How I met your Master - Ep. 1(Open/Bar Thread)

[Malachite the Shoki]

I sighed, and shook my head mock-sadly as I moved my head to the right, with the punch barely grazing the stubble on my face. Tsking, I put out the fire on my hand, and my muscles loosened, ready to dodge more attacks if necessary.

"It's really not nice to hit people, you know."



[member="Nei Laa"]

Spoiler

for the lelz

 

[Nei Laa]

[member="Malachite Avachei"]

Nei withdrew herself quickly. Instead of replying, though, she pulled out her blaster, put down her visor, and fired at point-blank range. Normally, the Nautolan avoided shooting so close to someone for personal reasons, but fox-man was annoying her.

At this point in time, Nei had forgotten that the fox-man mentioned something about blaster bolts causing a fire around him. Well, maybe not completely, as she had put down her visor, but enough so that she didn't stop to think that shooting her blaster might backfire.

 

[Malachite the Shoki]

I saw the blaster bolt, continued laughing, and set my still-raised hand on fire. The bolt didn't just get blocked, it exploded like a firecracker. He looked at the gun, and the rather nice hands attached to them.

"Your gun is a nice gun, and your hands are very nice hands. I'd like to not have them explode, if I can help it."

[member="Nei Laa"]

 

[Nei Laa]

[member="Malachite Avachei"]

Nei took a couple steps back, finally recalling his comment about explosions. She considered firing another shot at him, but decided against it -- she would probably just waste her ammo. The bartender, too, was kinda looking at her in the try-that-one-more-time-and-you're-out way. So, she holstered her gun before processing the next few sentences that had come out of the fox-man's mouth.

Which, incidentally, caught her off guard. "Oh. Thanks." Nei looked down at her hands, wondering how, exactly, they looked nice, before looking back up at him again. Wait...

Putting her visor back up, the Nautolan growled at the fox-man before sitting down again on her slightly burnt chair. Taking a sip of her drink, Nei hunched her shoulders, intent on now ignoring the fox-man.

 

[Malachite the Shoki]

Now the pretty woman was trying to ignore me... Nope. I pushed my still-full drink towards her. She was probably confused as hell.

"Don't argue, just drink it. Packs way more punch than a Reactor Core."

I leaned on the bar, and watched her for a couple seconds, before getting another one and downing half of it in one shot.

[member="Nei Laa"]

 

[Nei Laa]

[member="Malachite Avachei"]

Nei curled her lip at the fox-man's offer. Though she didn't pick up any nefarious pheromones coming from him, she didn't trust any free drink -- especially from someone she just shot at.

Sliding the drink back, Nei forgot her vow of silence. "It be stupid to accept drinks from strangers. And I'm not stupid." Hunching her shoulders again, she was about to put down her visor when she realized that with it down, she wouldn't be able to drink.

Scowling, Nei took another swig from her Core, head tresses twitching like a cat's tail.

 

[Malachite the Shoki]

I just shrugged, and downed the glass I'd been trying to offer the woman. I ordered another one, and nudged it towards her without even touching anything but the bottom of the glass. I grinned at the woman again, not even sure why I was doing this.

"I'm not a stranger, now. Strangers don't try to kill each other over whether or not head-tresses are tails."

[member="Nei Laa"]

 

[Nei Laa]

[member="Malachite Avachei"]

Clearly, ignoring him was going nowhere. Not even bothering to look at the new glass, Nei once again slid it back. She didn't know what game this fox-man was playing at by ordering her drinks, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to find out. "Head tresses are not tails," she muttered under her breath.

In a louder voice, the Nautolan huffed, "Strangers don't know each other's names. I don't know your name. Therefore, you be stranger. So there."

 

[Malachite the Shoki]

Oh, well that's how she was gonna play this. Why was I still trying to get her to drink? No idea.

"My name's Malachite. I'm buying you something with a bigger punch so you can deal with this day better than you can with your Reactor Core. You're brave to shoot at me, and I respect that. I swear I'm not trying to kill you or anything. I simply want you to deal with this day better, so you don't feel the need to shoot at people who argue with you."

[member="Nei Laa"]

 

[Nei Laa]

[member="Malachite Avachei"]

Well in that case...

Eyeing Malachite suspiciously, Nei reached over and delicately picked up the glass. She sniffed at it, but nothing smelled out of the ordinary. She hoped. "Why you care?" Nei asked. "You aren't my guardian."

Deciding she probably wouldn't be killed (one of the pluses of drinking a Reactor Core -- temporary immunity to toxins), she took a small sip and pulled a face. Not one of the best drinks, true, but not the worst, either.

After a moment of letting the liquor settle, Nei added in a low grunt, "Name's Nei." The first name would do, for now.

 

[Malachite the Shoki]

I shrugged, and leaned back on the bar, drinking another glass of Gargle Blaster.

"Because I'm the one you were shooting at to make yourself feel better."

I heard her identify herself, and I smiled.

"So you do have a name. A nice one, too."

[member="Nei Laa"]

 

[Nei Laa]

[member="Malachite Avachei"]

Nei scowled at Malachite. Again. "I shoot at you because you be a stupid du'ka foh." She caught him smiling, which really ticked her off. Taking a sip of her drink again, she growled, "Duh. Everyone has a name. And how can names be nice? Names are names."

Alright, so maybe that was a little nicer than what she normally would have said. But it wasn't because it finally clicked that Nei wouldn't win in a fight -- it was because he'd given her a free drink that wasn't poisoned.

 

[Malachite the Shoki]

I just shrugged, and kept drinking through glasses of Gargle Blasters.

"Aww, I'm not that stupid."

I drank some more, and laughed.

"Names can be nice... I mean, Malachite isn't even a nice-looking rock. I could be named after something shiny. Like Pyrite. I like pyrite. Anyway, names can be nice, and Nei is a nice name."

[member="Nei Laa"]

 

[Nei Laa]

[member="Malachite Avachei"]

Nei shook her head in disbelief as Malachite continued to drink down the liquor. She herself hadn't finished the first glass. Not that she was trying to, really, but still. Speaking of which...

The Nautolan raised her own glass to her lips again, muttering, "You be stupid. Pyrite be stupid. Names be names. Fact of life, du'ka foh."

She took a swig of the liquor and began to cough horribly. It appeared that Nei had swallowed a lot of air as well as liquid, and the two didn't want to play nice.

 

[Malachite the Shoki]

I raised my eyebrows, and lightly tapped Nei on the back, forgetting that the effect would be negligible, since it was a bubble stuck in her throat, not a solid object.

"If I'm stupid, what does that make you? I did tell you not to shoot, didn't I?"

[member="Nei Laa"]

 

[Nei Laa]

[member="Malachite Avachei"]

Nei finally managed to clear her throat, growling, "Don't touch me, du'ka foh."

At his question, Nei recalled their conversation before shaking her head. "I be Nei. You never said don't shoot, you ask if I see what fire does to blaster gas. Different phrase, different meaning. Simple fact." She took another sip, careful to not swallow any more air bubbles.

 

[Malachite the Shoki]

I laughed again, conscious that I was poking the bear, as it were.

"Nanis, Gona'eo Dohsa. You knew that was a warning just as well as I did. You either didn't believe me, or you wanted to see what I meant."

Going back to my... fourth(?) drink, I began to laugh even harder.

[member="Nei Laa"]

 

[Nei Laa]

[member="Malachite Avachei"]

Nei scowled at Malachite in order to hide her surprise at his relative fluency in Ryl. Ignoring his counterargument and raucous laughter, she fired back, "Lady Tail stupid name. I have tresses, not tails. Stupid, stupid!"

She really hated him laughing at her. Muttering all sorts of creative insults into her glass, Nei scrunched herself up and tried to ignore the fox-man's hoots.

 

[Malachite the Shoki]

I only stopped laughing when I got another cold Gargle Blaster down my throat.

"You see? There are nice names and stupid names. Yours is nice, mine is not."

I wasn't about to start the argument about the tails and tresses again, but watching the grumpy lady react to me was kind of fun.

[member="Nei Laa"]

 

[Nefertari Sovint]

Uncovering my ears and cursing in Gunganese after the blaster fire exploded, I turned back to my drink. "This fox guy is strange...and that hothead isn't a twi'lek, but what is she?" I thought to myself

[member="Malachite Avachei"][member="Nei Laa"]