It was a particularly hot summer day when you decided to take a detour along your way, searching for a pub or café… you didn’t care for which one or where, as long as you could get some much-needed refreshments. In your search, your eyes are eventually drawn towards a strange building perched across a bridge, from which hangs the sign: The Hotchpotch Café.
Your thirst takes you inside, and your entrance catches the attention of all the other customers. Feeling their stares, you can’t help but return the looks, attempting to understand the reason of such curiosity with a tinge of embarrassment. Oddly enough, it appears that you stand out for being an absolutely ordinary person, compared to the widely heterogenous mix of creatures inside! Hybrids of all sorts, some of which you never even knew existed… A hotchpotch of people for an appropriately named café!

You approach the bar nonetheless: you just want to pick a drink and get out after all, it shouldn’t be too bad… and that’s when you meet the bartender. A Naga cross-breed of some kind, judging by the serpentine appearance, plus the extra set of arms and twin tails. As a two-armed person, you find it oddly fascinating to watch him coordinate his four limbs for multi-tasking, cleaning a beer mug and the bar counter at the same time.
“Hello, how may I sserve you?” he asks you, hissing every sibilant consonant ever so slightly.
“Uhm, just a fresh drink, please. Anything will do against the unbearable heat of today…”
“Anything~?” he wonders out loud; you can’t see the excitement in his eyes through the thick, entangled nest of snake tails he has for dreadlocks, but you clearly hear it in his voice.
“With your permission, I’ll provide you much more than mere refreshment… here I personally distil the best blends and concoctions of exotic ingredients for a myriad of effects! Energising spices, herbs that boost your senses, shrooms that enhance your dreams… I have it all~” he continues with his long list of sibilant words that ring into your ears as if trying to seep in your thoughts…

“Wait, I thought those were illegal?” you eventually say.
“You believe so? Belief doesn’t translate into law I’m afraid…”
“No I’m actually quite sure, sir”
“Quite sure… or SSURE sure~?” he playfully hisses, flicking his blue forked tongue at you while someone giggles behind you. Apparently the bartender is trying to make a fool of you to entertain his regular customers; however, you’re already having enough of this clownery!
“Look… can I just order a fresh glass of water, OK?”
“Of course… I can give you a glass of clear, fresh, simple, plain, tasteless, boring water if you want…” he remarks, raising his body to slither closer to your face.
“…well?”
“Well what?”
“Can I have this glass of water or-”
“Yes you can. Isn’t this the answer you wanted?” he interrupts, his muzzle now inches away from your face.
“Yes-NO!” you sigh, realizing he’s keeping you stuck in a semantic trap.
“Then how may I SSSERVE you~?” he asks, and only then you finally lock eyes with him, meeting his piercing gaze of spiralling, hypnotic colours.
“I would like to-”
“Yess~?”
“…to order a…”
“Uh-uh~?” he keeps interrupting, staring at you… getting into your head…
“…a glass… a glass of…” you stammer, finding it harder and harder to maintain your train of thought… what was it you wanted?

You blink a couple of times.
You’re still outside, looking for somewhere to drink, until you step next to the Hotchpotch Café. You contemplate its sign, undecided. The name sounds familiar… Wait, haven’t you been there before? Weird. Looking from outside, you don’t recognize the place, yet it gives you a sense of déjà vu. Which irks you… So you eventually decide it’s not worth it.
Besides, you weren’t really that thirsty after all…

Experimenting with little short stories in 2nd person to introduce my new OCs ^w^

Custom design created by me with GIMP!
Base made by Akuva (you can get the base yourself here: https://gumroad.com/a/808967891/LKuTn)