Kairos

Chapter 3

The inside of the coffee shop, at least to me it seemed, was something out of a strange acid trip.

There were mysticals everywhere.

Behind the counter, enjoying drinks and snacks at the tables. Humans and mysticals conversing and debating over piles of textbooks, or typing things up on laptops.

It was colorful and amazing, the interior decked out in wood paneling, with little glass displays of treats and snacks, a blackboard listing different drinks and specials hung behind the wooden counter.

Fairy lights adorned everything, no two strands being the same. Some were purple, some blue, pink, yellow. Different shapes and different sizes gave the whole store look like it was inside a kaleidoscope, and the stained glass windows of the logo, a small fairy holding a coffee cup up to a spiggot, made the room look even more magical.

And it was much bigger than it looked from the outside, being at least the size of a large restaurant.

As I was ogling the shop, I noticed everyone moving past me into the store. I looked up and noticed a girl was waving them over.

I noticed two things upon looking at the girl. 

First, she was absolutely drop dead gorgeous.

She had long dishwater blonde hair, flawless makeup, and a killer figure.

The second thing?

She was covered in feathers.

Where her ears should have been, a cluster of purple feathers resembling ears stuck out of her hair. Her tan arms faded into manicured claws, covered in the same gorgeous feathers, forming wings on her forearms. As she smiled at us I noticed fangs poking out onto her plump bottom lip, not even disturbing the perfectly applied lipstick she was wearing.

Naturally, I gawked at her for a solid 30 seconds before she burst into the cutest giggle ever.

"It's a lot to take in, I get it." the girl said smiling, "let me guess, you two are from out of town."

I snapped back to reality to realize that next to me Seafoam had also been staring.

"My name is Samantha, but everyone calls me Sam, it's nice to meet you." She smiled at the two of us and I made an inhuman noise.

"Name me...I mean, my name is Claire!" I stuttered out, embarrassing myself further.

I took a breath and smiled awkwardly.

Seafoam growled a bit at Samantha when she noticed my blushing.

"And this here is Seafoam." I pointed to Seafoam who had since decided to angrily investigate Samantha's hand. Of which Samantha was happily complying.

"Well, I'm guessing that where the two of you are from your not exactly used to this are you?" Samantha said with an amused tone, turning her hand over so Seafoam could look at her black padded palms.

I shook my head no and Samantha grinned once again, now tilting her head so that Seafoam could look at her ears, which had small chains, with diamonds wrapped around them like some kind of an earring.

After asking around for everyone's orders, Aaron stood up and went behind the counter and put the order in, returning to his job.

"Well since your new you might as well know what we all are," Samantha said.

"You're right," Trista chimed, "you've only just met all of us, plus it's obvious that you're human, it's only fair."

Samantha leaned towards me a bit, "Well, first of all, I'm a Harpy, and I have two other siblings. I graduated last year with Viola and Aaron." She looked over at Lavender.

"I'm a deer faun..." Lavender strained out, clearly struggling with her shyness. I smiled and she relaxed a bit. I looked over at Trista.

Trista gave me and Seafoam a mischievous grin. Suddenly her short pink bob changed into long, light green ringlets. Seafoam and I both gasped at the change.

Trista giggled, "I'm a glamour Witch, I can change parts of my appearance at will." With that, her pale freckled skin became unmarked and tan.

Seafoam immediately went over and started touching her hair. Trista laughed.

"I can only change colors though, I can't change my height, my body type, or my actual facial features," she explained, "those things are a bit more advanced, so I'm not quite there yet."

Nodding my head in understanding(?) I turned my gaze to Viola. She looked at me with a capturing glare. For a second I was a little scared to find out what she was.

Viola's cat walked in front of me and sat down, a meow sounded and with a start I realized I couldn't pinpoint where the noise had actually come from, only that it had opened its mouth.

"I am a necromancer." Viola said, her hypnotic accent making her statement almost sinister. She drummed her fingers once on the table and Sistine obediently went to her.

"Aaron is a Fae," Trista spoke up. "We have a few other friends too but their not here."

Samantha turned to Trista, "Eun Ae is at work and Veronica has a client right now."

"And the other two," Viola said.

"Kiera and Axle are out shopping, she stayed at home yesterday and she forgot to bring herself a towel and some other stuff for her dorm," said Samantha.

"The last of the Bluestone siblings at Withertree" Lavender said with a grin. Samantha giggled.

"I know Poppy is meeting us tomorrow night," Aaron said, appearing behind Trista with everyone's drinks, "and England is still in Greece with her family."

Trista gave a confused look, "I thought England came in this morning?"

"Her flight got delayed because of that hurricane that happened over the Atlantic," Viola said.

I noticed Seafoam's little fin ears perk to attention. She had an odd look on her face like she'd forgotten where she put something...

"I heard about that from my mom," Samantha chimed in, "she said that it was a bad one, and they were lucky that it died out in the ocean."

Aaron placed my drink in front of me (butterbeer frappuccino because I'm a nerd), and put a large water cup in front of Seafoam. She had about half of it sucked down within 5 seconds.

"Hey, Claire?" Trista said.

I looked up from Seafoam and glanced over at Trista.

"Yes, ma'am?" I said slightly worried.

"Does Seafoam have any..." she gave a glance to Seafoam, "real clothes?"

It hit me that the only thing Seafoam was wearing was an extremely oversized flannel and flip flops. I flushed a bit and shook my head no.

"Well I have a couple of dresses I was going to get rid of, and I'm pretty sure they'll fit her."

I stared at her. And I'm about 99% sure you could hear my yell of thank you all the way back home.