight.

Nikki watched as Takum peered curiously around the shop. 

"Nope, nobody here but you and me. You've got the run of the place," she said as she looked down at him, wondering if he'd eaten, and if not, what she was supposed to feed him. In the meantime, she grabbed a bowl typically used for mixing hair color and filled it with water before setting it before him and taking a seat in one of the chairs. She was tired lately, more so than ever, and all the fronts she'd been running to and fro from in addition to the life changes lately were taking their toll.

Takum took a couple of laps out of the bowl. He then sniffed around a little bit, swatting at some of the electric cords when they moved or a stray tuft of hair that someone missed. When he made his way over to the door that Nikki came from, he sniffed it. Buring his nose underneath the gap between the door and the floor. Finally, he returned to Nikki and made himself comfortable in her lap before looking at her curiously.

After petting Takum for several moments, she kicks her feet up onto the nearby counter and almost immediately falls asleep. 

She dreams about being normal. Having a normal life and job, with marriage and children and white picket fences. Baking cakes and doing laundry and getting a puppy. Taking the kids out for a drive on Sundays and getting ice cream. 

A sound outside jolts Nikki out of her sleep, and she looks around for several moments trying to remember where she is, what city she's in, and why there's a semi-wild animal on her lap.

Takum quickly fell asleep at the petting. How could he not when being in such a comfortable spot? He opened his eyes when he heard the noise and felt Nikki jolt. The male looked  up at her curiously, putting a good sized paw on her arm to get her attention.

"I'd do well to remember you're not exactly a teddy bear," she muttered as she tickled his ears again. The day would soon come when he was too big for laps, hell, too big for cars and airplanes and unnoticed entrances.

"Something on your mind? I can't read cats. People, sometimes, but not animals I'm afraid."

Takum's ear twitched at the tickling. He then removed his paw when he noticed Nikki was back to her old self. The cub narrowed his eyes a bit in curiosity before settling back down in her lap. It was still odd that the place was empty to him. Whenever he had come, there were lots of humans about.

Nikki studied Takum for some time, trying to decipher what the questioning in his eyes might mean. Gently picking him up...Lord, he was getting  heavy...she deposited him on the ground and then stood up herself. 

"Do you need something? Or do you want to go somewhere?"

Takum just sat there, looking up at the door. His ears twitched when he heard a familiar ringing noise, so he turned to see a female human entering. 

The woman opened the door and looked around. She noted the place was empty, except for another woman and what seemed to be a tiger. The woman wasn't afraid though, she found it interesting. "I was wanting to get my haircut. But with you two being the only ones here, I wasn't sure if you were open," she said then looked at the tiger, "Since he's here, would you mind if I had my dogs come in? That is if you're open, of course."

Oddly enough, the woman looked almost exactly like Shini. The same eyes, build, and height. The only noticeable difference was that she was a blond.

"Oh, yeah, sure! Um...do dogs and wild cats get along?" She asked, glancing down at Takum. She'd heard kittens and pups did better when introduced at a young age. 

"They should be fine." Lanna said, then opened the door again before she whistled. "Bullet, Gunner. Come in." She said. Not long after two huge wolf-dog hybrids came loping in. They gave Takum a glance before making themselves comfortable by the waiting chairs. "Thanks." She told, Nikki.

She wanted to laugh at the names until she saw the dogs. 

"Holy crap," she murmured. And then Suzy came in.

"No, no no. Hell no. Nikki, I didn't sign on for a zoo," she said, backing up and ready to boot.

"It's okay, Suzy. Really. They're just dogs. Good dogs. Come on, you have a customer," she said, indicating Lanna. 

"I'm Nikki. This is Suzy, she's the stylist. Worth her weight in gold but a total coward," she said, smirking at Suzy. She was paid more than enough to handle whatever Nikki threw at her.

"And you are?"

"The name is Lanna." She answered before nodding towards the tiger. "And his name? Never imagined seeing a tiger outside the NY zoo. Did he escape?"

"That's Takum, and he just sorta showed up one day. Now that I think about it, none of us in the old New York crew even batted an eye. I suppose one of us should have called and asked if the zoo was missing a critter, but there's no way I'd ship him back now. He's...well, he's family," she shrugged.

"That's good. Zoos are terrible places." Lanna said before she took a seat in one of the chairs. "I'm not looking for anything special. Just a simple and easy hair cut that I can brush through in the morning."

Suzy went to work, sparing the occasional glances at the various animals in the room who seemed relatively content to simply stay put. Nikki got up and headed for the little coffee and tea service area, calling over her shoulder as she went.

"Can I offer you a beverage? I make a mean chai tea, hot or iced," she said.

Nikki fetched the teas, adding cream to hers and sugar to Lanna's. No sense even offering to Suzy, she always refused beverages during a cut.

"You look familiar, have we met before?" She asked, handing her a steaming cup.