Illyrio's Bistro is run down on the outside, like most of the neighborhood this close to the docks , but makes up for it with brightly colored walls and heavy-looking ornate gilded picture frames, which boast paintings of more exciting places around the world. For a beach town not far from Orlando and the Happiest Place on Earth, the coffee shop gets a fair amount of traffic coming through, especially since Illyrio put in free Wi-Fi.
On this particular early morning, however, the shop is not yet teeming with much activity. The pretty, light-blonde barista behind the counter is nearly falling asleep and it's only when Jorah Mormont taps gently on the counter that she jumps to attention.
"Good morning, welcome to Illyrio's," she says, wide violet eyes (like none he's ever seen) suddenly alert, though her smile is a bit nervous. Her name tag reads "Dany T." and she has on a puka shell necklace, with a matching bracelet. "Would you like to try a Dulce de Latte or our new Beach Brew tea?"
Jorah looks at her like she's speaking another language and gives a slight shake of his head. "I'll take a coffee, black, and today's paper."
"Would you like anything to eat with that?" Dany T. asks. "Our pastries are fresh-baked every morning."
He wants to say no, in fact never has any sort of problem with it, but there's something about the way she asks-the way she went from tired to eager to please so quickly-that makes him say, only sounding just barely put upon, "What would you recommend?"
"The blueberry muffins are really good," Dany T. says with a proud smile. "Especially warmed up with butter."
The description gets his mouth watering and Jorah realizes it's been a long time since he's had something home-baked. Whose fault is that? he asks himself. Before he can continue down the road of self-pity, though, the shop door chimes and a girl dressed to work behind the counter comes in, calling out 'hello' to Dany T. as she does. But Dany T. is still looking at him, that earnest look on her face.
Distractedly, Jorah nods. "Good-that sounds good," he finally says.
"I'll bring it to you in a couple of minutes," she says, handing him the paper he'd asked for, along with his black coffee.
"Thanks," he says, taking the proffered items and heading to a table by the window.
Jorah is sipping his coffee and reading about another foreign war when the soft clink of a dish touching the table gets his attention.
"Here you go," Dany T. smiles at him as she sets down the plate, which boasts a rather enticing-looking fresh-baked blueberry muffin.
He's not the smiling sort, especially not to people he hardly knows, but Jorah finds his lips upturned slightly, as though her enthusiasm is catching. "Thank you again," he says.
"If you need anything else, let me know," Dany T. says. Her gaze lingers on him, as if she wants to add something else and he raises his brows as if to ask, yes? She blushes just slightly and says, "I really like your shirt. Are you from Bear Farm, Oregon?"
It's the middle of summer in Florida, but he's wearing jeans and a long-sleeved green flannel workshirt, and underneath that, the t-shirt that the barista is asking him about-darker green, with a black bear, and "BEAR FARM, TRY OREGON'S NATURAL WONDERS" emblazoned beneath that. The slogan was Maege's idea, not his, not that any of that matters any more, he thinks, and as quickly as he'd been about to smile, Jorah's mouth is now pulled into a frown.
"Yes," he says, more gruffly than he intends. "At least I used to be."
Jorah can tell she wants to ask him more, and so he makes sure the look on his face is one that brooks no further conversation before abruptly looking back down at his paper. A moment later, he hears her scurry off. With annoyance, he breaks off a big chunk of blueberry muffin and stuffs it in his mouth. Dany T. is right-it's goddamn delicious and reminds him of home, someplace he has no business thinking of. Instead, his mind flits back to the kind barista, who he was rude to.
Though Dany beelines for the kitchen to escape the awkward situation, she peeks out the diamond-shaped window in the door at the guy in the bear shirt.
"Did he like the muffin?" asks Irri-fellow barista and roommate-reaching into the oven with mitted hands to take out a fresh batch for the upcoming morning rush.
Dany watches him, broad-shouldered and hunched over the tiny bistro table. The sharp line of his forehead and the lines that pull down at the corners of his eyes don't exactly indicate enjoyment, and her own eyebrows pull together at the bridge of her nose as she wonders whether he's still thinking of whatever painful memory made the smile vanish so suddenly from his face, or if it's just whatever he's reading in the paper. He doesn't seem like a guy who smiles often, which is a shame, as it was a nice smile, while it lasted.
"He wolfed it down," she answers with a sigh. Or maybe-she remembers his shirt-he ate it more like a bear? She might have read something once about bears liking junk food. Though he'd ordered his coffee black…
"Someone's happy," Irri says, and Dany realizes as her friend looks her over with a sly grin that she's smiling again. "Fun night?"
"Huh?" It takes her a second to figure out what Irri's referring to. "Oh, the party. It was okay."
"Okay?"
As she comes to stand at the counter, Dany doesn't have to look at Irri to know she's giving her that look of disbelief that makes her nose scrunch up in a way that's more endearing than intimidating.
"The Khalasar is not okay," Irri goes on, stepping aside for Dany to take over removing the piping hot muffins from their tin. "It's the most exclusive club in town. You have to be somebody to get in."
"Or date somebody?" Dany says and, since she's already pushing Irri's buttons, shrugs. "The food was good. Way better than your cooking." She bumps Irri with her hip.
"I never heard you complain about my muffins," Irri mutters petulantly.
"That's very true." To prove the point, Dany breaking a piece off the one she just took out of the pan and pops it into her mouth. She closes her eyes and savors the gooey blueberries. "Mmmm."
"How can you eat things straight out of the oven?"
Dany swallows and flashes a wide grin, not even caring if her teeth are streaked with blueberry. "Just call me Dany the Unburned."
"I'll call you Dany the Freak of Nature. Mostly because you don't seem to fully appreciate Drogo and The Khalasar."
"Maybe if Drogo appreciated that I really needed to study for my Spanish midterm."
With a massive roll of her eyes, Irri launches into a speech Dany could recite verbatim along with her as she arranges the cooling muffins appealingly on a tray for the display case. That she gets Dany's desire to find her own path and make her own way, but is working forty hours a week in a coffee shop to put herself through community college classes in foreign languages and social work really what she wants? When she could be with Drogo and be anyone, do anything, go anywhere?
Dany munches her muffin, and her mind wanders, along with her gaze, over Irri's shoulder to the kitchen window. Is the guy in the bear shirt still here? What brought him from Bear Farm, Oregon to Pentecost, Florida? What even is a bear farm, and is it where he wants to be...who he wants to be?
"You're not listening," Irri says.
That's okay, I have a hundred times before. Dany resists saying it aloud, and instead apologizes. "I know, I need to make up my mind what I want with Drogo. I'm a little distracted at the moment. That guy out there...he's got a mysterious past or something. And I sort of offended him."
"You? You're like the biggest people-pleaser I know. What did you say?"
So Dany relays the interesting, albeit brief, conversation she had with the guy in the bear shirt.
"I don't know," she says, finishing off her muffin as she notes Irri's arched eyebrow, less than impressed with her story. "I just feel like I should give him another muffin or something. It's impossible to eat one of these things and keep feeling bad."
"He should feel bad," says Irri. "You were just being friendly. It's what baristas do. Not give out apology muffins."
"Who are we giving apology muffins to?" asks Rakharo, shouldering through the door with a coffee cup and saucer.
"Some guy with a bear shirt and a mysterious past who was rude to Dany," Irri answers for her.
"I see," Rakharo said, looking as if he didn't. "I guess the plot thickens, because he's gone. He left this on the table, though." He hands Dany a crumpled five dollar bill.
"If he comes back," Irri says, "I'll spit in his coffee."