Welcome to Gaia! ::

The sidewalk cafe was conveniently situated next door to an ethnic grocery store. Bolide had snuck in through the alley behind the shops, and hadn't had a chance to read the name of the store. He didn't know which ethnicity this dumpster belonged to, but it was a tasty ethnicity. Fortunately for the Cambrian, the entrance to the alley between the shops was partially blocked by a low stone wall. Bolide smiled broadly, ripping into the giant sturgeon carcass in his foreclaws. A nice midmorning snack, and no interfering people butting in. Perfect.

Sprawled on his back next to the wall, Bolide could hear the faint clatter of people eating and talking at the coffee shop. The not-so-tantalizing scent of coffee wafted to his nostrils as well. Ugh. Sour, acidic bean juice. And humans thought his eating habits were disgusting! The Cambrian was tempted to go over and give the coffee-drinkers a piece of his mind, but he was having so much fun just relaxing. It wasn't often that Bolide managed to spend time in the town without bothersome drama. People had too much time on their hands. They needed to get some kind of hobby other than following him around yelling or staring. It was enough to give a person a complex!

Oh, wonderful. He had been spotted. Well, he could run away, he could chase her, or he could go on eating his fish. Bolide sighed. The fish really was very good. Not much more than a day old! Hopefully the woman would just stay quiet and not make a scene. Humans were notorious self-doubters. Maybe she would think he was a hallucination. Heh, heh. Yes, that would be good.

"You, be quiet," Bolide said, clearing his throat of fish with an unpleasant gurgling sound. "Megga legga hey megga heyny ho. Yes, shut up." He waved a claw imperiously, narrowing his eyes at her.

As nice as his little snack had been, Bolide thought with some regret that it was probably over. She would start wailing and a shopkeeper would hit him with a mop and if he managed to escape back to the ocean he would be getting a very unpleasant call from the Institute about causing a disruption. It wasn't fair at all, no it wasn't. He was never the cause of a disruption, at least not intentionally. It was sensitive people getting their superfluous panties all in a bunch over some perfectly reasonable action of his. The hypocrisy!

Anna jerked her head back at having been caught lurking, and for a moment, she considered running. The voice that beckoned her into the alley was...wrong...somehow.... The more childlike portions of her brain conjured up images of being lured into the lair of some Big Bad Wolf.

But that was nonsense...wasn't it?

Rounding the corner with more bravado than she felt, she surveyed the scene with a growing sense of disbelief. A silver-haired woman stood there facing down a giant green shark...in a hood, gesturing toward the space Anna stood in with an oh-so-sharp claw.

Her mind almost refused to process it. Her body flitted through the instinctual options: scream, run, pass out...

Semi-coherent speech won out, at least for the moment.

"You're not..." she breathed tightly, then blushed red as she realized the next word about to cross her lips was "real."

Of course it was real...or had someone put something in her coffee?

The newcomer was as stunned as a dynamited fish, but Bolide didn't think she was about to run off screaming. Good, good. She wasn't as brave as his friend, but neither was she worthless. That was okay. "I am Bolide," he rumbled, straightening up a bit from his crouch. He breathed deeply, on the alert for any other curious passersby. Bolide's instinct was to back deeper into the shadows of the alley, but he had seen enough movies to know not to try to tempt the women into the alleyway with him. If he wanted company, he would have to stay out in the open.

Bolide shrugged his shoulders, causing the hood on his back to ripple. Oh yes, he felt very sexy. He had noticed Tsu... Tsunkka... Soo admiring his splendid hood. She was only a small, soft human, but it still felt good to get some recognition from a female. Bolide allowed himself to preen for a few seconds, flexing his chest muscles and coiling his tail about himself seductively.

"You stay quiet, don't be hurting Soo." Bolide knew that the grey-fur female was going through some boring human greeting ritual, and decided not to interfere further. He still intended to carry out a full greeting dance with Soo later, though. Fun, fun. For some reason most people assumed that Bolide's polite and proper Bella greetings were a threat and lost their composure when presented with one, but Bolide thought Soo would do well at a Bella greeting dance.

Bolide. What a strange name--it rolled easily enough off her tongue though. Besides--Tsunake was a mouthful by itself. Blue eyes darkened in concern for the other woman, realizing that this really wasn't exactly...normal. So why was she handling it so well? Maybe because this is exactly what she needed--something a bit out of the ordinary to spice up her boring life. And if Bolide was a Cambrian, then she didn't need to worry about a thing. Most of them were friendly...right?

Her eyes slid to their corners for a moment, watching Bolide posture himself, apparently pleased with the attention. She hid a smile with the back of her hand, casually acting as though she was wiping off her lips. How funny. Was he attempting to impress them? She did watch him, however, fascinated by how very strange he was, compared to both of the women. How many people would ever get to see something quite like Bolide? And, well, he was obviously intelligent enough to hold a conversation...

The request made her blink, realizing that she should stop zoning and focus on what was going on. "Ah...pleasure." She tipped her head awkwardly forward, brows lifting slightly before she spoke to Bolide. "I don't think Anna wants to hurt me--and, trust me, I'd put up a good fight if she did." The silver-haired woman grinned at Anna, showing that she meant no offense. This was a wonderful way to end her bad day. "...Do both of you live around here...?"

She must have said something very wrong...

In what seemed like excrutiating slow-motion, Bolide bared his teeth, a furious silent snarl. He drew Tsunake into his protective circle and regarded Anna as some sort of threat.

Threat? What kind of threat could she be? She was a particle physicist, not a sumo wrestler!

She stammered, backing up against the wall of a building. Tried to answer Tsunake's question. "I...I work not to far from here, in..."

She trailed off, unable to escape the sight of those threatening jaws. The big shark thing was the Big Bad Wolf to her Little Red Riding Hood. Why oh why had she walked into that alley?

"This is the part where I get eaten, isn't it?" she asked herself quietly, hands pressed to the hard bricks attempting to grope for some kind of hold on her sanity.