He came by the next day around the same time. Still no Meryl in sight, thankfully. Nobody visits coffee bars in the evening anyway, much less on a Friday night. He took his free Americano and sat near the window, clicking away at something or other on a laptop. I watched him for a minute before deciding my life would be many times less boring if I found *anything* to do.
If you thought putting the cream before the coffee was bad, you should've seen his face when I struck a light.
"...You weren't smoking before I came in yesterday, did you?"
"A bit, why?"
"Just... didn't think anybody still did that."
"Something wrong with it?"
"Well, I mean I don't want powdered cancer in my coffee if I can help it."
"What? Oh, no, fuck that,"
I pinched the cigarette from my mouth, tapping the teal coloring on the butt.
"Mana strikes."
"You know those don't work in reality, right?"
"Not dragging for the mana. Clears your head the way old cigarettes are--"
I stopped. No way he'd just said that.
"'In reality'?"
He clenched his fists, breaking eye contact with a pained look. He closed his eyes, and it didn't take a spell to see he wanted to curl back into a shell.
"...did I call it that?"
"Yep."
I took a long drag, letting the moment settle in nice and painful. He didn't try to apologize, so I spoke up for him.
"For what it's worth, it feels fake to me sometimes too. "
He let out a sigh of relief.
"Yeah, the whole menus always felt--"
"I mean, one sapient species? That didn't even figure out magic? Like, that just sounds lazy. Wish fulfillment, really."
That shut him up.
"Stupid phrase."
I muttered loud enough for him to hear, letting the silence simmer well past the end of the cigarette. I got to counting cups on a full shelf before I started to go crazy enough to talk to him again.
"Want one?"
"No, thanks. I'm an addict, but I'm not that addicte--"
"The mana strikes."
"Pretty sure those would kill me."
"They're not that bad. And even if they did, it'd be quicker than an old cigarette."
"That doesn't make it better."
I rolled my eyes, digging the box out from behind my apron anyway.
"So what I'm hearing is that you're a--"
"Yep. Tried and true. Not a business major for show. No useless hippie smokies for me, thank you very much."
I was caught between what to make fun of first; his admission of pansy-hood, or the face he had called them 'smokies'. My frozen indecision gave him time to continue.
"I mean, what's even the point? It's not like they'd restore any mana here."
"Taste."
"I'm sorry?"
"Taste. Satyrs have taste buds in their lungs."
I raised the counter exit, stepping out with a pat to my chest. He stopped typing to shoot me a disappointed look.
"Okay, fine, not the lung taste. But it *is* better than you think. Clears your head and leaves you with whatever's in front of you, usually."
"Which excuses the fact it's still breathing smoke?"
"Dude, if this was half as bad as your cigarette smoke then there wouldn't be a single wizard that lived to thirty."
"I don't wanna think about living past thirty."
If only he knew. And as a business major?
"Pretty short plan for a business major."
"Markets change."
"So do minds."
I said in a cooing tease, waving the butt end of a strike towards him. He watched me with a disappointed look, like I was standing outside of a white van and offering him candy. I put my other hand up in surrender, slowly pulling the mana strike back.
"Fine, don't try the magical fantasyland drugs, have a boring time reaching thirty. More for me then."
He rolled his eyes, taking it.
"Alright, but isn't calling otherworld fantasyland worse than calling this reality?"
"How about I pick what words I claim and you just shave eight years off your lifespan."
He pulled the end of the Mana Strike away from my lighter, suspicious.
"Actually?"
He asked. I scoffed,
"Yeah, swear it on my lung's taste buds."
He rolled his eyes again and lit the Mana Strike, pulling it to his lips.
He got about three words into trying to say something through a lungful of smoke before descending into an immediate, heavy coughing fit. I'd kept from snickering as he'd taken just over a quarter of the strike in a single pull, but now it was too much. I cackled as sparkly white smoke poured from his teary, exasperated face in retching bursts, to the point he was smacking the table towards the end of the fit.
His face was probably red for multiple reasons, now, not least of all being the tears streaming down his face from the stress of coughing that hard for that long. I pulled myself together enough to take the rest of the Mana Strike back before he threw it at me, tucking the other one back away.
"Sorry, sorry. Want something, my treat?"
"Everything's your treat."
He said, spitting into his empty coffee cup and rolling a knuckle over his tongue.
"It feels like my sinuses just got hit with mint-flavored ammonia. How the hell do you smoke these?"
I pursed my lips, feigning thoughtfulness.
"Hmm... you know, it may have something to do with actually *having* a mana pool."
"Thought you didn't have a mana pool in re--cough--Terra."
I gave him a sideways glance, but decided to let it slide since he caught himself.
"You don't. For whatever reason, Terra translates it into a kinda... sub-skin within your lungs. At least that's what I'm told anyway."
Zoid took a slow breath, putting a fist over his chest.
"Jeez... Well, my lungs do certainly feel like they stretched something."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you pulled hard enough to force a little into your terran organs. Sucks, but overburn sucks worse on Gaia, trust me."
I poured him a frothy decaf latte, complete with the malformed organ of a topper. He looked down at it, almost glaring with distain before skimming back the top.
"Good job making the mood match on the heart."
Well, at least he could tell that's what it was supposed to be. He looked back to his screen, squinting. For a while.
"I can't remember a single thing I was trying to do."
"I told you it clears your head!"
I laughed hard enough he almost threw the latte cup at me.
I've heard there used to be a lot of stories about one human getting punched into a fantasy world. This one's sort of the opposite, save for a caveat; the rest of my world came with me, and nobody really wanted to go back.
Comments (0)
See all