(continued from previous post)
"Aah", he said, standing a little straighter, taking care to sound out every syllable of his credentials, "am Bub, son of Icthyander, chief wizard of the House of the Iron Udder, high priest of the Brotherhood of the Fish, and initiate into the Order of the Busted Stock. Ah'm also last year's All-Siliconian in guncraft, li'l lady." All this came out in a surprisingly soft, lyrical voice, more suited to a palace scribe than a warrior really, the kind of melodious croon which always got pressed into raconteur duty around the dungfire. Rambi accessed faint recollections of a childhood stay with a silkwrights' caravan.
Bub used the opportunity presented to quickly wrap the sealskin he'd so hastily grabbed around his hips, creating an extemporaneous sarong.
Rambi took all this in silently. She relaxed her grip on her Uzi; she was getting close to freezing her fingers onto the frosty upper receiver assembly. she sidled over to the firepit, sat down and began languidly poking at the embers with a handy narwhal tusk. Maybe this bundle of all the wrong steroids isn't such a lout, she mused. And the way he spoke, the unflappable deliberate manner in which he rolled the words around like a farmer judging goose eggs, that reminded her of someone long ago, someone not forgotten nor forgiven. Bub broke the thickening silence by opining "Ah unnerstan' y'all're a might handy with an arn, y'se'f thar. The tale of th' Big Board is still a fav'rite sideslapper round the campfahrs back t'home." Bub retrieved a strip of pinniped prosciutto from a bedstand. He separated two ribbons of aromatic flesh from the main piece and handed one to Rambi, who took it from him. All the while her eyes blazed "This doesn't mean I owe you anything, Bub, ahrm, Bucko!"
They chewed in silence. Rambi got up and pulled Bub's damascus-and-ebony boot knife out of his well-worn footwear. Bub's eyes went wide with protest, but he quieted down when she used it to carve up the remaining meat.
After she'd packed away a good two pounds of this ecologically dubious but gastronomically sublime nutrition, she got up, stretched like a cat, patted her belly and gave air to a tiny ladylike eructation. Then she fixed him with her gaze and addressed him.
You're honored tonight. I don't do this for just anybody. I'll repeat myself." Then, with the last trace of honey in her voice turning to steel: "Why are you following me?"
Bub, the Hero of the Iron Udder, Wizard of Pressurized Cheese, slowly stood up in one fluid motion, setting his corded muscles dancing under the golden parchment of his thighs. He hooked a thumb into his impromptu couture and drew it down right to the edge of decency. Curls of a darker blonde revealed themselves, and - was that a tattooed fin, or something? Among the silken cataract of his underbelly thus revealed, Rambi saw the curdled gleam of a small rectangular scar, well-healed but not invisible. "This's your handiwork, Ah reckon."
Now he lined her up in the crosshairs of his thundrous glare, and it was Rambi's turn to feel involuntarily a little discomfited.
"Ah'd be mighty obladg'd iffen ya mind telling me whut", he paused significantly, easing his fingertips over the vulnerable spot, "this-here was all about!"
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