Mallside 10

[Morty]

[Cafe]

Batu is taken by surprise and blushes fiercely.

"I have already met this amazing, handsome deer-boy," he stammers out. "And I didn't even need to go to a club for it. But I see how it might help someone."

[Murkus]

[Cafe]

"Hehe," Div giggles. "I'm glad to have met you too, Batu," he says, and leans over to kiss Batu on the mouth.

He doesn't seem to worried about meeting anyone new either.

[Morty]

[Cafe]

Batu leans forward to kiss Div back and grins widely when they pull back.

"So what is this place and where is it?"

[Murkus]

[Cafe]

"It's called the Triple B - near the hunting grounds. My brothers stop there a good bit," Div insists. He puts his hands in his lap and feels giddy after the smooch.

[Morty]

[Cafe]

"I haven't heard about it. But it would have been weird if I had," Batu says, then something occurs to him. "I think I'd like to meet some of your brothers. You know, if we run into them there."

[Murkus]

[Cafe]

"Oh, I think, um, maybe you'd better not," Div looks around shyly. "They're all... tall, and handsome, and... much more interesting than me. I worry you'd want to stay," he blushes fiercely.

[5a Violista]

[Shopping Shifters]

Of course Manja is in control! How could she not be?
Now that she has shown her dominance, she relaxes and lets the boy do what he wants. After she has already proven that she's in charge, there's no need to do any more.

"I haven't really seen them in a long time, though. Haven't seen any of them at any flower shops around here. Might only be able to find them no nordeste." So it's really unfortunate.

Carlie obviously doesn't hug back because she's holding a baby and that sometimes make it hard to hug. She does lean against during it, though.

"Babies obviously can't eat ice cream," she says. "Is there anything you need to buy? I haven't got much money or whatever, but I don't really need much of anything either."

[Morty]

[Cafe]

Batu blinks, then his face taken on an affectionate look of someone whose partner is being a bit of a dummy right now.

"Come on. I'm not going to leave you for your brothers just because they're taller. You're you and you're the one I want. I find you much more interesting than anyone I've met. I don't think your brothers would change that."

[Murkus]

[Cafe]

"Oh... maybe you're a lot smarter than me, Batu," Div blinks. "Sorry. I won't worry so much. But! There might be other hot guys there."

[Purple Eagle]

[Shopping Shifters]

Of course Manja is in control! How could she not be?
Now that she has shown her dominance, she relaxes and lets the boy do what he wants. After she has already proven that she's in charge, there's no need to do any more.

"I haven't really seen them in a long time, though. Haven't seen any of them at any flower shops around here. Might only be able to find them no nordeste." So it's really unfortunate.

Carlie obviously doesn't hug back because she's holding a baby and that sometimes make it hard to hug. She does lean against during it, though.

"Babies obviously can't eat ice cream," she says. "Is there anything you need to buy? I haven't got much money or whatever, but I don't really need much of anything either."

[Shopping Shifters]

"Aww, that's too bad." Marco looks quite sad at that thought, but only a little. "Maybe if you had some pictures, Titi Carlie, for me to admire?" He adds, hopefully.

When he's told that babies can't eat ice cream, his response might be surprising. "Whaaaaat? But every kid likes ice cream? Yet babies can't eat it? That is so loco." He peers at Manja a little, then tickles her ears. "You're missing out, ese."

"Titi, titi! I got it! We can all eat baby cereal. It's delicious, and that way Manja doesn't miss out. Better than buying some snacks she'll insist on trying to eat, ay?" He's being completely serious about eating baby food so Manja isn't left out. "We can window-shop too: clothes, foods, cute baby toys, et cetera."

[Morty]

[Cafe]

Batu leans back, a pouty expression on his face.

"Then we can watch the hot dudes while Jim hopefully finds a girl. But I promise I won't walk away with some big, dashing hunter. I've already got one I want to take me away from there."

[5a Violista]

[Shopping Shifters]

The baby, getting her ears attacked now, realizes she can't retaliate and tries to block it with her hands. Of course, she can't really reach so.

"Sorry, I'm not that good at drawing," Carlie says apologetically.

Carlie turns the baby in her arms so that she's laying along an arm. "If you want a cereal, you'll have to eat it yourself," she says. She looks around for a good shop, trying to decide which direction would be the best to go to. "Manja's not old enough to eat cereals."
She adds, "There's only one thing she can eat right now, and even then it has to have taurine in it."

[Murkus]

[Cafe]

Batu leans back, a pouty expression on his face.

"Then we can watch the hot dudes while Jim hopefully finds a girl. But I promise I won't walk away with some big, dashing hunter. I've already got one I want to take me away from there."

[Cafe]

"Alright. Thanks Batu," Div smiles at him and hops up to go.

[Purple Eagle]

[Shopping Shifters]

Marco does it some more, finding Manja's reactions cute. Got ya now, little chica!

"Aww..." Marco's ears droop sadly. He really wanted to see those flowers. Nothing gets him down for very long, though! "Whaaaaat?" He responds incredulously at Carlie's answer. "She can't eat even that, Titi? What can she even eat, then?" He scratches an ear as he considers the taurine. "Because breast milk is rich in it, eh Titi? I get it, you only just started weaning the little chica off milk!" Might be overestimating the age of the baby there, Marco.

He joins her in scanning the area for a suitable place to windowshop at, and points at one in excitement. "There!" He's pointing at the direction of the fountain. "We can chillax there while deciding where to go next, wey! If not that, then there's always MagMart..."

[5a Violista]

[Shopping Shifters]

Manja starts making a noise, hoping her sonic attack of 'ughn' and 'eunnh' helps with intimidating her attacker and fends off these attacks.

"Well, even then, most milk doesn't have enough of it anyway," Carlie says. She raises a hand to the upper half of Manja's ears - the part that looks most like a white cat's ears - "She is part-cat, after all." Marco is definitely overestimating her age, but she doesn't bother telling him that. It's not like it'll matter either way.

The bunnygirl starts walking towards the fountain.
"Oh, the MagMart?" she asks. "That's still open? Or...it re-opened? Huh, that's neat. We should check that one out."

[Purple Eagle]

[Shopping Shifters]

Manja's fearsome attacks are a valiant effort, but they only seem to encourage Marco's ministrations! Hey, but what's this? He actually stops after a little while! Success?

"Let's do that, Titi! I've never been in it before, but I heard things about it. Meanwhile... can I carry Manja? I'll be gentle, promise!" He stretches his hands to receive the baby, just in case. "Can you tell me about the MagMart, Titi Carlie? What should I expect, guey?"

[5a Violista]

[Shopping Shifters]

Manja makes a victory...burble. Or something. A victory sound.

Carlie thinks about it.
"..." Okay, she's decided. "Sure. Make sure you hold her like this...and this," she says, passing Manja over.

If Marco wants to hold Manja, though, that means he's in perfect striking range for everything. She can freely reach for his face and he can't cowardly use his superior range to escape.

Carlie starts walking towards that MagMart. "I don't know that much about it, actually - only been a couple times," she says. "It was just a market that had basically everything. It was also manned entirely by robots, too."

[Purple Eagle]

[Shopping Shifters]

Marco excitedly obeys to the letter, pulling Manja close and leaving himself wide open to her attacks. He subsequently follows whilst trying to endure the baby's manhandling of his facial features.

"Basically everything? Robots?" Marco looks like he'd start dragging Carlie there if neither of their arms were occupied with Manja. "Do they have rockets? Jell-o? La clancha? Food we all can eat, including Manja?" He asks, assuming Manja isn't currently grabbing at his lips.

"What do you think it's like being a robot, Titi?" He wonders further. "I bet it's awesome!"

[5a Violista]

Shopping Shifters

Since Marco already knows that he's entirely at Manja's mercy, she decides that there's no need to prove it. After all, only the people whose position is uncertain feel the need to show their dominance.
Instead, she just looks around at all the pretty and new sights as they walk.


The Magmart approaches and comes into view. "They have pretty much everything," she repeats, but clarifies that, "except maybe a la clancha, whatever that is, and they definitely don't have food for the baby." Well, they actually probably do have cat (well...catgirl? catgirl blend?) milk formula, but Carlie would really rather not waste money on that, especially since it would need preparation anyway.

"It's probably annoying being a robot," Carlie then answers. "Growing up would be so frustrating, because you'd have to swap out parts all the time."

The bunnygirl thinks for a bit, then enters the Magmart. "You know, my sister probably doesn't even know what a robot is." Carlie does want to learn some robotics, though, because then she could use metals for things other than just what she already uses them for.

[Purple Eagle]

[Shopping Shifters]

Marco looks at the cute catgirl-baby as she looks around at all the pretty sights, and just cannot resist giving her a little peck on her forehead!

"La clancha! Y'know, slippers? I had a neighbour who used to throw that at me when I was little. I'm sure they'll have it... though if they don't even have baby food for Manja, then they don't have 'pretty much everything'." Marco replies, looking around almost as much as Manja is, and playing the part of the boy who's never been to Mallside. "More like 'almost everything'. Including rockets!" He's insisting on the rockets, isn't he?

He thinks about it a bit. "Maaaaybe... but it'll be cool, though! No need to change clothes, you get cool parts, you also get to live longer than humans... though I guess we already live long enough, ey?" He finishes with a lazy shrug.

The bunnyboy follows his 'Auntie', laughing out loud at her statement. "I guess she's not as sophisticated as she'd like to think then, ey?"

[5a Violista]

Shopping Shifters

Carlie has no choice but to roll her eyes. Marco clearly is trying to be intentionally contrarian.

Carlie looks around the MagMart.
She walks over to a shelf and looks at a thing, and bites her lip, thinking

"Hmm....so...."
She turns over the thing she's looking at.
"On a whole, I give you a four, I guess."

Carlie puts it back. She then goes down another aisle, where there's rockets. All sorts of kinds! Everything from toy rockets to more dangerous rockets. "So which kind did you want?" she asks.

[Purple Eagle]

[Shopping Shifters]

Apparently Manja has no notable reaction to her forehead suddenly being assaulted by Marco's lips, which is a good thing... for Marco!

Marco looks around, wide-eyed and running around excitedly. "It's so big, Titi Carlie! And look!" He adds with a gasp of wonder as he runs off to the rocket aisle and gawks at them. Of course, he's already waiting for her by the time she puts down her thing. "Let's get a rocket launcher!" He declares, like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Hey, but she might not appreciate such a joke, especially with him carrying Manja at the moment... this only seems to occur to him just now, so he quickly adds: "... just kidding!"

He rubs his chin in thought with his free hand. "What if I bought Manja something, ey? I have a little pocket money."

[5a Violista]

[Shopping Shifters]

It's because Manja is too busy looking at all the new stuff that she has never seen before ever in her entire life. She's been kissed before. She's never seen whatever that thing is before. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing. Or that thing.

Since Marco clearly wants to run around and look at things and maybe even grab some of them, Carlie reaches out so she can take Manja back.

"She's a baby," Carlie says as a reminder. "What would you even buy for her? She probably wouldn't even care."



[Another Point in Time]

A Lamia who goes by Harley teleports to the mall, appearing on the teleport pad.
She's got dark red scales and a fancy dress on.

...
having forgotten to put on makeup (because she didn't think she'd go out in public today), she suddenly feels very naked because her scars are showing.
It's okay, though. Nobody knows her so maybe it won't be that bad.

Since she was supposed to go to the help desk, she first goes to the map to find out where it is, and then goes there.

[Reinholdt]

[Another Point in Time]

Harlamia finds the help desk easily enough thanks to the power of asking the map for directions! There's a bored looking gnome there who almost certainly is doing this to help pay for college tuition. He looks at Harley for a second, squints, scratches his oversized nose and then digs around under the desk, pulling out a piece of paper.

"Are you looking for this? I was told to give this to someone wearing your clothes, but... you were described as more... bipedal. Wait a minute." The gnome pulls the paper back before giving it over. "You didn't eat the person who was wearing that dress did you?"

If she did, he can't give it to her!

If she didn't though, he'll hand over the last riddle.

Spoiler

Show

MBhBMBiBaqsuemBcwknhBqBlizmBfifxieulcluBsBxBjqileq mcmjlwqhruB
m,rwMwnBeBkoezBsBxBomfkwemjciu,mBBwfMneBBcxsBzejmv
elBzuft.elMcusBiBmufwheBBciiBqqouueBBcVllukhxxBiil kB
mcirvvukmBwkiileu,BBUgUpewumjvwqfBkBzwiuimBuzk.uw

[5a Violista]

[Another Point in Time]

Harlamia nods, yes she's looking for that. She shakes her head, no, she didn't eat anyone. If she did, her figure would be really messed up.

After getting the paper, Harlamia leans against the help desk and says, "So, yeah, that woman actually sprained her ankle and she seemed really desperate to get it as fast as possible and told me to come here and get this for her." She points down the mallway. She laughs. "She said I looked close enough to her from the waist up, but..." After raising the shoes, she adds, "No idea why she gave these to me, though."

So.
She moves away. "Don't worry, I'll make sure she gets it."


She goes to the opposite side of the mall so she can sit and look at it and work on it.

The B probably takes the place of the X. In fact, if this progression continues, this one probably has both jumped and swapped letters. Actually, looking at the locations of the letters, it almost certainly has jumping.
After borrowing a pen from someone (no more writing on her arm), she reorders it on the back of the slip. She decided to start off with three like last time, knowing it wouldn't be the same but doing it just to see where the spaces all lie, but...because of the capitalization and punctuation and spaces...
Oh. How disappointing.
It was, in fact, the same.

Well,
Capitalization suggests this is that, and this word is either this one or...no, that one doesn't work because then the grammar of the following word won't work, so try the other one. So then this letter is either this one or this other one... . . . How common is the letter 'a' in this language, anyway?

After thinking through which letters are probably common and trying a few, she narrows it down. Yeah, that space looks right but those words still don't have enough vowels, so. . .okay! Vowels done. And from there, she can fill in some of the most obvious words. Once that's done, she reads what it says.

She smiles.
Pretty cute.

Okay, she has...nearly all the words. Not the actual location, though: that one is one of the few words actually with empty spaces that dhe can't tell just by looking at it. Actually, only really two words left that actually matter, two letters, but three spaces.

Harlamia quickly writes down what letters she has remaining.
It's 'R'! Has to be.
Restaurante Enchante!
That is...where? Probably closer to here than HALO, so she's glad that she didn't teleport back.

She starts to ask around if someone knows where it is, and eventually learns that it's still at this mall.
So...she goes there

[Reinholdt]

[Restaurante Enchante]

It was a bit disappointing yes, but combining the keys to both the previous answers to create the third was designed so it wouldn't be too difficult. Don't want a snake dressed up that nicely holding shoes sitting on a mall bench for an hour staring at a piece of paper. Maybe? Maybe not. He could have gone harder.

Either way, when she arrives, she'll find she has a reservation waiting for her. It cost extra to convince the staff to not have a name and go purely based on dress, but Harlamia is lead inside. It's a shame Reinholdt didn't tell them to prepare for a Lamia. There's some last minute adjustments made to the candlelit table to ensure she has room enough to be comfortable.

The other big thing of note is that Reinholdt is there. He stands when Harlamia approaches, smiling, but surprised. She's... taller? Longer? Than expected. "You're early," Rein says, with a little smirk, hiding his previous nervousness. After that lengthy first hint, he couldn't keep much track of her progress. She's two days early to be exact.

Reinholdt is dressed in a newly tailored Italian style black suit he bought just for this occasion that fits tightly to his frame. He has golden catpaw cufflinks and a purple orchid flower attached to his lapel and smells lightly of fresh cologne.

[5a Violista]

[Restaurante Enchante]

If he had intentionally made it hard, then it would have significantly extended his estimate of how long it would take her. And she probably would have gotten distracted again and started looking around for another way to find where to go next. So, it's probably for the best that it was for it is. Might not have even made it to an hour before she got restless.

The lamia Harley thanks the staff and is very patient about the last-minute adjustments they have to make. After all, a snakegirl would be very used to this sort of treatment.
...
And, besides, it is entirely her own fault that they have to do this, all because she wanted to make a dumb joke that only she would get.

Harlamia approaches the candlelit table.
She sits, curls her tail around and fits the rest of it under the table, taking up nearly all the space, including some of the space that probably ought to be saved for Reinholdt's feet. Oh well. They can probably just share that space.

"Oh, really? I thought for sure I'd be very late, especially after getting stuck on finding which alphabet we were using." Harley tucks her hair back. Shoot, she didn't do her hair, either. At least it doesn't look like she just woke up. "Was pretty fun, though. Reminded me of when I worked as a spy, a long time ago."

Finally, she looks him up and down. "You look pretty handsome." Suddenly feeling a little self-consious again, she untucks half her hair from the left side of her face, hoping it does a good enough job at hiding and drawing attention away from her scarring. "Kind-of makes me wish I had spent more time getting ready."

[Reinholdt]

[Restaurante Enchante]

There is no choice really. Rein's legs will just have to share with Harlamia's tail, wrapped around him. He tries to minimize his leg movement and it feels weird, but it's a little warm and not terrible.

"Oh? Cracked a lot of codes as a spy?" Reinholdt smiles, happy the ciphers were well received.

Reinholdt reaches his hand out to hold Harley's hand and squeeze it while he looks her in the eyes. "You're beautiful," He reminds her, plain and simple before letting her hand go. "Any lack of readiness is really my fault. I was more than a bit of obtuse after all."

He chuckles and motions to one last thing. "But, umm... you really didn't need to bring the shoes if you weren't going to have feet. Want me to tuck them away for you?"

[5a Violista]

[Restaurante Enchante]

The warmth that he's feeling is basically entirely his own warmth being insulated...like a scaled blanket or something like that.
She likes the feeling of the warmth, too. Yeah, she was right: this is definitely worth being cold-blooded.

Having someone hold Harley's hand, look in her eyes, and compliment her is distracting enough that she forgets to breathe for a moment.
"Oh, um, yeah. Sure, you can," she finally says when she remembers to breathe, handing over the shoes. "I brought them just in case not having them would have messed something up."

"So, yes, I did intercept messages pretty often. And then rewrite a new message - I got pretty good at copying handwriting styles - and then replaced the messenger. Best case scenario, I got direct access to generals or other leaders; worst-case, I just gave someone the wrong orders."

[Reinholdt]

[Restaurante Enchante]

Reinholdt cannot remotely argue with warmth insulation. But it's going to make him sleepy! It's a good thing it's just his feet, though now he kinda just wants to curl up Harlamia's coils. Perhaps later.

"Smart." Harley thought ahead about things Rein didn't. Like the thing with the purse. And the teleporter. Rein had predicted Harley would take a pod in the entrance up and walk catch a cab here, but that was definitely the worse option. At least he can help with this, taking her shoes and storing it away in his hammer space like a magic trick.

"Oh. Yeah, I hadn't even considered that part." Replacing the messenger is probably way more effective than just intercepting the message. "I need to be more careful what I talk to Felandria or Kitty about." Rein grins. Harley probably wouldn't shapeshift into those people just to get juicy drama details!

"Or compliment you more when I do talk to them," Reinholdt says, picking up a menu and beginning to look it over like he hasn't read it a thousand times while he was nervously waiting.