For 's Contest, and while some of the other artists joining in blow me and my attempt out of the water, I wish to do it anyway...for one, because the topic was so bloody challenging!

Arphalia, while out on an evening stroll catches his fine red coat on something, and as he frees himself, it tears. A bit morose, as the coat was an uncommon find and in immaculate shape when he found and purchased it, he brushes it off as well as he can and turns to continue his walk. As he does, a warm breeze brushes past him, carrying in its wake a shabby, beat up old top hat.

"Oh dear, tha' won't do..." A disembodied voice lilts over the wind as the hat glides about him in erratic, patterns. In between glimpses, he can just catch a large, grey paw reachig out of the hat, long black thread slithering from his fingers and stitching up the tear in his coat with a surgeon's precision. "There y' are, lad..." The voice cheerfully sings out as it hovers before Arphalia and presses a card into his hand. "if ye have anythin' that needs patching up, please feel free t' stop by. I'm always open."

And before the bewildered "Thank you," could escape from the dark haired canine's lips, the top hat was gone, spinning erratically down the street and disappearing around a corner. A moment passed, stray hairs coiling into the wind before finally, he looked down at the card, stitched up with thread and sporting a pin stuck artfully through it. "Bob Gemely, Storytailoring."

So there you have it. It's a night on the town with a chance encounter that just might blossom into a beautiful friendship, or end in enmity.

*awaits rotten fruit and jeers with the poise and unbridled pride of a grand opera singer after his very first bone-vibrating aria*