Orangesquash

Canon fam:


For prologue, see Wildflower.
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Squash, as his name suggests, has a drink stand. In summer this is great, and he collects money to chill out in winter. But he is not above scamming - in his early days starting the business was difficult. He won't do so if he doesn't have to.

Born in ice, but being a coatl preferred to move to a warmer climate.

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"....And then Susan took her hatchling and went! What a nerve! She should have apologised at the very least, football shirts ain't easy to clean you know!"

Orangesquash laughed, propping up his cheek with a claw and pouring the lady another lemonade. "Sure, sounds like a bad day!"

She took the drink and gulped down, throwing a few coins on the table. "Of course! You shouldn't serve her anymore, that dragoness is the devil."

"Ha ha, yup. Have a good day Monica!"

"And to you!"

Eh, Susan will come in an hour complaining about her. Good business and entertainment. This job was the best. He began to lift boxes and fill them with the usual order for Susan. And so, the hour passed. She was never late, what was holding her up? Squash decided to leave his post to just check around the corner....

"...Oh."

It took a while for Squash's head to clear and register what had happened. He was on the run, and he would have been fine if not for returning for his stall in shock. Shaking, he took in his surroundings properly, and found himself in the shadow region. This was so bad... monsters hide better in the dark. And such it was, that the various snapping of twigs, and shiver of a bush in an unfamiliar territory, got Squash into fits. If not for the panic, maybe he would've have got out in time.

A bolt of blue streaked past, missing his head feathers by only a fraction. He curled in a ball, a mess of sobs.

"OK! You win! Take me, end me, do whatever you want! I'm done with this stress, I yield, please..."

Five medium-sized dragons emerged from the bushes. And that would have been it, if not for a bolt retaliated at the perpetrators. Toril emerged from the opposite side of the group. The crowd chuckled at the tiny fae.

"Look up"

And the sight of imperials got them running. Soon enough, Orangesquash was comfortably eating in Toril's office, eating his first meal in days.

"Good thing the patrol spotted intruders. Tell me, what led you here?"

"Instincts really. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, seeing things I shouldn't have... I wasn't aware Susan owed money to some dragons and things got dirty. I couldn't care less, but of course they wouldn't trust that. The rest of the journey is a blur."

"You're welcome to continue your job here, we can offer protection. It's a little more... for lack of a better word, primitive, than what you might be used to. We're far from what the cities are like."

Squash threw his head back in laughter "well, what's a little 'living off the land', to a guy who is sentenced to death out there?"

Orangesquash leads his drink stand like normal in the clan, safe and sound.

Take me back to Zemira!