"Ah, I see. You're somewhat of a joker."

He had to chuckle, of course. After all, most teenagers were, even back in the eras of his past lives. He hadn't seen many people- especially teenagers- that WEREN'T little comedians in their own ways. Granted, it could have just been like this in HIS world and not others, but he would never know for sure. He took another sip of the strange drink before him, still marveling at how well it resonated with his ghostly taste buds.

For that brief moment he wondered how it was he had taste buds despite being a ghost, but then remembered that he was also harbouring a beating heart and functioning brain, so something as miniscule as this wasn't worth considering as much as other things. He hadn't quite worked his way around what he truly was yet, but with the bizarre people showing up, maybe someone would be able to clarify his form. 

Speaking of people showing up, he'd started now to take into account how many people had been arriving. It really felt like a bar now- a community, populous, yet an oddity filling slowly to the brim as did glasses filling to the rim with liquid courage, the cold golden-brown tankards of moonshine and mesmerizers that made one all but forget one's troubles, leaving only a stench in one's breath and a stream of bile in one's esophagus the following morning. 

The concept of alcohol was not at all new to Cledwynn. In his own world, it was in fact a law to eat, drink, and be merry.

Or, rather, drink, drink, and be drunk. It wasn't nearly as abhorrent here, though. Not everyone here, in this space, was falling over on themselves, slurring and sounding like they were trying to imitate the sound of a baby pachyderm trampling atop the keys of a broken piano. There wasn't the constant sound of woozy hiccups and grog-laden belches spreading the tasteless stench of 'specialty' alcoholic drinks about the room. There wasn't that one guy in the corner rambling on about wanting to go to the moon to 'slam some awesome crazy lunar dunks that are out of this world' and 'make b-ball pasta' here.

What the [i]hell[/i] was b-ball pasta anyway? 

He lightly shook the thoughts from his head. The point was that this Restaurant was quaint in its own rowdy way. And Cledwynn enjoyed it. At least for now. There shouldn't be a need for conflict, not in his mind.

"It's well and good to make your acquaintance, Sandra."

Under normal circumstances he would follow with 'well met', or open with it. But this was a teenage girl, and chronologically speaking, Cledwynn had to be somewhere in the hundreds- maybe even the thousands- in age. There would be a generational gap, obviously, and some found that awkward. Who's to say that he didn't time travel between deaths?

Wait. Now that he thought about it, 'Sandra' was the rather commonplace name. She couldn't just be a teenage girl with nothing special about her, right? He'd certainly thought that before, yeah, but his mind ran right back to it again.

And by now he had a few pieces of evidence to support this theory. It felt wrong wanting so badly to know about any powers he was SURE she could have, but he couldn't very much help himself. Besides, it was partly her fault for being so commonplace, not that this was a bad thing.

Still, he felt a little embarrassed at this, and even more so at the hidden thought that maybe, just maybe, he was wrong about everything and would very soon cause their conversation to tip over at the speed of an anvil falling onto the upper end of a see-saw.

And then it'd sink with all the calmness of a [i]currently derailing runaway train that was initially moving at somewhere over some 100 miles per hour.[/i]

If ghosts could sweat, he'd have been considered caught in the rain.

Well, perhaps THAT was an exaggeration. But now, considering what thoughts flowed into the mind of the somewhat bashful apparition, he was getting to that state. Not fairly quickly, but getting there. 

He hadn't felt this in a long time. That feeling people call panic. It was slight, but he could feel it in his heart, which started to beat a bit more quickly. 

It was so tense he could almost hear his heart beating, but he knew that this was just a side effect of panic- thinking he could hear his own pulse. What he didn't know was that, if one were to really listen closely, his pulse could be heard by all. It was faint, but not as muffled as the heart of a living human since the only thing blocking his heart was his clothing.

Thankfully, Sandra was busy with another newcomer, the one eerily clad in fabrics. 

He savoured this time, taking it to deeply breathe, and calm himself down. He didn't need his conversational partner to know he was feeling that tense, and luckily he loosened himself up that small amount. It wasn't much, but it was critical.

Needless to say, he felt better than he did a few seconds ago.