"I'm sorry, half!?" My voice cut through... whatever was going on. I'd bluescreened for several seconds after Grandpa said I was "half-human." "How can I be half-human?! There's not even... are there other magical races or whatever?" Grandma scooted next to me, and said quietly as Grandpa continued arguing with the principal.

"You're part Fae."

"...So that's why that metal necklace hurt. I thought it just had sharp edges I wasn't aware of when I grabbed it at first." My mind then returned to panic mode. "How'd that happen!?"

"Well, when a mom and a dad love each other very much-"

"Stop it!" I laughed a bit, despite myself. It did help me calm down somewhat. "You know what I mean."

"Well, your father was always one for trouble. Always wandering in the forest when we told him not to, messing with plants and herbs and such..."

"Did he find a fairy circle?"

"And he became incredibly entranced with a fairy he saw through it. We were worried it might have been some fairy magic, but she ended up coming with him to our house after several weeks."

"...Huh. And they want to make sure I don't use any... Fairy magic on people?"

"Correct."

"But I don't have any idea how to do... any of that stuff?" Grandma chuckled a bit.

"Oh, I think you know more than you know."

Part 1:

I had never seen Grampa more angry. He was always the calm one, asking my Gramma to calm down and not to let her feelings get in the way of thinking. Of course, they were rarely ever angry at me, but because my Grampa never yelled, it never crossed my mind that he could. I thought the one yelling would be Gramma, but she was so mad that she was crying, which happened frequently enough.

"Look, sir, I can't give the go-ahead on your granddaughter's enrollment. It could make the other children uncomfortable, make other parents worry for their children's safety, and that's not even getting into the reality that... non-humans age differently than the rest of us. By the time her peers are fully matured adults, she's still going to have the body of someone who's eleven or twelve."

"My granddaughter's mind - which is all you need to be worried about - is as sharp as any other eight year old's, and it's about damn time she meets some people her age," my Grampa yelled, spittle flying into the principal's face. "She's been lonely her entire life because all she's had are us two old geezers to teach her and keep her company. She needs friends, god damnit!"

I had never heard Grampa swear before.

"Sir, with all due respect, your granddaughter is half Lamia. And, if the registry is correct, the mother's subspecies was coral snake. Is your granddaughter venomous?"

"She's bit me plenty, and I'm perfectly alive," Grampa retorted. "Everything of hers from the waist up is just like you and me. Safety isn't the problem here, it's you and your small-minded nonsense!"

The principal looked as though his face was about to crack like a glass dropped onto the floor. "That does not change the fact that she's only half-human. This is a school established by humans, for humans."

"Does it look like I care if she's half human?" Grampa was shrieking now. I think his words were echoing down the hallway. I wanted to curl up into a ball, and, given the length of my tail, I absolutely could have. "After her parents passed, my wife and I have been doing everything in our power to keep her safe. Keep her fed. Keep her educated. Keep her happy, loved, and, for Christ's sake, more tolerant than the likes of you human-supremacist shitstains. She's different from us, but look at her!"

I started to get scared as the principal's eyes flicked to me. It was a gaze full of confusion, fear, and other things I couldn't understand. My heartbeat got faster. I felt an odd sensation in my teeth. I started to cry. My mouth gaped open, and a yellow fluid dripped out of my slightly-tipped canine teeth and started to leak out of my mouth. It was as though both halves of my body were crying in perfect unison, the Lamia half mourning its rejection and the human half broadcasting its worry.

My Grampa turned to me and scooped me up, holding my upper half in one arm and using his other arm to gently guide my tail around his arm and shoulder. I leaned into him, still crying and oozing venom and getting them both all over his dress shirt. "It's okay, Milana. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled."

My Grampa turned to the principal. "We're leaving, but this isn't over. My granddaughter is a citizen of this country, and she will be enrolled here, whether you want her to or not."

At the time, I didn't realize what he meant was, "We're suing your ass into Hell and back."

And that's what my grandparents did. At first, they worried that they wouldn't be able to afford the fight, but with a number of sizable donations - the largest one being from my mother's Lamia sisterhood - and two years' worth of court dates and suffering, we won. Grimm v. Penelope County Board of Education.

I was enrolled into the 5th grade when I was ten years old. I was at least three inches shorter than most of my classmates, even though my body was technically longer than two of them put together. A lot of the other students (mostly boys, strangely) thought it was cool that I had a snake tail, but I got in trouble when I showed them that I could produce venom (it turns out Lamia fangs don't really come in until eight or nine years of age, which my grandparents couldn't possibly have known). Even my Grampa was on their side. He said I could really hurt someone if I wasn't careful.

At fourteen, in eighth grade, I had my first boyfriend. I wound up towering over him, but that was just because he was short. He had his flaws (we were middle schoolers, after all), but he taught me that I can find people who really, truly love me. I gave him my first kiss (and he gave me his), but we broke up after about nine months.

At sixteen, I got a driver's license. I didn't crash any cars, but my Gramma had to stop using manual transmission vehicles because I don't have two feet and I can't reach the clutch and the brake at the same time. The first place I drove to after getting my license was the grocery store (predictably).

At eighteen, I graduated high school. My grandparents were the proudest people in the universe, I think. My grades weren't stellar, but I made it. I can still remember how Grampa went around to all of his friends after with a photo of me in his wallet telling them, "This is my granddaughter. Look at her!"

At twenty, I realized I wanted to be a teacher. Elementary school in particular. In college, I majored in education and managed to get good grades this time. I graduated, at twenty-two, with flying colors.

At twenty-three, I got my first job teaching. My first class was a little scared of me at first, but once they got past the snake body they warmed up to me. Maybe a little too much, even. Agreeing to let them all sit in my lap at once was a bad idea...

At twenty-four, I got married. Honestly, he isn't anything super special. But watching him sucker punch a woman who was belittling me was great. I'm certain if someone played the footage back, they would be able to pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with him.

At twenty-five, a series of studies between Lamia and human scientists came out that revealed that, genetically, reproduction between Lamias and humans quite literally restructures the human DNA to introduce genetic diversity while keeping every Lamia female and snake-y. As it turns out, I was never half-human after all, but I was still half of my father.

At twenty-eight, I laid eggs. Super uncomfortable, but it beats childbirth any day. I laid two. I had to stay at home for five months to keep track of them (not to mention the financial burden of getting an incubator), but once my daughters arrived I couldn't have been happier. My husband wanted boys, but if he felt that strongly about it he wouldn't have married a woman who can only produce girls.

Gramma never got to see the girls. She died one week before they hatched. All it took was one untied shoelace and bam. Her head smacked on the counter and she would never get up again. Never get emotional again. Never make me laugh or smile again. Never beat cancer through sheer willpower and absurd chemotherapy doses ever again.

At her funeral, my husband and I had one girl each tucked away in our arms, using the same hold Grampa always used for me when I was little. One hand supported the body, the other held the tail. It always helped the girls stay calm when there was something to coil up around.

I fluttered my tiny wings, mortified as Papa yelled at my new Principal. I saw a red-gold aura leaking under the door as I looked down, my face feeling hot.

"I don't care if she's half-human! After her parents passed away we raised her! Yes, she's 'different,' but she has every right to enroll!"

I didn't hear what was said next, but the aura intensified under the door before Papa slammed it open, face strawberry-red. "Come on, duckling, we're going home."

/. /. /. /. /. /

It was a month before I started high school there, and my first day filled me with nerves. I pushed through the horde of teens gently, feeling (and seeing) the tension in the school. I was being stared at, from both up close and afar, as I went up the stair to my homeroom.

The intensity of the tension thinned out as I entered the room and the other kids saw me walk in. The teacher, a brown-skinned woman with fine lines and straightened gray hair waved me to a desk at the back; I noted the dull gray aura that signified apathy and boredom.

The goth girl and the jock sat at either side of me glared at each other for a full minute while I sat down between them. I held my hands out to bother them, noting the combination of green, red and pink aura catching me in the middle; green signifying growth, red for competition and anger, and pink for attachment.

'Hi, I'm Lexi,' I said to them, shrugging my jacket off and revealing my tank top and wings, unfolding them and catching some of the membrane of my left wing on the chair as I sat. I winced.

I smiled softly as both of them reached out, hesitant. "Go ahead, they don't bite...well, except for me." I settled the wings out a little, and they planted their hands inside the feathers, as their amber of shock turned to the soft blonde light of awe. I preened a little, the feeling of their fingers bringing a sense of joy.

I felt a sharp pull and winced again, as one of the feathers broke off in the goth's hand. "Shit, I'm sorry," she said, the blonde light turning to a wintry blue as she pulled her hand away.

The feather caught the attention of the rest of the class, and they turned to look at me. I paled as the bright purple of curiosity wafted across the room, and then I was crowded as more people wanted to touch the wings. I let them, and asked goth girl for the feather back. "I need to get it stitched back in tonight so that there's no lasting damage." She handed it back to me reluctantly, as the jock just laughed.

"Damn it, Lynsey, you broke the angel already! Now where am I going get my fun?"

Goth girl, (Lynsey), just rolled her eyes. "Can it, Josh. I beat you last week in the Mathlete tryouts, and I'll do it again today!"

I think it's not going to be boring here.

"Now listen 'ere ya little shite..." Grandad growled, standing on the desk and lifting the Principal by the throat. "What gives yer Tae bloody right Ter treat me damn gran'daughtah like that?! He hissed. I shivered a bit, as I held the part of my face that was bruised. Everyone was mad and I was scared. I didn't know what I'd done to deserve it, but Grandad was understandably outraged. He may have only been 4'5, but he had anger enough to make an Orc shit himself, and the muscles to break a dragon's neck. Even is his current predicament the snooty leaf-lover tried to act superior. "I struck it because it's impure! Wrong! It sho-" a blow to the throat reduced him to a coughing fit "ENOUGH." Grandad roared. "Don't talk shite about her! Ahm notifyin' yer feckin' superior aftah this. What'll Ol' Na'rok think o' THIS?" The headmaster whimpered in terror. No! Pleasenoilldoanythingyouwant! "Ah shut it." H growled, as he turned to the window, and he hung the headmaster out the window. Nara, call him ples. He'd say gruffly to me, as he went to intimidating the scrawny elf. I nodded, as I tried to call the Orc, until his rough, cheery voice came on. "OI OI! THIZ IZ KAPTAN NAROK TALKIN'? WHADYA WANT?" M-mmm... H-hello, this is n-nara S-stonehammer...

I couldn't help it. I was crying as my grandfather yelled at my would-be principal. "So what if shes' 'different'?! She has every right to go here!"

"I'm sorry, sir, but that doesn't change the fact that this is an all-human school. Someone as dangerous as a werewolf can not be allowed to be in the same school as humans." Was the response from the principal, an older woman with graying hair and a look of disgust on her face.

I could imagine my brother's response, 'It's brain-dead shitstains like you that are ruining this country with your backward policy!' But he wasn't here.

I watched as my grandfather's face twisted into his own disgusted look. "You would dare say, my granddaughter, is DANGEROUS!" His voice rose and began to echo around the room on the word. "She's known how to control her transformation for years. She wouldn't hurt a fly!"

The principal didn't seem to care as her face grew sourer with each word, "Sir, That does change the fact that she is not allowed to attend this school!"

"Oh, she'll attend, alright, just you wait." My grandfather turned his back to her as he said, "Come on, we're going home."

My grandmother helped me up as we left. I couldn't stop crying. I cried through the whole argument, and the tears just wouldn't stop.

I didn't know what my grandparents had to go through, but I was allowed to attend from 3ed grade onwards. Now I'm starting high school. In a new school where no one knows me.

I walked into the classroom, watching as everyone looked at me, I could feel my ears twitch. This only made more eyes turn to me as the teacher said, "As you all can see, this is Sara. The werewolf that I'm sure all over you have heard about. Please, be nice.

The teacher motioned for me to sit down. As I made my way to an empty seat, I was stopped by another girl with long blond hair framing the gigantic smile on her face. "Sorry if this is a weird question, but could I pet you?"

Taken aback a bit I stuttered, "Yea, it's fine, I guess."

She began to rub my head, a giddy giggle escaping her lips as she said, "So it's true! Werewolf hair is softer than human."

The teacher chuckled as they said, "Sofia, please leave Sara alone you can test your theories with her later."

As we both made our way to our seats, I had some peace of mind, 'well, seems like I at least have a new friend.'

(It appears I took this a bit differently)

Half human! Never have I heard something so wrong in my life. But its become my new normal, it’s commonly enough slung at me from people walking by, or muttered by my sales clerk, but it’s not something I’d thought I’d hear from my grandfather.

This happened to me I had been growing up now for a couple years in the deep south in a small town in Mississippi. A far cry from what it was like in New Orleans

After my loving parents died I had moved from new Orleans - the place where i had grown up, the place where it was normal to be black or in my case half black.

When my white grandparents came to pick me up, they clearly weren’t exited. Their cold expressions they gave me, it was like I was tainted. Was I sick? Ugly? I never thought I was really that hard to look at.

3 years later, and I know why my grandfather called me half-human. It was my skin-color. It was black.

I was a rather intelligent student, always with a book in my hand, and i accepted though much of school. I would always ask my grandparents begg them to take me to a better school. They never listened. It was always “you should be happy we even picked you up, do you know how expensive you even are?” It wasn’t until they heard, that if i won math events, that weren’t offered at my school i could win significant sums of money.

Since they found this private school, one I supposedly should have gotten a scholarship from, my life as been a headache.

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