a little young for that

[alicornucopia]

There is a red-eyed teenage boy - or so it would seem - positively interrogating the bar.

"Redreed wine?"

Aren't you a little young for that?

"I don't actually want any right now, but you know what it is?"

Of course.

"That... is interesting." He taps his fingers on the bar. "All right - I do, actually, want a chocolate iced planet."

And he gets a little square pastry, frosting on the top, and turns on his barstool to watch the comings and goings.

~~~

with Giles

with Lazarus

Comments

[jellyinthemix]

"...'Baby'...?"

[alicornucopia]

"You... do have babies where you're from, right? Do you not have babies? Am I actually something like ten times your age?"

[jellyinthemix]

"We do have babies. We don't have baby vampires. Vampire reproduction is a complicated and unpleasant subject."

[alicornucopia]

"...Why would you not have baby vampires? I'm confused."

[jellyinthemix]

"Vampires make more vampires by feeding humans their blood and then killing them. The human's departed soul is replaced by a demonic spirit, and their body rises from the grave as a vampire, with all the memories of their human life but usually a vastly different personality."

[alicornucopia]

"...Okay, so that's... about six reasons why I'm confused that I want to translate the word you're saying into various Elcenian words referring to the species I mentioned that turns into bats and has babies. Huh."

[jellyinthemix]

"They also drink blood," he mentions, "which I think is the strongest point of commonality between worlds I've found. Ours and yours are not the only kinds of vampire."

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah, ours drink blood too. They don't have their own, how does that make sense? Why would they need to drink it if they had plenty?"

[jellyinthemix]

"There are perfectly ordinary nonmagical species of bat that have blood of their own and still subsist by drinking it," he says.

[alicornucopia]

"Not where I'm from there aren't."

[jellyinthemix]

He shrugs.

[alicornucopia]

"Also, vampires - of the kind I'm familiar with - do not drink at all when they are bats. They sleep only as bats, feed only while humanoid."

[jellyinthemix]

"How odd."

[alicornucopia]

"They are not much like most other humanoids. Depending on how you weigh it they might be more like most humanoids than, say, me, or a fairy or a merperson, but yeah."

[jellyinthemix]

"Are you unusual in ways other than being a fire-breathing dragon?" he inquires.

[alicornucopia]

"...No, but, you know, dragons aren't humanoid? We are quadrupedal and winged and so on?" says Kaylo. He is not any of those things right now.

[jellyinthemix]

"Clearly not all of the time."

[alicornucopia]

"Well, no, shapeshifting is handy for things like," Kaylo lifts his temporarily neglected wine, downs it, "interacting with objects, fitting into architecture. Downright essential for casting spells, all the gestures are designed for people with hands. But this is just an assumed form." He glances around the bar, assessing its ability to hold him if he were to shift.

[jellyinthemix]

The as-yet-unnamed human raises his eyebrows.

There is sufficient room in theory for Kaylo to shift, although he would block traffic wherever he stood and might bump into things if he tried to walk around dragon-shaped.

[alicornucopia]

"And I am just a little too big to politely demonstrate here, although I'll impolitely demonstrate for a couple of seconds if you want."

[jellyinthemix]

"You may as well."

[alicornucopia]

Kaylo hops off the barstool, checks the perimeter of his available space, and - demonstrates.

It is instantaneous, silent, and demonstrative.

He grins with sharp teeth surrounded by wine-red gem-sleek scales.

[jellyinthemix]

"I see," says the human. "Both quadrupedal and winged, yes."

[alicornucopia]

"Yes. Not going to demonstrate the firebreathing in here."

He shifts back, sits down again, and receives a note saying, I do thank you for your restraint. He snorts at it.

[jellyinthemix]

"Thank you," he says, not having read the note.