Ghruna
Daughter of Jhyrack
PARTY
The air tasted wrong.
Too many bodies. Too many smells layered on top of each other. Frying oil. Metal. Spice. Rot. Sweat. Something electrical.
Ghruna walked through Level 1313 with her shoulders slightly hunched, as though expecting the ceiling to drop lower. It nearly did. Pipes sweated overhead. Neon light flickered across her horns and painted her red hair in sickly green.
Seven feet of muscle did not move easily in corridors.
Someone muttered as she brushed past them. Another spat near her boots. She did not look at either.
On Malthyl, space meant sky and wind and open ground. She had grown up on a planet of mountains and open sky and storms. One filllwrd with monstrous predators she could recognis. Here, threats breathed down your neck without warning.
Her tail flicked once in irritation.
The noise from Club Cadaver thudded through the metal bones of the level ahead. Bass like war drums. That felt familiar enough.
A victory party was a party.
She paused at the mouth of a narrow alley. Two men leaned against a wall, arguing in hushed tones. One wore a concealed blaster poorly. The other kept glancing behind him.
They froze when they noticed her.
Ghruna stared.
One swallowed. "You lost?"
"No."
"You are."
She kept walking. Behind her, they did not follow.
Level 1313 did not feel like a battlefield. It felt like something worse. A maze. A hunt where the prey did not know it was prey.
Club Cadaver pulsed. Music rolled like distant thunder. Bodies packed tight. Across the press a familiar form rose above the others.
Ghruna approached the bar. She glanced once at the fragile looking stool and decided to lean on the bar instead. The tips of her horns almost caught a wire rack overhead that held clean glasses.
Her head cocked a bit to the side before her gaze swung over to Varin. "Is this fit for Human consumption?" A few blinks followed the question before a quick shake of her head. "In an hour you might be on the floor drinking this."
Ghruna leaned forwards curiously and looked down the bar at the girl on the other side of Varin.
"What are you drinking?" she asked.