Gary the griffon stared at the bright pink changeling on the other side of the cafe. Was she looking at him? That couldn't be, right? He'd never been successful with ladies, it was foolish to pthink one would be interested in him by his looks alone. He'd never considered himself particularly good looking, anyway.
Of course, the same couldn't be said for the 'ling who may or may not (more likely not) have been staring at him. She was pretty, her shell vibrant and lucid and her eyes warm pools of deep purple. But then again, all changelings were attractive, he thought while looking at his cup of hot cocoa. Advantages of shape-shifting. He'd never met a changeling who'd tried and failed to get a partner.
It was no wonder almost all his non-changeling friends had ended up with one. Marshmallow Swirls the earth pony, Ashy the dragon, Gretel the griffon, all of them with a changeling. There were exceptions of course, good old Gilbert had found himself an hyppogriff while on a study trip to Mount Aris, but statistically speaking that seemed to be far from the norm. Although, given the circumstances...
Gary looked up and around the room, scanning the tables and running his gaze along the counter. Yep. Just as always, about sixty to eighty percent of the customers were changelings. That was just the way it was, changeling population was on the rise given the amount of couples with one of them as a partner, and in turn that just meant an higher likelihood of a couple having a changeling as one of the two members.
Not that anyone was actually complaining about it. Lings were a friendly bunch, and no one was really against the idea of one as a partner. In fact, everyone who'd ever been in a relationship with one always seemed to sing the praises of how well everything went, and how much their partner understood them. Gary was pretty sure he'd never heard of a single relationship involving a changeling going badly.
So taken was the light brown griffon by his thoughts, that he didn't notice the pink changeling had approached his table until she pulled back a chair and sat in front of him. "Hey there," she greeted him, her voice light and cheerful like a water spring. "My name is Coxa. What's yours?"
Gary wordlessly opened and closed his beak a couple of times, trying to process exactly what was going on. Of course, the process only led to him suddenly forgetting how to communicate with a female creature, despite a sizable portion of his friends being girls. After a few more seconds of futile chewing, his own name escaped his mouth, quite possibly by itself. "Gary."
"Well hello, Gary." Coxa fluttered her long, thick black eyelashes at him, and it took him a moment to register their peacock-tail-like shape. "What brings you here to this cafe?" the changeling continued, beaming a smile after the other towards the dazed griffon. "Do you come here often?"
She was more than just good looking. She was pretty like a flower breaking through the snow at the end of the winter, and he could get lost in her eyes like in the starry sky of a night where the air was clear. After about half a dozen seconds of silent looking at the chunk of heaven that had placed herself in front of him, Gary closed his beak and suddenly remembered he knew how to speak. "I do, actually," he said, trying very hard not to lose all focus on everything that wasn't her.
"Oh, that's nice," Coxa replied, flashing a smile beautiful as a rainbow after a summer storm. "It's the first time for me, but I've heard a lot of great things about the place." She took a quiet sip from her glass, and Gary noticed only then that she'd carried it with her. Red orange juice, it seemed, likely with hints of something else. "Both about the drinks and the customers."
Gary blinked, shaking his head briefly to clear his thoughts. "The drinks are certainly excellent," he agreed, bringing his own cocoa up to his beak for a short sip. It wasn't particularly hot anymore, but the taste still helped distract him a little. "And, uh... What did you hear about the clients?"
Coxa's smile morphed into something a little more mischievous, yet still innocent and pure. The kind of delightful smile a newly hatched griffon had when they tried to hide behind a door to surprise their parents, but forgot to hide their tail, Gary thought. Leaning over, the changeling answered, "I heard you can find some really pretty creatures in here."
Gary's beak clicked shut against the edge of his cup. No chocolate ended up inside his nose, but it was a close thing. Lowering the drink just a bit, praying his feathers would hide the blush he knew for a fact he had, he said, "Oh. So... Would you say that's true, now that you've been here?"
"The drinks are certainly nice." Coxa took another sip of juice. "But about the creatures, well..." Her smile grew even wider, and the shaky hints of a stifled laugh began to seep through it. "I would say they were underselling it," she concluded with a wink.
Upon seeing her drink, Gary had made the very unwise decision to lift his own cup up again. He was far less fortunate this time around, as the jerk that ran through his body as soon as he heard her words left him with more than a bit of cocoa on his cheeks, and a blush he was now sure no amount of feathers could hide.
Coxa broke into a crystalline jiggle. "Oh, you're just the cutest thing," she said, her voice like glass bells played by the wind. And then she learned forward, across the table, and kissed the spots where chocolate had landed on Gary's face, eating it away.
Upon walking outside the cafe a few minutes later and seeing his reflection in the glass of a shop's window, the griffon was very surprised to find his feathers hadn't all turned red. But for the moment, he simply stood still as a statue, his heart suddenly beating way faster than it had ever done.
"I'm sort of new in town too, by the way," Coxa added, leaning back in her seat and finishing up most of her drink. "I was wondering if you could give me a little tour of the place." She levitated her glass towards him. "By the way, want a taste? I finished your chocolate, so it's only fair."
Gary hesitated for a moment. "Sure," he finally said, the words carried out by a low whisper that he'd seemed almost afraid to let go of. "I would like that. Both of those, I mean." He attempted the closest thing to a smile he could pull off.
Coxa smiled back, and the griffon allowed himself to get lost in the gleaming beauty of her face.
Author's Note
Make sure you visit the Changeling Superiority group for more NCT stories.
