Strata was a long way from home, but home could honestly suck her nuts. She liked Klugetown. It was a nest of dumbasses and traitorous snakes; it suited her like a nice dress.
There was nothing quite comparable to the feel of Klugetown’s gravel roads, splattered with booze and blood and every single bodily fluid imaginable underneath her scaled feet. She walked down one now, humming a song that she didn’t know the melody to, and so made one up as she went along.
She would have to apologize to Lady Smolder, the next time she saw that two-faced bitch. Being sent here was the best thing that had ever happened to her.
Before coming to Klugetown, her near thirty-two years on this measly planet were all spent eating gems. There were gems in Klugetown, and she ate those at first, but they all tasted like hot garbage. She was forced to adapt. So she ate what the locals ate and drink what they drank, so they’d feel at home with her and, as a result, have the whole of Klugetown increase their business with the Dragonlands. And along the way she became a regular at the local ramen place.
The restaurant didn’t have a name. There was no sign above its doors. Creatures simply knew where it was. Strata turned a corner and found a crevice in the alley wall, where two bland, dirty panels of plywood stood in the way of chatter and the nutty scent of miso. She pushed the doors open.
A dingy, low lit hole in the wall greeted her, tables scattered in the ashy darkness opposite a bar that the kitchen lights cast a sunset orange over. There were a menagerie of creatures bunched together at the tables: kirins on the verge of becoming niriks, dragons discussing work with hooded, masked beings that seemed to make up a good percentage of Klugetown’s population, tired, hungry zebras eating their ramen and minding their own business. The place smelled like heaven.
Strata chose to sit at the bar, where a giant frog-like creature took her order. She wasn’t sure what his race was called, and didn’t care too much, but he (if he was a he) was a chef that worked most days here, and he made some truly amazing shit.
She asked for a standard bowl of ramen, all the usual stuff. Whatever the usual stuff was, she had no idea. She just ate it, and knew that at this point it tasted better than the cores of a thousand fire rubies melted together.
There were no other patrons at the bar. Seemed like everyone was here to do business or be left alone. Which was lame. Strata was finished with her business for the day, and right now all she wanted was a good fight or a fun drinking buddy. Maybe someone to spend the night with. The wasteland nights were getting colder and colder, after all, and it was nearing hatching season. Her instincts were a little more heightened than they usually were.
Like he had heard her wish, he entered the place and sat a seat away from her.
He was an abyssinian in a maroon-colored coat. Some kind of heavy wool. Way too heavy to be comfortable out here. His fur was sleek, though, and it was that calico pattern that Strata had always found really delicious looking.
Friendship often starts with a greeting, came Lady Smolder’s smoky alto.
Strata said hi to him, embarrassed at the weak tone in her voice. She would have to review Lady Smolder’s lessons sometime. She was sure that she had a lot to remember.
But the abyssinian smiled, and then they were talking.
“Are you new here?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you around.”
“Yeah, just moved in from, well, you can guess.”
She could guess. “How do you like the place?”
“It’s...nice. It’s weird. I hate almost everyone I know. But it’s nice.”
“I know exactly what you mean. How long were you living here before you discovered this place?”
“This is my first time here, actually.”
“Really?”
“Is it—you know, is it good?”
“Not bad,” said Strata. Their food came, and they thanked the chef. “It’s pretty fucking good actually,” she added, right before digging in.
The abyssinian enjoyed it as much as her. Strata found that she liked the look of him when he was happy. Something satisfying in seeing it.
They continued talking. She explained that she was here as the official emissary from the Dragonlands, helping to facilitate the exchange of ore and spices between them and Klugetown.
“So you’re a big deal?”
Strata’s tail began to wag. She was a big deal. She loved it here. It was starting to feel like home more than the Dragonlands, actually.
The abyssinian smiled at that. He was happy for her. He hoped that he’d be feeling like that soon enough.
She asked him if he’d like to see where she lived.
He took a second to answer. Maybe prospective bedmates weren’t very forward in Abyssinia. But he accepted.
Strata left, her arm entwined with his like twin snakes. She couldn’t tell if she was leaning on him, or he her, but she liked it. She felt safe.
And that was a mistake.