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Saida & Autumn 1: The Beanstalk
🕑 Added 2018-06-27 18:00:01 +0000 UTC Two months past her twenty-seventh birthday, Saida Talirend could still usually pass for a college student, but she’d begun to feel self-conscious about it, as if her monthly stays at Mensura College perpetuated some kind of fraud. As a relative of a tenured professor here, though, she had the right to rent a little studio in the staff housing area—and there weren’t any places off the campus a cat woman whose ears broke the eighty-foot mark could fit.Mensura’s Student Union building was a marvel of crazy engineering. Set into the side of a hill, giants entered at the ground level and littles entered from the hillside at about her waist level. They had more effective space available, getting in several floors where the giants had only one. She’d overheard giant students grumble about that, but it never bothered her. Giants weren’t normal-sized here, after all—they were, well, giant. That had become the appeal for her, what drew her back regularly: being in a world where nearly everyone and everything felt toy-sized was magical.
Areas where the sizes mixed freely, though, were even more magical. She’d been coming to the college two years, after reconnecting with her cousin Arilin, and it still seemed like a storybook every visit. The college’s clever design subtly kept students of different sizes apart most of the time, but some spaces deliberately risked mixing things up. The social club-slash-cocktail lounge Arilin owned was one of them, even though she’d somehow kept it a bit under the radar. Another one, and honestly her favorite of the two, was the Beanstalk.
Most of the cafés at the Union followed the rest of the college’s design and tacitly segregated patrons by size: little tables on balconies overlooking giant spaces. The Beanstalk, though, had floor-to-ceiling posts made to look like huge, thick vines, with “leaves” holding groups of tables at various levels—very often right over tables sized for giants. Littles could also sit “on” the bar at a separate raised bar. Catwalks criss-crossed the space everywhere, somehow artfully arranged to be out of any giant walking paths. On her second visit, Saida realized at least two servers handled each table, one little attendant and one giant. Food orders would always be brought out by someone at the scale of the diner, but they might well be taken by someone on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Originally Saida had been doubtful that the genius of the design outweighed the sheer madness of mixing giants and littles with alcohol and food. But her cousin assured her that no one had ever been accidentally, let alone intentionally, killed, and the serving staff maintained a legendarily zero-tolerance policy for bullying. That didn’t stop them from displaying a deadpan sign behind the giant bar reading 0 PATRONS EATEN TODAY.
The pizza pub was about half full as she stepped inside, lively but not so crowded that she had trouble finding a seat at the counter. As usual, she caught people turning to stare across or up at her, depending on their size. She suspected at least half were doing a double-take to confirm that, no, Professor Thorferra hadn’t just walked into the Beanstalk in denim shorts and a fashionable T-shirt. They didn’t look that similar—creamy fur rather than snow white, strawberry blonde hair, green eyes rather than blue—but she got mistaken for Arilin regularly.
It only took about ten seconds before the little tabby cat bartender, rather than the dog her size, looked up toward her and waved. “Hey!” He smiled, as if he wasn’t fazed in the least by a customer who could swallow him whole. “What can we get you?”
“The black lager and a slice of pepperoni and mushroom.”
He nodded, punching a few buttons on his touch screen. “It’ll be right out.”
“Thanks.”
She spun around on her stool slowly, looking around the room again. Maybe it wasn’t as busy as she’d first thought; there were just a few groups—two ones her size and an especially rowdy, all-foxboy one at the little bar—and a handful of loners like herself, all with noses in textbooks and half-forgotten glasses of beer or soda to the side.
No, nearly all the loners were like that. The exception sat alone at a dark table in a corner, a rabbit with fur so white it looked almost unnatural. She’d accented that with black eyeliner, brow highlights, and even lipstick, then kept her wardrobe just as black, too: fur-tight jeans with so many lateral rips across the legs it was a wonder they still held together, and an oversized, plain black tee-shirt slipping off of one shoulder. Her hair offered the only break from the stark monochrome style. While most of the long strands falling down past her chest maintained a deep black, streaks of red, orange, and green ran throughout. It wasn’t a look Saida usually found attractive, but she felt her heart speed up just a beat or two.
The bunny girl wasn’t looking at anything in particular, until she looked straight at Saida. Her eyes narrowed. Probably thinking Shit, that’s not Professor Thorferra, is it?
But it could also be because Saida had been looking at her so intently. The cat flashed her a small, hopefully disarming smile. After a moment the rabbit’s posture relaxed into a slouch and she gave a small smile back, picking up her drink.
The giant bartender set her beer down, along with shakers of red pepper and grated cheese.
She leaned toward him. “Who’s that?” she said softly.
“Who?”
She nodded toward the corner.
The dog, a handsome retriever type, tilted his head, one ear flopping over. “Don’t know her name, sorry. I’ve seen her around campus, and here occasionally. Think she’s a MAP student.”
Saida nodded. “Thanks.”
“MAP” was the Magical Arts Program. So Goth Bunny was a sorceress in training? That gave her some pause. Her past experience with magic was mostly as a target.
She glanced toward the rabbit again. Now she had leaned forward, elbows propped up on her table, arms crossed, giving Saida a one-raised-brow look. The cat flashed another smile, slightly sheepish. This time, the rabbit didn’t smile back; she nodded at an angle, eyes flicking down and up again. Toward the seat opposite her? Was she inviting Saida to come over?
The laughter from the group of littles on the bar grew more raucous, coincidental to her smile. Or maybe not. Her ear swiveled to focus on their conversation.
“—lesbo giants—”
“—really be a dyke if you’re not really a—”
She glanced down with a sharp frown. A couple fell quiet, ears lowering, but one of the ones who’d been speaking yelled up, “No offense, big girl. We’re just saying.”
“You’re ‘just saying’ what?” Saida kept her voice low and deliberately foreboding. The dog behind the counter was giving the littles a disapproving glance, too.
“Bunny’s…you know…was…” He trailed off, as if finally realizing he’d headed onto dangerous ground.
“Never mind,” another one muttered, voice low enough she had to strain to hear it.
Out of the corner of her eye, Saida caught the rabbit girl’s expression darkening into embarrassment. She was standing up from her table, almost certainly to head out.
She turned to look back down, and raised her voice, keeping her tone deadly flat. “Leave before I use you as pizza toppings.”
It wasn’t just that group that went stone silent. The pub’s background babble dropped to near nothing.
Just Saying Guy was the first to find his voice. “Y-you can’t make jokes like that here.” He looked up at the dog giant behind the bar beseechingly. “If students get caught—”
“Shame I’m not a student.” Saida flicked her gaze to the frowning dog, giving him a wink. Hopefully he’d cut her some slack.
After a moment he turned away from the scene, studiously wiping down an already-clean prep area. “Let me know if I gotta change the number,” he said, jerking a thumb at the PATRONS EATEN sign.
The foxes all turned to look at up Saida, each set of ears back. Keeping a steely gaze fixed on them, she slowly raised the cheese shaker.
They bolted, knocking over chairs as they scrambled to the elevator.
She looked back toward—where the rabbit had been. Dammit. Twisting around in her seat, she caught her just hurrying past, and spoke quickly. “Hi. I’m Saida.”
The rabbit girl stopped, but didn’t turn around. “And?”
Saida lowered her ears. “Um. I thought you might want to talk for a bit?”
“About?”
“About anything you want.”
The rabbit held still a couple more seconds, only her whiskers moving. Then she turned and headed back to her table without saying anything. Saida chewed on her lip, watching. Should she follow?
“Here’s your pizza.” The dog set down a plate behind her on the counter.
“What? Oh. Thanks.” She turned around. “Wait, I didn’t order two slices.”
“You didn’t? Sorry.” The dog flashed an unapologetic grin, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Maybe you can find someone to share it with.”
