He sat at the very back of the class in a little dark corner, behind the ceiling light's luminous range, nearly invisible save for the glow of two demonic eyes and a small gargoyle's silhouette. Every day, he would come to the school, either with his mother or someone else they trusted, enter the little classroom with all the other children, remove the comforts of his shrouding coat, and every day he would peculiarly perch in this same spot, a watcher over the room. The comforts of routine were present in this schedule, however solitary it might have been. No one forced him to sit there, but the glares he would receive from the normal students and the unspoken words between him and the rest of humanity made it fairly obvious that there were no invitations to sit anywhere else.

So it was partly the others', and partly his own choice that he practically isolated himself from the others during class time, sitting in the back, meeting only the back of the others' heads, rather than their eyes. In short, the other students generally did not like Kurti Wagner. This he knew, and this he eventually grew accustomed to over the months. Originally they feared him, as did so many, but being children, their fear was soon realized to be irrational, and combined with the comforts of routine, they turned their implacable feelings towards a boy who was so different than that of anything they knew to an intermediate dislike. Which was fine. Kurti preferred intermediate dislike. It had opportunity to be changed. Most of the time. Some of them, he knew, were simply playing along with it, as not to stand out amongst their peers. Those would be the ones to occasionally join in a conversation with him, or sit in the back of the classroom sometimes, 'on accident.' Those would the ones that would write his name down on the little ballots Frau Kriemhilde handed out, and then feign ignorance when they were partnered together, flashing him a smile meant for just the two of them, when no one could see.

It was not that he had no true friends, oh no. He had his friends at the circus, he had those aforementioned students that rarely, but sometimes even went out with him outside of class, and one best friend, Nickolaus, that sat with him in the corner in the darkness at the back of the room, and it was Nickolaus' name Kurti always wrote down, though he was happy to be paired with anyone. There were a few subjects both were good at, and would converse and giggle throughout, unseen in the shadows, or pass notes written in both neat script, and large, loopy tri-fingered print. But this one, this scourge of classes, was one of the subjects that both of the boys would usually focus in, for fear of falling behind. That dreaded class. Englisch. But today, young Kurti Wagner had a more pressing matter than the impossibilities of Englisch nagging at the vortex of his thoughts. A thought no child could ignore when presented, despite their efforts.

His tooth was loose.

Kurti could not focus on the strange grammar that made no sense and he would never need to use anyways, but was utterly preoccupied with pushing the tooth back and forth with his tongue, relishing the odd feeling and the very faint, unusual sound.

*squlish, squlosh*

The tooth that was loose was, oddly enough, not a regular tooth at all, but the sharper, slightly longer, pointed fang where, in most cases, an ordinary canine would be. It would be the first fang Kurti had ever lost, and the fact that it was halfway out of his mouth never ceased to amaze him. It never ceased to amaze his mother, though, just how astounded he was. The Incredible Nightcrawler, she would joke, upstaged by a loose tooth. And his dentist, the circus doctor that worked with them, a Dr. Reiniger, the one that had suggested Kurti get braces, which he furiously rejected, claiming fangs and braces were too strange a sight to behold, had said that the adult fang growing behind his baby one would be longer and sharper and Kurti couldn't wait. Something in his young boy's mind found great, inexplicable appeal in having longer, sharper, more adult fangs, and it struck him as unbelievably kül.

*squlish, squlosh.*

*squlish, squlosh*

The fang was so loose that Kurti could now feel the gum underneath it, the squishy, tender substance from which his new Fang was already protruding, ever so slightly, and his tongue set forwards with this new discovery. The teacher's voice flowed soothingly through his ears, into one and out the other in a foreign language, and he rested his head on his knee sideways, bending forwards impossibly to accommodate that position. He looked the part of the watcher now; pensive. The gum underneath was tender, and when he touched it with his tongue, skimming over the tiny point of a new fang, the strange, almost painful shudder that came through his small mouth was impossible to ignore.

He shook ever so slightly, bending forwards, and Nickolaus looked over. "Kurti?" he hissed. Kurti waved off his previous action, and Nickolaus turned back to listening to the lecture. The gum was still there, though, and little Kurti couldn`t stop touching it. A momentary obsession. He ran his tongue under his tooth again, and slid it over the gum, restraining the shudder that threatened to make his fur stand on end.

*squlish, squlosh*

*squlish, squlosh*

*squlish, squlosh*

*SQULORP*

Kurti's eyes widened momentarily, and he let out a tiny gasp. The sound of ripping gums and a tiny shock of pain from sensitive nerves had been a surprise, more so than the coppery, warm blood that now filled his mouth and spread across his tongue. Momentarily stunned with childhood awe, Kurti set out that same muscle to explore where the fang had been. Kurti's tongue went into the familiar crevice in the front corner of his mouth, and found only bloody pulp, now a gaping hole, and then something sharp dug into the underside of his cheek.

Strangely anxious, Kurti shot upright from his demon guardian position, and brought his hand up to his mouth. Two fingers went past blue lips, and removed a small, white object as Kurti spat up a tiny bit of blue fur. He looked at the object in question, a wondrous, small, now asymmetrical smile forming as he looked at the object in his hand, pearly white against cerulean blue, and undeniably a fang. His fang. He raised his other hand, swallowing trace amounts of blood, unsurprised when the teacher failed to notice.

"Frau?" he called, excitement bubbling into his voice, and all eyes suddenly turned to him. He moved closer into the light, so that the teacher could see him, and slowly put his hand down.

"Ja, Kurti?" He held up the tiny object between two fingers, a third hovering anxiously, and his tail coiled and uncoiled behind his body, question mark, a snake. He grinned then, and a shy voice punctured the silence; quiet, timid, cute.

"I lost a tooth. "

The teacher grinned, amused at the little timid demon with the gap-toothed smile and all the students now turned to him, faces lighting up as they saw the little tooth in his hand. She grabbed a cotton ball and a plastic bag from her drawer and Kurti walked up to claim them. He put the cotton ball in his mouth, holding it where the blood trickled, and relinquished command of it to his tail when he had to place the tooth into the plastic bag.

"Be sure to leave that for the tooth fairy, Kurti. In a glass of water at your window. Or under your pillow. " she said, and Kurti grinned, eyes bright, tail still holding the soft sheet of white cotton to his mouth and walked back to his seat. Some would say eight year olds were at too great an age to believe in such things, but in a town like Winzeldorf, full of centaurs and magics, where the mystical commonly blends with reality, it was difficult for anyone, least of all children, not to believe in the unbelievable. By now, the entire class had been distracted from the Englisch class, focused entirely on their toothless classmate, waited for their teacher to excuse herself from the room and listened for her steps to fade into silence.

"You're lucky, Kurti. Nickolaus said, slightly envious, but smiling all the same. He gestured to Kurti's plastic bag. "You're going to get money tonight." Kurti nodded enthusiastically in agreement, and blue lips curved upwards, exposing blood-dampened cotton.

"Do your teeth regrow faster than other people's?" someone asked, genuinely curious. Kurti shook his head, fingering the little object in his bag.

"No, it's about the same."

"Are all your teeth pointy like that?"

"No, just two. My doctor says the next one's going to grow in pointier and longer."

"Cool..." was the general response.

"Let me see that. " a boy said, walking up to Kurti's table. Erwin Jaeger, taller than little four foot tall Kurti by a head and a half if not more, and not one of the nicer children, held out his beefy hand for the little bag. Hesitantly, suddenly tense over his territory, Kurti placed the bag into his hand with a faint crumpling noise and waited on the large boy's observation.

"Open your mouth. " the boy said, and Kurti obliged, only for a moment, looking utterly perplexed before he closed it and Erwin held the bag back out. "You're not going to get any money for this." Kurti, offended, grabbed the bag out of his hand and placed it closer to himself.

"Yes, I am! I always do. Five marks, same as everyone. " Erwin Jaeger shook his head.

"Those are for teeth. Have you ever lost a fang before? " He asked and Kurti stumbled over words.

"Um, I... "

"Yeah, he's right. You're not going to get five marks for that. "another child agreed, turning to his friend for reassurance.

"They're too pointy. And too weird. " said the friend. Nickolaus came to his defense.

"Erwin, of course he'll get five marks. She comes for everyone's teeth. " To this, Erwin Jaeger, clearly an expert in all things world-wise, stood up to his full height, towering over both of the boys.

"Teeth. " He repeated, shaking his head. "Not fangs."

When Margali waited for her own little boy to come out of the building, as he usually did, her eyes scanned over children, over the regular hair and clothes (did they all dress the same?), picking them apart easily as not hers, and made idle conversation with other parents before they were joined by their own little blonde haired braided girl, or boy in a green sweater, or tall child with grass-stained pants. She waited for a familiar black cloak to come out, with a familiar ripped blue backpack over the shoulders, and when she saw it, she waved an arm for Kurti to see, so that he would come around.

The parent next to her, a Frau Jaeger, or so Margali recalled, was scolding her not-so-little boy, about something Margali paid no attention to, as Kurti walked over to her side, hunched further than usual with a loaded knapsack weighing him down.

"Ready to go?" she asked her son, planting a kiss on his brow. He nodded three quick times, in a way that seemed a minutely unenthusiastic and ruffled his hands inside his pockets, a crinkling sound coming from the paper bag inside. He looked over to the boy Frau Jaeger was scolding, and it was hard to tell beneath the cascades of dark hood-cloth, but it seemed as if a meaningful look passed between the two young boys, before Kurti turned away to walk through thick woods towards his home.

"What happened at the circus today?" Kurti asked, a fractional bit less enthusiastically than usual. "Anything interesting I missed?" Margali watched the bored movement of his tail beneath the cloak, and proceeded to tell him of trapeze misadventures and jokes and tried to cheer him with talk of performances he would be giving soon. Performances he had trained hard for, that would soon come in greater numbers, and it did seem to bring more life to his ever-moving extra limb and to his eyes.

"What happened at school?" she dared ask, and immediately, the swaying stopped, if only a little bit. Immediately, Margali assumed the worst and leaned in for his answer.

"Not much... We had Englisch." he said, plainly expressing his distaste for the subject.

"Anything else?" she pressed, and opened the door to the house, letting them both inside. Kurti immediately took off his coat, stretching tense muscles out of the prehensile appendage, and reached into the black pocket. He removed a plastic bag and dropped it into Margali's hand without a word. She examined the pearly-white object inside, and then looked back to Kurti, who opened his mouth.

"I lost a tooth." Bemused, she looked back to the little fang in her hand, and offered it back to Kurti. The two made their way routinely into the kitchen, and Kurti readied to sit down for his meal.

"So what's wrong with that?" she asked, plainly more excited than Kurti over the subject. "Put it in a glass of water and you'll get five marks." He shook his head, and snatched the bag out of his mama's hand, before perching on the chair.

"No, mama, I don't want to."

"Why not?" she asked, quirking a thin brow. He shuffled the bag in his hand nervously, and looked down, cheeks puffing out in a pout.

"Because," he recited. "It's a fang. And the tooth fairy doesn't come for fangs." Not knowing how to reply and appropriately flabbergasted, Margali stammered for a bit before looking Kurti in the eye, almost laughing at the utmost absurdity of the cause of her child's gloom. She looked down at the object, and saw, that it was indeed one of the pointed canines Kurti possessed, rather than a usual blunt tooth.

"What? That's not true!" He shook his head, wide-eyed, adamant.

"Yes, it is, mama. Fangs are not teeth, and she comes for teeth. She's not going to come for this."

"Who told you this?" Margali demanded, feeling a bit absurd, arguing the premise of fangs V.S. teeth with her school-age son. Kurti looked down and mumbled out:

"Erwin Jaeger."

There we go, thought Margali. Erwin Jaeger said it, so it must be true.

"Well, Erwin Jaeger is wrong. I bet he's just jealous because he doesn't have fangs." Even to herself, it sounded clichéd as the sentiment left her lips, but she stuck to her point and awaited Kurti's response.

"...No..." he said hesitantly "Why would he be jealous? I don't think that's it. He wouldn't be jealous; he gets five marks whenever he loses something, and I won't." Gently, Margali set a plate down next to her son, and crouched to his level, oval brown eyes staring into round gold.

"He would be jealous," she stated calmly, addressing only the first part of Kurti's earlier retort. "Because the fangs are special teeth. See?" she pointed to the tooth, and Kurti looked down at it, only for a second. "It's larger, special, more than a regular teeth. If anything, it's worth more than normal teeth as well. It's special, Kurti." she repeated. "Just like you." he looked at the little fang, tongue subconsciously licking at his empty gum, and then turned questioningly to his mother.

"I don't know..." She tousled a hand through coarse indigo locks.

"It's true. Just put it in the glass of water, and put it on your window, same as always, just in case. Even if you don't believe me, let's see what happens, hmm?" He looked up at her, now quirking a brow of his own, a trait he'd acquired from her over the years.

"All right, mama." he conceded, defeated, and with more eagerness than he let on, rushed to fill a glass of water, plastic bag firmly in hand.

That night, Margali waited for a time during that night, a time that could arguably be pronounced morning, when she was sure Kurti'd be asleep, and wary of his acute hearing, crept outside to walk towards his window, open for a special night. Her footsteps were gentle, quiet, not to wake the sleeping elf that dwelled within, and also as to not make the glass spill any water, leaving the as if something mystical had flown in, who left almost nothing in her wake...

When the sun fell in to Kurti's room, a cascade of golden light through the gaping window, instead of the usual slits through wooden barricades, the boy snapped his eyes open and stretched, tying into knots and untying them subsequently, as was the routine every morning. Turning his head, he had remembered the previous night, and so galloped over to his window like an eager kitten, and stood upright, wincing as the sun poked into his eyes. Though, when he looked down towards the glass he'd left the night before, there was nothing brighter than his asymmetric, impish smile when he spied, in the shimmering water, clear as day, six silver coins.

END

AN: Strangely enough, this was inspired by something I vaguely mentioned in my ongoing evo story, With Their Own Two Eyes, (and if anyone here read it, they'll notice that I recycled some characters) and I decided to make a oneshot out of it that I've always associated with comic Kurt. Probably kind of half-thought out, but oh well, I had fun doing it. And the glass of water? I heard somewhere it was a tradition in Europe, and sorry if I'm wrong. Also, I think it'd be nearly impossible to sneak under a pillow of someone with advanced hearing :P