Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2545448" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 274: Of Smarts and LooksThe putrid brown world of Nal Hutta, home of the slug-like Hutts, hung distantly on the opposite side of its small moon. Thankfully, the world itself was generally off limits to any non-Hutts, but that wasn’t ever a problem. Any non-Hutt that wanted down on that planet would have to have some serious problems. At least partly because of this, Nal Hutta’s moon of Nar Shaddaa became the place where the smugglers, bounty hunters, and other galactic ‘sludge’ that worked for the Hutts found their way to.    And now, flying through the atmosphere of the miniature Coruscant, Loki wove through the other traffic and larger of the giant towers. They were currently circling an area near Halpak Tower, which was still in exactly the same place they’d left it. The reason they weren’t set down was due to the fact that nearly all of the landing platforms on the planet were privately owned, and it required very strong negotiation skills to convince the owner to let you land and not steal your ship when you’d left.    Shadow was doing the ‘negotiating’, and had just finished explaining in great detail how anyone looking at Loki in the wrong way would have their extremities removed. Of course, she did make sure to mention they would pay generously...but the pain was emphasized. Once it was repeated in even greater detail, the voice on the other end caved and agreed, and it wasn’t long before Loki set down on a small pad not a half-kilometer from Halpak Tower. Closer than they’d been before, at least.    After Loki was down, Shadow checked over a few last things before heading back to find Jyren. He was supposed to be back with Toby making sure the child would stay on the ship while the two of them were gone. Instead, she found the two of them sitting on the bed in Toby’s room(which had been Jyren’s before) and staring at each other with an almost malicious intent in their eyes.    Shadow simply cleared her throat, although she managed to make it sound menacing somehow. At the noise, Tobias jumped. Or rather, shot up a half meter into the air and yelped in surprise. Immediately, Jyren laughed before sitting up and catching Tobias as he fell back down, “I win.”    “Awwwww!” Toby whimpered then looked over Jyren to Shadow with a glare, “But I wanna go, too!”    “Nope,” Jyren shook his head and set Toby back down on the bed, “You know the deal. I won, so you have to stay here until we get back.”    Tobias sighed dramatically, but after seeing that he was being given The Look from both Jyren and Shadow, mumbled and nodded, “Okay...but I wanna explore when you get back!”    “If you’re good,” Jyren said with a nod, patting Toby on the head and getting up to walk over to Shadow.    She was now staring at him in shock. After a moment, she just shook her head, “You actually gave him the chance to win?”    Jyren shrugged and grinned, “He accepted it much better than just telling him. And besides, it wasn’t as if I was going to lose.”    Shadow was still gaping, but slowly words began to form, “You...arrogant...”    That was it. What else was there to be said? Especially considering that he grinned even more, anything else would probably have only encouraged him more. It was one of those times when Shadow wondered why she hadn’t killed him yet...besides the fact that she’d have to die, too.    Shaking it off, Shadow turned and started down the corridor to leave Loki, “Come on, we’ll do this quickly.”    She saw him nod before turning back and saying something to Toby. Jyren then quickly ran to keep up with her, and when he got to the hatch and found nothing, he started looking all around.    “Human,” sounded an oddly Shadow-like voice. It would have been Shadow but the voice was higher pitched, at least slightly softer, and well...lower down. Jyren blinked, allowed his mind to process all of the information, then made the correct decision and looked down. A half meter under his vision was a human woman with shoulder length, jet black hair and an athletic build. She was looking straight up at Jyren with two piercing violet eyes and an expression that only Shadow could manage.    “Oh!” it suddenly all made sense to Jyren, “Right. Of course.”    In a moment, he was no longer towering over her...though even back in his ‘old’ human body, Jyren was still a good deal taller than Shadow was. But she didn’t have to break her neck to look up at him, now. It was almost strange looking at him like this again. His hair was pretty much the same length, but now back to the old brown instead of white and blue. And he was...well...he wasn’t exactly much to look at, in all honesty. No wonder he’d been a pilot.She grinned at the thought, which only made Jyren confused. Which of course, only made Shadow grin more. There was something more dangerous about that grin when it was on a human. Probably because she was shorter, smaller, and didn’t look nearly as menacing. That grin sure as hell did. Seeing that it had the necessary effect, Shadow patted Jyren on the shoulder before turning and leading the way out to the streets of Nar Shaddaa.    They were delayed for a short time while they paid the owner of the platform and gave more assurance of the pain that would be caused if the ship was touched, but in a few more minutes they were back to braving the insanely populated streets of the Smuggler’s Moon. It took twenty minutes to travel the half-kilometer to their destination...but their it was, almost exactly as they had left it.    Almost, because now there were lights on, and, from the looks of things, actual people inside. Jyren bit his lip and looked down to Shadow, “So what do we say?”    “I haven’t worked that part out yet,” she admitted with a shrug before starting to the entrance anyway, “I’ll figure something out.”    “Ah, good,” Jyren rolled his eyes, “And here I was thinking I was the one who ran in head first without any plan.”    “Just more proof that you’re a bad influence,” Shadow shrugged idly, managing not to grin, “Now keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking. Don’t want to tip anyone off that you’re smarter than you look.”</blockquote>

Verification