I sat on a picnic bench, watching the neighbor kids playing on the playground, while listening to Bonnie rant.

Bonnie was a wombat shifter, one of our neighbors.  We’d learned that there were generally two types of neighbors – some that would avoid us, or Lola in particular, and others who simply didn’t care because they had bigger things to worry about in life.  Bonnie happened to be one of the later.  Actually, her and all her friends were.

“It’s just hard,” she huffed.  “We grew up in a supernatural-only community and then our entire town just gets wiped out by a mudslide and we can’t rebuild, according to the engineers.  We lost everything, even a few people.  But then to top it off, we can’t even stay together.  Some towns offered us help, like Avenglade, and most of us came here because we knew Avenglade has a higher supernatural population than many towns, but…but we didn’t all come.  So suddenly we lost some of our friends, too, and even if this apartment complex is all supernaturals, the city isn’t, so it’s just an adjustment.  And it’s rough.  It’s just – it’s not fair.”  She had started out so angry, but now she finished almost forlorn.

I could honestly relate.  I’d grown up in a mostly supernatural town, with the only humans present being protected and knowing about supernaturals, so we didn’t have to hide.  Initially at the hospital, it was all supernaturals, so every time I went out with Dana or Lola, I had to remember that we had to be careful.  I was more used to it now, after three years, but I could definitely understand the frustration.

“At least you still have the people,” I offered.  “Well, most of them.  Even the ones who moved somewhere else, you can still call them, right?”  Phones seemed like such a useful invention.  “And all the ones who came with you now.  You still have them.  I know how disruptive it can be to lose everything like that, but stuff can be replaced.  People can’t.”

Bonnie sighed and put her head in her arms.  “Yeah, I know.”  Her voice came out muffled.  “I can’t imagine what it’s like for you, having no one from when you grew up.”

She knew my story by now, which was part of the reason she was ranting to me about her frustrations over losing her own town – she knew I understood.

“I have Dana and Lola now.”  My eyes automatically went over to where Lola was sitting on the edge of the sandbox, talking to some of the shifter kids who were grouped up around her, eyes wide as they listened to whatever story she was telling them.  “They welcomed me immediately so I never really had time to feel lonely.  The only one I really miss is my mother,” I admitted quietly.  “She’s the only one I really wish had survived and I could find her, but…the chances of anyone surviving are pretty small, and my mom wasn’t particularly powerful.”  The last I’d seen her, she’d been in some of the buildings close to the mountainside, where she would more likely have died in the mountain’s collapse than if she’d been closer to the edge.

Bonnie sighed, then finally lifted her head again, her eyes tired.  I could understand why – her and all her people who’d moved here, over half the complex’s current residents, had had their entire lives practically destroyed and while they were trying to start again in Avenglade, it was a struggle.  At least Dana had some resources so we didn’t have to worry much about moving here until we could get jobs, but for most of Bonnie’s community, they had nothing more than the kindness of the council and people who felt sorry for them.  They were struggling to just figure out how to survive, let alone figure out how to recreate their community in some corner of the city.  If they even could.

“So how’s your coven thing coming?”  She asked, apparently wanting another topic of conversation.

I was fine with that and went along with her unspoken request.  “The coven members tentatively agreed that they’d consider me, and we went and met them the other night.  They seem fine, nice even.  It’s kind of weird being with a bunch of other witches and they all treat me like, well, an actual person.  Nice weird, but weird.  I should have expected it, though.  Ty, the other male witch?  He said they were all pretty normal about it.  He did warn me that there’s one witch who might be a little condescending, but everyone else just treats him like just another witch.  Which is all I want.”  I didn’t need to be treated special.  I just wanted to be treated normally.

“And you think you and this Ty guy can be friends?”  Bonnie brushed off a leaf as it fell onto the table.

I hesitated.  “Um…polite friends, I guess, but close, probably not.  We don’t really seem to click, I guess.”  I’d been excited to meet another male witch, and Ty had been nice, but I doubted we’d ever be close.  We were too different and interested in different things, although we could at least respect each other and each others’ struggles.  I was fine with that, actually – okay, a little disappointed, but really, I had Dana and Lola, and Bonnie was turning into a good friend, too, so even if I didn’t end up with other witch friends, as long as the coven was nice to me, that was the main thing.  Ty and I might never be close friends, but we could at least understand each other and be polite about it.

“What about the Henry guy?”

I winced a little.  “Violet said he’s taking some convincing.  Apparently he wanted to turn her down, but she told me not to give up yet.”

Meanwhile, we hadn’t figured out what to do about jobs.  I, um, wasn’t exactly qualified for much, given my minimal education until the last three years, and while I’d been soaking in everything I could, I wasn’t particularly likely to be able to work a regular job yet.  Dana, since she was reconsidering whether she wanted to be a doctor, wasn’t pursuing that particular possibility and instead informed us serenely that she wasn’t planning to work for a while – just to take it easy and see how things went.  She had enough money we didn’t need to work just yet, but there was a part of me that felt bad that for three years now I’d basically accepted their hospitality and never really contributed in return.  Eventually I wanted to make up for that.

Lola, however, wanted to work.  She told me that she thought it would be nice to start setting down roots and making connections if we planned to stay, although then the next minute she wasn’t sure if that was a good idea because if we didn’t stay, she’d have to lose all those connections immediately.

Bottom line was we were kind of waiting to see what Henry would do and whether he would agree to help me.  I hoped he would, because if not, not only were my efforts to join this coven in vain, but we would have to move someplace else and find someone else who might be equally as reluctant.

“Well, I hope he cooperates.”  Bonnie was still resting her elbows on the table, leaning most of her weight on the table.  “I hope you guys stick around.  You’ve been nice.”

“So have you,” I responded a little awkwardly.  “Dana, Lola, and I all have issues with different supernaturals, it seems, so it’s nice when people don’t care about that stuff.”

“Eh, I think with Lola it’s mostly people who haven’t met banshees before.  Our town was mostly shifters, but there used to be a banshee there, back when I was a kid.  She died from some disease or a heart attack or something, I don’t remember.  Point is, a lot of us actually are familiar with a banshee being an actual person rather than just a representation of death and whatnot.”  Bonnie’s eyes went over to Lola, and she suddenly snorted a bit.  “Besides, if you talk to her for more than like two seconds, you figure out she’s a pretty fun kid.”

I looked over, too, to see the shifter children attempting to climb on Lola while she dramatically pretended they were killing her.

“Yeah,” I agreed softly.  “People who only see the premonition side miss out on how fun and kind she can be.”  I fiddled with my earrings, some dangly ones Lola had bought me.  “She’s helped me out a lot just figuring out who I am.  I mean, I was a kid back then, and kind of stifled, and then I wake up as an adult, in a different era, and besides just trying to figure out all of that, she’s been able to help me figure out me.”

“Like the earrings?”  Bonnie’s eyes went to them, probably since I was playing with them.  “I saw her give you a hair clip the other day.  It looks good on you.”

I felt my face heat a bit, but I was happy with her assessment, too.  “Yeah, stuff like that.  I never had the option to think about stuff like that when I was a kid, so Lola even recognizing my interest before I did and helping me accept it has been huge for me.  It frustrates me that people see her and run the other way without ever giving her a chance.”

Bonnie thought about that, then suddenly sat straight up.  “You know what?  We’re moping too much.  We’re all sitting around here waiting for stuff to happen – job interviews to work out, Henry to get back to you, the coven to warm up to you, whatever.  We need to relax a little.  Let’s go out and do something fun tonight.”

I raised one eyebrow.  “Fun?  Like what?”

“Go to a bar!  Dance!  Drink!  Whatever people do at bars!  Lola’s 21 now, right?  So she can drink, and I bet she’d like it.  I’m going to guess you’ve never been, and I can’t particularly claim to have been to a bunch given that I came from a small town, and I’m not sure about Dana, but the rest of us could use the experience, right?”

As it turned out, Lola loved the idea and Dana was on board, too, though she managed to find a supernatural bar so we’d feel a little more comfortable.  Lola insisted on selecting my outfit for me and then took way too long on her own, but eventually, after eating a quick supper, we headed out with Bonnie to the bar Dana had found.

I was not prepared for the number of people together in a fairly small space, but after I got over my initial shock, it was actually reasonably fun.  The girls all insisted on dancing with me, which mostly meant they laughed at my attempts and tried to explain and/or show how dancing worked since I was really only accustomed to more formal types of dancing.  But we all laughed and had fun.

The girls were taking a bathroom break and I was sitting at our table, munching on some fries and sort of happily just absorbing the atmosphere, when out of the corner of my eye, I realized someone stopped at our table.  I looked over to find a rather large man, easily breaking 6’ and built like he could probably lift a car for fun.  He was a nightwing, so that actually might be a thing.

“Hello?”  I asked tentatively.

To my surprise, he blushed a bit.  “Hi, um, I was – I was wondering if I could buy you a drink?”

It took me a moment to process what he meant by that.  That was…he was hitting on me, right?  I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that.  I’d honestly never given much thought to my sexuality until after I’d woken up, because as a male witch, it was sort of assumed that it was a “responsibility” to marry a female witch so the children could be guaranteed witches, since generally witches had to marry humans or other supernaturals to get a witch child.  It wasn’t a “duty” I was particularly interested in, and after waking up, I’d been somewhat intrigued to realize that for most of the rest of the world, there were other options for relationships now.  Actually, Dana had informed me that most supernaturals didn’t care as much and hadn’t for hundreds of years, which was different than what my coven had told me, but that was probably because they saw that as my only use.  Sometimes I wondered why, if we did have one use, they were so dismissive of male witches, but then I realized that witches often got what they wanted from humans or other supernaturals anyway, so while for them marrying a male witch might be a plus, it was just a minor one at best.

But point was, in the last three years I had tried to figure out how I felt about relationships and what interested me.  Lola had helped me figure out that I wasn’t actually that attracted to girls, maybe like…10%?  While my interest in men was much higher.  This particular man, giant though he was, with his hopeful yet embarrassed face, intrigued me.  Maybe…it was worth just flirting a bit?

“I don’t drink much,” I admitted to him, “so I’m not even sure what’s good.”

He thought about this for a bit, his eyes briefly skimming to my necklace and to the hair clip Lola had insisted I wear.  For a moment I felt nervous, but then he sort of nodded to himself.

“I think I have an idea.  May I bring you one?”

I nodded, feeling a little embarrassed myself now, and watched as he made his way to the bar, returning soon after with a drink that he set down in front of me.

“It’s low alcohol content and somewhat sweet,” he explained.  “I think you’ll like it.”

Sweet?  He’d realized I liked sweet things – just from looking at me?  Maybe that was stereotyping a bit, but under the circumstances, I didn’t mind that much.

“My name’s Nicolas,” I told him as I took a sip, finding it was, indeed, to my liking.  “And you made a good choice.”

He looked happy immediately.  “I’m Rhys.  It’s nice to meet you.”

I took another sip, taking in the way his eyes crinkled as he smiled and the way, despite his bulk, he seemed like a gentle giant, and I decided he was right.  It was nice to meet him.