Karou walks down the cobblestone path in a back alley of Prague. It's the winter solstice, and the silver moon is the only light. She notices a poster on the wall advertising a band, the Englewood Cliffs. She has a temptation to go see them, but she's heading to meet her best friend, Zuzana, at Poison Kitchen, their favorite restaurant. Karou arrives at Poison Kitchen; Zuzana is already there, wearing, of all things, a French beret!
"Why are you wearing a beret?" asks Karou.
"It enhances my artist-y-ness." Zuzana responds.
"Hey, our favorite table is open!" Karou says, "We can see the entire restaurant while we eat, which hasn't happened in a while."
"I've always found the owner's taste in decor odd." Zuzana muses, "I mean really, ancient Greek and Roman statues, none in ashland slate, all of which are wearing World War 1 era gas masks. Sooo morbid. But cool."
"Morbid, yes. Cool, no." Karou replies.
"Hey Karou, where's your boyfriend, Akiva?" Zuzana asks.
"He's on Eretz, helping with the rebuilding process, but I did bring his half sister, Liraz, and her sort-of boyfriend, Ziri." Karou replies. "Liraz, Ziri, you can come in."
They enter Poison Kitchen: Liraz is Caucasian, and she has blue eyes, blond hair swept back in twelve braids. Because Liraz is wearing a short-sleeved shirt, Zuzana can easily tell that Liraz's hands and lower arms are covered in black tally marks; her kill tally. Liraz is obviously a seraph; her wings of fire are folded compactly against her back make that clear. Ziri is Asian, tall, and brown-eyed. He is obviously a Kirin; his gazelle lower legs, gazelle horns as long as Liraz's arms coming out of his forehead, and his dark bat wings folded compactly against his back make that clear.
"I remember you two," Zuzana says, "I didn't know you were in a relationship, though. You two are lucky to be together."
"Well," Ziri says, "my nickname is 'Lucky Ziri.'"
Zuzana pulls out her phone.
"Hold on. I found your theme song." she says. Ziri looks at her questioningly. Zuzana presses a button, and "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk starts playing. Everyone but Zuzana face-palms.
"Oh my godstars!" exclaims an about 19 year old teenage girl sitting with a laptop at a nearby table, "I drew this a while ago! Oh, sorry, I should introduce myself. I'm Nicole, more commonly know among the Daughter of Smoke & Bone fan community as... well, as 'Lucky Ziri.' I draw fan art, and I drew what just happened a few months ago."
"That's very cool!" says Karou.
"Let me show you the drawing." says Nicole. She types a bit, and turns her laptop so it faces the group; there's a drawing of the 'Ziri's theme song' incident on screen."
"Actually," Ziri says, "'Lucky Ziri' no longer applies, as a few months ago I had a run of very bad luck. Suffice it to say I had to live through my worst nightmare."
"Oh," Zuzana says, "that's sad."
"If Hazael, who's one of my other half brothers and who's dead, was here," Liraz says, "he would have us all laughing. He was very good at that. I remember one time when he said, with puffed-up bravado, 'If anyone takes on my sister, they have to deal with... my sister.' and then cowered behind my back. That made everyone in the battle camp laugh. I miss him much."
"Hey! I know what to call your relationship, Ziri and Liraz: Ziraz!" Zuzana says, "Or maybe it's Liri... Anyway, I smashed your names together!
Nicole says, "The fandom decided on Ziraz a while ago, so sorry Zuzana, but we beat you with the term."
"Oh! Could both of you unfold your wings?" says Zuzana, "I want to see how you wear shirts, because there must be something special about how they are made to let the wings through."
Liraz and Ziri unfold their wings to their full twelve foot wingspans simultaneously.
"Oh, so that's how it works!" Zuzana says, "There is no back to your shirts; the lower part of the sides are extra long and wrap around to the middle where they are fastened."
"You know, they could have just told you that." Karou says.
Ziri folds his wings back up, while Liraz doesn't. Just then, Laini Taylor, the author of the Daughter of Smoke & Bone Saga, walks in.
"Oh my godstars! It's Laini Taylor!" says Nicole, "I must make her favorite piece of my fan art in real life!" Nicole grabs Ziri by the arm and drags him over to Laini.
"Agh!" Ziri says when Nicole yanks on his arm, "That hurts!"
Nicole protectively wraps her arms around Ziri, and says to Laini, "You can have him back when you learn to play nice."
Laini starts laughing. "That's my favorite piece of my fan art by 'Lucky Ziri' done in real life!" she says.
"That's because I'm 'Lucky Ziri.'" Nicole says.
Nicole, Laini, and Ziri walk back over to Karou and Zuzana's table. Nicole types a bit more at her computer, and pulls up a picture of what she just did with Ziri and Laini.
"Yes, that's the one." says Laini.
"Why did I wear a short-sleeved shirt? It's getting too cold in here." Liraz says "Let me fix that." Suddenly, the air around Liraz starts shimmering.
"Uh, what did you do?" asks Zuzana.
"She turned up the heat her wings emit, from human and seraph body temperature to something higher." Ziri, Laini, and Nicole say simultaneously.
"Oh. I didn't know seraphim could do that." Zuzana says.
"Well, we can." says Liraz.
"How do you fly like that, with your wings parallel to your body?" Zuzana asks.
"I don't," Liraz says, "I rotate my wings so they are parallel to the ground when I want to fly. See?" She rotates her wings, crouches, and jumps up, flapping. She then hovers a few feet off the floor.
"I see." says Zuzana. "That's very cool!"
Liraz lands with a crouch. As she straightens, she turns to Karou and asks "This is a very strangely decorated restaurant. Why are there statues with those odd masks on them, and what are the masks for?"
"Ah," Karou says, "first, the reason why there are statues with masks on them is that the owner has two collections; one of statues, and one of those masks, and he decided to display them together in his restaurant. Second, the masks are called gas masks. They are from a war that happened about a hundred years ago, where poison gas was used in large amounts; soldiers had to wear these mask to be able to breath."
"Oh godstars..." Liraz says. "That's just horrible. War is horrible enough, without poison gases."
"Thankfully, those poison gases have been outlawed." Karou says. "Well, I think we should be going. The rebuilding process on Eretz needs all the help it can get."
OK, bye!" Zuzana says.
Karou, Ziri, Liraz, Zuzana, Nicole, and Laini walk out of Poison Kitchen. Liraz and Ziri unfold their wings, rotate them, crouch, and jump, both of them remain hovering a few feet of the ground. Karou just starts hovering.
"I am still kind of freaked out that you can fly at will, without wings, Karou." says Zuzana.
"Huh." Karou says. "I'm just used to it, I guess. Well, bye."
"Bye!" Zuzana says.
Karou, Ziri, and Liraz fly up past the rooftops, and head southwest.