“Could you at least pretend to be embarrassed?” Rasine whispered, hiding behind a magazine at least six years out of date. She was still getting used to Yanni’s ability to ‘mask’ their conversations from the world around them.

“Mmm, why?” The fae was focused in on the brushwork of the woman carefully detailing his left hand in henna ink. His right hand was already covered in the drying dye, held carefully away from anything it might stain. The woman was whistling something Rasine couldn’t quite place, and no one else in the store seemed to think the six foot tall thickly-built man was at all out of place.

“Because most people would be!” Rasine couldn’t actually see him, but she could feel the brush dancing over her hand in phantom patterns and the flaky itch of the drying henna. Today was going to go down in the history books as the flat out winner for ‘Weirdest Day Ever’.

“I’m not ‘most people’, am I?”

“Well, no, technically, but– look, you want to be human, right?” Because that was the deal, she showed him how it was to be human and he showed her what it was like to not be… only she was starting to regret ever making the bargain.

“This is correct.”

“Then be embarrassed for godsake!” That was more of a hiss than a whisper, but her Yanni mood-o-meter didn’t change at all. It was like he was made of Care Bears or Teletubbies or something.

“I never said I wished to emulate your flaws.” Smug Care Bears.

Rasine: Polish, a rose