Elizabeth sat on one of the elegant black metal chairs surrounding a similarly designed table outside of a small coffee shop, aptly named Coffee Corner due its location at the corner of an intersection. She set her peppermint mocha on the table as she slightly adjusted her fleece jacket. The air was rather nippy and the blonde felt no need to suffer in frozen torment or acquire hypothermia. However, the main focus of her attention was on the other side of the table.

A beautiful black raven perched on the table, its strong talons gripping the artistic gaps in the surface. It shuffled its iridescent feathers as it look first at Liz and then at the half-eaten pumpkin roll she’d conveniently placed in the center of the table.

“It’s okay,” Liz smoothly spoke, “you can have it. I’m done with it.” She smiled at the bird, but it wasn’t until she allowed a stream of safety to flow into the bird that it finally relaxed enough to glance down for the moments it took to rip off a piece of the roll.

Liz smiled to herself as she slowly and steadily gripped her mocha and brought it back up to her lips for another drink. It wouldn’t do for a sudden movement to scare the bird off, and she’d spent too long charming and bribing the bird there in the first place. It was a slight shame that she could only manipulate the bird’s emotions; if only she could’ve compelled it down! But, she admitted, that probably wouldn’t have been as fun or rewarding as doing it the hard way. And maybe, if she kept soothing it with her mind, she’d be able to get it to let her stroke his feathers.

She had nothing better to do that day.

Last night was real bad. Psych was walking down his usual route from home and stopped to receive his coffee from his favourite place, the 'Coffee Corner'. His head was banging violently, and he knew a few coffees would help him last throughout the day. Ordered his long black coffee and a slice of cake from the cute girl at the counter and took his seat outside, Psych was admiring the weather as well as looking around in case someone recognized him from his entertainment last night.

The cute girl personally came and placed the cake and coffee in front of Psych, who in return gave his cheeky smile. Adding his sugar and taking a first long sip, he began to question his actions from last night. You hurt a lot of people, Psych. A lot of people. His thoughts subsided as he saw a girl on another table somewhat speaking to a raven perched on her table. She must be crazy.. or.. "Or one of us," he thought to himself. He divided the cake into equal sections and as he took his first bite, he kept watching the girl to see if she was crazy or different.

Wouldn't mind having another friend, honestly.

Movement attracted Elizabeth’s attention. A glance to the side showed a guy taking a seat at one of the other outside tables. Her eyes jerked down then up before returning to the raven. The guy was nothing too special, in her opinion. Average attractiveness, drab attire; he looked just like 98% of all New Yorker guys. He wasn’t worth diverting her attention from her current prize. Not that she would’ve approached him or anything, but sometimes window shopping was pretty fun too.

But she was digressing and starting to lose her patterns of empathy with the corvid. “That’s a girl,” Liz complimented the bird, asserting the bird was a girl without any actual knowledge. “How’s it taste?” she asked as the bird continued ripping away at the pastry. Of course she was fairly certain that the bird wouldn’t or couldn’t respond or even understand English, but if she was going to sit there with a bird at her table, she wasn’t going to be rude and just sit there in silence. Besides, didn’t most people talk to animals? It’s not like she was crazy or anything.

Yeah.....

Anyways, there weren’t many people around in general. The new arrival was there, but they were the only two really around. There was quite a bit of traffic, of course, but nobody was really hanging around the coffee shop. Which was just fine with her.

“C’mon, eat the rest!” she urged the black beauty. “I don’t want it to go to waste.” Whether the bird could actually understand her or not, if paused in its feeding and fixed her with a calculating black eye. She smiled even more broadly at it, sending a wave of sincerity towards it. With a mistrusting glare and a wretched craw! it resumed eating, swiftly breaking the pastry down into crumbs.

As it finished eating, Liz finished another sip of her mocha. “There, how’d that taste?” she asked the bird, making up answers for it in her own brain. “Now, would you mind if I touched yo? You’re such a gorgeous bird.” The tone of her voice was just as important as the corresponding soothing feelings Liz allowed to flow from her into the bird. Tentatively, keeping her eyes trained on the bird, watching for the slightest aggressive movement, Liz slowly stretched three fingers ot and barely touched the corvid’s wing.

Success.

Finishing off his cake and already ordered his second long black, Psych was eyeing the intersection as the general population were hurrying away to their jobs. His eye kept moving over to his left, where the girl was still "talking" with the raven. He watched as the raven dug deep into the food on the table, and the calm reaction presented by the girl. She was literally urging the raven to keep eating. Definitely crazy.

The 'craw!' from the raven startled the cute girl as she brought Psych's coffee and she nearly tipped it all over him. Placing it carefully on her table, she gave an embarrassed smile and strolled away quickly. Smiling as she left, Psych took a nice, long sip then watched the girl on the other table place her fingers on the raven. No normal person can do that to an untamed animal. "She must be different," he thought to himself. She's not the only one though. He looked at the cup of coffee in front of the girl and put his concentration into it. In a thought, he pushed the cup over and caused a loud clatter. However, he ensured none of the coffee spilled on the table nor on the girl, as he put all his thought into it. He looked at the girl and the raven to see their reaction. Her face would be priceless.

Elizabeth cautiously stoked a single lead feather of the wing, attempting to use as little of her empathy as possible. She did not stop a proud grin from covering her face, lighting up her expression with her success.It was just pretty cool, being able to just pet an animal, a wild animal and a bird no less. She was pretty content.

Until her cup fell over.

The fear of burning peppermint mocha spilling all over her caused Liz to suddenly leap out of her chair and retreat back a few steps in a single fluid motion, a short, “Ah!” escaping her lips. The quickness of her actions caused the raven to shriek and assault the girl with a wave of fear and confusion before it flung itself into the nipping sky of the city. The girl’s brown eyes focused on the bird for just a brief moment before reasserting her emotional dams, having dropped them for a greater connection between the two. But that chance was gone now.

Her gaze slid down to her drink, prepared to have to clean up a huge mess. To her surprise, there was nothing to clean at all. Okaaaayyy....

The cup had fallen over and its lid lay upside-down on the table, but no liquid adorned the table. That in itself was odd, because the cup had to have been three-quarters full. Not that she could remember touching it or anything to knock it over, but she had probably been too focused on the bird to realize what she’d been doing. She berated herself for that. Losing her concentration of her surroundings could only lead to trouble.

It was then that Liz actually paid attention to where her drink actually was. Not the cup, but the liquidy goodness it was supposed to contain. Which it was still containing. Somehow bound up inside the cup, breaking laws of physics and definitely going beyond the boundaries of surface tension. Just resting inside the cup, as if the cup was still right-side up. She leaned in to get a better look. If she’d had a stick, she would’ve poked it. She’d never use her finger; she was certain that thermodynamics would still work, even if physics didn’t.

Clearly something was wrong. And whenever things like this happened to her (okay, okay, nothing like this had ever really happened to her) something bad was always about to happen to her. Something caused by people.

She snapped her head to the side and stared into Average Joe’s grey gaze. “You,” she stated, a strong emphasis placed on the word, almost an outright accusation. “You did this.” After all, how many other people were anywhere near by and happened to be staring at her the entire time?

Psych watched the girl leap out of her chair in fear of being burnt. Her face was in shock, especially after the raven assaulted her and left her alone, but her face when she realised there was nothing to clean on the table was priceless. She watched the cup and the liquid in it remain as if nothing had happened, and from her expression she was really in awe. She's got a point. It's not everyday where you see things like this. Psych was laughing in his mind, but trying his hardest to keep a straight face as he still had control of the cup and the coffee.

And that's when she looked straight at him.

>> "You. You did this."

Busted. Psych hinted a smirk as he turned the cup up to its right side and placed it carefully on the table, without dropping the liquid in it. He then stood up, this time visibly smirking, and putting his finger on his lips to signal to remain quiet, "Sh. It's a secret." He looked straight into the eyes of the girl, which was looking back at him in an upset manner. "I'm sorry for scaring your bird away. It wasn't my intention." He took a seat opposite to where the girl was sitting on her table, and he looked at her chair, waiting for her to sit down.

The smirk caused Elizabeth’s paranoia to shoot up, swiftly followed by an eyebrow. Her eyes narrowed nearly imperceptibly as she carefully stepped back. Her eyes flickered to each side of her, checking for immediate, possible escape routes. Something about the way this guy was acting bugged her. And she was learning that her instincts were usually right,

From her additional distance, Liz was then able to maintain her vigil on the guy, even as she watched her cup right itself, as if invisible hands were at play. Her attention returned to settle fully upon the guy. He seemed to have some form of telekinesis, if he was able to manipulate her drink from afar. Or perhaps some element of gravity or wind manipulation. Or, heck, maybe he commanded invisible fairies. Either way, Liz drew two conclusion from the guy: 1, he had to be a mutant, and 2, he could most likely hurt her at any distance with only a single thought.

Okay, then. I’d better play it safe. But then the guy began to approach her, quickly moving within physical range of possible contact. Even as he sat down at her vacated table, Liz calmly retreated back three or four steps, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As he apologized (undoubtedly a devious ploy to get her to drop her guard), the blonde’s brow furrowed, her eyebrows dropping into a calculating frown. This guy was really creeping her out. And in fact, glancing around at the general lack of people in view and recalling what had just happened, the event could easily be the opening scene to a horror movie.

But pessimism was not going to get her anywhere. “What do you want?” she she asked, a slight snarl in her voice, but otherwise detached. There was no point in asking who he was; she didn;t even care.

>> "What do you want?"

She was direct, but who could blame her? She's obviously shaken from what she had witnessed. He observed her carefully, due to the fact he still did not know exactly what powers she had. Without caring if anybody saw, he looked at the chair opposite of him and pushed it a bit back in order for her to take a seat.

"I just want to talk to you. We're different."

He liked to meet people like him, it meant a lot to him. You need new friends Psych, nobody wants to die alone. It was true, he was alone in this forsaken world, and he did not want it to remain like this. Your parents left you, everybody left you. You need this. The inner battle with his conscience was dangerous for the environment, as it got him angry and resulted in him doing things.. Killing people. He needed a change, and for some unknown reason he believed this girl could help him.

He looked at her, she seemed to be a good person. How can you tell? He just had hope. And hope was all he needed.

A chair was promptly pushed out, again without any visible means. Just as promptly, the chair was neglected. Instead, Elizabeth favored the guy with an upper-class worthy eyebrow-arch of disdain. Really? He thought she was just going to prance over and sit down in front of him like an airheaded prat who only cared about Prada and manicures and had no idea that anyone in the world could do her harm.

Yeah, right. She returned her gaze back to the crazy invisible-powered dude, letting quite a few of her thoughts be known through her expression. She listened to him talk, but all she really heard was the absolutely last thing in the world that would make her actually want to get any closer to him. He just wants to “talk”? Next he’ll be offering me candy and a tour of his white, unmarked van. If only she’d remembered to buy pepper spray.

Although, talking wasn’t hurting anyone. Yet. “We can talk from here,” she pointed out rather sharply. There was at least six feet between them, and a table and a chair as well. She was pretty confident about her chances of momentary escape if he decided to lunge at her. OR attack me with his powers. Liz squashed that part of her mind.

“What exactly do you mean by ‘different’?” she asked, crisply enunciating each word. She wanted to make it clear that he was on very thin ice there. Also, hopefully, if he was talking, he’d think there was a chance of getting whatever he wanted without trying to take it with force. Force was never good for Liz.

>> "We can talk from here."

That was something Psych would not accept. Sitting whilst a woman was standing, just against his code. Standing up, and stepping a few steps back, "You sit. I'll stand." He was bad, but not THAT bad. He hated humans, but he respected mutants more than anything, somewhat like family. He sat on the table beside the previous one, in order to allow the girl to feel safe. I harm a lot of things, but I'm not going to harm her.

>> "What exactly do you mean by ‘different’?"

He smirked to himself, as he normally would do after everything. Is it me or is she trying to hide her powers? "You were speaking to that raven before, and it allowed you to touch it. Nobody can do that unless it's tamed. And I saw that it wasn't tamed as it attacked you when it was confused from my actions. So there is no need for you to hide your talent." She was probably wondering what he was, and she had a point. A strange man coming up to a girl and showing his powers, it wasn't the greatest of introductions.

"I'm also like you. I can move things with my mind, and that comes to great use as you would imagine... Are there any more like us?" He was alone now, but indeed not forever.

On second thought, being ordered to sit down while he stood, was definitely the last thing on Earth that would make her sit down. This guy....really didn’t seem to understand how things work. As in, there are just some things you don’t do when confronting strange girls. Such as telekinetically mess with their drinks, scare off their friends, and then constantly use your powers on various things around them while attempting to command them to sit down, as docile as a newborn lamb.

Or maybe he was an alien. Aliens could have powers like that, right? But then again, why should she let the guy get off the hook that easily?

The weirdo stood and stepped back, while still offering the chair. As if that would make her suddenly favorable to his ideas. “Fine, we’ll both stand.” Because she was not going to down. No negotiating. No debates. He ended up sitting down, but really: how was that going to make her feel any better? Especially when he wouldn’t need to move a muscle to hurt her anyways.

And then he answered her question. Crap. Somehow, he’d guessed she was a mutant. Although doubting the actual validity of what he’d said (since she’d seen other people feed wild animals before, although granted, not always as easily), it made her realize that she needed to be more careful. She did not want any other human to find out her genetic status. I can’t go through that again.

But little things that the guy said made her suspect that he was something other than a guy with potentially malevolent intentions. Since when did the raven attack me? A flicker of confusion crossed her face, but she attempted to squash. When faced with predators, you weren’t supposed to show fear. Liz had learned that lesson well. It was probably safe to apply that philosophy to other emotions as well.

Her internal concerns deepened though. Oh my word, he’s got to be some sort of drug addict! If he was hallucinating and seeing things, then he probably wasn’t in his right mind. And that just made it worse, since his power most likely resided entirely in his mind. And the way he suddenly wanted to create a connection between them, a sort of mutant brotherhood....Liz fought to resist the chillbumps forming.

But she’d probably do better to keep him talking. And distracted, so she’d have better chances of escaping. “Other people that move things with their minds? Uh, I dunno. Are you looking for someone?” She spoke calmly and soothingly, as one would normally talk to a deranged person. Maybe he won’t try to kill me if he thinks I’m going along with him.