Why Coyotes Howl by Watts Martin

Author:Watts Martin [Martin, Watts]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Anthology
Publisher: Flying Tofu Press
Published: 2012-04-21T04:00:00+00:00

Vertical Blanking

The vixen stands in the doorway to a bar, and glances around, a slow tail swish betraying her agitation. The bar stands somewhere between “Cheers” and the Cantina from Star Wars.

With reddened silver fur, amaretto eyes and a height of six-three, she’d have thought she’d have stood out in any crowd. But see, over there, some kind of eight-foot tall feline something? It’s wearing full mechanical battle armor like you see in those Japanese cartoons. Next to it is a reptile, obviously female. Take a human and make it a dragon, and did she think obviously female? Make that preposterously. It’s a wonder the girl can stand with that much weight in front of her. And if the battle suit is jarring, what to make of the dragonlady’s medieval magician garb?

• • •

Kiri looked up from her computer monitor. “This is nuts.”

Paul shrugged, hands in his pockets, and leaned over her shoulder to look at the monitor. “The bar there’s always kind of crazy. Well, a little more than the rest of the world, at least.”

“There’s no theme. It’s like throwing space opera and high fantasy and gumshoe fiction all together. Douglas Adams on crack.”

“I told you the theme was just anthropomorphic animals.”

“The bartender’s human.”

Paul went back to his seat and leaned back so far it nearly tipped over, his scraggly black hair not quite touching the ground. “It’s not strictly enforced.” He grinned and shrugged languidly. “Look, you asked about a social roleplaying world instead of a combat one.”

Kiri looked back at the monitor and made a face. “There’s a mouse girl hitting on my vixen.”

“See, it’s social.”

“Christ,” Kiri muttered, rolling her chair forward and typing a noncommittal response on her keyboard. “I’ll try again later. I have some backup scripts to run.”

• • •

This is her third visit to the place, but she is still ill at ease. She makes her way slowly to a corner table, glancing at a mountain lion. He stands about six and a half feet tall. Unusual sizes are common around here—she’s unusually tall herself, or at least her player had intended her to be—but unlike so many of the other large males, he’s not a buff bodybuilder type. He’s quiet, looks around himself frequently, like he feels out of place in even modest crowds. Maybe here he is. His dress style of denim shorts and a suede vest is subdued, although not as much so as her own simple black skirt and white blouse. And he’s looked her way twice.

She looks back at the bartender, the most out of place figure she’s seen here by virtue of his normalcy. He’s a five-foot-nine human, kind of overweight, thinning black hair, still relatively handsome—an older Tom Cruise going to seed. “Do you know him?”

“He’s been in here off and on over the last couple months. Hasn’t really said anything to me and I haven’t heard anything about him, though.”

“I’m wondering if I should go over and talk to him.”

The server shrugs. “Your call. You want the usual?”

“I’ve been here often enough to have a usual?”

He grins.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.