Limitless Evolution As a Snake

The pink harpy girl shivers like a leaf caught in a fan, wings twitching, eyes gone wide and shiny. ”Is there, is there a coffee shop nearby? Somewhere safe?”

A low hiss, almost a rumble, escapes me. ”Yeah, I know one.”

I wave my tail at the road until a cab pulls up. Not my smartest move, getting in a car with a screaming stranger, but the word ’safe’ is interesting. The cab pulls up to my usual coffee shop, a place I was in just hours ago, though it feels like another life. Through the glass, the spider barista sees me and his face splits into a wide, welcoming grin. I slide through the door, the harpy girl hovering behind me. His eyes drop from my face to my scales, then to her. The grin doesn’t disappear, but it locks, becoming a brittle, fixed thing.

”Uhhh,” I say, sliding up to the counter, ”can I get an iced ami and a-” I glance sideways at the new girl, look her up and down, trying to guess her whole personality off vibes alone, ”-unicorn.”

She perks up so fast her wings flutter. ”Omg, how’d you know I’d like that?”

”Oh, uh. One of my girlfriends likes those.”

The second the word girlfriend leaves my mouth, she goes stiff, straightens her back like someone just tightened a string running through her spine, and gives this small little nod.

Mhm, just a little mhm, like she’s trying to process new information she can handle.

I clock it. I file it too, somewhere in the back of my head labelled weird but not my problem, and move on.

The spider barista’s eyes are doing this shifty little dance between me and her, side to side, side to side, and he leans in close enough that I can smell the coffee grounds on his apron.

”A new girl already?” he whispers.

I rear back, swaying my upper body side-to-side in a frantic dismissal. No, no, no, she’s just a friend. Right? I glance at her. Right? It hits me then. I don’t actually know her name.

”Uhhh. What’s your name again?”

The barista looks like I just told him I forgot my own species. Total shock on his face.

The girl looks down at the counter, cheeks going a soft shade of pink that matches her feathers, then looks back up at me. Cute, ahhh way too cute. My brain shuts down for half a second.

”Channel,” she says.

Of course, of course her name is Channel.

[System: yeah nah mate, picked up a bird covered head to toe in someone else’s blood, already got two girlfriends at home, now you’re out here ordering unicorn frappes for a third one before you even know her bloody name. Bloody legend. Bloody idiot, but same thing really.]

I am just buying her a frappe, and coiling at a table to talk to her, nothing crazy.

[System: and you don’t want to put her in your pocket? and add her to the collection.]

Shut up.

We find a table by the window, the kind with the wobbly leg that’s been wobbly since I first started coming here. Channel folds herself into the chair across from me, wings tucking in tight, still doing that little full-body shiver every few seconds like she can’t quite turn it off.

”So,” I say, tapping my tail against the table, ”who’s chasing you? What happened back there?”

Her eyes go glassy right on cue. Bottom lip wobbles. ”Two snake brothers. ”The, um, the HH brothers?” She hiccups out a little breath. ”Oh my god, I’m so scared, I don’t even know if they’re still-”

”Huh.” My head gives a slow tilt. ”Those are my uncles.”

She stops mid-sniffle. ”What? But you were also bleeding out back there? That doesn’t make sense.”

”Yeah, to be fair, they want me dead too. So we’re kind of in the same boat there.”

She just stares at me for a second, wings twitching, like she’s trying to figure out if I’m joking. I’m not; I wish I was.

”Is that... is that why you were down there? In the sewer?” I ask, eyes gazing over her outfit, it screams rich girl, so what a rich girl is doing down here.

”Yeah, they told me to meet them there.” Her voice cracks a little, breathy and small. ”And then I saw all the blood, and you, and I just froze.” She presses both hands to her face, shoulders shaking, wings drooping low like they’ve gone boneless.

She looks so small right now. Like a kicked puppy somebody left out in the rain. Every dumb protective instinct in my body is screaming at once: coil around her, hide her somewhere safe, make the scary uncle problem go away with my teeth, waiting for the moment, just like Lyra, when my brain starts telling me she’s mine, mine, mine.

[System: mate, don’t.]

I don’t listen.

”Hey,” I say, softer than I mean to. ”You’re safe now. I mean it. Nobody’s touching you while I’m around.”

She peeks up over her fingers, eyes wet and shiny, and just for a second, barely a flicker, something sharp moves behind all that softness. Gone before I can even be sure I saw it.

”You promise?” she whispers.

”Yeah.” My head dips once, slow. ”I promise.”

She smiles then, and it’s a good smile, warm and relieved, and she drops her hands and wraps them around her frappe and exhales this long, shaky breath like she’s been holding it since the sewer.

I watch her. My tongue flicks out, tasting the air. Her scent of fear is still there, but underneath it is something else, a faint, chemical tang that doesn’t belong. It settles at the back of my throat like a splinter.

[System: Oi, fun fact for ya.]

What.

[System: harpies are empaths, mate. Read moods off body language like a book, been doing it since birth.]

Okay, so?

[System: so here’s a fun little question. Why’s she been watching you this whole time and not out of concern?]