Shanti sat on a work stool, humming cheerfully to herself as she fingered the gun case in front of her and scanned about to see if her sister was paying attention.
The humming got a bit quieter as she started to undo the latches on the case as carefully as she could. One of them snapped open a bit louder than she wanted and she hummed louder for a moment as she started to look around for Vivi again and then turned her attention back to the case. She was cracking it slowly open, the light starting to work it's way in when...
...it closed with a thunk and she only just got her fingers out of the way.
"Vivian!" Shanti snapped angrily. "What did you do that for?!"
Vivian stayed calm, enough used to Shanti's hair trigger that she was never worried about it when directed at her or Rally. Getting excited back just made things worse, staying calm tended to keep her sister from going over.
"It's a client's weapon, Shanti," she said, locking the case closed and taking it to the back of the shop again. "So no touching."
Vivian was treating the case as carefully as Shanti at first, though for different reasons. However, it quickly became apparent that the case itself didn't have much if anything for her to flash on.
"I wasn't going to touch, I just wanted to see what it was," she said poutingly. "Oh! Maybe he has a desert eagle...no, the case is too small."
"Just leave it alone, Sis," Vivi said, rolling her eyes.
She moved back to the front of the store and turned on the monitor before switching over toward the Mars 1 formula races. Shanti groaned and rolled her eyes as she sat at the counter and kicked her feet out.
"Uh oh," Vivian said in a wincing tone, drawing Shanti's eyes to the TV in time to see a car fly upward into the air in Mars' lower gravity before smashing into the high wall that surrounded the track.
A brilliant fireball erupted on the screen kicking the driver compartment outward into the center of one of the pits. The crew there scattering for cover from the safety pod and various other shrapnel.
"I'd watch racing more if that happened more often," Shanti noted, pointing to the screen as the fireball was replayed.
As the driver came out of the pod conscious and alive, but with a clearly broken leg, Vivian sighed in both relief and grief simultaneously.
"He's on my fantasy team," she muttered sadly.
"Hello," a curious voice called out from the doorway. "Is anybody here?"
Vivian and Shanti turned to the doorway to see a slightly rotund Centauri of middle years standing there, a trace of white through his crest of hair.
"Oh," the man said. "There you..."
He stopped and frowned as he looked between the two girls, noting the similarities that weren't quite hidden by their differing tastes in clothing and hairstyle.
"Let's see, which of you is the young lady that I've conversed with previously," the man asked curiously.
Vivian raised her hand as Shanti looked over at her, after which, the long haired girl pointed to her sister and stared at the centauri.
"Ahh, I see," Londo said. "Right, I remember now, just shy of a proper centauri woman's hairstyle."
"Centauri women go bald," Vivian noted.
"Yes, that's true," Londo said.
Her sister twittered in response.
"You're looking for Rally, right?" Vivian asked harshly.
"Actually, I was wanting to..." Londo was interrupted as another person walked into the small shop.
"Excuse me," the Narn coming into the shop said. "Miss Vincents, I was wondering if I might see your..."
The Narn stopped talking as he noticed who he had just brushed past.
"G'Kar, how interesting to see you here of all places," the centauri said.
"I was just thinking the same thing, Mollari," G'Kar said with narrowing eyes.
"Yes, I suppose you were," returned Londo with a self-important nod, eyes latched to his old rival. "Watch yourselves, children, G'Kar here is an incorrigible womanizer. If you let him talk too long I'm guessing your virtues surrendered."
"Excuse me?" Vivian demanded, blushing.
"Huh?" Shanti asked, blinking.
"What ar...Mollari!" G'Kar snapped, "Only you could leap to such a despicable assumption off the bat. Most species have enough decency to recognize a child from a woman."
"Hey!" Vivian snapped, angry this time.
"Just what are they talking about?" Shanti wondered, doing what she usually did when things were confusing: sit coquettishly and blink with wide eyes until someone explained things.
"Yes, so they do," Londo said. "I'm glad to see the narn are starting to realize that fact, maybe they're just a few evolutionary scales away from adopting such decency themselves."
"Mollari, are you accusin..." G'Kar started to shout angrily before pausing and then laughing darkly. "Oh, I see, you're trying to distract me are you? Just what are you doing here at Miss Vincent's place of business, were you thinking to...take out a contract of sorts?"
Outside assassins, the narn thought, of course the Centauri would sink so low. It was the sort of bloodthirsty thing they could think of.
"What are you..." Londo paused and frowned. "Ah, aha! You can always tell an enemies plans by what he accuses you of! I see, G'Kar...I suppose you have a request of the...the operator of this business yourself. Some rocks to kick over, eh?"
Certainly the Narn would start turning to other races for spies, their own questionably-labeled minds could at least understand that that would be a clever thing to do.
"Oh!" Shanti called out in a sharp excited tone, drawing all eyes toward her. "Do you have anymore war stories, Mr G'Kar?"
"War stories?" Londo asked. "You think you can get war stories from a narn? Their idea of a war is picking up two rocks and pounding them together in hopes of sparking a lightning bolt."
G'Kar fumed for a moment and then leaned forward with a smile toward Shanti.
"Well, that's about all one needs to blow away something as stuffed up as a Centauri," G'Kar said.
"Stuffed up?" Londo said. "What would you know about fashion and dignity, your world is a dry thing with almost no color."
"Yes, one wonders how that happened," the narn said with dry and controlled rage.
"So, umm, stories?" Shanti asked, blinking cutely.
"How about I tell you about the valiant liberation of Illaz III," Londo said with a beaming smile.
"The liberation?" G'Kar noted. "How about the slaughter of Illaz III?"
"Well, this is amazing," Londo said. "First the realization about a proper age of courting and now he's properly labeling the senseless violence of his people."
"Are you guys going to keep arguing like that all the time?" Vivian asked.
"There is no arguing with the narn," Londo protested. "They simple rant nonsense at you until you get bored."
"Nonsense is one thing I will agree you have an expertise in Mollari," G'Kar noted with raising voice.
Shanti leaned over toward her sister.
"I hope they're still doing this when Rally gets here so I can have evidence for the next 'old enough to control yourself' lecture," she whispered.
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(Posted Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:20)
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