Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 189(@200wpm)___ 151(@250wpm)___ 126(@300wpm)
I think of Barlia and her weapons and I’m starting to realize that cheery Chelsea, my brother’s mate, is the exception rather than the rule. Most of these poor creatures are downtrodden and afraid. They’re here to recuperate and live in safety, and so I swallow my pride and report that I’m taking a welding job to the local authorities, and I spend the next week making a sealed underground bunker beneath the human barracks, as requested by a human female named Bee who seems to help the new females acclimate to their surroundings.
While my days are spent underground and in a welding mech-suit, I spend most nights hanging around at Port’s sole cantina, facing the window out to the street and nursing the same brew all night, because it’s not about drinking but about having an excuse to see Barlia.
For two weeks, I look for her. Nothing.
It makes me wonder if she smells as good as I recall or if it was the noli.
When a few more days pass and there’s no sign of her in Port, I decide that I’m tired of waiting. If she won’t come into town, I’ll have to go to her. I need an excuse, though, and so I stop by the general store, picking through the goods there. “What’s a good gift for a human female?” I ask the avian behind the counter. It’s the same one that sold me the null roots, but maybe he knows a bit more about humans than praxiians. “For a female that I want to show interest in?”
“A candle,” the avian says immediately. “The smellier the better.”
I head over to the rows of candles. There are quite a few of them at the back of the store and I pick one up and nearly choke on the floral scent wafting off of it. Not noli, but strong enough to flatten my ears. “They like this stuff?”
“They do. There’s one female that comes in and buys a candle every week. Must have dozens of the darn things but she keeps buying more.” He shrugs. “I wouldn’t woo a human because they look as ugly as a featherless chick, but that’s just me. For you, I’d say get the candle.”
Tail twitching, I try to find one that has the least offensive scent and purchase it with a few credits. The avian wraps it up in recycled paper and even puts a bow on it, then hands it over to me. With my purchase made, I decide instead of heading to the cantina tonight, I’ll make my way over to Barlia’s house and say hello.
The air-sled rental fees I’ve been paying are costing me a small fortune in credits, but it’s worth it to have a vehicle that doesn’t reek of Chelsea and my brother and their matings. I really am happy for my brother, but I’m also slightly traumatized after the noli incident. Sure, renting my own air-sled is cutting into my savings, but the peace of mind is worth it. Plus, there’s no one to comment on how I pilot my sled over to Barlia’s homestead instead of going straight to Chelsea’s.
Barlia’s home looks very different from Chelsea’s. The crops look fine, but she has no meat-stock in her barn and the house looks more like a fortress. The windows are covered with metal sheets on the outside, the house surrounded by thick, overgrown bushes and the yard seems to be nothing but turned dirt. Clearly Barlia isn’t a gardening sort, or the type to care what the exterior of her house looks like. I think about the weapons she had lining the walls inside and suspect there’s a story in her past that explains all of this.
I also suspect it’s not a pleasant one.
I knock on her door. When she doesn’t answer right away, I knock a second time, and a third. When I raise my hand to the door a fourth time, I call out, “I’m not leaving until we talk, Barlia.”
Before I can finish knocking, the door rips open and the human female glares out at me, her metal-studded wooden club in hand. “What.”
“Hello, neighbor,” I purr at her.
“What?” she states again, her tone hostile.
What indeed? I just smile, because my true purpose was to come and see if she smelled as good as I remembered. Turns out she smells even better, and I want to just drink in her scent. Humans are pleasant-smelling people even if they’re weirdly hairless in places, but this particular female might be the most attractive I’ve ever seen and it’s all because of her scent. She’s still scrawny and lean, her clothes loose-fitting and boring. Her dark hair is a messy cascade over her shoulders, and her expression is downright unwelcoming. But I’m noticing new things to appreciate, like the warm, amber-brown color of her eyes or the graceful hand that’s currently clutching the club at her side.