Saida & Autumn 2: It Wasn’t Just You

Another glance toward the rabbit showed that her smile hadn’t returned, but she didn’t look hostile, either. She looked toward Saida expectantly, long ears up.

Picking up her beer and the plate of pizza, Saida headed across the room to the table, setting both down and taking the opposite seat. Across from the younger woman, the cat finally realized how much taller the rabbit was: at least a hundred feet high, not counting the ears. It was extremely uncommon for her people to be that big. In this world, at least this part of it, there seemed to be little limit on potential sizes—and, for that matter, powers. She liked to think she’d made her peace with it, but she might never be completely used to it.

“You’re not related to Professor Thorferra, are you?” The bunny’s voice had a lovely smokiness to it. Deep violet eyes locked onto Saida’s.

“I’m her cousin.”

“Really. So you’re another Rha.” She folded her hands in front of her on the table, the dim light catching glittering black claw polish. “Are you a student?”

“No.”

“Staff?”

She shook her head. “I live back in Stravell. But I take long weekends here at least once a month.”

The rabbit lifted one brow and smiled curiously. “Stravell is where Rhas are from? I hear second- and third-hand stories about Thorferra having got here through some kind of mad science accident.”

“It’s the name of my country. And I guess it was a mad science accident; her father was, well, a mad scientist. Teleportation is less mad science than niche business back home now, though.”

“You sound so blasé about traveling between worlds.”

“No, I don’t mean it that way.” She shrugged self-consciously. “We can only teleport between beacon stations, so the one here is probably the only one that ever will be on another world. It’s a strange fluke, a silver lining to what happened to my cousin. Otherwise, where I’m from is...no magic, no crazy tech. No giants, since everything is my scale. It’s nice, but boring.”

“That’s what most of this land is. We have giants and magic here, but go just a few hundred miles away, nothing. Half the world still thinks they’re only in the distant past, or myths to explain the Great Chasm.” She shook her head. “So is that why you come here? Because it’s not boring?”

“That’s a fair way to put it. I like being a real giantess, having the world literally at my paws. When I first got here I used to take long walks around places where people might never have seen giants.” She laughed. “Although I appreciate the campus and the area around it more now, since it’s nice to be a real giantess without worrying someone’s going to send an army after you.”

That earned her a charming giggle from the rabbit. “Yes, it is.” She held out her hand across the table. “I’m Autumn.”

Saida closed her hand around the rabbit’s for a moment, smiling back. Autumn’s palm felt fuzzy against her own velvet pads. “So you’re a student here?”

Autumn nodded. “Magical Arts.” She spread her hands. “I look the part, right?”

“Maybe. I don’t know too much about what magicians are supposed to look like. I imagine robes and pointed hats, or maybe sweeping blue capes.” Not that the magician—or whatever the hell he was—who cursed her looked that way. She forced her mind off that path. “You look—more like a singer.”

The rabbit laughed, crossing her arms. “A singer? In some kind of goth or emo band?”

“Maybe. Although...I’m sure this is a terrible stereotype, but I think of emo as maudlin and mopey, and you’re not that.”

“You don’t know that yet,” Autumn countered. She looked away with a soft, wry smile. “I might be very mopey. What you know about me is that I like to sit alone in the corner, and that I lose my cool at insults.”

“That’s not true. I think you like having a dark and mysterious air. You didn’t explicitly invite me over as much as signal I had permission to approach.”

That brought more of a teasing smile. “And I don’t give it to just anyone.”

She smiled, taking a sip of beer. “I also know...let me see. By Rha standards you’re extremely tall. At home, I’m five foot seven, so you’d be...how tall are you?”

Autumn picked up her own drink. It looked like a soda, most of the ice melted by now. “A hundred and one feet.”

“That’d be...” She closed her eyes, working out the math. “Six foot nine.”

“You can do that math in your head?”

“I’m good with numbers.”

“I see that.” She grinned, showing off her sharp front teeth. “I like the idea of being six foot nine. I like the idea of beng a hundred feet tall better, but if I’m standing next to someone on my scale, I want to be the taller one.”

Saida laughed, although she felt her tail twitch. She thought she’d seen something glint farther back in the rabbit’s mouth, and couldn’t help but be curious. She sighed inwardly. On top of everything else, that damn curse had given her an oral fixation, hadn’t it? Shoving it to the back of her mind, she picked up one of her pizza slices. Fortunately, it’d just come out of the oven when she’d gotten it, so it was still warm. “It looks good on you.”

Autumn’s ears went up, then lowered into a more relaxed position. Even so, self-consciousness shadowed her eyes as she looked down at the table. “Thanks.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for... Normally I can let stupid insults go, especially from ankle-high jerks. It was just the timing.”

“Timing?”

“With you.” She looked back up, meeting Saida’s eyes and smiling apprehensively. “It seemed—I mean, it looked like we had...”

The Rha smiled. “So it wasn’t just me.”

“No.” Autumn relaxed again. “It definitely wasn’t.”

Saida took another bite of the pizza. “Want any? Although it’s not vegetarian.”

“The pepperoni gave that away. Just because I’m a rabbit doesn’t mean I’m an obligate herbivore, though.” She picked up the other slice. “You didn’t put any of the jerks on here, did you?” Without waiting for an answer, she opened her mouth wide and took an exaggeratedly big bite.

“No, sorry.”

Autumn chewed and swallowed, then smirked. “Just as well. They’d probably be bitter.”

Saida laughed, then lowered her voice. “I hope I’m not going to be banned from here for making the joke. It’s kind of frowned on around campus, right?”

“Did the server say anything?”

“No, he—I mean, he heard it all. And he played along with me.”

The rabbit glanced toward the counter with an expression of relieved surprise. “Cool. I think you’re safe, then.”

They ate their pizza in silence for a few moments. Companionable silence? Maybe. Saida felt...not at ease, not even comfortable, but happy. She’d had lust-at-first-sight crushes before, some of which hadn’t at all been good for her—some of which she couldn’t help blame on that damn curse. But this, whatever it was, it didn’t feel like that. Not a strange fascination, not some reluctant curiosity she couldn’t help indulge. She just—wanted to keep this moment going.

She realized Autumn had paused chewing, head tilted to the side, expression quizzical.

The Rha flushed. “What?”

“You were looking at me with, with...like...” The rabbit trailed off, looking to the side with another sheepish smile, then back down at the cat.

“Sorry. I got kind of lost in thought in a moment.”

“Ah.” The rabbit looked just a little disappointed.

Saida bit the inside of her lip. She needed to get the conversation going. “What kind of magic are you studying?”

“Hmm? Oh.” She took another bite of pizza. “I started with transformation magic. That’s what I came to the school to do. The instant I learned about the school, getting here and learning that became my life’s mission.”

“That’s a very...specific focus.”

Autumn fixed her gaze on the cat. “I had big things to change.”

Saida nodded slowly. The word choice wasn’t accidental, was it? “You weren’t a giant when you came to the school.”

Autumn took a deep breath. “Like I said.” She spread out her hands, pressing them against the table. “There’s what I realized I always had been, and what I realized I should be. I knew I needed to change to be both. So it’s what I did.” Her expression grew more intent, and she bit her lip.

The cat reached across the table, putting her hand over one of the rabbit’s. After a long moment, Autumn flipped her own hand over, entwining her fingers with Saida’s and beaming. The Rha felt herself melt into a happy puddle.

“You need to tell me a secret now,” Autumn said after a few moments, smile growing impish once more.

“I do?” Saida gave her a lopsided smile in return.

She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Maybe my transitions aren’t secret, but I don’t share them casually with strangers. So we shouldn’t be strangers, little cat.”

“Little?” Saida drew herself up with a smirk.

“Little,” Autumn repeated. “Want me to stand close enough to you to touch and compare heights?”

Saida felt her ears blush. “That’s not as effective a threat as you might think coming from you.”

Autumn’s ears went up. “You know that reaction is just going to make me more intrigued, don’t you?”

Saida sighed. The blush wasn’t going away. Well, she had an obvious choice or two, but obvious wasn’t necessarily wise. “I get it. It’s just hard for me to come up with something. My choices are either boring or overly personal.”

“Go with personal.”

Right. Given what Autumn had shared, that was a lousy attempt at deflection. “They’re...I mean...kind of...intimate for a first...” She caught herself and cleared her throat.

Too late, though. Autumn leaned forward, thin brows lifting. “Date?”

“Are we on one?”

Autumn tilted her head to one side again, then the other, then straightened up, looking intently into Saida’s eyes again. “That depends on whether you let me lead you out of here holding your hand. If you do, then I’m going to buy you coffee, and we’re going to call this our first date.”

Saida laughed. “All right.”

“All right.” Autumn stood up slowly, still holding Saida’s hand.

The Rha stood up too, not letting go.

Autumn walked around the table, eyes on Saida’s, then slowly walked past her, fingers still entwined with the Rha’s. Saida tightened her grip on the rabbit’s hand and followed.