Spinning around, they glared at the pastel, gumdrop-colored Spryte who had stepped on their tail. Niki smirked as she removed her high-heeled foot from the thinnest part right above their rattle. She took a few scales with her, and she made a noise of disgust, as iftheyhad dirtiedhersomehow.
“Oops, sorry, Vysov,” she said with far too much innocence. “It was an accident.”
The people with her smothered laughter, and Cya shook their rattle in warning, peeling back their lips to flash fang. Unimpressed by the threat, the group—consisting of several people they had called friends once upon a time—walked past them, right over their purse and belongings. Something crunched under the numerous feet, and Cya winced as they coiled their tail beneath them and lowered to the sidewalk to pick up the mess.
Embarrassment burned their cheeks, but they kept their expression blank as they gathered their belongings and shoved them back into their purse. Scattered on the pavement, they found the pieces of the delicate gold bracelet they had spent the last few weeks creating. The moss agate gemstones were unharmed, but the twisted braids of gold they’d painstakingly molded had been snapped in several places.
Furious tears burned their eyes, but they refused to let them gather. It was just a bracelet. It didn’t matter. None of this mattered.
Rising from the ground, they hooked their purse over one shoulder and secured their computer bag across their chest. To ensure no one stepped on their tail again, they locked their muscles to remain as upright as they could—the unipedal version of walking on their tip-toes—keeping their tail as short as possible without compromising their balance. It made their muscles ache, but they pushed through the discomfort.
They hadn’t always been a pariah. Before Kent—their asshole ex—they had even been popular. Niki, and half the people she surrounded herself with now, had been Cya’s friends first. Niki was only queen bitch because Cya had welcomed her to their group to begin with, and in return, she had usurped Cya the moment they had fallen from grace.
It should hardly have surprised them, really. Niki taking Cya’s boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—had been a step too far, in their opinion, but Kent was the reason they were even in this mess to begin with, so maybe he and Niki deserved each other.
At the entrance to the STEM building, a group of athletes were playing hackysack while their admirers stood to the side and fawned over them. There were very few Mammylion students at P.U., given the systemic speciesism and discrimination that ran rampant within the admissionscommittee, but the few that made it in usually did so under athletic scholarships.
The sports programs in Pride were rather abysmal, and the only reason their schools ever ranked was because of students brought in from other districts to play for their teams, including the group playing hackysack. Three Lupyns, a Vixyn, a Nyko, and a Bovyn. All athletic, all muscular, all sporting hoodies with“Pride University Dyscus”scrawled on their backs along with player numbers.
Their groupies watched the game, clapping and giggling like idiots. Anywhere outside the context of school, those same Pride socialites would never gush over a Mammylion, but here, the athletes were welcomed, admired, and probably even fetishized. How easily prejudice could be brushed aside when the person was talented or attractive enough.
It was disgusting. Not because Cya believed the Mammylions were beneath them or unworthy of admiration. They had before; they could admit it to themself. They had grown up believing all manner of bullshit bigotry, but they were trying to unlearn it. Now that they knew what it felt like to be an outcast, they didn’t want to make anyone else feel this way ever again.
No, it was disgusting because they knew most of those groupies would never be caught dead interacting with these athletes in front of their parents or out in Pride society. They’d hook up in secret, just to say they slummed it with a Lust Nyko, but out in the real world, they’d look down their noses at them.
In the deepest, most selfish parts of themself, Cya could also admit that they were downright jealous. Jealous that these athletes were so readily accepted by their peers when they themself were shunned. All because they’d trusted a boy once, and that boy had taken one look at them, at theirabnormality, and told the whole school about the freak with the fucked-up genitals.
The Vixyn kicked the hackysack too hard, and the bag full of sand rolled to a stop near the sidewalk where Cya had stopped, lost in their thoughts. A Lupyn with creamy blond fur, a backwards red ballcap, and gym shorts jogged over to retrieve it. Cya recognized him immediately, like they had recognized him at the Passing Through Cafe where he’d interviewed for a job earlier that week.
Expression alight with recognition, he grinned as he crouched down to retrieve the hackysack. “Hey, I know you.”
With a shake of their head, they said, “No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?” he asked as he straightened to his full height.
If Cya was standing more comfortably, they would have been shorter than him, but since they were holding themself higher, they were slightly taller. However, given his muscled physique and broad shoulders, he still felt bigger, like he was taking up all the surrounding space, crowding them in.
“Yo, Dex! C’mon, man, class is gonna start soon,” the Nyko called out, and the Lupyn—Dex—turned to wave her off.
Cya took his distraction as an opportunity to escape and hurried up the ramp, slipping through the entrance doors as Dex shouted after them. “Wait, where—I guess we’ll catch up later.”
Oh, they most certainly wouldnot. They didn’t know much about the Lupyn, but they knew enough. He was a clueless idiot who’d only been accepted to Pride University because of his athletic prowess in dyscus. He laughed too loud and smiled too wide, and he ate up the attention the girls—and some guys—gave him.
Thankfully, they only shared one class with him, and just because Glyma had hired him at the cafe didn’t mean Cya had to talk to him. Or be nice to him. Or acknowledge his existence in any way.
They had enough problems; they didn’t need an annoying, showboating jock making their university experience more difficult than it already was. Dex had his group of athletic friends and admirers, and Cya had… themself. And that was how it would stay.
Cya would make sure of it.
Chapter two
Destiny’s a Bitch
Cya
Bythetimetheysettled in a chair at the front of the lecture hall, Cya’s tail was nearly cramping. They subtly rubbed the strained tendons and inspected the place Niki’s heel had dug into their skin. Other than a few missing scales, they were no worse for wear, and they coiled their tail under their seat to keep it out of the way as an influx of students poured through the doors to the lecture hall. They centered their computer on the desk and ignored the other students, hoping they would be ignored right back.
Unfortunately, fate had never favored them.
