Edited: Apr, 28, 2020.
Note: Slightly long chapter. Above art, example of a Kraitai type Halfhuman by me.
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Before they could head over to one of the gates into Syaraize, a distinct whistling made her duck instinctively although there was nowhere to hide. A small, oval police ship floated towards the city. It rose up higher until it became level with a tower attached to the dome. It was a police ship docking tower and a platform slipped out from the building, penetrating the dome that wiggled like jelly. Two officers in white and blue uniforms stepped out onto the platform and disappeared inside—the High Collection police.
Pinti licked her shoulder in embarrassment for showing a moment of weakness.
"So, how are we going to get in?" She composed herself, straightening her back.
Deel pointed to a metal gate—more like a door—at the lower levels, close to the main entrance. Chains crisscrossed over the gate and a clunky padlock held the handles closed. He sauntered over to the gates and took off his necklace.
In a puff of smoke, he turned into his Kathula form and began clawing at the hard-packed sand, digging a hole. Pinti listened for any more ships as she cautiously walked up to see what he was doing—and what the purpose of suddenly digging like a maniac was. A glint of silver flashed as a key poked its head out.
"There you are key! I missed you!" Deel grabbed up the key and fit it in the padlock. The iron gate squealed open, hurting her ears. Inside stretched a metal tunnel that had fluorescent lights on the floor. When Deel set foot inside they lit up until the end. A sweet lemongrass scent filled the tunnel.
He put his necklace back on to turn Human and wrinkled his nose at her, grinning. "Cool, huh? Secret entrance. Just go to the landmark. Clock tower, okay?"
Deel pushed her in the stomach without warning. Pinti stumbled backwards into the tunnel and nearly fell on her butt. Regaining her balance, she turned to face him, but he slammed the door shut and locked her in with the click of a key.
"Pfft!" Pinti glared at the closed door. "A little more explanation could do! What is clock tower?" She raked her brain for the Kathulan words, but the combination of the words confused her. She knew what they meant separately, but not together.
"You stupid, stupid Kathula! Disgrace! What a way to treat a fellow Kathula!" She could have gone on, but there was no point in staying in here. She had to go through this strange tunnel in hopes that he hadn't set her up for failure or a trap. She could well end up in the hands of racist Humans.
"The Scepter of Tamido is on the line." She reminded herself in Kathulan.
The fluorescent lights began to dim inside as they went off one by one in rapid succession from the end of the tunnel. Left in sudden darkness, she took deep breaths to calm herself. When she backed into the wall, it wiggled under her touch and she thought she would fall through it. Taking baby steps, she inched her way forward, feeling the wiggly wall.
It was a strange sort of darkness. Not completely dark, but not dark enough for her night vision to work well. It hurt to concentrate on trying to see. Pinti rubbed her eyes and tried to refocus on her surroundings when she bumped into a door, mashing her nose into metal.
Yowling, she stomped her foot and held her nose.
"Feigat, feigat!" Pinti groaned and gently rubbed her most likely bruised nose. Once the pain ebbed, did she open the door.
Instantly a multitude of noises, smells, and colors bombarded her with the chaos of a city. Chattering languages flew into her ears that she had never heard before. Hundreds of Humans were walking about in suits, cultural draping clothes, sophisticated evening gowns, or colorful spotted and stripped cloaks. Mingled amongst their hoard were Halfhumans of types she had never seen before. Half tiger, half fox, half alligator, half dog, and many more. The jumbled city noises of chattering, squealing, laughing, and shouting overwhelmed her ears when amongst them, a voice jumped out.
"What?!"
There, a few paces from her, stood a half-fox Halfhuman holding a device to his ear.
"Mason, are you seriously out of your mind?" He continued to shout and other citizens around them stopped talking and stared. "Don't 'please Scotchie' me! Get yourself out of your own mess!" He shoved the device in his jacket pocket and ran off into the crowd that parted only briefly to let him through. Buildings lining the streets branched out from the open area of chaos where she stood, and he disappeared down a street. Once he was gone, the citizens resumed their previous chattering chaos.
Shaking her head from having someone's loud conversation shoved in her ears, Pinti crept out into the light. But she leapt backwards as horses pulling a carriage galloped passed her at high speed.
"Yah!" The driver's intense calling made the carriage swivel left down a narrow street, nearly tipping over, and somehow avoiding the crowd. Taking cautions, Pinti tried to match the crowd's brisk pace to make her way through but she was immediately shoved around like a doll.
"Out of my way," came a deep rumbling voice. Pinti scooted away from two Halfhumans with bear-like ears, while their faces were Human—Gerfai type of Halfhuman.
"It's the anthro!" one of them said.
The Gerfai's comment drew others' attentions to her. Pinti had prior experience with unwanted attention, but she wasn't prepared for this. Unlike Bairenshire citizens who immediately jumped forward to pet her or pull her tail, Syaraize citizens reacted to her in silence. They said not a word as she stood before them like an object of interest. Their eyes traveled all over her body as though analyzing her. Shuddering under their gaze, she caught whispered words passed between some, but she couldn't understand what they were saying.
What is the task at paw? Pinti turned away to search for 'clock tower' while trying to guess what in the name of the moons it was. As soon as her back was to the crowd, did they resume their rushed walking through the city.
"Strange," she said, following a scent of roses down a narrow street. She decided to latch onto familiar scents and maybe get somewhere useful that way. But Syaraize had a mind of its own. Every turn she made once she couldn't make again. Retracing her steps was an impossible task as walls appeared in areas that certainly weren't blocked off before. Now she was in some little alley with mounds of mesh garbage bags lining either side.
This isn't working. She twitched her whiskers and decided to go back to that main square she was just at and try to start over or maybe try to ask for directions. An hour later, she was still lost and couldn't even find the garbage-filled alley again. Scents she would follow only to lose them, which hadn't happened to her since childhood. Pinti was good at following scents, but Syaraize was testing her patience. Swishing her tail in frustration, she muttered, "Heizak, what is going on with this place?" in her native Kathulan tongue.
"What was that?" Came the squeak of a little boy. Pinti had stopped at a crossroads and a boy of about seven or eight was sitting on a step outside a skinny brick house that was about three stories high. His skin was slightly scaly, and his orange eyes had slit pupils—a reptilian Halfhuman. They stared at each other for a moment without blinking until Pinti turned away. She didn't want to deal curious kids right now.
"You're the anthro!" His squeal caught the attention of others around her. The little boy cocked his head, staring at her tail which was twitching irritably on its own accord.
He jumped off the step. "Can I touch your tail?"
What is it with tails? She grinded her teeth.
"No." Pinti walked away, but the boy followed.
"Where are you going?" His high-pitched voice made her ears twitch. She ignored him. Syaraize was so close to the portal that time was warped. An hour ago, it was noon, but now the sun was setting, or it looked like it was setting from inside the dome. She did not want to navigate this confusing place at night.
As she was about to turn right, the opposite direction from the crossroads, the little boy said, "If you go that way, you'll end up right where we just were."
"But this goes the opposite direction!" Pinti bristled. Instead of crying like most children did, the boy wasn't fazed.
"Yeah, it's the way it is here." He kicked at the dirt path with his feet. Pinti noticed for the first time his lizard-like feet were bare and the same sandy color as the ground. "So," He eyed her up and down, "where are you going?"
She took it as a positive that he wasn't being racist towards her and decided to see if he could help. Letting her fur rest, she said, "Clock tower."
The boy's eyes brightened up. "Oh, I know how to get there, you have to go down Coppercorn Street, but only until the Umbrella Shop. Then turn around to end up back in Coppercorn Street but then you can go down the new street, since it's evening, go diagonal right up a hill but turn around at the top so you don't—"
"Wait," she interrupted him, and he stopped. Her mind was muddled and turned around. Maybe it was the portal being so close to the city that made directions make zero sense. "I have no idea what you just said." She rubbed her temple, feeling dizzy from already being turned around. "Could you take me there?"
"Yeah!" the boy answered immediately with a big smile as if he had been waiting for her to ask. "I'm Toga."
"Pinti."
"I knew you had a name!" he exclaimed. "This way." He set off back down the road she came from but somehow it was different. "My friends tell me an anthro has no name. I betted twenty jangs they did. Now I can get my money! Everyone's been talking about the anthro. Everyone in my town, that is."
"There are many towns here?"
"Yeah, lots of them. Tourists are always really surprised when Syaraize is bigger than they epsected."
"You mean, 'expected.'" Pinti couldn't help but smirk at his mistake.
Toga shrugged. "Whatever, you got it." He pointed to a shop made of glass and everything inside was visible. "That's Umbrella Shop, although no umbrellas, just the name," he said. It took a while for Pinti to match the sound of the word with the letters.
"Um-bre-lla Shop," she slowly read, feeling the Universal language on her tongue. In Kathulan, modern or ancient, there was no word that started with 'u' and for a while, she called 'Universal' as 'Niversal' because she thought the 'U' was just there for decoration.
Toga talked her through every street they took, but Pinti soon tuned him out because there was no way she could remember it all. It soon became apparent that without a guide, it was hopeless in Syaraize. Streets wound this way and that, some looping back in on themselves. For the most part the roads he took her down were sparsely populated making it easy to keep up with him when he ran ahead.
But once they came to a busy street, she quickly lost sight of Toga. The crowd was taller than him and he was able to push through small openings while she had to wait for the tall Halfhumans to pass. Some male and female Halfhumans were two heads taller than she was although Pinti was pretty tall. She was about the height of an average Human male.
Within the thick of it, the crowd was like a whole new world on its own that didn't apologize for its pushes and shoves. Copying them, she pushed and shoved her way through the crowd until she finally made it out. Toga sat near a fountain with a smug look on his face. Hoping he wasn't going to take her through that again she said, "Where to now?"
He pointed up. "We're here."
Lifting her gaze, she found they were at the foot of a tower with five clocks embedded into the rock structure, one on top of another, all of which showed different times and moved at different paces. Now she understood. They called this 'clock tower' because it was a tower with clocks in it. Such a simple name coming from simple Humans.
"Well, thank you for getting me here." Pinti gave Toga a little smile and he beamed.
"You're welcome! Everything okay now?"
In truth, she wasn't sure what coming to clock tower would do for her. Deel was supposed to meet her here or something. He didn't explain himself, but Toga didn't need to be involved in that stupidity. So, she nodded.
"Good!" He jumped off the fountain to stand next to her. "The bells will ring any moment now. You better go inside to wherever you're going because crush hour is horrible here." He groaned and waved at her. "Bye, Pinti!" He ran off back from where they came from, disappearing into the crowd.
"Wait, don't you mean 'rush hour'?" Pinti called when a thundering sound of bells came from the clock tower. The gongs echoed throughout the area and vibrated in her chest. Citizens paused and stared up at clock tower. Once the gongs stopped, they began to scramble almost in a panic.
She tried to leap out of the way but still the crowd somehow managed to pull her into its midst. She barely regained her footing when two large Halfhumans shoved her to the side. Her yowl made heads turn, but only briefly.
Holding her tail, she tried to squeeze back through them, but the crowd was too strong. It was hot and stuffy while a contrasting cold wind wafted above her head, tickling her hairs. Her senses were overwhelmed as colors blurred together and strong scents made it hard to focus. Pinti coughed, almost choking as the heaviness of oily food, putrid tobacco, tangy incense, sickeningly sweet perfume, and herbs that smelled like dung all crowded her nose and mouth. Before, none of these scents existed. Nausea poked at her stomach and she moaned with discomfort.
A giant tiger-like Halfhuman glared down at her with cat-like eyes and shoved her with his elbow. Pinti lost her balance and tried to grab something, but citizens immediately avoided her reach as she fell. Now the crowd was a towering, moving wall above her. Toga was right. It was crush hour and she had gotten crushed.
Voices swarmed around her, invading her thinking space. Pinti took deep breaths when a horrid scent became a taste in her mouth—vomit. Her ears naturally searched for the source. Someone was throwing up somewhere and she could almost taste their vomit in her mouth.
"Heizak," she whimpered and immediately wished for Toga to come back or someone to give her a helping paw or hand. She didn't care who.
But I'm a strong femáli and a survivor. She reminded herself. I can figure this out. Just block out all the sounds and scents. She took deep breaths and closed her eyes. Sitting there on the warm paved ground, Pinti made scents go away one by one. She did the same thing with the sounds. At last, she could smell nothing and hear only a soft murmur.
With a sigh of relief, she searched for a break in the crowd. Being Kathula, her body was naturally flexible. Any narrow opening, she could figure out a way to fit her body through as long as she remained calm. Her eyes locked onto a space where the fountain was barely visible. Citizens seemed to avoid that area sometimes, but sometimes was enough.
Crawling, Pinti made her way there, she could see citizens saying things, avoiding her with exaggerated looks of disgust, but words were incoherent. In her own world of blocked out sounds and smells, she reached the opening and squeezed herself out.
Pinti fell out of the squishy crowd into a puddle of sticky mud. "Heizak." She wiped the mud from her face. "That's why they were avoiding it." Flicking the mud off as best she could, she let her senses slowly come back to her. It was then that she noticed the sky was night.
"Of course, it's night. It's Syaraize, of course, silly." She scowled and twitched her whiskers. She stayed at clock tower for a bit longer to wait for Deel. The crowd soon dispersed. Disappearing hour was as fast as crush hour.
With no crowd in the area, all the heat was gone leaving ample space for any coldness to ruffle her fur and make her shiver. The desert was not for the likes of her. Her home Ring, the Third Ring, didn't have such extreme temperature drops and neither did it rise until it scorched her skin. Kathula didn't have summer fur and winter fur like cats did. They had no need for it in their moderate climate.
With no sign of Deel, Pinti heaved a tired sigh. It had barely been a day on her clock, but her body was answering to night and her eyelids almost felt heavy. As she yawned, a while paw extended in front of her. When she glanced up, there was a bear-like Halfhuman wearing a dark blue cape.
"Are you Pinti?" she said. Her nose and mouth were bear-like, but the entire rest of her seemed Human. She would have been the Gerfai type, but her skin and hair were as white as frozen water.
"Yes?" Pinti said with hesitation and flinched when the white Gerfai sat down next to her.
"Don't worry. I won't do anything to you. I'm Lai-ikolo, Halfhuman race, Canessian specie, Kraitai sub-specie." She said with a smile. "I've been looking for you. Deel has sent me." She dropped her voice. "He couldn't come because something came up. I'm afraid we can't talk about it here."
Lai-ikolo stood. "Come. We must go. Night brings dark souls. We don't want to be out at this hour."
Not knowing if she could trust Lai-ikolo, Pinti sniffed the air she left in her wake. It smelled of lemongrass and Deel. That was enough to let some of her guard down, but Pinti knew to always be wary.
Keeping a good distance, she followed Lai-ikolo into the towns and their twisty streets. Her ears twitched at the sound of rocks rolling against each other. The stones behind her were shifting and paths became walls while walls became paths. No wonder she got so lost earlier. She hurried to catch up before Lai-ikolo rounded a corner.
Through darkened alleyways and quiet, lantern-lit streets they walked. The ground was soft for the most part except for a few stone slabs here and there.
Brick walls mixed with glass ones lined the sides of the streets. Some streets she could tell a market had just left as the air was still filled with scents of oily food, raw meat, the sting of alcohol, and flowery perfume that made her sneeze.
Lai-ikolo kept an eye out for Pinti, sometimes asking if she was okay. Offering a paw that Pinti didn't take, but Lai-ikolo didn't seem bothered about it. She just smiled and Pinti could almost feel a warmth caressing her arms. It made her feel at ease and she was beginning to wonder why she even doubted Lai-ikolo's kind gestures at all. Kindness from other races did exist.
"Come, Pinti. It's this way. Keep close."
Suddenly afraid of being left behind, Pinti hurried to catch up until she walked next to Lai-ikolo. At long last it seemed like someone was willing to help her as an equal. As if in a daze, Pinti followed Lai-ikolo through the twisting streets of Syaraize all the while cocooned in a soft blanket of kindness.
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Note: femáli = "female" in modern Kathulan language