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Treb paid the bartender and got up, heading for the door. "C'mon. I never take two new employees from the same bar. I know another place a few blocks down we can check for desperate people before we head back to my ship. Sound good?"
The LAIKA's Journey (closed rp)
"Whatever you say," she agreed, following after, she shuddered as she stepped back out into the col, almost unintentionaly shifting back into her big form. She slit her many eyes against the wind, grumbling darkly to herself about the weather.
Treb gave her a sidelong stare as she changed form, but said nothing, just took down his notice from the wall and stepped into the street. "Watch your step. So, what was the climate like on your home planet?"
"Rock. Storms. Fog. Nothing fun," she growled, kicking through the snow. "Glad to be off it, glad to never go back. What about you?"
"Eh, mostly desert until the colonies came along and cultivated it. At least it was warm and the weather was usually tolerable. Deadly boring, tho–" He was interrupted when his boot kicked a surprisingly solid snowdrift and he dropped like a sack of potatoes, right on his face. "Ow! What the–wh-pfff-pheh!" He staggered to his feet, spitting out dirty snow. "What the heck did I just trip over!?"
Beneath a light covering of snow they discovered what looked like a dead purplish dog. It moaned.
"Oh, uh… ew." Ba'al said, wrinkling her nose. Not that she had one, or that anyone could see the motion anyways. But the thought was certainly there. "What is it?"
Treb roughly brushed snow out of his hair and crouched down to examine the creature. "Dunno….never met something like this before. I'm guessing it's not built for this climate, though." He nudged the alien's shoulder with the back of his hand cautiously. "Uh….hello? You still alive, pal?"
He found his hand suddenly held in a grip of steel…clawed steel. "Get me indoors. Now!" said a voice that only slightly quavered, unwillingly betraying some slight weakness.
"Okay, yeah, ace plan," Ba'al said, leaning away. "You can do the carrying, Cap."
"Hey, woah." Treb tried to pull his hand out of the stranger's grip. "Easy there." He glanced around. "Don't you have like a home or a hotel or a trash bin to spend the night in?" He seemed quite hopeful that this would turn out to be true.
The stranger's grasp went limp and they realized that it had fainted.
"Aw, well, shoot, I guess we have to take it with us now," Ba'al complained. "You can still do the carrying. Look, maybe we can drop it off at some other warm planet or something. It's small, won't take up too much space, eh?"
Treb's shoulders slumped. "Ugh….why does this always happen? Aliens take one look at me and assume I'm an EMT or something. Must be those stupid Doctors-Without-Borders people giving us a weird rep." Bracing himself, he wormed his arms underneath the unconscious creature and heaved it out of the snowdrift, then straightened back up with great difficulty. "Hey, why am I carrying it?" He asked Ba'al grumpily. "You're the big strong one here, and I outrank you."
"Exactly!" she said rightly, starting off again. "Which way to the ship, captain-o?"
Treb glared at her. "That's not at all what I wanted to hear," he muttered, starting to trudge down the street. "It's not far. Just a couple blocks and then a couple dozen stories straight up into the parking zone. Was that high winds I heard you complaining about a minute ago?"
She muttered a curse in her own language glowering at Teb. "Why'd ya park there, dude? That's a real turn ff for potential employees, you know."
"Wow! I'm so sorry about that. Lucky for your fragile sensibilities, there's an elevator kind of thing." Treb hitched his burden a little higher in his arms. "Anyway, can't you fly or something? I thought heights and wind wouldn't be a problem for you."
"Aww, that's great," she snapped. "And yes, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. FLying isn't my favorite occupation, brother."
The lump in Treb's arms began to shiver, moan and to burrow against his chest into the depths of his jacket.
"Whatever." Treb noticed that the alien he was carrying had started to stir and fervently hoped it wasn't some sort of parasite about to turn into his new fifth limb or something. "Here's the place." They reached a tall, rectangular concrete structure and Treb ducked through the doorless arch into the dim chamber beyond. "See that control panel over there? Hit the top button and stand in the middle of the floor."
"Fancy," Ba'al commented, genuinely impressed that anyone could get machines to work in this weather. She shifted back into her small form as the whipped wind was blocked out by the building, pressing the button and standing where she was told. She eyed the purple thing in Treb's arms. "Is…that thing trying to eat you, or?"
Treb shrugged one shoulder, bracing himself as the entire floor started to rise at an alarming rate. "I….don't know yet. I think it's just thawing out at the moment. Oh, um, watch your head, the roof panel's a little slow to open and this elevator doesn't really wait for it."
"Yipe!" she shrieked as she dove, tucking herself into the smallest ball she could. As soon as she deemed it safe, she cautiously rose, shaking herself out and stepping off the platform. "Okay, where to now?"
They were in the central square of a much larger roof that in fact extended far beyond the actual building. Spacecraft of various makes and models were moored over the roof some with their motors gently humming. Treb had turned towards a smaller ship nearby, but was now stopped and staring at Ba'al in confusion. "Well, uh…jeez, you didn't have to be that cautious. Did you get hit on the head by a house once, or something?"
( @SunGod :^ )
Ba'al hesitated, not sure if she wanted him to know this about her yet, but in the end, she decided it couldn't effect her job offer that much, and he'd just find out the hard way other-wise.
"I have a little trouble controlling my form" she admitted. "It changes based off my situation, and if I am in danger, sometimes it goes big unexpectedly. It's better to try and avoid that stuff."
"Oh. Well that's….good to know." Treb shrugged and started walking over to his ship. "So it's, like tied to your emotions, or something?"
"Sort of," she said, following him. "I guess. I don't know, it's weird, probably something to do with instinct. I'm no psychologist though, could be any number of things. I don't know of anyone who ever learned how to control it though."
"Huh." Treb keyed in the code on the hatch lock and it opened with a hiss, allowing him to duck inside. "Well, hopefully it won't happen too often while you're in the ship with us. Place is cramped enough as it is." Sidestepping a pile of jumbled cargo, he carried the half-conscious alien into a smaller adjacent chamber. "Yellow pad on your right closes that hatch, by the way. Sorry about the mess, I guess, but at least it's warm."