"No."
"What?"
"I honestly cannot believe you."
Those were the only words from his lips. He slumped against the wall, nearly knocking over one of the numerous books as I frowned, swinging my clunky boots against the comforting hardwood of my chair. He could have incinerated me where I stood, made me cry out, made me wish I had never been born. He could have done worse. I mean, I know it would have been against the rules, but he could have at least, y'know, given me some verbal abuse. But he just stood there, palm to face, tail twitching.
You heard me. Tail.
Of course, where I came from, a tail wasn't rare or freakish or anything else you humans say. It was perfectly normal. In fact, you would be 'freakish' if you didn't have one. I had one, my brother had one, and hethe guy I was talking to right now had one. So did everyone else here in Partways. You- I mean the human who's reading this right now or anyone else- might ask 'what kind of name is Partways?'
The answer is simple. A faerie name.
Okay, so I probably need to explain. I'm not human. None of us are. Doesn't matter what we are (but most of us are at least part faerie), we're not human. Okay, some of us are a bit, but more than 50 percent, you'd be kicked out, cast away, vamoosh. I, Ashwind Isis (just Ash, please. I'm not sure what my parents were thinking when they had me.), am 10 percent human, 5 percent elemental, and the rest faerie. I didn't get anything good, unfortunately. The 5 percent elemental is small enough to do nothing to my powers, big enough to give me the trademark slanted and yellow-orange eyes of the 'mentals.
Big whoop, right? Here's me, dark hair, big slanted fiery eyes, short, clumsy- and everyone else cornsilk blond, wide blue or gray eyes, tall and lithe and graceful. I'm the dark horse of the community. (Not exactly horse, I guess. More like hybrid thing? Whatever.)
But not the only one.
There's my brother, Ezekiel. Half-brother. And 60 percent human. He looks human, too. When he hatched (Yeah, us faeries hatch. Got a problem with it?) he looked fine- more faerie than anyone in my family. But as he grew up, his ears got rounder, his tail seemed to shrink, his eyes got smaller and his nose larger, he gained weight, and muscle, and about a million other differences.
And for that, that simple crime of growing up, he was sent to limbo.
Great community, huh?