It was just after dawn, and the sky was still mostly dark. The local coffee shop had already been open for over an hour, the soft yellow lights of the shop piercing through the remnants of the nighttime fog.
The shop was a tiny building, squeezed between the two larger office buildings on either side of it. But that only served to give a certain playfulness to the store front, as if it was sneaking about among the much more serious businesses.
This wasn’t just any coffee shop, the kind of place that served black swill to keep the factory workers awake during the long winter nights that lasted weeks at a time, made from beans grown under artificial heat and light in so-called “steam gardens”, no. This shop served coffee, to those with tastes sensitive enough to tell the difference. Rumor was that the inventor Aleksandr Gerardi was drinking coffee from this very shop on the day he invented the aether generator. There was no way to confirm if that story was true or not, but nonetheless, it was good marketing.
The office buildings wouldn’t be open for another hour. Nonetheless, there was already a line in front of the shop, of people bundled up in thick fur coats and fur hats, scarves wrapped around their necks and covering their faces so that only their eyes were visible. They rubbed their hands together and grumbled about the cold the way they always did, and a few of them huddled close to the warm steam vents spaced evenly along the sidewalk.
Near the front of the line was a most unusual customer: a sphinx. Her body and limbs were those of a lioness, with dark chestnut brown fur. Her head, chest and shoulders would not have looked out of place on any young human woman in her early twenties, though her proportions were much greater: standing on all fours, the top of her shoulders were almost as high as an average man’s chest. Her hair was the same shade of brown as her fur, dyed with stripes of blue, and had been tied into a loose ponytail. From her shoulders sprouted a pair of long, strong, black-feathered wings, which she kept pinned closely to her sides.
She was dressed appropriately for the weather. She wore a fur-lined blanket over her body to keep out the wind. She wore wool stockings on each of her legs, though her paws were uncovered. She kept one paw off the cold street to give it time to warm and get the feeling back, switching paws every ten seconds or so.
Normally, a sphinx wouldn’t be walking the streets unattended. Most monsters weren’t allowed such freedom. Samandra was one of the few exceptions, though her time was running out. She glanced down at her left paw, where a few of the hairs had begun to turn from brown to a stony grey. Samandra did some quick math in her head, and figured she still had enough time to make it back to the library, as long as she didn’t get too distracted.
The locals had gotten used to seeing Samandra wandering about the district from time to time. Samandra didn’t talk to them much. She had a tendency to prattle on about the last book she’d read, or some scientific or arcane fact she’d recently picked up. And she saw the way the humans looked nervous whenever she’d forget herself and open her big mouth too wide, flashing her fangs and putting a stop to most conversations.
So silence served her best. It was just as well; most humans, if you got them past the normal topics like the unpleasantness of the weather, or how Samandra was more articulate than they expected her to be, had nothing of importance to talk about. A few might mention their careers, and how much they hated them. That was something Samandra could never understand: if humans hated their jobs so much, why not find a new one. Sam had made peace with her own job—she didn’t have any choice in the matter—and she couldn’t imagine how humans, with all the freedoms they possessed, were so blind to the potential right there in front of them. Maybe they just liked to complain, and feared that if they found a job they enjoyed, they’d have nothing to complain about, and then who would they be?
Looking at her paw again, Samandra could tell the grey coloration had moved up farther than it was the last time she checked. And worse yet, the line wasn’t moving forward as fast as it was before. She leaned over to get a glimpse ahead. There was a man at the counter inside, going through his pockets, probably for change.
“Oh, come on!” Samandra muttered, though it came out almost like a growl, and the humans next to her shifted away slightly. “Oh no, I wasn’t angry,” she said to the woman behind her. Samandra smiled with her mouth closed tight to keep her fangs out of sight. “Okay, I’m kind of angry, but not like really angry, you know what I mean? Like, have you ever been just so frustrated that you want to scream but like if you scream for real everyone will freak out and call the city guard and you get arrested? It’s kind of like that.”
The explanation didn’t go over so well, so Samandra just smiled again and turned away from her. Smooth, she thought. She glanced at her paw. Even more grey. The line finally started moving again. Apparently the crisis up ahead had been resolved. She was going to make it in time. Barely. Probably.
One person after another bought their coffee and left, until at last it was Samandra’s turn.
The barista was a human who looked to be in her early twenties. Or maybe early thirties. Samandra was not very good at guessing human ages, especially without her glasses, which she’d forgotten back at the library. The barista was wearing a maroon apron, and a green cloth hat.
“So what’ll it be?” asked the barista casually. This wasn’t he first time she’d served Samandra, and had adapted quickly to what she’d sometimes referred to as her “alternately-bodied” customer.
Samandra started to answer, and then realized that she hadn’t made up her mind what she wanted. She’d passed the banner with the day’s specials while in line, and hadn’t looked at it once. Or maybe she had looked at it, and just forgotten what it had said, and then forgotten if she had looked at it or not. She needed to make up her mind fast. By now, she could see her foreleg had gone grey up to the elbow.
Fortune favors the quick and decisive. She’d read that in a book somewhere. She remembered the words, though not the author or book she’d read them in. A part of Samandra thought she should cut her losses now and head back to the library now, to make sure her time didn’t run out. Samandra decided to risk it instead, and gambled everything on fate.
“What the last import you received?”
“You mean from the islands?” said the barista.
“Doesn’t matter where it’s from. Whichever one is newest. Local stuff is flat. I need some flavor. Come on.”
The barista cocked her head. “Flavor, eh? I think I have just the thing.” She pointed to a steel pot with a label that said ‘Cytherean Violet’.
Samandra didn’t know what it was yet, but she liked the name. Her tail wagged with excitement (an undignified habit she had tried numerous times to break without success). “What is it?! I must know!” she said in a voice that sounded both like an excitable young woman and a lion’s roar.
“You know about Cytherea, right?” the barista asked.
“Puh-shaw!” said Samandra. “Who doesn’t?”
To be fair, most people on the continent had never heard of Cytherea. It was an island five days’ sail from the Empire’s western coast, past sharp reefs that had destroyed more sailing ships than all the naval battles in the empire’s history combined. The seas around the island were rarely still except for two months or so in the middle of the year, which is when most ships made their voyages to and from the island. Cytherea’s real claim to fame among both geologists and biologists, however, was that it was well known as the most poisonous place known to scholars. The volcanic activity of the island constantly spewed clouds of toxic gas that turned the ocean mists purple. There were insects on Cytherea that possessed venom so strong that it could kill an adult sphinx in less than half an hour after being stung. Green and purple snakes lived in the trees and fell down to bite anyone who happened to walk by. Most plants couldn’t be eaten without what was described in one textbook Samandra had read as “lethally violent intestinal dispersion”. Even the lean herd animals that lived on Cytherea’s few open fields secreted toxic oils onto their antlers, and mere contact with unprotected skin would cause grotesque disfigurement. Cytherea was often referred to as the “Toxic Island”. It was a place where the concept of venom had gone wild, and where every problem in natural selection had been solved with one loud, enthusiastic answer: more venom.
And the craziest part of all of it was that there are people who actually live on Cytherea. Everyone and everything on the island had developed at least a mild tolerance to the poisons secreted by every other thing. To the natives of Cytherea, the native fruits were “tangy”. To anyone not native to Cytherea, the native fruits were “tangy death”.
Okay, so maybe Samandra knew a bit more about Cytherea than the average citizen. It wasn’t like she had a good excuse not to. Her job left her plenty of time to read, and like any proper sphinx, she didn’t limit her education to only a handful of subjects. She was the guardian sphinx of the Fafenheir library, and it was her job not only to protect the priceless collection of literature under her charge, but also to direct guests accurately to whatever books or scrolls they required. And on Thursday nights, she hosted trivia.
“At last!” said the barista. “Someone who’s read a book or two. Okay, so you know how Cytherea has those purple sea breezes, right?”
“Right.”
“It’s from all the poison. Yeah, I know, right? Like, what else would it be from? Anyway, if you grown coffee beans on the island, and brew the beans, the coffee comes out purple too. But get this: it’s completely safe. It’s like something in the coffee bean filters out the bad stuff and leaves only the good. So you get to experience an authentic Cytherean flavor wthout dying!”
“Get. Out. Have you tried it yet?”
“Well…” the barista’s voice trailed off. “Not… yet… We just got it this morning, and I thought it might be a good idea to let a customer be the first one to try it.”
“In case it’s still poisonous?” Samandra said flatly.
“Yeah…” The barista leaned across the table to whisper. “Does that make me a bad person?”
“No. But it does make you a coward.”
“Yeah, I’ll accept that. So will you be the first to try it?”
Samandra was going to take a moment to consider it, but then she noticed something that made her heart skip a beat: the grey coloring had moved much farther than she had expected. It was above her elbows now, and almost to her shoulders.
Dammit. You idiot, running your stupid mouth again and running out of time.
“Yes I will take some!” she said in a sudden rush so that it all came out as one word. She began fumbling around in the purse she wore on her hip. Samandra liked the style of purse: black cloth with red trim around the edges, but the opening at the top was too small for her lion paws to fit in without a little squeezing. She felt around inside for the money, but now her paws were shaking from nerves. The faster she tried to go, the more she messed up, and the more time she cost herself. “Dammit. I can’t get it. Can you get it for me?”
“Sure.” The barista leaned over the counter and reached into Samandra’s purse for her. Samandra watched, envious as the human’s small hands and awesome opposable thumb easily retrieved the exact change for the coffee. “You look nervous all of a sudden. If you’re scared of the coffee, you don’t have to drink it or anything.”
“It’s not that,” said Samandra. “I’m running out of time. I have to get back to the library right now or I’m gonna get stoned.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“As in: I will turn to stone.”
“Oh, shit,” said the barista.
“Yes, shit,” Samandra confirmed. She gave the barista a metal thermos to fill. “So hurry up, please!”
“Okay, okay.”
The barista suddenly began moving at a much faster pace. She opened the tap on the steel pot as she grabbed the thermos, and met the liquid stream already in motion before it splashed on the counter. She set it in front of Samandra.
Samandra took the thermos and made sure it was sealed tight, and attached it to a slot on her belt. “Thank you so much. You should come see me at the library some time. Thursday is trivia.”
“I’ll have to do that,” the barista said, but the sphinx was already out of earshot before she finished speaking.
Samandra didn’t need to look to know how far along her transformation had come. She could feel the effect of the enchantment as it rose above her shoulders and spread into her torso. She felt her limbs becoming stiff and slow to respond. She had wasted entirely too much time. She ran as fast as she could. Luckily there wasn’t much foot traffic to get in her . A few taxis were starting to come out, being pulled by centaurs that didn’t pay Samandra any attention. Samandra didn’t give them any attention either, dashing around their taxi carts. And then a thought came to her: flying? Of course, why hadn’t she thought of it? Samandra often forgot that she could fly at all. She spent most of her time indoors, and walking was easier most of the time anyway.
Samandra unfurled her wings and gave a few practice beats. Her paws began to lift off from the ground, when a sudden pain in her left shoulder blade, where the wing connected to her back, forced her to stop.
A cramp? Really? I guess that’s what I get for not stretching enough.
She came to an intersection at full running speed, skidding to a stop just in time to keep from running face-first into a carriage that seemed to appear from nowhere, being pulled by one of the largest centaurs Samandra had ever seen.His lower half was that of a horse, with a thick brown pelt that faded to long white fur near the hooves. From where a horse’s neck would be was the upper body of a human man, connected by thick abdominal muscle. His hair and beard were cut short. He was wearing only a simple grey and yellow shirt on his human torso, which seemed insane to Samandra given the cold. But centaurs were well known for their tolerance for cold, so perhaps he didn’t even mind. On the side door of the taxi cart was printed ‘Niklaus Taxi Service’ in fading letters.
And like all centaurs in this city, both of his arms were missing, removed completely leaving nothing behind but a bulb of muscle at the shoulder and a faint trace of a scar from the alchemical healing process.
Centaurs were one of the lower castes of monsters. Unlike the sphinxes, their place involved basic labor. Centaurs were stronger than horses, and hardier as well. And they were clever enough to follow instructions on their own without being constantly supervised like a dumb animal. The removal of their arms prevented independence and any possibility of an uprising. Samandra sometimes wondered how that was done. She’d not found any description of the process in any of the library’s books, and she’d never dared to ask any centaur about it. Samandra was inquisitive, but she knew better than to ask a question that had a good chance of being answered with a swift stomping.
The centaur stopped at the crossroad, blocking Samandra from crossing the street. He looked down on her with a dismissive glance before looking ahead to check for oncoming traffic in the fog.
Something about the way he looked at Samandra really pissed her off. Who is he to be so haughty? Can’t even wipe his own nose. Probably can’t even read, either. Actually, no. He has to read. Otherwise how could he read street signs to know where to go? Ugh! I’m ranting in my head again.
Samandra huffed and began to go around by walking behind the centaur’s taxi cart. Suddenly for seemingly no reason at all, the centaur backed up to block Samandra’s path, almost running over her toes before she staggered back.
The centaur cocked his head and smirked, and that was the thing that did it. Samandra was going to let it slide, but something about that look really set her off and made her blood simmer. Who did this guy think he was? Nobody, that’s who. Just low-caste trash carting humans around for some master; he was property, just like she was.
Samandra opened her mouth with the intention of giving him a piece of her mind. Besides, the centaur was attached to that cart, and had no remove of detaching himself from it. Samandra could probably run away from him afterward, if it really came to that.
But when Samandra opened her mouth, she heard no words coming out. Her throat felt stuck, and dry. And she became aware of a familiar, horrible sensation creeping up her shoulders and into her spine. She looked down to see what she already knew she would, the grey coloration had gone entirely up to her torso. She’d run out of time.
She considered where she had gone wrong. Maybe she waited too long in line. Maybe she took too long to order. Maybe if she hadn’t run her stupid mouth at the counter with the barista, a human who probably didn’t really want to talk to Samandra anyway.
No, it was too late to change anything now. The process had begun. Samandra felt the always uncomfortable sensation of her body moving without her consent. That was the worst part, and fighting it would only cause pain. The spell forced Samandra to take a specific pose, lying down on her belly, her front paws crossed on the ground in front of her.
Lying down on the cold ground should have made her shiver, but Samandra wasn’t capable of even that small movement anymore. Her entire body felt like a dead limb just after waking up to find you’d slept on it. A sensation of numbness and weight.
The only thing Samandra could still move was her eyes. As she felt her body harden, Samandra looked up at the centaur. His expression started at surprise, then to confusion, and then to amusement as it dawned on him what was happening.
“Stayed out past your curfew, did you?” he said. He pawed at the ground with a hoof. The smirk on his face told Samandra that he was clearly enjoying this, and she hated him so much for that. At that moment she would have given anything to be able to jump up and slap that arrogant look right off his face and replace it with a fresh set of claw marks.
Samandra felt her body fully harden, then she saw a flash of light, and darkness after that.