Page 36 of Midsummer Phoenixes
“Oh,” said that head, which also came with horns. It made sense, given he had a tail like a lion’s tail that was swishing over the ground right in front of my shins.
The chimera turned and said, with their human head, “Would you like to go ahead of me?”
“Sure,” I said.
That brought me right up behind a kludde who had their wings out in a half shift and was otherwise naked. They waved me through as well as did the shifter ahead of them.
One of the triglav brothers leaned out. “Just skip the line already and stop that nonsense.”
Well, okay. What had I done in my last interaction that made me so very much not scary for them?
The other triglav split his attention—and the focus of his eyes—between his brother and myself. That one was the one I had talked to before.
“Excuse my brother. What can we get you, sir?” he said, and it made me feel a lot better about my place in the world.
“Potato pancakes. Extra applesauce.”
The nice triglav brother nodded, and the grumpy one got to work frying my pancakes, so I sidestepped the line. And because that brought me closer to the triglavs, I said, “Busy day?”
“We like them busy. But yes, so many Pride parties happening.”
Right. That certainly explained the naked kludde, and now that I was at leisure to observe, the chimera was wearing a pair of tailored fake leather pants with a matching shirt that showed generous cleavage at the front. And the human head wore a collar while the demon head didn’t. That was going to confuse people, but who was I to judge?
I looked at one set of the nice triglav’s eyes. “You do Pride brownies?”
The other triglav grumbled from three mouths. My Czech was rough, and I didn’t give a fuck if he thought I was an ass for doing some subtle marketing.
“No, but we do breakfast burritos. And tacos.”
The kludde took note of that. They looked woman-shaped, apart from the leathery wings, maybe their real shape, maybe not.
“We’re coming back for tacos,” the demon head of the chimera said.
“Burrito for me,” said his human head.
That got them to glare at each other in that hilarious way you only ever saw with real chimeras whose heads were having a disagreement. Getting dressed had been worth it, just to see this.
“Crispy bramboráky, extra applesauce,” said the grumpy triglav and handed me my order on a paper plate.
I was tempted to mess with him too, but the food was amazing here. The bit about the rainbow Pride brownies was as far as I was willing to go.
“Looks delicious,” I told him and fished a bill out of my pocket. “Keep the change.”
Both triglav’s eyes settled on the money for the moment it took me to grab some extra napkins.
“This is more than ten times the price,” Grumpy said.
“My lover works in the service industry and believes hard work should be honored. Thanks for these, and don’t cuss at me in Czech next time I come by.” Well, the brownies were almost as far as I was willing to go.
I walked off, my reputation hopefully intact. Nice got Grumpy to shout an apology at me. I gave them a lazy, dismissive wave and headed a little further along the boardwalk, just to get some people-watching in.
I was able to eat half of my pancakes in peace before I ran into a tiny problem. Her name was Ella, Rae’s sister, and she was lounging on one of the many park benches along the boardwalk with equally young and noisy teenagers. They were drinking soda and eating artificial flavorings and food coloring in the shape of so-called “snacks.”
Under normal circumstances, I would have given Ella a wide berth, but I fucking couldn’t. Because her sibling was my fucking vassal. Children were the fucking worst.
I approached silently, and since they were also staring at their phone screens while consuming trash and sugar, I walked right up to them without any one of them noticing me.
Ella’s company included, to my increased distress, one Star-Garbed fetus wolf among a serpentine shifter going by the traces of scales on his face, a red-scaled gorgon, and another shifter of some kind or other.
