It was a rather slow day at Curl up 'N Dye, her current and favorite place of employment, what with many of the regular customers having had come in the day or so before... but that didn't mean it was an easy day- not by a long shot. The atmosphere couldn't save her today. Nope. All of the neon lights, personalized paintings that decorated the walls, posh cushy furniture, nor even the relatively good music that was constantly spewing out of the speakers over head had any positive effect on Megan. At least not while that withered old lump of flesh and bones sat jabbering away in front of her at least...

Her ears were bleeding... they just had to be. Blue eyes rolled towards the sky as she raked her comb through her customers hair again. The woman was absolutely adamant about explaining her 'Prized toy poodle, Nipsy' who had apperantly won a tournament somewhere. "Is that so?" Megan drawled, dragging out her scissors to trim the ends of the woman's decaying hair. "I never would have known that poodles could jump that high, do go on...." Her words seemed to please the woman, who happily launched into the inner workings of how she had trained Nipsy... who was called so because of her habit of lunging at peoples throats. Nodding, she finished snip snip snipping, and brought out the heavy guns- a blow dryer, to finish the job.

A few moments later, the woman left- with a hairdo that would look absolutely fitting on her toy pup. Megan pocket her tip, muttering about how poodle lady was a cheap old bag, and turned to see who was next on her appointment list for the day. She paused, arching an eyebrow when she spotted it. A two thirty appointment? Squinting, she turned a lazy glare and a scowl to the new girl up at the front desk. She would have to remind the girl, that she liked to have any and all appointments booked by the hour, not at half hours. Now her in-between-appointments-break was dashed. Shot right outta the sky. Kaplooy. With a sigh, and a few more grumbles, she trudged off to the backroom to gather new supplies and catch a quick up of coffee, before she was forced to return to the floor and take up her scissors once more.

It was long, nearing the nape of her neck. Since Romania, it had grown. Lenna usually liked her hair shorter than this, and browner. Long hair made her uncomfortable, when it crawled down the back of her shirt like tiny spiders, and made her jump. Brown hair, she liked because it wasn't her natural blond. Brown hair didn't stick out. So what if blond girls had more fun? She wasn't in the job she was in for 'fun'.

Far from it, in fact.

And so, Lenna had scheduled her appointment at the first hair place she'd found. She needed a trim... and she needed a dye job. Curl up 'N Dye seemed as good a place as any for those two things. The decor was decent, at least. Too many salons had those creepy model pictures near the front, with the unrealistic smile and the glued-on hair. Or was it the other way around...? Lenna pondered fake smiles as she sat and waited, magazine open on her lap.

It was funny, really. How quickly her moment of peace ended when her boss, Stephanie, sauntered into the back with her hands on her hips and practically ordered Megan back to the front. The spider fiend blinked, her arms full of supplies, and smiled curtly at the older and much less attractive woman. “Of course Steph, right away...” Her boss turned on her heel and left, and the smile dropped from Megan’s lips like a skydiver with a bad parachute would fall through the sky. She grumbled aloud, finishing off the rest of her coffee, before she gathered the rest of her things and made her way back to her station. After a few brief moments of setting everything down, and dusting her chair off, she adjusted her apron, wiped off the dust from her jeans, and made her way out to the front desk to pick out her next lucky victim, er... customer...

What greeted her eyes, was another old woman with curly, decrepit looking hair sitting off in the corner and a younger woman who looked like she took rather good care of herself. “I’m guessing you’re my Two thirty?” She asked, pointedly ignoring the gaze of the woman much closer to deaths door step. Please, please, please, be my two thirty...”Right this way, Miss.” She didn’t wait to find out what the answer to her question was... Instead she turned and headed back to her station, simply expecting that the woman would follow. Her nice clean apron was tugged in place around the woman’s shoulders- she was thankful that it ended up being the younger of the too, and she snapped it in place before resting her hands on the back of her salon chair. “Your card said a cut and a dye job, anything special you want done today?” A smile, fake as it may be, made its way to her lips once again and she locked eyes with the woman in front of her with help from her mirror.

When her time at the chair came, Lenna rose. She didn't waste time clarifying, but let her actions speak for her. It was her turn, certainly, and they both knew it. Why waste words? She set the magazine back down, and followed the woman to the chair. Her eyes closed as the apron snapped into place around her neck.

>>“Your card said a cut and a dye job, anything special you want done today?”

"No," Lenna replied confidently. "Just a trim and a brown dye job. That's all." She smiled. Her smile? Also fake. It was a great day for fake smiles, it seemed. "My name's Lenna," Lenna added, as the hairdresser spared no time in getting to work.

Oh... So she was going to be one of those talky types... The introduction always led to whining or moaning, or blathering on about that person's day. Megan inwardly cringed, preparing her ears for yet another assault akin to 'Poopsie can do so many tricks it one me- I mean her, eight awards!' Groan. Gag. Someone stab me in the eye with a spoon. "Megan; Pleased to meet you." Turning, she scooped up a tray from behind her, maneuvered it into a comfortable position at her side, before she rushed off to collect a lovely brown color. A few moments later Megan returned, a bowl of dye in one hand, brushes and tin foil in the other, and set to work on the mass of hair she was provided. One dip of the brush, one swipe of the brush, and the first foil went in. She noticed quite a few split ends... This hair hadn't been snipped in a while.

"Any exciting reason you're getting spruced up today?" Polite barber talk, it came with the job. She could recall quite easily having to sit through many a 'role play' with her boss when she had first started, to make sure she was a people person. Fie on people persons. All they did was effectively give the rest of the population headaches. She slapped on another three foils by the time her thoughts turned back towards the present. She glanced at the woman in her chair briefly, before dropping her eyes back to her work. Lenna had one of those faces, sweet and innocent looking... and yet at the same time those lips of hers could be hiding a nice set of razor sharp chompers. Megan smirked inwardly to herself, and bent the foil edges in around her latest swipe of dye.

Lenna wasn't one of those talkative types, actually. At least, not today. Introductions didn't necessarily lead to conversations. The name was just there so someone could call her it. The smile, to make it seem natural. Lenna really didn't feel like making smalltalk today. As the woman got to work prepping her for the dying, Lenna was quiet. She listened to the sounds of the shop around her.

At the question, Lenna opened her eyes. "Not really," She replied. "It just needs it."

There wasn't much else to add.

Ah... so she wasn't one of the talkie types... How disappointing... Megan blinked, and frowned on the inside... and now she kind of actually wanted to talk. How ironic. After a few moments of silence, she finished her latest foil, and scratched at the back of her leg with a foot. God... why were her legs so itchy?... and her neck as well. What the hell? Blue eyes dropped to stare at the back of Lenna's head as Megan sent a silent command to her hidden babies to 'stop freakin moving around'. The spiders hidden in her pant legs and her hair seemed to be in edge... unrelenting in their wiggling. One of her eyes twitched, and she adopted her wax smile once more. "How bout something to drink? Coffee maybe?" She waited for the woman's response, then turned on her heel and made haste to the back room. Once she was safely behind closed doors, she commenced in preparing the drinks, and hissed venomously at her spider-lings. "Will you all calm the hell down?" Two full paper cups later, and her spiders had settled again. What ever had riled them up had passed. With a smirk, she headed back out to her station.

Once she had made it back to awaiting Lenna, she handed the second cup over quickly and took a careful sip of her own hot coffee. It was just as her lips met the rim of the paper cup that her babies decoded to leap into action again. They scrambled out from the safety of her pant legs, and from behind her hair, and vanished across the floor into the shadows scattered about the room. Megan coughed, shooting a glance around her in case anyone had spotted them, before turning a grimace and a glimpse of a smile Lenna's way in the mirror. "eheh.... Hot." She muttered, pointing at her drink before the cup was deposited on the tray next to her. As she resumed foiling Lenna's hair, she glanced around carefully, not worrying about the task at hand as she could do the job with her arms tied behind her back and blindfolded if needed.

That's repetition for you... Her eyes landed on a dark form crawling up the wall behind her and she narrowed them dangerously. A silent command for the spider to return to the shadows was sent out... and promptly ignored. All she received was a pair or blue eyes foucused on her, a spider like head tilt, and the spider continued its path up towards the ceiling. Megan's teeth ground together sharply and she plastered a fake smile over a scowl, nearly snapping the thin brush in her hand in two as she glared in the mirror at her own flesh and blood making a beeline up the wall. ..why...you.. little...! The rest of Lenna's foils were completed stiffly. She set a small egg timer on her tray, and took up an empty seat next to her station, eyes still alert for the rest of her brood.... "Gotta wait fifteen minutes, would you like a magazine to read?" No harm in asking, seeing as she was already reaching for a stack on the counter behind her to alleviate her own anxiousness.

Coffee while getting one’s hair done. Lenna hadn’t ever had a chance before to do that. It seemed interesting, so she agreed. “Black, with one cube of sugar. Thanks,” She replied. She didn’t ask for anything special. This was a hair place, after all. She supposed she’d take whatever they had. She wouldn’t be picky if they didn’t have a cube of sugar. It didn’t really matter, in the grand scheme of things.

The hairdresser returned, with coffee. Lenna took hers, and sipped it casually. Her eyes were closed. She completely missed the freak show that was Spiderfest. Arachnid skittering would have caused her to pause, had she seen it. It was perhaps beneficial she didn’t? She set the coffee down as the hairdresser continued. The job was completed.

Lenna opened her eyes, and fished for her cup of coffee.

A magazine? “Sure,” She replied noncommittally. “Anything’s fine.” She wasn’t picky. “Though before, I was reading a national geographic about tarantulas in the waiting area. Pretty interesting. Maybe that?” Another slow sip. Lenna smiled through her coffee cup.

She stilled her search, and glanced at the foil headed Lenna. “Tarantula’s huh? Sure thing.” Trotting off, she sorted through the various stacks of reading material out in the waiting room, retrieved the magazine in question, and brought it back. “Here you are, my dear.” Plopping back down in the chair next door, she grabbed up her own magazine, one that was more focused on the latest makeup styles, and newest fashion in shoes. Minutes ticked by, and Megan sipped at her coffee, eyes glued to her page- until a dark splotch out of the corner of her eye. One of her sentries, a small jumping spider, had found its way up onto the counter. Normally, she would have ignored it, but this time was different.

The small spider ignored her silent command to Move, it also ignored all of the quiet death threats she sent its way. It seemed rater focused on staring at her, tilting its small body this way and that- and then finally hunkering down as if it were preparing to... Megan blinked, and narrowed her eyes. It was preparing to jump... to attack. Something was vey wrong with this picture.... Her spiders had never attacked her before.

Empty blue eyes flitted to Lenna, before the dark haired woman began to roll up her magazine. It was obvious that her spiders were defected for some reason, and she couldn’t have that. She raised her rolled up weapon, and just as she was about to bring it down, the egg timer screamed to life. The sound startled the spider back into it’s right mind, and it went skittering away behind the large station mirror. “Well!” Megan started, standing as she deposited her magazine on the counter. She hovered behind, waiting to lead the girl over to the sinks. “Lets go wash your hair out...”

Lenna opened the magazine, to stare down at any old page. The several eyes of the spider stared right back.

Truly fascinating.

There were many things she hadn't known. For instance, tarantulas had retractable claws. They could grow as big as dinner plates. Some even went bald on their thorax, come old age.

She wondered if they bawled when they went bald. But of course, spiders couldn't cry. How sad.

Time passed. Lenna turned another page, unknowing of the eight-legged threat beyond the page. She took another casual sip of her coffee as the timer rang. Lenna folded her magazine, and set it down on the counter with her cup.

"Right." Time for washing. The mercenary rose, and made her way to the sinks.

Her coffee sat alone, inviting guests.

Once she got her customer to the sink, it was straight back into routine. Help the girl find a comfortable spot, pull her hair out of the foils, test the water on her wrist to make sure it wasn't to hot, and commence rising. Her eyes rose from the newly brown hair wriggling about between her fingers, back to her station where her pets were skittering about out of sight. Didn't get it... it was beyond her as to why after so many years, they would just freak out.... A pang of panic washed over her. What if she was loosing the ability to control them?... would that also mean she wasn't able to process their venom...? Megan decided that she really didn't want to know...

Meanwhile...

High above the chair and chatter, a few pairs of blue reflective eyes stared down the two below. It was waiting, as were the rest of its kin. They knew that the dark one would stop them if they ventured to close. Primal hunger drove them however to scour the corners of the room for flies and cockroaches. Outside seemed to be much to dangerous to traverse unless the dark one was with them... shoes- as they had been told- were deadly adversaries. The small, fuzz covered body shifted. The two fleshy ones were moving... leaving the cups of sweet food alone- unguarded. Like a mischievous pup, the spider attached a silken safety line and released himself from the ceiling. Slowly, he lowered himself closer to the treat he desired.

Ever since he had his first taste of a sugar granule, he had been hooked. It was sweet... though... he didn't really know what sweet was. It just... tasted good. As the spider neared the still steaming cup of coffee, intent on hooking him self to the rim, his silk line came unglued from the ceiling and he was dunked rather violently into the coffee. 'Help!' came his silent cry, causing his brothers and sisters to chatter to themselves and skitter about more feverishly. 'Hurts!'

Meanwhile, meanwhile...

Megan felt a tingle at the back of her mind as she was wrapping Lenna's wet hair in a short towel. Her eyes flicked about... but she couldn't figure out what could be giving her the odd feeling. "Alright, back to the chair and I'll get you trimmed up." She tucked the edges of the towel in like a turban and padded back to her chair, swiveling it around for Lenna to slip into.

Yes, alone. Unguarded. Free to be set upon by any guest who so chose.

And what a guest this coffee did drown!

Its silent cries went unanswered, unheard, unacknowledged. It was coffee. Coffee had no use for such things as ears and lips! Well, maybe lips, what with the method some took to drink its contents, but that was beside the point!

The point being...

Lenna's hand reached out for the coffee, unknowing.

The coffee mug wasn't sentient. It had no use for a guiding mind in its drink-holding existence. But if it had had a consciousness, it would have warned her, shouted out. Stopped those lips from edging towards the rim of the mug, stopped her from drinking, and--

--Ptooy!--

Stopped her from spitting spider coffee straight into the poor hairdresser's face.

Lenna's eyes widened as she realized what she'd done. Oh. Damn.

"Sorry," She intoned, offering a sympathetic look. "There was something in it. It was a knee-jerk reaction... the heck was that...?" She stared down at some of the mess that had made it to the floor. A tiny spider was visible, amid the witch's brew. Lenna blinked. "Uh..."

Having set down the towel, and picked up her trusty scissors, the last thing Megan had expected to receive was a mouthful of lukewarm coffee in her face. The spider fiend sputtered and gasped for a moment, before she was able to snatch up the towel again and wipe her face off. She missed the flurry of movement above, as well as the last dying twitches of her poor coffee flavored spider, as she turned her eyes back to Lenna finally. "No no.. it's alright." An empty blue gaze dropped to the floor and instantly recognized the black form of her spider.

"It appears... that a bug fell into your coffee.." The great urge to raise her foot and squish the rest of the spider into the ground was overwhelming, but before she had the chance to, the rest of her spider hoard decided to rep[ell down from the ceiling in order to save their fallen brother. A small hail storm of spiders rained down from above, casually avoiding the two legged ones whop stood and sat in the way as they landed. The first few wrapped the dead spider in a silken coffin, before the rest collected and the pile move off as a whole toward the back room.

Megan could only stare, mouth somewhat agape. She could feel a muscle under her eye twitching madly, but decided not to peruse the arachnids... instead, she raised her shears and turned back to Lenna. "How odd." She muttered dryly, "Well... shall we cut that hair of your now?" It was best to ignore them... deal with them later- once her fellow employees and customers weren't around.

A spider. There'd been a spider... in her coffee... wriggling.

Gross.

Miss Muffet would sue. Lenna would not. She'd be thoroughly peeved, though. Look at her, resting a hand on her hip, frowning, complaining. "Why was there a spider in my..." Being cut off by the spiders coming to the rescue of their fallen friend.

What exactly the heck was going on here?

>> "How odd."

The woman said, in a tone that seemed to Lenna thoroughly humorless.

>> "Well... shall we cut that hair of your now?"

"... can I get a glass of water first?" Lenna hoped. She didn't want to think about spider-mouth any longer than she had to. No sir.

A glass of water... which would be found in the backroom. Megan just about huffed, but produced a smile and nodded her head anyway. "Of course, would you like me to go get it for you?" Without really waiting, or caring if the woman followed, she turned on her heel and slipped her scissors into the back pocket of her jeans. She would get her customer a glass of water... and possibly go on a spider murdering rampage while she was back there. First things first however, she needed to refill her quota of spiders, and that meant another brood needed to be incubated. Her back tingled to life like thousands of tiny legs were scampering across it, and she could feel the skin tighten and prepare itself for what was to come. First would come the small mosquito bite reminiscent marks, then they would swell and fill with life sustaining fluids... then, after oh, about fifteen minutes or so, they would rupture and a new short lived generation of jumping spiders would skitter to life.

With those comforting thoughts in mind, she pushed aside the curtains obscuring the back room, and moved towards the water cooler- before her eyes caught sight of her hoard of misbehaving arachnids. They were tucked into a corner, busy devouring their fallen kin. Megan's lips curled back in a snarl she abandoned the water. "Well well.... you have certainly gotten yourselves into trouble, haven't you?" Her tone was displeased. She stopped before them, hands on her hips, and glared down. They were acting funny again... wobbling around like they were tipsy, and then she left their whispers in the back of her mind. Some were confused, others oblivious. Her eyes narrowed. Something was affecting her children... and it only seemed to happen out in the front.

"Don't you pull those puppy eyes with me, you're not off the hook completely. Do you know how much trouble you could have gotten me into? You're lucky my coworkers didn't see you..." Her arms crossed under her chest and she pulled her lips thin in a frown.

(let me know if anything needs changed)