“What are the other flying supernaturals called?”

     Ren thought about that for a moment.  “Hmm, let’s see.  The ones with bat wings, I think you described it?  If they have a tail, they’re probably a manticore.  Avoid the tail, it’s poisonous, like really deadly poisonous.  If they don’t have a tail, they’re probably what we call a nightwing.  It’s basically a hybrid between vampires and shifter that kind of took on its own form.  They actually hate both of their ancestors now, though they’re somewhat more tolerant of vampires than shifters.  Nightwings are pretty cool, normally.  Kind of standoffish but usually chill.  I know several and you can generally count on them for help if you need it, even if they grumble about it.

     “The ones with feathered wings could be several variants.  There’s angels, who just have straight up wings.  They’re not like religious type angels, but they do tend to be more on the peaceful, ‘good’ side of things with fae.  There’s not a ton of them, but I know there’s half a dozen or so in Avenglade so you might have seen one.  There’s also a phoenix in town, they’re super rare.  Probably less than a hundred worldwide.  They tend to have red eyes and run hot, like several hundred degrees.  Don’t touch them if you can help it or you’ll get burned.  Phoenix tend to avoid getting involved in any affairs if they can help it – they honestly just prefer to go sit on a mountain and watch everyone, or at least that’s the case with the one here.  I don’t quite get their deal but hey, they can be whoever they want to be.

     “Then, let’s see, hmm, if they have an eagle head instead of a human, that would be a gryphon.  They’re…annoying to deal with.  They never lie, they can’t, but to make up for it they get super enigmatic and I dunno, talking with them usually feels like you’re going in circles and know less when you come out than when you went in.  Mom’s pretty good at dealing with them but they drive me nuts.  Beautiful in their full form, though.

    “The only other one with wings you might see is a dragon, but they’ll have scales and a dragon tail.  Don’t know if their face will look different, too, I’m not really sure how what you see translates into what other supernaturals see.  For instance, when we see a shifter, we just see a human but we see bits of magic, I guess?  We can usually tell they are a shifter, though we can’t necessarily tell what kind.  Witches, though, they’re hard to tell, because they’re very close to human and we can’t always see their marks.  They get their power through their marks, but keep them hidden from everyone since it would tell anyone else how powerful they are, how to beat them, and ultimately how to separate them from their power.  For others, like, hmm, a nightwing?  We don’t see their wings unless they’re out intentionally, and they’re not going to show them in town.  But we can tell what they are based on their eyes – they look different.  Us fairies, people don’t see our wings, either, unless you’re also fae – but they’ll be able to tell we’re fae based on our aura.  We just exude a certain amount of peace and quiet and, uh, flower blooming, I suppose.  People just know, at least if they’ve had much experience around fae.  It might be a little like accents – you learn to recognize where someone is from based on their accent?  We learn to recognize what someone is based on their magic, and the more exposure to that kind of magic, the more likely we’ll recognize the species.  It’s possible, I guess, to learn to mimic another species and pretend to be one, but I suppose that’s not the case for you – you’d see what they actually are.”

     He turned curious eyes on me, pondering.  “Makes me wonder why you see that.  It’s just different.  Like, witches for instance, they can cast spells to temporarily see what shifters are.  But the spell will only apply to one race, at best, and won’t last for more than a day or so.  Whereas you see what everyone is and it’s permanent.  I really wonder why that is.”

     There was no malice in his tone, just thoughtful musing, so his question actually didn’t scare me.

     Besides, I was still processing everything he’d said.  I realized most of the feathered-type winged people I’d seen were probably gryphons, though I’d definitely seen one angel around several times and I was pretty sure I’d seen a phoenix once.  A dragon?  I couldn’t remember seeing anyone with wings who also had scales, so I probably had never seen one.  I wondered if their fully transformed version was as big as the fairy tales or if it was more practical.

     “What about the ones with scales instead of skin?  If they don’t have wings?”

     Ren easily transferred his attention back to my question.  “Mostly naga.  Half human, half snake.  They’re the most common version, probably.  But there’s also the lizardfolk, half human, half lizard.  Essentially.  I mean, they’re not actually human, per se, with either one, but that’s the easiest way to describe them.  A lot of the naga are poisonous and they tend to be, uh, how do I say this nicely,” he said under his breath, “a tad aggressive.  Naga usually are more eager to engage in fights, for instance, while fairies would do almost anything to avoid them.  Lizardfolk are a little more placid but they generally side with naga by default.  I guess they view them as cousins and want to stick together.  I’m not saying you can’t be friends with a naga or a lizardfolk but just be…cautious…when interacting with them.”

     I hadn’t actually asked for how I should respond to them, but I was grateful he was giving me clues.  I’d never realized that some types of them might be safer than others – there hadn’t seemed to be a pattern, thus far, to those who had given me beatings, but maybe now that I was learning the differences in types I could look back and figure out which ones had targeted me specifically.  Maybe there was a pattern, after all.

     Ren went on, oblivious to my unexpected realization.  “I mean, I suppose you could also see merfolk, too, but that’s unlikely here.  Maybe passing through, I guess.  Merfolk kinda covers a wide variety, a bit like shifters – they could be sharks or sea turtles or the, uh, traditional mermaid, and there’s kind of a hierarchy between types, but one thing carries over for all of them – they don’t live well without water.  Most merfolk live on the shores of some large body of water, either the ocean or a lake, and on rare occasions just a river.  I don’t think we have any living in the city permanently.  No large body of water close enough.

     “There’s also nymphs and dryads and then satyrs and centaurs.  Nymphs are kind of like a cousin to fairies, but they don’t have wings and only can affect one natural element – trees, for instance, or flowers.  Dryads are basically plants themselves.  They can be…stubborn.  Really stubborn.  But both dryads and nymphs tend to side with fae on things, they work closely with us for the most part.  Dad’s clinic is mostly for them, dryads in particular.  They’re too plant-like for regular doctors to help much.

     “Satyrs are half goat, centaurs half horse.  Satyrs tend to be all about partying.  They congregate a lot at frat parties or bars and things.  Loud, rowdy, kind of annoying.  They can be fun, just…a bit much.  Centaurs are more, uh,” another pause, like he was trying to figure out the best way to put this, “vicious.”  That was what he came up with after thinking about it?  “You’d think half horse wouldn’t be so evil, I mean, horses are great, but do not annoy a centaur if you can help it.  You know how humans have serial killers?  Some of them have actually been centaurs.  Some of the worst unsolved murders ever have been centaurs.  They just like violence, they like to see people suffer.  We keep a really close eye on them in the city because of that, but if you see one, avoid it.”

     Centaur.  Yeah, I remembered getting beaten up by a couple.  The first one, I’d ended up with a few broken ribs and a broken collar bone.  Well, I was guessing.  It wasn’t like I’d gone to a doctor.  It was probably a good thing that the form I saw didn’t really reflect his actual form and that the centaur hadn’t changed into his real form – getting hit with fists was no doubt a lot less painful than getting stomped on or kicked with hooves.  The other – the other had shown that sadistic side Ren was referencing.  I almost shivered at the memory.

      “Between all of those and shifters,” Ren went on, “that’s the majority of the supernaturals you’ll encounter within the city, other than the more human-like ones, which, apart from fairies, includes vampires, familiars, demons, elves, and witches.  Vampires are actually fairly harmless to humans, they vastly prefer drinking supernatural blood to human blood, so if they do ever go on a rampage, they’re not likely to bother humans.  They also don’t usually go on rampages.  They tend to prefer to sit in some dusty old room and do nothing.  Very passive, as supernaturals go.  Familiars are basically, eh, I dunno how to describe them exactly.  They’re not human, but they’re not shifters, either.  They are born with a connection to a particular type of animal and it’s not genetic as to the type of animal, unlike shifters.  With shifters, if your parents are lions, you’ll be a lion.  With familiars, your parents might be a lion and a wolf and you could be a horse.  No connection.  I think sometimes they might pass on the basic species relations – like if a parent is a wolf, the kid might be a fox or a dog, that sort of thing, but that isn’t the case with all of them – I think it’s a genetic trait thing where some do, and some don’t, but Dad would know better about that.  Anyway, they don’t really fully transform, I think maybe for a few seconds, max, but they essentially wield magical power associated with that animal.  Shifters don’t have magic other than shifting itself, but familiars do.  When you said something about people with ears and tail of a fox, for instance, that’s probably a familiar.  They’re not really on any side, by default, that tends to depend on the individual.”  He shrugged.

     “Demons sound bad but they’re not really.  They tend to have horns – actually, come to think of it, some of them might have bat wings, too.  But pretty rare.  They’re just really grouchy for the most part.  They like to be left alone, and by left alone I mean by everyone but other demons.  They’re a tad more social than phoenix and do actually like to live in communities with other demons but they’re grouchy towards everyone else.  Their bark is worse than their bite, though.  Actually most of the demons I know are pretty soft hearted under all the grumbling.  They’re not going to like, volunteer to help someone out, but if they get dragged into it, they will help.  A little like nightwings that way – they’re kind of cousins, I guess, because they both wield darker magic, so maybe that makes sense.

     “Elves are going to be the ones with pointy ears.  Historically, they were warriors, mostly, and they haven’t forgotten this.  Most of them seem to take it personally if anyone happens to be stronger than them so a lot of species just pretend the elves are stronger just to placate them.  It’s too much of a hassle to start some kind of blood feud just because an elf got insulted.  I don’t know why they don’t just learn to recognize that they’re not that powerful anymore, since feuds always end badly for the elves, but they’re stuck in some archaic way of thinking that they can’t seem to get over.  They get insulted easily, so I’d tell you to watch what you say around them but I think that’s not exactly an issue for you.”

     His eyes darkened.  “And then finally there’s the witches.  They are born with natural magical sensitivity, I guess?  Anyway, they can wield magic, but they have to use these special magical marks to actually control it and use different powers from what I understand.  I think a lot of them are striving for recognition in the supernatural world, but they go about it all the wrong way and tend to get enamored with power and destruction.  They mostly target supernaturals, but the older they are, the more powerful they are, the less they care about anyone caught in the crossfires.  Eventually they are completely fine with humans – sometimes a lot of humans – dying in their quest for whatever campaign they’re currently focused on.  Power, control, whatever it is.  Like I said, they do have to play nice with fairies to get all their ingredients, but otherwise they’d probably have nothing to do with anyone who is into peace and quiet.”

     That was a lot of information to take in, but a lot of good information.  Information I had agonized over most of my life, wondering what it all meant, and now, at 23, someone had bothered to explain it all.

     No matter what happened with this strange relationship I had with Ren, I would always be grateful to him for that.  For making some sense of the insanity that had plagued my life.

     Ren stopped in front of the library doors, a smile on his face.  “Any more questions, or are questions on hold until lunch?”

     I ducked my head a little, but more out of shyness than fear.  “They’ll have to wait, but…thank you.”  I wasn’t sure if that conveyed my thanks, not just for explaining things, but for even giving me the opportunity to just ask questions freely of him.

     Ren’s smile widened.  “Of course, you’re very welcome.  What time should I come pick you up for lunch?”

     After we’d agreed on a meeting time, I headed inside, alone, and found a free computer.  I logged into my email but took a moment to think before I actually looked at it.

     In the last couple of days, I had learned more about the supernatural world than I had known my entire life.  All the questions I’d had all this time were finally starting to make sense, the puzzle pieces falling into place to reveal the picture I had never been able to see on my own.

     Finally, I was starting to understand the world I could see.  Of course, I still didn’t know why I could see this world, but at least the world itself was starting to make more sense.

     Ren thought I saved his life, but I was becoming more and more convinced that he’d actually saved mine instead.