Page 23 of The Endless Dance

My shoulders slump, and I meekly stand. Yikes, this woman was all business. And I had been so looking forward to good human food.

A slapping hand and a snort of laughter have my eyes widening and returning to the bartender.

“Shit, sweety, I’m just playing with yer!” Pixel giggles shamelessly along with her, as I retake my seat, cheeks flaming. “The High Lord has set yer up with a tab.”

“He has?” Wait… “How do you know I’m… his?” I finish lamely, still not comfortable labelling myself as belonging to the cocky prick.

The bartender snorts. “Oh, honey, an unfamiliar human woman strolling into my pub days after The Hunt without her male in tow? I knew it was yer from the moment I saw yer. Even if Rita hadn’t spoken so highly of yer, there was no doubting yer was his.”

I nod along. It made sense. No way would all the other women from the lottery be as lucky as I was, wandering around an alien city with a pixie as her companion and no possessive male fae in sight. But…

“You know Rita?”

“I do,” she nods, tapping her pen against the bar. “We came here at the same time. Both of us were very lucky with our males. Hell, mine even bought me a pub! Look at me now! Best damn place for a feed in all of Light!” She puffs her chest out proudly. “The name’s Blake, by the way.” Blake holds out her hand, and I take it. This was a woman I could see myself getting along with, dark humour aside.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Blake,” I tell her honestly.

“Likewise. I had better hop back to it; the bar can’t run itself! I’ll pop around later for a yarn, though.”

With a wink, Blake bustles off, bellowing our orders to the kitchen as she passes.

“She is just great, isn’t she?” Pixel grins lazily up at me. “Takes no shit, that one. She can stop a brawl with just her voice alone! Not to mention the threat of being kicked out shuts down the aggressive ones quickly enough. She wasn’t boasting when she said this was the best restaurant in Light.”

I laugh, fully believing that the boisterous woman was capable of shutting down a couple of males stuck in a pissing contest.

A different bartender, a fae female with delicate antlers blooming beneath her hair and goat legs in place of human legs, sets our drinks in front of us; Pixel’s tiny glass pinched between two pointed, hot-pink painted nails.

“So, humans can own their own businesses here?” I ask, swirling the ice around the glass with my straw before leaning in and taking a sip. I groan and close my eyes. Not only was this one of the best lemon, lime and bitters I had ever tasted, it was also spiked with a touch of vodka.

I open my eyes and meet Blake’s eyes across the room. She winks, then continues chatting with the fae across the bar from her. At least, I thought she was fae. She sported white, leather-like wings on her back, not dissimilar to that of a bat. I gape openly at the powerful, muscular, yet thin and velveteen things; what I would do to get a set of those.

“No,” Pixel replies, snapping me back to reality. “Humans are, like, at the bottom of the food chain. Didn’t you know that?” Hmph. Yes. I did recall being told that. “Her male technically owns the place, but we all know who really wears the boots. The male is infatuated with Blake. It is the closest I have ever seen to a mated pair. But fae and humans cannot be mates.” Pixel grimaces at the thought.

I roll my eyes, but my mind catches on that word again: mate. It was such an unusual concept, yet it seemed that even the pixies worshipped the idea of it. A bunch of penguins, the lot of them.

Our food arrives soon after, and after drooling over the enormous crumbed chicken coated in gooey cheese and tomato-and-herb paste, the fresh and leafy green salad, and pile of crispy fries, I glance at Pixel’s meal and almost spit out the ensuing drool pooling in my mouth.

Her plate, small as one you would find in a doll’s house, has a replica of my meal, only fifty times smaller.

“How do they even make it so small?” I gasp.

Pixels shrugs and picks up her parmigiana in her tiny hands, not even bothering with cutlery. I suppose maybe they didn’t make cutlery that small? Or maybe pixies just didn’t like using utensils?

“They have pixies working in the kitchen, especially for the pixie clientele,” Pixel explains. “Humans and fae just can’t get the proportions right! That’s one reason the Barrier Reef is so successful. Blake hired many beings to ensure everyone was welcomed and catered for.”

I blink as Pixel opens her mouth, and every single tiny tooth in her mouth elongates into tiny needles. She devours half the chicken in seconds, her razor teeth shredding the meat so fast I can’t follow the movement.

“Yikes,” I say, picking up my cutlery. “Remind me to never get on your bad side.”

Pixels scowls. “It’s rude to stare, Delta.”

* * *

“You know,” I giggle, arm looped around Blake’s as she escorts me to the castle gates hours later. “The people in Faezgard are so much nicer than those from Earth.” I hiccup lazily, head swimming happily as I look up at the spinning stars.

Blake snorts. “That’s because we have all been through the same shit here. We are all equal.”

I nod, trying to focus on her words, because I know how true they are, but my drunken mind lets them slip by, waving happily at the retreating wisdom.