Chapter 5: I don't like coffee...

[Ityira]

The carriage moved forward, under its own power and with such speed. We had transportation, both traditional carriages pulled by horses, as well as powered by automatons, but none of ours could even move a fraction of the speed at which we were currently moving. Amos was explaining anything I asked about, at least for now, he was right of course about drawing attention to ourselves. I didn't think I was too physically different from his people, from the images of the women he showed me they looked much like women of my world, though with clipped ears.

I glanced at his ears again, in my empire clipping someone's ears was an act of shame, typically used to mark trouble makers, thieves and other malcontents. But Amos's ears were not clipped, at least they didn't look like they were clipped, seeing as there was no scarring, and it was rounded, not a straight snip. Rather it would seem as though this was the natural state of their ears, odd, to say the least.

Historically speaking the ritual was done to show lesser rank, to make one as a lesser being, and considering that the spell I had been attempting to use was supposed to, apparently pull one of his people to our realm…

Had his and my people interacted in the past before? Perhaps such a long time ago that it was lost to the ages?

"What are you looking at?" he asked, glancing over at me then back again to the black paved path we sped along.

"Your ears," I said simply, "they are different from my own, and different from any type of ears that I have ever seen."

"Yeah you have elf ears," he said with a smile.

"Elf ears?" I asked, glancing first at his smile then back at his eyes. "What are elf?"

"Elves," he corrected, "that's the plural of the word Elf," he explained, honestly he was quite good at explaining things, it was a natural gift for him it would seem. "An elf is a mythical being, a creature from legends," he went silent for a second, thinking, "in a lot of fantasy or legends there are these humanoids called elves, they are normally portrayed as fair skinned, fair haired, graceful, like humans but more elegant, and with pointed ears," that fairly accurately summed up my people. "They tend to be attuned to nature more, and have more of a magical aptitude, but are also often haughty or arrogant."

"I see," I said, quietly thinking to myself. If this was correct then at some point in time our two people had crossed paths but what had caused us and them to separate as we did. "And in these legends, what happens to the elves?" I asked, and he glanced at me again, a spark of recognition and understanding in his eyes. Well, this one at least was not slow.

"Often they are in decline, being pushed out by humanity, that's us," he said it as though he meant himself and his people. "Often it is said that they reproduce slower, but live longer, and humanity pushes into their forests, there is often conflict, and more times than not the human's greater numbers drive them back to where they came from." he pulled a lever down, and a strange clicking started, glancing in the conveniently positioned mirrors he looked made the carriage move sideways into another area of the black path. "So, the question is whether or not there is any validity to those stories," I explained to him about my peoples custom of clipping the ears, and he nodded, though I had no way of knowing if it was to himself or to me. "That fits the MO," he said with a nod.

"What is an M O?" I asked him, there seemed to be many shortened phrases, or words that had multiple meanings when in different contexts in his language, like cool for example.

"Modus operandi," he said, and the words didn't feel like the ones he had said before, somehow they felt different. "Its Latin, which is the language of scholars and intellects, it means Operating Methods, in this case Elves are almost always haughty when interacting with humans, almost always see themselves as superior beings, and so it would make sense to punish one of their own, making him or her look like a lesser being, like a human." I let that sit for a moment, thinking about it, and wondering if we were just jumping to conclusions without the necessary data to properly analyze the situation. "You don't seem so bad yira," he said with a shrug.

"Yira?" I asked, one eyebrow raised, more in annoyance than in confusion. No one had called me Yira since I was five years old, and I wasn't about to let a man whom I had just met this day start. "My name is Ityira, and I would appreciate it if you would say it properly." crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes at him, that often elicited the response I was looking for at this moment. But he didn't back down, he simply laughed.

"Yira is cute though, short, sweet-"

"And it is not my name," I snapped at him, and once again the man just laughed.

"What about Ity, as it Itty bitty?" he asked and then really broke out in to laughter when he saw my face. "Just a heads up, I'm probably going to keep calling you Yira, it's cuter and shorter." I had to stop myself from growling at him, likely it would cause the man to simply laugh more. I crossed my arms tighter and looked pointedly away from him and out the clear glass at the tall buildings and other carriages speeding past. Which, rather infuriatingly caused another chuckle. Apparently I was quite the source of amusement to this man.

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"There we go," he said, and looking over at him I saw a massive yellow M suspended on a black pole. "Mc'Donalds," he said as he pulled off of the black path with another series of clicking caused by the lever. "Will just go through the drive through, we have alot of stuff to do today." he said and pulled the automaton carriage into a line of vehicles that curved around the building, stopping behind one.

"You get food here?" I asked looking curiously at the building, it was a tan color with a red roof, and on the clear glass of the windows were paintings, paintings of food I assumed, but not like any I had seen before.

"Yeah, burgers and the like-" he paused and looked at me, a question forming on his face. "Do elves eat meat?"

"Meat?" I asked, and I had to force the offended sound out of my voice, to shove it down. After all he had no way of knowing that in my culture eating meat was relegated to the lessers of society. I had, as a person of noble birth, never so much as tasted meat, it was bellow my station.

"Okay," he said with a nod, apparently reading the look of disgust on my face. "No ham crescent for you, got it." and he pulled in front of a rectangular outcropping with pictures of food on it along with lists of words and numbers.

"Welcome to Mcdonalds, what can I get for you today?" I opened my eyes wide in shock, and leaned closer to get a better look at the talking board. Somehow, they had made an automaton that spoke, this was something we had never been able to achieve. I was about to ask a question when Amos spoke back to it.

"Hi, yeah, I'll have two ham egg and cheese biscuit, a large caramel mocha," he glanced at me and thought for a second before continuing, "Two egg mcmuffins, that's just the egg and cheese right? No meat?"

"Yes Sir," the talking box said.

"Cool, then I would also like a fruit and yogurt Parfait, as well as another caramel mocha."

"Anything else?" the box asked, "Does everything look correct on the screen?" I practically crawled over the top of him to see what he was looking at and he looked at me with a strange expression on his face.

"No that looks good," he said.

"That will be $17.36 at the first window," the voice said and Amos's face darkened a little as he pulled the automaton vehicle forward.

"Son of a bitch, we are eating at home next time," he growled before arching his back and reaching into a pocket to pull out a rectangle of fabric of some sort. He opened it and pulled out a smaller flat rectangle that was bright colors as he turned around the corner of the building.

At a small window he handed the rectangle to a man who did something I couldn't see from my lower vantage point before handing it and a long thin piece of parchment back to Amos. who promptly crumpled it and threw it over his shoulder into the back of the automaton carriage, where it landed with a few others of its like, before he put the rectangle back and slid the bigger rectangle into his pocket. We pulled forward and a brown bag of some sort was handed to him, which he promptly handed to me. After that came two dark brown containers of liquid, and a third, clear one that was filled with white and what looked to be bits of fruit.

The bag was warm on my lap and I looked inside to see smaller wrapped packages of some sort. "Go ahead and grab yours," he said, and not knowing whose were whose, I simply pulled them out and laid them on top of the bag, which I used to cover my legs. He glanced over and grabbed one of them, unwrapping it deftly with one hand in what had to be a practiced movement. "Yours are the ones that have the V on them," he said. And following his gesture I picked up one package and unwrapped it, though I used two hands.

It was an interesting looking food, for sure, it looked to be bread of some sort on the top and the bottom, with a cooked egg and some cheese in the middle. I glanced over at him and then closed my eyes as I took a bite…

[Amos]

I was halfway done with my first sandwich before she even tried a bite of hers. As soon as she bit into it her eyes opened wide, sparkling blue sapphires that seemed to dance with pleasure. Before I could even comment she was stuffing the mcmuffin into her mouth like a starving woman and was unwrapping her second one, I quickly finished my own and reached for my second, sure that if I didn't eat it now she would scarf it down before I could get to it, meat or no meat.

I smiled as I watched her eat in apparent pleasure, I'm sure Ronald would feel quite some pride knowing that his food was good enough for even a prim and proper elven lady. She finished her sandwiches in record time and looked back in the bag, before looking at me with big puppy dog eyes that managed to be both humorous and sad to me at the same time. "Don't look at me like that," I said, taking another bite of my sandwich, "You still have a parfait and a coffee," I said, pointing to the two of them where they sat in the cupholders between us. She smiled, and seemed to perk up as she grabbed the parfait and looked at it from different angles. "Should be a spoon in the bag." she quickly found it, popped off the lid and started eating.

The first bite of the parfait made her groan in pleasure, a sound that made me shift a little in the seat to hide my own stirring reaction to the sound. She ate the parfait slowly, seemingly wanton to savor it, but it was also quickly gone. I finished my food as we pulled into the mall parking lot, and reached down, pulling the tab on the coffee lid and pressing it into the holder.She mimicked the motion with the coffee of her own and I was about to tell her to slow down as it was hot, but she put it to her lips and tipped it up before I could.

Her eyes opened wide, but this time it was not in pleasure. With a hiss of pain she pushed the cup away violently, accidentally dropping it in the process as more hot liquid splashed on her hand. It fell, landing on the floorboard, where it promptly burst open. She pulled her legs out of the way, tucking them against her chest in a rather quick motion, showing speed and elegance.

Thankfully the majority of it simply splashed under the dash, but a few drops did get on her. I pulled to a quick stop, not in a parking space at all, but also not really caring at the moment. "It's hot," I said dumbly, it was obviously something she had already discovered. "You got to be careful," I said, equally as dumbly. "Are you okay?" I asked, and she glared at me before softening a little and nodding. I fished out a napkin and reached over, wiping a drop of coffee off of her face on her cheek. Her face was red, but thankfully not from being burned. She looked down and winced at the mess on the floorboards.

"Sorry," she said in a small voice, her knees still hugged to her chest.

"Its fine, I should have warned you, I'm just glad you aren't hurt," I said, it seemed to be the right thing to say, as her blush deepened and she smiled a little. "Want some of mine?" I asked and the smile vanished and she hissed, pressing herself against the door, well away from me and the apparently threatening coffee.

"I don't like coffee," she hissed like a cornered animal, and I had to fight the urge to laugh at her.