The breakfast that she had with Rian at nearly 4 AM was really good, he had taken time to cook it, but it seemed like time was dredging on, there was not a whole lot that they could do other than talk about the way that the village seemed to run. It seemed like a lot of the people in the village were nocturnal, for one reason or another, and so after about an hour of talking, right around 5 AM, they finally went over so that Ado could check up on her wounds, and attempt to figure out what exactly she was.

"Thank you for coming over, you both," Ado said, a grim look on her face. Raea hadn't even wasted any time sitting in the chair that she had been sitting in the previous night, knowing that she was going to be asked to sit. "Sso, how long did sshe end up ssleeping Rian?" Ado asked, looking over at the werewolf for a brief moment before bringing his eyes back to the wound, or where the wound would have been. It seemed that in the time that Raea had slept, showered, ate, and talked with Rian it had healed over, leaving only a small scar. Luckily where it was, it hadn't messed up Raea's hair at all, so at least there was that. "19 hours and some change, she didn't seem to react to your venom other than what it normally does for humans, make them sleep. And it seems like your scales, and Hallie's scales, helped heal the wound on her head."

"And any ideass on what sshe could be, Rian?" "Still, nothing on my end Ado," Rian responded, crossing his eyes. "Hmm." Ado seemed to respond, without saying much. Raea was keeping her mouth shut as Ado looked over the parts of her that were visible with an intense amount of scrutiny. "New blood, tell me, the sscar on your face," Ado paused, tracing the scar on Raea's face that went over her eye and slightly over her nose with a surprisingly sharp fingernail, though Ado made sure not to pierce the skin while she did. "Did you have thiss before?"

"Before?" Raea asked the question a confusing one with how Ado worded it. It wasn't unusual for Ado's speech to be misunderstood, she seemed to have an older way of talking, or that English wasn't her first language, which it technically wasn't. "Before Rian found you. Obvioussly." Each word that contained an 's' that Ado spoke out loud seemed to have the 's' in the word elongated. If Raea hadn't run across Nagas in her research before all of this, she would have questioned why that was, but in reality, it was because of the forked tongue that Ado had in her mouth. It wasn't modified, it was something that she was born with, as she was part snake. "Yeah, I had it before Rian found me." "And before you were killed, I assume?"

Raea wanted to fight back again against what Ado said, both Rian and Ado had been saying that since the last night, she had been killed, and while Raea was concerned about how she ended up in an unmarked gave in the woods, and how she got that wound in the first place when she knew that she didn't have it before she went over to Justin's, Raea still hadn't quite come to terms with the fact that Justin had killed her.

Trauma could do that to a person, though. Sometimes when a victim is being abused in any type of relationship, they tend to not want to believe that the worst parts of a person could exist. Most people who know anything about how a person's mind works would know that is commonly known as 'Seeing things with rose-colored glasses.' She didn't want to believe that someone who she had loved, and that she had thought had loved her could do something like that to her. Even though she didn't want to believe it yet, that didn't mean that she was going to keep trying to argue the point that they didn't know what happened, and it could have been something completely different than Justin murdering her.

Raea was by no means an optimist, so most things were seen realistically, but this was one of the things that was going to take her time to admit. "I've had it since I was a kid." Raea finally responded after a moment of what seemed like the slowest minute she had ever experienced. "Okay, I will not assk how you got the sscar, I just needed to know if you had it before you were wounded. And your eyess, you ssaid that they were green before, yess?" Ado asked, and Raea only nodded in response. "What color wass your hair before?" "Not this white. It was a lighter blonde." "Hmm," Ado responded without words again, just a noise that came from her closed mouth.

"Your sskin. Were you alwayss thiss pale? I have never sseen a human thiss pale before." "I wasn't this pale, but I wasn't tan either." "Sso the physsical thingss we know that hass changed about you iss that your eyess have gone from green to red, you are paler than before, your hair iss a lighter sshade, and that you died. Otherwisse, you wouldn't have been found by Rian after digging yoursself out of a grave." Ado turned away from Raea and slithered her way over to the bookshelf that stood in the corner and she pulled out a book that looked like a journal. She opened it, flipping through the pages. "You are not like me, nor are you a ssiren. I asssume by your sslightly wet hair that you took a sshower. That meanss that you would have had a tail replace your legss if you were a mermaid or a ssiren. Rian would have been able to ssmell that you were a werewolf, and ssince he hassn't I asssume that that issn't the casse. He alsso would have ssmelt if you were a vampire. You aren't a flessh eater." Ado was talking so quickly about many different creatures while she looked through the journal. Raea watched Ado's face as she quickly scanned the pages of the journal before flipping to the next page. Finally, Ado shut the journal when it seemed that she had read every single page that had writing on it, which was only about half the journal.

"The only thing that I know sstill exisstss that wass once a human would have been the flessh eaterss. But you aren't that. I will have to do more ressearch." Ado slithered her way back over, placing the journal on the table before she grabbed Raea's hand, quickly cutting it with her sharp nail before staring at the blood that began to dribble out. It wasn't a deep wound, but it was enough that a few drops of blood came forth. Raea had winced and tried to yank her hand away when Ado cut her hand, but Ado was a lot stronger than she looked and was able to keep Raea's hand in hers. "Rian, get me a clean rag," Ado said as she stared at the blood. Rian had wanted to jump down Ado's throat when she hurt his mate, but he was able to compose himself. Ado was just trying to help. He went and grabbed a clean piece of cloth from a cabinet that was under the cleaned-off table, bringing it over before watching as Ado dabbed at the cut to get some of the blood on the cloth. "I will tesst your blood later," Ado said out loud, though her eyebrows furrowed the more she looked at the small cut that she made on Raea's hand.

"Odd," Ado said after a moment. The small cut was already trying to close itself. It wasn't healing super-fast, but it was healing fast enough that it caught her attention. "You sseem to have felt the pain of me cutting your hand, but you sseem to already be healing from me doing ssuch. It iss quicker than a normal human, but not quite ass fasst as if you were a naga or a werewolf" Now that Ado had brought it up, she had seen Ado cut off some scales from her tail the last night, and it seemed as though Ado hadn't done it by now. Another thing she would have to ask about later that she made a note about. She wanted to get the correct information for the mythological creatures that she had researched in her past because it seemed like there were so many inconsistencies. Maybe one day she could correct the misinformation that she had read so that people like her would have the correct information.

However, Raea didn't know that the misinformation was not because of humans getting it wrong, it was from the source directly. What better way to throw humans off of your scent than to give the curious one incorrect information? Now that Raea was thinking about it, nothing she had read had said that mythological creatures could cohabitate in the same area without fighting over territory. A siren and a mermaid living in the same place? Sure. That made sense. But a naga and a werewolf? No. That was a little odd, and yet here Ado and Rian were in front of her. And what about werewolves and their packs? Wolves themselves were pack animals through and through, and it was always weird to see a solitary wolf without a pack. And yet, Rian had been the only werewolf that she had seen so far. Then again, she had only seen Ado and Rian, and the insides of their homes since she was found. She had heard Ado tell Rian to go get some Siren's scales so she assumed that there was at least a siren nearby, but other than that she wasn't sure what else could be in this quaint little village.

Raea must have not been paying attention for a moment because when she was finally snapped back to reality, Ado was having a hushed conversation with Rian across the room. They were just far enough away and talking just quiet enough that she couldn't make out what they were saying but could see their lips moving and hear the very hushed whispers.

"I want to tesst her blood, but until I know what sshe iss, I need you to keep a closser eye on her than I thought you may have needed to. I know you need to protect her, but I honestly cannot come up with what sshe could be. That iss, unlesss sshe is ssomething that iss believed to be extinct, even by our sstandardss." "And if she is Ado? What do we do then?" "I don't know Rian. Sshe could be anything that I don't have written down in my journal that I have come acrosss. We will have to play it by ear. I know you are going to follow her into the human world, ssee how sshe actss while around humanss and keep notes for me. I want her back here every weekend sso I can tesst her." "One small problem that has come up Ado. She doesn't know what she is, neither do we, but she wants to tell someone what happened. Her name is Kira."

"A human?" Ado asked in bewildered shock, her eyes going wide and her eyebrows raised. "I believe her to be a human yes. I tried to convince her to not do it, it could make her and us unsafe but she is giving me no choice." "Sshe trusstss thiss human I guesss. We may be able to usse that to our advantage. Let her. It could be helpful to uss, and usseful enough that it could reveal what the new blood iss." Rian sighed when Ado said that, he was hoping that Ado would attempt to convince Raea to change her mind, but it seemed that Ado was on Raea's side. Outnumbered, and out of options, he knew he was going to have to let it happen. He could only help that telling the human wouldn't be the wrong plan and that it didn't put their village in danger.

"How will you hide that sshe lookss different? The blonde hair and pale sskin can be explained, but the eyess. That cannot be, red irissess doess not sshow up among humanss. We cannot gather information about how sshe actss around the humanss if they figure her out before sshe getss the chance to interact." "Contacts. I figured I would bring her to you to get her checked out and then go to another town's mall with her wearing sunglasses and a hoodie so that we could go get contacts. I will probably take her to the person she wants to tell later on tonight since you are going to sleep soon." "Good plan, I like it. You know where the keyss to your car iss, correct? I asssume you won't be trying to make her walk to the next town or that you will not sshift and run there. I would like it if neither of you get caught." "Yes Ado, I know where they are. Are there any other tests you want to do while we are here?" "No. Nothing I can do without more information about her blood, and about how sshe actss around the humanss. Go. Get out of my home sso that I may ssleep."

Rian nodded, before looking over at Raea. She was still sitting in the chair, but she was watching them from afar. It didn't seem like she was trying to hear what they were saying and didn't want to butt into a conversation that didn't exactly seem like she was invited to. At least she had manners that way. That or she was just socially awkward and didn't know when would be a good time to intrude. Before he could walk over to Raea to tell her his game plan, Ado grabbed his arm causing him to look back at the naga. "Don't forget to try and keep your wolf problemss in check. We do not need her to be sscared of you before we get the chance to figure out what sshe is." Ado said before slithering off to her room and shutting the door without saying goodbye to the new blood. Saying goodbye was not something Ado did, though for her it wasn't seen as rude to not say something when someone was about to leave your home. Ado was a naga, and they were not always a polite bunch of creatures. They weren't rude, but there were some human customs that nagas didn't abide by because they thought they were stupid.

Rian walked over to Raea, who stood up from the chair. "I'm guessing by her going into her room that is her way of telling us that we can leave?" "Yeah, nagas typically do not say goodbye like a human would when someone is leaving their home. Plus, Ado has always been finicky about her sleep schedule. That is why she was very upset when I woke her yesterday morning. She will go to sleep before the sun rises and wake up just after the sun falls." "So nagas are nocturnal?" Raea asked curiously, looking over at the bedroom door that was shut where Ado had gone in. "No, well, some are and can be, I guess. Ado is the only one I know. Ado is a nocturnal person. No point in being awake during the day when most of the people in our village are asleep during the day. She is our healer, like you would have had doctors at hospitals, we have an Ado."

"Is that all she does here?" Raea asked, bringing her eyes back to Rian. Rian was taller than her by a good bit, and it caused her to have to look up to be able to look at his face and into his eyes, unless they were both sitting down of course, but even then, she found it hard to not have to look up even if slightly. "No, Ado is kind of like our leader as well. We don't have one set person who tells everyone what to do here, but Ado is pretty well respected in this village. She is the oldest person here, and so we all just follow what she says because she has never done anything that has led us astray." Raea's mouth hung agape at the last words that came out of Rian's mouth. If Ado was the oldest, then how did she look not older than 20? Ado's skin was flawless, other than the scales that were scattered across her skin.

Rian wasn't going to let Raea ask the question he could tell was about to come out of her mouth. "Before you ask, no, I don't know how old she is, and no, you are not going to ask her. I don't know if it is something about nagas, but no matter their gender they find it very disrespectful if you ask about their age. I had to learn that the hard way when she thwapped me with her tail. Nagas typically do not like giving out the secrets of their species, they can be very secretive by nature. I'm lucky I know what I do." "Is it because you are in a relationship with her?" Raea asked, causing Rian to just blink at her, dumbfounded that she would even ask that.

"I mean no disrespect by asking that, it is just that you two seem to have some intimate way of speaking to one another. Not like you two are having sex or something like that, but more it just seems like you are close to her." "No. Ew. Ado is like a mother figure to me. She cared for me after she found me in the woods when I was young after... well... I will tell you that story when I trust you more. Ado cares for the people in this village like they are her children. She has a strange way of showing that she cares about people, but still, she cares. If she hadn't, I am sure that she would not have been willing to patch up your wound after I woke her up. I know as much as I do about her because I closely work with her. I am like an errand boy for her essentially. She needed some of Eluthe's, the siren that lives in the lake near here, and she sent me on the task. Even when I am not the one that brings a new blood to her she is more likely to send me on the task to gather things she needs. Now come on, let's get out of here before she comes out and she is upset that we are still here and talking in her living room while she is trying to sleep."

Raea nodded, and they both went to leave Ado's home. It was still slightly dark outside, but from where the moon was in the sky, she could tell that the sun was going to be coming up soon. "So what creatures are even in this village anyway? You said that a lot of them were nocturnal." "Well, obviously me, Ado, and Eluthe. So, a werewolf, a naga, and a siren." "Those are the ones I know of, yeah." "So, there are three elves, a female and two males. A nymph, a merman, three harpies, a male and a female dryad, a male and a female kitsune, and now you. But we don't know what you are." "Jesus, that is a lot. And that was all in the forest near my town."

"Well, yeah. There are more out there, in other villages around the world, but this is what we have. Vampires aren't allowed in our village, because vampires and werewolves don't get along all too well." "So that is the truth. I don't know what is and isn't the truth when it comes to what I researched. Honestly, there have been some things I wasn't quite sure of anymore because of what I have seen. And you guys don't like zombies either." "No one likes a flesh eater, they don't care who they are eating, they will just eat you," Rian said, he was leading her somewhere he hadn't been, and it wasn't long before they were in a secluded garage slightly away from the village. Normally, they didn't end up going out to the human towns, but that didn't mean that Rian didn't take joy rides occasionally, and to do that he needed a car. The real reason was that he wanted to travel for a while when he was younger, and when he did, he returned to the village.

He was one of the few people who could get away with being out around humans without being caught, as long as he was in his human form. That was due to many reasons that each species had for not being able to blend in with humans. "Get in. There is a pair of sunglasses in the car that you should probably put on. We are going to want to get you some contacts to cover up those eyes, and maybe a hoodie to cover up the wound on your head, even if it is mostly healed by now. It's the only way that we are going to be able to get you to blend in with the humans if we are going back to figure out what happened to you and why."

Raea nodded, getting into the passenger seat of the car. It took her a moment to look around for the sunglasses before she found them, pushing them onto her face to cover up her eyes. Even though Rian was hesitant for her to share what happened with Kira, Raea couldn't just disappear from Kira's life, nor could she lie to Kira. It wasn't that she wouldn't lie to Kira, the word couldn't was the truth. Kira always had a way of figuring out when people were lying to her, even if she had just met them. Plus, if she could trust anyone in the entire world to be able to keep her secret, it would have been Kira. Even if she had to go through getting Rian to trust her when she said that, she was willing to do it.

Rian looked around the garage for a moment before he found the keys to the car, going over and starting it up. "We aren't going to go to the mall in your town. I don't need anyone from your old school to recognize you before I can cover up the things that make it clear that you aren't human anymore. That could be deadly for both of us, because once someone figures that out, all it takes is a little more investigating to find out that I am not a human either. Luckily, I know of another mall in a town over that most people shouldn't recognize you, as long as you keep those sunglasses on, we should be okay." "Why do I have to conceal my features but you can have those glowing green eyes? They look like spotlights coming from your head." "And that, new blood, is why I am going to get a pair of contacts for myself just in case. My eyes only glow lightly, and only in the dark. That means as long as it is daylight out, I should be okay with my eyes. And considering malls aren't open at night past a certain time, and it is almost 6 AM, by the time we get there it should be daylight out." Raea crossed her arms in protest but didn't dare take those sunglasses off.

Rian was right, it was nearly 8 AM by the time that they got to the other town. Raea's old town was smaller, not small enough that it wouldn't have a mall, but it was further away from most of the other towns in the area. Considering they had to of been at least a 30-minute walk away from her old town in the village, and it had taken her and Rian an hour almost to get to the village from her unmarked grave, it wasn't that surprising that it took them almost two hours to get to the mall in the town that they were going to. It was a very quiet ride there, neither of them talking about anything and the radio only on a low volume. It wasn't that they weren't on speaking terms or anything like that, more so that they didn't have a whole lot to talk about. All of the questions that Raea had for Rian would have to wait until she knew him a little bit better, all of the questions she had about the village had been answered, and all of the questions that she had about the other species and what was real or not from her research she figured it would be better to ask those species rather than Rian.

Another two hours later, they had finally gotten everything they might have needed to conceal her new status as a non-human. They had decided to go all out, getting hair dye, and some makeup to brighten up her face a little bit so that her being so pale wasn't as jarring, as well as the contacts that they both needed. Eventually, Raea would be able to get away without wearing the makeup, she was inside a lot of the time, so her being paler than normal wasn't going to be a big change. The hair dye, and the contacts she would have to keep up until she was no longer in the human world. Rian didn't know when that would be, but based on how stubborn he had already found her to be, it was going to be a lot longer than he might have liked. They had also gotten cell phones for both of them to make sure that if for some reason they had gotten separated from one another while at the school they would be able to get back in contact with one another. Raea wouldn't have gotten another cell phone if she had her old one, but ever since she had dug out of the grave, she hadn't been able to find it and she had to assume that she hadn't been buried with it.

After that, they went and got food. Raea slipped into the bathroom to take off the sunglasses and slip in the contacts so that she wouldn't have to worry about wearing sunglasses indoors. People in the mall had looked at her funny when she didn't take her sunglasses off indoors, but Rian had made it clear to her in the car that until they got the contacts it wasn't such a great idea. They had looked for contacts that were colored as close to her actual eye color before as they could get, and unless someone was looking deep into her eyes most wouldn't notice the difference. They ran around doing nothing things, even making the long and arduous drive back to her original hometown. She was able to slip into her old home where her family lived unnoticed to grab some of her clothes. They wouldn't notice if she was there or not anyway, and they wouldn't notice if her stuff was missing. Her mom didn't care about her, her brother was too self-obsessed, and her father was nearly never home with his job schedule.

Rian didn't want to take Raea to go see Kira until it was later at night, he wanted to be able to have to deal with humans as little as possible, outside of the school. Rian had driven back to the garage, and he went to one of the members of the village, leaving Raea in the garage. He didn't want to freak them out with a new blood just yet, even though they were probably all aware by now. Most of them had great senses of smell, and Eluthe honestly couldn't keep her mouth shut when it came to secrets. Rian wasn't sure if Sirens just loved to gossip, or if that was just Eluthe herself. The Elves would be able to forge documents for him to be able to get into Raea's school. And with a little bit of the nymph's magic, he would be able to get in without a parent showing up to enroll him. Gods, did it help to have mystical friends? Of course, when he asked, he had to tell them what was going on, even if they were already aware of the new blood. Word traveled fast in their little town. The elves were more than willing to help him, the nymph, however, Ambirose, was a little bit harder to convince. He had to promise to bring her some shiny human trinkets when he came back to get her to agree, and with him being surrounded by humans and their things he was most likely going to be able to pull that off. But then Ambirose had to make it a little bit more complicated. Ambirose wanted items that were shiny and had some form of meaning to the humans that Rian was getting them from. Being a Nymph, she would know the difference. Rian reluctantly agreed, he had no choice. It just meant that he would either have to lift them off of the humans by stealing them, or he would have to find a way to get them to give them to him without stealing.

Already this was more trouble than it was worth for Rian, but Ado had made it clear that he had no choice. If another group of mythical creatures found out what Raea was before they did, they could try and steal Raea or worse try to kill her to get her powers. Some mythical creatures were just as bad as humans when it came to greed, a lot of them were power-hungry and likely would do anything for the power. Some of them also didn't like the idea that there was someone stronger than them out there, or something that they didn't have themselves in their little villages. All of his deal-making, explaining, and walking back to the garage took him a few hours. It was nearly 6 PM by the time that they had managed to get everything done.

Raea was glad to see Rian's face again when he finally showed back up the garage. While she was gone she had changed back into some of her clothes. They were going to go see Kira after all of this, later at night of course, but that didn't change that she didn't want to have to explain to Kira why she was wearing clothes that were so much bigger than her, especially since she was already going to have to explain what had happened to her, and all the other details that she had gone through over these past couple of days. Even with a new phone, she was growing bored sitting there for hours. "Finally, Jesus Rian I was about ready to get out of the car and try to go find you because you were taking so long," Raea said, her arms crossed as Rian got back in the car. "Yeah well, I don't need you getting lost in the woods, and it would have taken longer if I had brought you along with me to go get the paperwork, I needed forged, and a little bit of extra magic. I already had to spend a bit of time explaining why I needed that stuff, and having you there with me would have complicated things because they would have had so many questions for you, and you probably would have had so many questions for them. Plus Ambirose was being difficult with making a deal with me." "Ambirose?" Raea asked. What Rian hadn't seen while he was gone was that all of the names of the people that she had heard about were written down in the notes app on her phone. Not only that but what they were. A few other notes had been started by Raea as well, each containing questions that she had for each of the species that she had been told lived in the little hidden village that Rian had told her about. "She is a nymph," Rian answered after starting the car back up. Raea whipped her phone out again, typing in the name next to 'Nymph.' on her notes app.

Rian couldn't help but chuckle as he saw what Raea did, it wasn't shocking to him with her being a fanatic, but it was amusing. "Are you going to be doing things like that a lot?" Rian asked through his chuckles, his eyes on her phone screen. Raea had been lost in her little world again before Rian had talked and she snapped her eyes up from the screen back to him. "What do you mean?" "Taking little notes about our village, who lives there, and what they are. Are you going to do that a lot?" "Probably," Raea responded. "Why?" Raea asked after a moment. "I just think it is funny. Not often that a fanatic gets turned into a new blood, but from what I have heard about fanatics, they take relentless notes. It's funny. You seem so interested, it isn't often that someone is so interested in what we are and things like that. Let me guess, you have a bunch of other notes that you were typing up while I was gone with questions?" "No..." Raea lied, her eyes darting back down to her phone, and it only caused Rian to laugh more. "Liar. It's alright. One day, when you aren't so new and we aren't trying to figure out what you are and what happened I will take you around and let you meet everyone. If you want you can ask them any questions you have then." "Promise?" Raea asked, her eyes glancing back up at Rian who only nodded his head. "I promise. Now, you will have to direct me to your friend's house once we get back to town. Let's go later in the night, the fewer humans I have to deal with at night, the better."

Raea nodded her head, and they started the long drive back to the town. They had done a lot of driving around the day, and by the time they had stopped to get food again and gas, it was almost 11:30 at night. The perfect time for them to show up at Kira's house. Raea didn't want to freak Kira out with Rian, so she told him to park down the street and that she would be back. Rian said that he would, but secretly, he parked and he followed her down the road from a distance so that she wouldn't notice him. Raea walked as quickly as she could, standing there in front of the front door of her best friend's home for what seemed like hours to her, but was only minutes before she knocked on the door.

The first set of knocks sounded loud even to Raea, and after a couple of minutes after getting no answer, she knocked again. She could hear the loud stomps down the stairs, Thomas' car wasn't there, which meant that Kira was most likely alone in the home. Raea couldn't help but hope that Kira wasn't that worried about her, but she knew that wouldn't be the case. Kira was a worry wort, she always had been. With how Kira was brought up, it wasn't a shock, but it didn't mean that she wanted her friend to be as worried as she might have been. Raea stood there, her hands at her sides as she waited. It was quiet in the home, with no lights on that she could see. Raea swallowed nervously before the door swung open, she watched as Kira almost toppled herself over as it was swung open. "Raea!"