The man who emerged from the vehicle was medium height, muscular with a glossy pair of bluejay-like wings. His short, wavy hair was light blue, and he wore a floral-printed button-up shirt and a pair of khaki cargo shorts. He pulled over next to an overgrown guard station and parked so that the car door shielded the view from oncoming traffic.
"What's he doing?" whispered Saoirse. Both she and Arthur were inside the guard station, where Saoirse had been keeping watch through a small lookout window while Arthur tried to work out how to open the shutters on the outer window. They'd found a set of keys right there on the booth's counter, but the locks had rusted and were difficult to turn.
"Is it Daffodil?" grunted Arthur. Like the man outside, Arthur had a pair of feathery wings. They were black and crow-like, and the left one had been flinching continuously for the past half hour. Saoirse suspected it was the one he'd broken as a teenager. Arthur wore a frayed "RKLOG" t-shirt with a button-up closure for his wings at the shoulder and a damp pair of swim trunks over a pair of flip-flops. Arthur's tanned skin was even darker than usual under his dark freckles after a month of working in the sun for an archaeological dig, and he kept having to tuck his shoulder-length dark curly hair behind his ears while he worked.
The man outside looked around, and Saoirse noticed his amber eyes. "He doesn't have any pupils," whispered Saoirse.
Arthur sniffed, and Saoirse thought she heard a note of jealousy in his tone. "Blue-haired, dumb tan lines, and a nice butt? That's Milly's hot husband, all right. He's just half human."
If the man outside could hear them he didn't react: he chugged the last of the water from a large water bottle in his front seat and put the cap in his pocket with an agonized expression. The man unzipped his khakis and pulled out his circumcised penis, lowering the bottle in front of him.
"I think he's about to pee," whispered Saoirse. Arthur was grumbling to himself while he worked at the second lock of four, and didn't seem to hear.
The man outside glanced at the road guiltily and drew his beautiful bluejay-like wings around himself, somehow turning directly toward Saoirse and giving her a better view. He seemed to have trouble letting go and took several deep, steadying breaths.
"You can do it," said Saoirse quietly.
Outside, the man managed a drip. He tried to relax his stance when Arthur had a breakthrough with the second lock. The loud metallic screech carried out to the man, who flinched and finally let go.
Arthur climbed onto the counter to get some leverage for the third lock while the blue-haired man outside began filling the bottle. His shoulders and wings sagged in relief, but his eerie pupilless eyes darted nervously around.
The third lock clicked, and the man outside jumped. His large bottle was over half full, and his tanned face paled.
"Thanks for the encouragement, Sersh," said Arthur. "I needed that." He got to work on the fourth lock. Outside, the blue-haired man was dangerously close to filling the bottle. She couldn't hear him, but his mouth formed the words "no no no no no" when the bottle overflowed.
"Aaand got it!" declared Arthur. He slid off the counter, accidentally sweeping Saoirse off her feet with his wing as he turned. He helped Saoirse up, apologizing profusely before turning around to take the shutter off the window.
"I don't know why you'd put four locks on something like this," snorted Arthur. The blue-haired man came into view as Arthur lowered the shutter, and hurriedly capped off the bottle and stowed it away in his car. The puddle on the pavement in front of him was still spreading, and he looked like he was about to cry.
"Afternoon, Daffodil!" said Arthur, oblivious. The window itself was easy to open, and the blue-haired man handed several bags of groceries over to them. Saoirse could smell the urine on his hands, and she could smell the anxiety in it. It also confirmed what Arthur had said about him being half human.
Saoirse was half Renoige. For the most part, she looked like a normal, hairless human with pale yellow hair, except that she also had a pair of catlike ears and a fluffy knee-length tail, and her hazel eyes had a reflective green glint. Saoirse had also inherited the keen Renoige sense of smell, and having traveled more than most Renoige she knew, she took an odd sort of pride in how much information she could glean from people's urine.
One of the bags Arthur took from the man emanated the intoxicating aroma of fried food. Saoirse's mouth watered, but her sympathy for her fellow half-human kept her in the booth while Arthur skittered off impatiently with the bags.
"Hey, um-...Daffodil?" said Saoirse, fairly sure his name wasn't Daffodil.
The blue-haired man cracked a smile. "It's Digitalis. You were close though, it's a flower too."
"I'm Saoirse. Nice to meet you," she said. He held up the wrong hand to touch palms with her, but she appreciated that it was the hand that he hadn't peed on. "Is everything okay?" She tried to keep her tone light, but couldn't help seeing the full water bottle.
"It is now," said Digitalis, blushing. "You two didn't um...see me-"
Saoirse shook her head quickly. "I'm half-renoige, I can uh...I can tell. Does the camp even have bathrooms?"
"No," said Digitalis, looking like he was about to cry again.
