The crows were to blame for this.<br/><br/>Someway.<br/>Somehow.<br/>She just knew it.<br/><br/>Her life had been so simple before they showed up. She got up, went to work, came home, drank coco, and went to bed. Rinse and repeat five days out of the week, read on the weekends and then go at it all again. Was that such a crime? Why did they have to be so judgmental about everything? Her crossed arms tensed, hugging closer to her as the drizzle came down harder, turning to a full-fledged rain that soaked through the thin fabric of her thin blue hoodie. It really wasn’t fair to her, being so demanding like that. Then again, it wasn’t fair for her to project her crazy-intense feelings of self-doubt onto a simple animal who happened to have a rather blooming population in the city. Penny’s jaw tensed as she chided her own thoughts; she really had to stop the looney thoughts that crows were somehow in on her recently stale life.<br/><br/>Besides Penny loved animals. Lived for them, in fact. Spending all day at the shelter and coming home to take care of her own attested to that fact, but these animals. They were different. It was like they wanted something. Well, not wanted as much as they were waiting. Yes, she was going crazy thanks to over expectant birds. Image telling that to a shrink and not ending up in a psych ward somewhere, which is why she had agreed to her friend’s rather unorthodox solution to the whole problem: the tarot card reading. Did Penny think this was going to work? No. But did Penny occasionally blame birds for the crushing anxiety inducing thoughts that her life was going nowhere and was in a complete downward spiral of entrapment in which she should be clawing to the surface for air but instead allowed herself to be pulled downwards into utter and total inaction? Yes. So much yes.<br/><br/>She drew in a shaky breath past her pale pink lips, cheeks flushed with color as she always walked fast enough to leave herself out of breath even over short distances. It was a bad habit, but it helped her keep in shape. Well, it was one of the many things that kept her on the thin side, along with running around after countless animals all day and the recent strand of worrying herself until she had no appetite. For a few days in a row. Really, it was so effective that she was thinking of marketing the whole idea to a nutrition company. If people could adhere to it and loose five pounds in three weeks without doing anything at all, she’d make a million off of it easy.<br/><br/>A bright but worn gaze lifted back to the street as she pulled herself from her thoughts, pale brown eyes darting around at the unfamiliar strand of stores. It was supposed to be in here somewhere. Pausing for a moment, she dutifully located the shop name in the window and hurried towards it just as a soft rumble of thunder echoed across the sky. Her flats finally crossed the threshold into the shop, the dry floor a haven for her sopping wet shoes that had allowed water to creep up into her white stockings. Penny was one of those poor saps who had thrown all her faith in with what the meteorologist’s predicted and it was quite obvious she hadn’t dressed for the weather. Quite soaked the woman looked like some little bird who’d had its feather slicked with oil as the pale blue hoodie hung to her body, unzipped just enough to show the top of the white blouse and the pale orange undershirt. Her jeans were soaked as well, the water that had run up her stockings leaving her legs in a little worse condition than the rest of her.<br/><br/>Her gaze started to look around when Lily’s voice startled her, causing her to jump ever so slightly. Help? Did she need help? Her mind blanked in a moment of panic but, thankfully, her mouth seemed to be willing to come bumbling to the rescue.<br/><br/>“I’m just- It’s dry in here. And nice. Nice and dry,” she muttered as she reached up and removed the hood from her head, revealing the once neat pony tail of long brown hair that was now as drenched as the rest of her, a few snaking brown tendrils plastered to her head and down the side of her neck. “And it smells wonderful. Absolutely so. A-always nice to find a place that smells so…authentic?” Rambling was also another issue the girl had, especially when she was nervous, but she highly doubted that there was a cure for that, mystical or medical. She swallowed hard and cleared her throat. “I’m here for an appointment- I mean, to talk to someone, um…about cards?” How did one officially say it? She was getting a card reading or was it having her tarot read? None of those sounded right, or remotely sane so, for lack of a better term, she just gave a wide and nervous smile, hoping the woman would get the hint. And soon, because in about five seconds, she was going to bolt back out and into the rain, soaking stockings be damned, in five…four…three…