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The stench of the fish market was unbearable. Ioyla had said, almost pleaded with Ilistala, to take something to cover her nose, maybe a clothespin, a surgeon's mask...hell, even a gas mask might just do the trick! But no, like a stubborn fool, Stala had declined the strange offer. She could handle the smell! It wouldn't be that bad!

Oh, how wrong she was.

Clasping a tanned hand over her nose, Stala whined into her palm, stamping her feet and fluttering her leathery wings. "Shaaaunaaa!" she squealed, her eyes watering, "it smells like death in here!" The air around her back, circulated from her flapping wings, swirled around her hands and through her fingers, twice as strong as ever. She gagged and upgraded her protection from a single hand to two.

A plastic bag filled with baked goods and a chilled bottle of soda, looped over her arm and snugged inside the crook of her elbow, bumped against the Shattered girl's sides, as if demanding Stala to get them out of that smelly market--and fast! She hoisted the bag over her shoulder, whining again and cursing her very existence. "You need to get your dang tuna so we can jet," she muttered bitterly, nudging her friend with her bagged shoulder.

Suzu had no idea how it got as far as the Fish Market, but none-the-less he strolled through it looking curious. Who had known there were so many types of dead fish to sell? Up until now Suzu hadn't been aware that there was even a market for fish carcasses. Thus that would likely explain the look of wonder and mild ounces of bewilderment in its odd colored eyes.

Suzu wore its parka-esque covering to keep out the cold but not hide the four arms from people that could possibly gawk or stare. Why should it care about what others thought of it? Suzu figured it to be the loss of the general public if they couldn't see beyond his special traits. The spectacles 'he' wore were clipped onto his parka and dangling idly by a chain, it was a wonder that he was not afraid that the glasses could fall when or if the chain decided to just snap and break off.

Suzu kept a steady stride and didn't pay the girls any mind as it just calmly stepped around them and kept on walking. Suzu wasn't unfriendly but unless approached it wasn't exactly a social butterfly either.

While in passing Suzu uttered a soft toned and polite, "Excuse me," as it was only proper.

It could have been the ungodly smell of the fishmarket eating away at Ilistala's central nervous system, or it could have been the strange sight of a blue-haired boy chasing first a rabbit, then a four-armed boy(?), or it could have just been the fact that Ioyla Infriti had bizarre parenting techniques and Ilistala had actually inherited some strange form of tourette's from her obnoxious mother, but in any case, once Suzu and Gilles passed both her and Shauna, Stala was aware of the muscles in her belly twisting and fluttering. What was this? What was happening? It felt like butterflies were ramming their delicate bodies against the walls of her stomach, and Stala did not enjoy that one bit, no sirree, not at all, maybe she should go say something to the weird people ahead, ask them "hey, why do you make me feel like this"--?

The girl stopped walking--and thinking--when a sweet bun was crammed into her mouth. She yanked the treat out, chewed on the mouthful cut off from her teeth, swallowed, and tossed the sticky remainders at the back of Shauna's head. "Think fast!" she teased, giggling. If chased for commiting the heinous deed of messing up Shauna's hair, Stala would zoom off to the left, quite possibly after Gilles and Suzu and unconscience of it in the first place. She darted through the rows of bass, the aisles of shrimp, the racks of lobster, and turned her head to see if she was being followed.

Turning her head back to watch where she was going, Ilistala ran right into Gilles' back, probably knocking him and Suzu over.

Suzu was upright and walking. It was only vaguely aware that perhaps someone was following but only chalked that up to the person going in the same direction as it was. There were several things that happened as soon as it passed the girls with that feeling of being followed: squealing, a bit of shouting, and suddenly it met the ground.

Some strange force knocked into it and brought it momentarily to the ground. Somehow its glasses were unharmed but possibly scratched up a bit. Its four arms were splayed to either side of it like a bug caught splattered upon the window of a moving vehicle. Suzu laid like that for a moment or two before suddenly getting on its four hands and knees and pushing himself up right. The first matter of business was to check the glasses for damage.

Suzu didn't seem upset or angry about his fall. It set the glasses upon the bridge of his nose and turned around, still on his knees, to look toward the group behind him.

And chaos thrived.

The three of them--Suzu, Stala, and Gilles--had been a tangle of limbs and forcefully emptied windpipes. When the two boys, if that was what you wanted to call the red-headed kid and Stabby McHorny over there, pulled themselves up and off the ground, Ilistala opted to continue laying there, her chest heaving, gulping in as much air as she could possibly handle. She eventually got back on her feet, too, and wiped the dirt from the palms of her hands. A sharp sting on her elbow told her there was a scrape: small and shallow. It would heal fine.

Now, on to more important matters. Firstly, supressing the urge to cry. After some more hitching breaths, Stala forced herself under control, linked her arms across her chest, and stepped to the side to be next to Shauna. "That wasn't funny!" Ilistala snapped, almost slapping her cousin on the arm. "I coulda died! I mean, honestly!" She continued to disregard her two victims until Gilles' hand was down Shauna's shirt, chasing what was apparently the bunny.

"HEY!" A frenzied torrent of flailing hands soon followed Gilles' quest for rabbit-y goodness. Stala's voice escalated from low-key and embarassed to loud, shrill, and mad. "YOU CAN'T BE DOIN THAT TO LITTLE GIRLS MISTER CAUSE THAT'S NOT RIGHT CAUSE SMOKEY THE BEAR SAID SO AND SMOKEY THE BEAR IS RIGHT AND WHEN SMOKEY THE BEAR SAYS THAT WHEN PEOPLE TOUCH YOU IN YOUR NO-NO ZONE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO GET HELP FROM A RESPONSIBLE ADULT!"

Help! Help! Someone help! Maybe Suzu, since he's got like, seven arms.

It watched the chaos as if it were just simply observing some strange ritual of an obscure tribe no one has ever heard about; except for him of course. After a moment of watching he pushed himself into a standing position and crossed his top arms over his chest while his lower arms remained at his side. It was like the pig-tailed girl wasn't yelling, the boy with the bunny wasn't panicking, and the other girl wasn't being all embarrassed.

"Excuse me, miss?" It addressed Ilistala first, "The lad didn't mean it. Can you not hear him apologizing frantically?" Suzu's lower arm gestured to Gilles, "Look at him, he's suitably mortified and apologizing." It was hard trying to be the voice of reason.

Suzu's other lower arm, not gesturing toward Gilles, pointed to Shauna now, "Your friend has forgiven him for his ... improper actions. He just wanted his bunny back, that's all. I don't think he wanted to hurt her, much less touch her 'no-no' place," Suzu concluded now crossing his lower arms.

It wasn't until Suzu's very calm, very relaxed voice wormed its way into Stala's ears. She immediately silenced herself and her strange assault, having her arms drop back down to her sides, watching Suzu's many arms with unfeigned interest. "Oh," she said quietly, once Suzu had stopped talking. Her own blush began to creep in to the corners of her cheeks, brought on by her unncessary reaction to Gilles and Shauna's embarassment.

At Gilles' request for help, Stala stepped and leaned forward, her wings twitching, and wrapped two tanned fingers around the base of the stuck boy's horn. Grunting, she yanked and pulled, jerked and wrenched, until, finally, a chunk of the wood broke free and fell from the ivory-white horn, leaving a missing crescent-shaped dent in the wood. Gilles was free, yay! "There you go, young man~" Ilistala grinned and shuffled back to stand next to Shauna.

As if on instinct, Stala stuck both hands forward, one for Suzu and one for Gilles, already monopolzing on the awkward-turned-hopefully-good situation and presistently annoying flutter in her belly. "I'm Stala," the girl said, giggling, "and this is Shauna. I'm sorry about, um, yelling at you, Mister...?"

Suzu's expression became a happy smile as the mess got sorted out and people stopped yelling, screaming, and exploding all over the place. Suzu had saved the day and avoided a possible all out war in which many would have possibly been injured and covered in fish guts.

All in a day's work, it supposed, as he listened to Stala introduce herself and Shauna. It glanced curiously at both of the hands offered for a moment or two. It would be awkward to shake one the wrong way, and he didn't want to rob Gilles of a proper handshake. Instead there was a pause and then a lower hand stretched out and gave her a sideways high five, "Respect to mah 'sistah'... uhh, yo," It offered awkwardly, "I am Suzu," it introduced itself afterwards blushing a bright red.

The hand that 'high fived' Stala was still held before it in a loose easy fist. Can't end a slick sideways high five without a delightful 'respect knuckle' gesture, right?