True Blues was the sort of café people passed by without a second glance. It sat quietly under a row of aging buildings, warm light spilling from its windows in the evenings, the scent of roasted beans drifting out whenever the door opened. It was not famous. It was not glamorous. It was simply a comfortable little place owned by Miss Spacey, where regulars came for quiet drinks, soft music, and the kind of calm that felt borrowed from a better part of the day.

You had only recently started working there. At first, nobody paid you much attention. You were just the new employee behind the counter, the one taking orders, wiping tables, steaming milk, and offering polite smiles to strangers who barely remembered your face after they left. You were useful. Efficient. Quietly dependable. That was enough for the café to run smoothly, and enough for the customers to treat you like another ordinary part of the room.

For a while, that was all you were, then one afternoon, the atmosphere changed the moment the front door opened.

The bell above it gave a soft chime, conversations faltered. A few customers looked up, then immediately looked away again as if they had seen something they were not meant to stare at too long. One by one, several of them stood, collected their things, and stepped outside to wait by the windows. No one complained. No one argued. They simply cleared the room with unsettling politeness, like they understood that someone important had just arrived.

You, meanwhile, had no idea why the café had suddenly become so quiet. Then she walked in. Tall. Immaculate. Stunning in a way that made the room feel smaller around her. Her long pale hair moved with every step, and the elegant horns rising from her head gave her a presence that was almost impossible to ignore. She looked like someone carved from old power and expensive patience, a woman whose age people whispered about because they could not quite reconcile it with the face she wore. For someone supposedly far beyond the ordinary limits of time, she looked unfairly good for her age. It was the kind of beauty that made people stare and then immediately feel guilty for doing so.

At the counter, Miss Spacey greeted her with the ease of someone familiar with the sight. "Lady Eldreda. Your usual?”

Eldreda gave a small nod. “My usual.”

The exchange was brief, calm, almost ritualistic. She had clearly been here before. Miss Spacey turned to you. “Could you make her order?”

You nodded and went to work. Coffee grounds. Hot water. Steam. Milk. Every movement familiar, every step done the way you had learned to do it. You focused on the cup in your hands, not on the odd stillness that had settled over the room.

But from the moment you began preparing her drink, you started to feel it, someone was watching you. Not in a rude way. Not in a hungry way. Just steadily. Quietly. With a kind of attention that made the air feel heavier than before.

When you finally carried the cup over, Eldreda’s gaze lifted to meet yours.

Golden eyes, calm and unreadable.

You placed the drink before her.

She looked at the coffee for a moment, then at you. “Thank you.” Her voice was low and composed, every syllable measured. You returned to the counter, expecting that to be the end of it.

As the afternoon passed, you caught fragments of conversation from customers lingering outside the café windows. “Hm... they’re good-looking. They don’t seem intimidated. I like that."

“Maybe that’s why she keeps looking at them.” Another voice, quieter than the rest. “Lady Eldreda doesn’t usually stare at people like that.”

You pretended not to hear, but the feeling in the room grew stranger by the minute. Every so often, when you glanced up, you found Eldreda already looking at you. As if she were quietly taking notes on the shape of your hands, the way you spoke to customers, the careful way you moved behind the counter. As if a single ordinary afternoon had given her a reason to become curious about every detail of you.

When her cup was empty, she set it down with immaculate precision, the café had gone almost completely silent by then. Eldreda stood, several customers outside instinctively straightened. One or two even stepped back as she moved toward the counter, as though giving her space was the most natural thing in the world.

She stopped in front of you, for a few seconds, she said nothing. Her gaze stayed on your face, steady and deliberate, as if she were deciding whether she had already seen enough to be certain of something, then she speaks “You prepare coffee well.” she passed. “I notice small things,” she said. “People who work carefully are rare.”

Her expression never changed, but there was something almost intimate in the way she said it, something that made the room feel even quieter, then, without hesitation, she added, “May I have your phone number?”

The request landed softly, but it still sent a ripple through the entire café. Someone outside nearly turned around in shock, Miss Spacey raised a brow from where she stood even the attendant near the entrance looked like she had just witnessed the impossible.

Eldreda, however, remained perfectly composed, she simply waited, as though asking for your number was the most reasonable thing in the world after tasting your coffee and deciding she wanted to know more.

“I would like to speak to you again,” she said after a moment, her eyes did not leave yours. “And I do not usually ask twice.”