[ WP ] Everybody has a small animal with them representing their self image . A politician might have a well-groomed parrot , a bartender might have a pitbull ... This is the first time you 've ever met somebody with a bloody and abused familiar .

She walked into the coffee shop and all conversation stopped. My shepherd looked at me with big brown eyes, alternating between me and the newcomer. 
 
 She was followed by a lynx, a battered and bruised cat that dripped blood on the clean floor. She ordered a coffee and sat in the corner booth, ignoring the stares. Eventually people would go about their daily business. They always did around here. 
 
 Panzer looked at me and whimpered quietly, nudging my hand and tilting his head in her direction. 
 
 `` What?'' 
 
 He whimpered again. A reflection of my inner self that was screaming to help her, we had a duty to help her. 
 
 `` Alright, alright.'' 
 
 His tail wagged and I ignored him. I stood and slowly walked to her, she was busy staring out into the street blankly. 
 
 Panzer ignored all usual semblance of manners and sat looking up at her, head tilted to the side and barked in his throat. One of those quiet but still a bark, barks. 
 
 `` Hi there!'' she said, reaching down and petting him. It had taken getting used to that people could interact with my conscious but we had gotten used to it. I suppose that when everyone wakes up one morning with a physical representation of their self... well you get used to it or you go to the nut house. 
 
 `` May I?'' 
 
 She nodded and I sat, extending my hand across the table. 
 
 `` Park,'' she looked at me funny and I shrugged, `` Parker, but no one calls me Parker. It's so formal. That's Panzer.'' 
 
 A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. 
 
 `` Alice, everyone calls me Alice though. That's Archer.'' She motioned towards the lynx. 
 
 My turn to smile back at her. 
 
 `` TV show or British tank?'' I said. 
 
 We laughed and our conversation just took off from there. Panzer rested a head on her knee. 
 
 Archer? He started cleaning the blood off a paw, one gentle lick at a time.
