The place was a dive. The faunus were all skeevy. The tequila tasted like piss and Sal’s drink had a strange smell to it.
It felt like home. And in this home, only faunus were allowed in.
Vixen leaned against the small table that seemed like it would give at any moment, her attention focused on Sal, the Nincada faunus who she had zapped with moonlight during the team naming ceremonies. She had apologized to him formally, explaining her fear of bugs, and Sal had responded in a way that she wasn’t expecting, the faunus smacking his fake leg loudly as he spoke.
“Don't worry!! If I ever met a Swalot faunus I'm sure I'd be pretty uneasy of em too! Met a grimm of one of ‘em one day when I was younger, almost cost me my life!”
“Shit, a grimm did that to you? Swalot too?” Vixen stared down at his fake leg, her claws twitching with the urge to touch it. “No wonder you want to be a hunter. I think I would as well if my leg was gnawed off. I hope you can beat grimm with it.” She smirked, which managed to get a smile out of the faunus’s face. Something in his eyes almost seemed to light up.
“"Not so much gnawed off as slowly digested! It was a horrible experience but I came out on top of it, so I try not to think on it TOO much!!" Sal hesitated for the barest of seconds, the cheery facade dimming a little before he grinned again at Vixen’s statement. "Ah!! Yes my usual prosthetic has a grenade launcher built into it, so I can blow them away with it real well!!"
“Slowly..... digested....? Holy shit. I've seen some things but that is still fucking terrible,” Vixen quipped. The talk of the grenade launcher had her eyes drifting back to his fake leg. “... it doesn't go off if you stamp too hard does it?”
Sal must have caught that she was staring a lot, because with a loud smack he laid the leg on the table. Vixen giggled, her claws running over the material as he spoke. “No it's really well built!! It opens up like a flower and all the stuff is on the inside. So long as someone doesn't pierce where the grenades are stored, it's fine!”
Vixen whistled, still tracing her claws along the seams of it. “Damn, this is high quality!!! Eclipse -- oh, my weapon, ha-- is made from ancient stuff so this feels so good compared to that... does it feel weird where it's connected to you or--”
Immediately the owner of the faunus-only establishment snapped at them. “Ey, Sal! No weapons on the table!” The owner transitioned into a fast language that had a node of melody to it, or might have been if it didn’t come from such an ugly mug.
... Until Sal snapped back in that language and it sounded like music. Vixen’s jaw dropped, staring openly at Sal as he spoke with words of quicksilver that threaded between his sharp teeth, hands making gestures that Vixen could hardly follow. She could barely follow his words, they weren’t anything she had ever heard before, and absurdly she felt herself getting angry. What gave Sal the right to sound like that? What? No, wait, she was just kidding herself, what the fuck was going on, talk Vixen you dumb fox-- “Oh, that was... what language was that again?”
Sal had lit up at her compliments about his leg, and his smile only seemed to get more charming as he looked at her. “Oh it's a different dialect of Kalosian, similar but different, it's commonly spoken where my parents were from!”
Speak, Vixen. Speak. Think. Breathe. “O-oh, really? It sounds, uhm.... nice.” The nice fell off her tongue like the rest of her dignity. Her sanity. Her fuck it was just another language.
Oh, no. Did Sal catch on? No. Oh wait, shit. The smile that appeared on his face was all charm, all the stupid charm that Vixen had been fighting the entire evening, and once again he weaved words through his tongue and teeth that he had no right to do. He chuckled when he finished that sentence, leaving Vixen’s heart somewhere in her throat as he switched back to a dialect they could both understand. “I'm glad my native tongue is that nice sounding! It is one of the languages of romance for a reason!” He elbowed her and gestured to the owner of the bar. “Unless you’re someone like that of course, ha!”
Vixen needed to gather her wits again, but her skin felt warm where Sal had elbowed her and she wasn’t sure if her stupid blue rings were making her skin any less red.
“I’m really happy you decided to stop by, Sal!” The Pumpkaboo faunus said as he flounced toward an empty part of the library, a great book in his arms and his eyes luminescent in the low light. “This is going to be fun, trust me!”
“I have no doubt that it will,” the Nincada faunus replied, wondering just how this kitty faunus had managed to strike up such a strange business under the school’s nose. Not that anything about Max’s trade would really alert the school, but it was a curiosity none-the-less. A curiosity that Sal intended to investigate. It wasn’t every faunus that bragged about being able to read palms and tell fortunes in tea leaves, after all. And Sal could think of at least a half dozen uses of knowing what this Max could decipher about other students.
The other man was practically bouncing on his heels as he led Sal to a part of the library which must have not see much use, as the cat faunus had spread out a colorful cloth that evoked mystical images over a few chairs. He ducked between a parting in the cloth, antennae brushing against the edges and finding himself smiling at how Max looked, seated on a pillow with bright eyes and a wide grin. He even waggled his fingers at Sal. “I tried to create the right atmosphere,” Max purred, “but I don’t have the talents my grandmother possesses. I do have her gift.” His eyes glittered. “You wanna see~?”
“I actually was far more interested in you,” Sal said, flashing one of his trademark grins. “And some of the information that you’ve been--”
“Oh! Oh! Do you want a palm reading?” Max grabbed Sal’s hand before the other could react, tracing soft fingers across his palm. “I’m really good at it! Trust me!”
Sal hesitated, but... what harm could come out of something so simple? If Max revealed anything unsavory about him, he could just deny it anyways. And it might get him on better terms with the Pumpkaboo faunus. With a shrug, Sal sat on one of the cushions, pushing his prosthetic leg into a comfortable position.. and with the grenade launcher in easy reach. Just in case. “Sure! Show me some of those gifts of yours in action,” Sal drawled with a smile.
Max wasted no time in turning Sal’s palm over, his pupils narrowing into slits and forehead wrinkling. The faunus said nothing for several minutes, causing Sal to fidget, unsure of he should break the silence with questions or leave the poignant moment.
... Sal, however, could never stay silent for long, especially where the reading of secrets was concerned. “Do you see anything you like there, do--”
“Your Fate line.” One of Max’s claws traced a line at the edge of his palm. “I haven’t seen anything like this in years.”
“And, ah, what’s that?” Sal’s apprehension was increasing the longer that he stayed there.
“It’s... It’s a line that shows your connection to someone else,” Max said, his voice soft. “Someone who will become very important to you. Your Fate Line is... it’s twisted. It’s twisted right at its very core.”
Sal squirmed. “What do you mean?”
“You have someone who will become intrinsically important to you,” Max continued. “They have the potential to become everything. Your friend, your lover, your soulmate...” Max’s eyes lifted to Sal’s, locking the bug faunus in place. “Your salvation.”
Sal shuddered and tried to pull his hand away, but Max held on. “They will have the same line. They will tie into your life in ways you can’t even begin to imagine. They will be the key to everything you wanted... And potentially... They will ruin you. A fate line like this... So twisted... It can break. It can break and snap. It can unravel and leave you unfulfilled. Alone.”
Alone. Sal hissed, and couldn’t keep up appearances. He jerked his hand away and strode out of that makeshift tent. “You’re lying, Max,” Sal called over his shoulder. “How can someone like me end up alone?”
“Do you want to know who that person is?” Max stood, following Sal until the bug faunus whipped around to glare at him. “I could tell you. If I ever see them. If they let me look at their palm.”
Sal hesitated... and then shook his head. “Keep your answers, I can find my own.”
Max watched the Nincada faunus depart with a sigh, and started to pull the blankets down.
Max already knew the other person that would tie into Sal’s life. It was an Umbreon Faunus with a moon embedded in her palm, with blood that soaked her skin and would leave her mark on Sal.
But Max couldn’t tell the full story. There were too many unknowns, too many factors, and the only answer he had found had scared him for both their lives. The Fate Line ended in a mark that looked like fangs, and nothing good ever came from sharp teeth.
