Siala: Part 1 - 4

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

I won't say that picking up Siala was a major event in itself, because it wasn't. What was a major task, however, was having to adjust to Rena, her Harpi.

Parked out front with the dash quickly wiped over, hair slicked back just for that extra impression of badass-ery we all have of ourselves whether we think so or not, the radio was giving more information on the jewel heist on Outpost 26. Nothing much new, just the occasional interview with someone who was there, police are still baffled, yada yada yada. They'd have named a suspect within the next two hours, the sapphire would either turn up soon after or never again; that was how these things usually went.

Whilst all this was going on in my ear I kept glancing towards the entrance to the port. I hadn't gone inside because, quite frankly, it was harder to grab someone's attention from inside a crowded indoor space than by a kar that she would probably recognise. She hadn't come out yet, but it wouldn't be long. I took a breath-freshener out of my pocket and popped it in my mouth. No, I say now, I wasn't actively looking to try and woo over someone I had never met, and please don't say that I'm constantly desperate. You know where I work by now, and know that if I needed to constantly get my rocks off, all I would have to do was work overtime at the club. I defend my constant judging and changing of my appearance before girls by saying that that is how a heterosexual male is programmed to be. That's just how the billboards, the stories, the advertisements and the news, tell us we should be from the time that we can recognise what is being said to us and, like sheep, we all fall under media's hypnosis. That's what it all is. Hypnosis.

A few minutes later and I see someone walk out of the port that can only be Siala, the woman from Androssios IV. She's got short black hair that ends with a few spiked tufts that just tickle her collarbone. Her twin horns are slender and curled up. That forked tail, not unlike a Trovation's, but with better control, was curled up and stretched up along her spine towards her head. Her eyes were Hades-black, her skin the colour of scorched blood, and she walked with a confident stride, her case being pulled behind her. On her left shoulder sat a small girl, barely a foot tall, with long, auburn hair and golden, avian talons. Her wings were black, like her friend's eyes. My riders had arrived.

I was parked along the pavement before the building, so when I got out of the kar and waved at them they saw me instantly. Siala began to walk towards me, Rena whispering something in her ear that I couldn't hear or lip-read. Siala seemed to turn towards her and scold her in a harsh but hushed tone.

I went around to the boot and opened it up.

'Siala,' I said courteously. 'May I take you case?'

'Thanks,' she said, passing it over to me.

As I loaded it into the kar, I heard her companion begin what would become a constant irritation for the next day or so.

'Yep,' she said, 'you definitely work for him.'

Closing the boot, I looked up at her. 'How so?'

The Harpi leered at me. 'You look like a perv.'

I have never wanted to be able to outright hit someone in my life more than I wanted to right then. It took all of my energy to keep my fist back. I remembered the boss' warning, only now seeing why he had told me to try and keep my cool.

'Rena!' Siala gave her a playful flick which sent her backwards, only flailing arms keeping her sat there on her perch like a lookout.

'I'm just saying. I'm sure he's a very nice perv, but after five hours of being sat next to that fat guy I was looking forward to someone a little, you know...'

'Please,' I interrupted, motioning to the door. 'Let's be on our way. We'll never get to where we're going if we don't leave now.'

Rena glared at me for butting into her insult machine-gun, by Siala nodded and got into the kar. I got in the other side and started the engine up again.

'It's been ages since I've been in this kar,' Siala said. She seemed to wriggle into the seat like she was settling back into a cosy old armchair in an ancestral home.

'Yeah,' Rena remarked, 'I can almost still smell your sweat from when...'

'Enough,' Siala commanded, to which the Harpi slammed her mouth shut with such force I thought it would rattle her teeth. 'That's quite enough, I think, Rena.'

'Suit yourself,' Rena said in a huff.

I glanced across at them for a second before moving off back onto the highway. An odd pair, the two of them. So remarkably odd, even by Celestria's standards, that my curiosity as to their back-story was aroused instantly. I wondered exactly what their past history was with the boss, and with Dirty Work. They were certainly no strangers to it, though they had obviously been away for a long time. Could they have been past dancers perhaps? As far as I knew, Grasslea very rarely employed non-human dancers, and his plans for a non-human stage were still only talks and discussions, the funds still having not come in just yet.

Yes, I thought to myself as we began to worm our way through Region 6 and onto the main roads, a very interesting pair.

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net