The Vaticinator

4. A Beautifully Wrapped Horror

“I think the centaur thing was cool.” Faith says, taking a sip from her drink.

I snort, “Centaur? What are you, five?”

She huffs, “Whatever the hell is it that we shift into.”

“A hybrid horse. Parahuman. Anything. But a ‘centaur’? Please.” I say. Then shrugging, continue, “But it’s pretty useless to get horsy legs.”

“Not to mention, ugly.” She nods.

I roll my eyes. Even in the animal form Faith wants to look pretty.

“Animal legs are only marginally faster than our human legs.” I continue, “I prefer to flux only my arms, for defense and offense purposes.”

“Like Nikolai uncle does.” She gives me a deadpan stare.

“Hey,” I defend, “Dad doesn’t have any fixed animal copyright. Sometimes he converts fully too. I, on the other hand, prefer my arms in the form of talons. They are sharp, swift, painful, for the others obviously,” I give off a sadistic grin, “and it allows the rest of my body to remain fairly human. Not to mention, I don’t have to get naked to revert to that form.”

Faith shakes her head, “Ugly.”

I roll my eyes again, “It’s not ugly.” In fact, I find it a beautiful sight but I refrain from mentioning so. “I’d show you, but…” I trail off, looking sideways, urging Faith to follow my line of vision.

Aakir and Silvia are sitting next to each other in plastic chairs. The bonfire, in the center of our custom made circle of the yard illuminates their faces as they talk and laugh. I was surprised when Aakir announced that his partner will be joining us for the night. Since she is a human and fairly new to us, there are strict orders to not display our therian nature. Don’t want to scare the human partner now, do we?

Faith grins, nodding, “She is pretty.” She says, approvingly, “And quite sensibly mature.”

I laugh, “Aakir disdains that. She treats him like a kid, he says. I do not know how he managed to persuade her to join us tonight.”

Faith shrugs, “I am not surprised, save for the fact that she agreed to visit on a Monday night.”

“You’re here on a Monday night,” I point out, “And why not surprised otherwise? She is four years elder to Aakir. Even as a guy, I’d think five times before dating someone four years younger to me.”

“First of all,” Faith starts, “I do not think she has come as Aakir’s date tonight. She made that pretty clear before the start of supper.”

“But she is here because of Aakir. Obviously they’ll end up dating in future.” I reason.

“Yeah, that’s because, second of all, she can’t resist the bond. She may be human, but that doesn’t mean she can’t sense the compatibility she is acquiring with Aakir. Or is going to acquire thereof.”

“Uh…” I falter, “The…if the partner is human,” I ask her, knowing she’d know best as her own partner is human, “Does she feel the same sort of attraction as we do?”

“Should be asking me that.” Says Rahul, as he drags his chair next to Faith. Faith gives him a sweet smile and a quick peck on the lips.

“Well, yeah, did you feel attracted to Faith from the start?” I ask him.

He nods, “Yup. The fact that she is beautiful helped a lot.” He grins.

I reply with an awkward grin of my own. I may be curious, but not for the mushy things. Especially if it concerns my elder female cousin’s love life. I have never been particularly romantic, so it just gets a little weird as I witness how much Rahul is enamored with Faith.