Aria's Quest - Fascination

Welcome to Aria's Quest! If this is your first time here this is what you need to know. Aria is a young woodland fairy on a quest in the big city to find a human she can help. If she's successful she can return to her tribe as a full adult. Aria's chosen to look for a true believer (one who already believes in magic and fairies) because she thinks that will make her quest easier...but finding a true believer may be harder than she thought! Read the rest of the story here. 

Section 2

Searching

Part 6

Fascination

Aria was so enthralled by the smell of coffee, and watching the humans, that before she knew it the entire day had passed! She’d spent most of it perched on one ledge or another just watching. Occasionally she’d hover in for a closer look, but she’d stopped after nearly getting her wings scalded near the machine that spit out the brown liquid, which she had learned was named latte, she thought. It seemed like there were a lot of different names, but that was the most common one.  Trying to read the menu board didn’t seem to help much either! 

One thing that fascinated her was how the humans seemed to just know what all the different names meant. They’d walk up to the counter, as confident as you please, and order something crazy like a “tall non-fat latte with a shot of sugar-free raspberry, and a blueberry scone please.” The workers would scratch some symbols on the side of a cup, and then get ready for the next person. It was almost like watching a dance! 

Aria had decided that these lattes must hold some important place in the human society and was excited to go home and talk to Gina about it to find out more. Even so, she was startled when she realized it had grown dark, and she was late for dinner by the time she made it home. 

“Sorry Gina! I was just so fascinated that I completely lost track of time!” She exclaimed as she flew into the apartment when Gina opened the door.

“It’s ok lassie, I put a plate aside for you. I’m used to it; Robyn was never very good at getting home at any sort of proper time.” 

Still hyper from her day, Aria giggled at the thought of Robyn doing anything that was proper, he seemed such the wild child! 

“So tell me, what did you do today?” Gina asked as she pulled out and reheated Aria’s food. 

“Oh it was so much fun! I stopped in this place called ‘Brew it Up’ and I just couldn’t leave! I was there all day, and…” Aria’s words were flowing out in such a torrent that she could barely keep from tripping over her own tongue, “they drink this brown stuff, I think it’s called a latte, and hundreds of people came in! They all seemed to order different things, but knew exactly what they wanted. I think it must be some sort of important ritual in human society. I was there all day before I knew it…” She trailed off when she realized Gina was trying not to laugh. “What’s so funny?”

“Well for one it’s called coffee, and a latte is just a type of coffee…” 

“Oh.” 

“But I think it’s wonderful that you’re observing human behavior! Coffee is an important part of many human’s daily routine. We should get you some to try.”

“How will I know where to start? There seemed to be so many different variations!”

“We’ll start with just a regular cup of coffee with cream and sugar. You can go fancy later.” 

“Ok!”