I do not own Chaotic nor anything related to it. It belongs to TCDigital.
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The Strange News
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It has been an entire solan since that day, the day Humans arrived in Perim. Al Mipedim has changed since then. For every ten businesses run by Mipedians, there's one that a Human started.
The Chaotic Eye died very quickly after its debut. It lasted barely a week before people started getting sick of the stories it was printing. When the paper ran out of things to say about me, it moved on to businessmen, soldiers, and other people of note, both Human and Mipedian. It last mistake was running a blatently fictional report of Prince Iflar and Princess Isis's supposed incestuous relationship. Prince Iflar had The Chaotic Eye's printing press demolished after that stunt.
Not long after that fiasco, another newspaper sprang up called Mipedim Mailer. This new paper was actually informative, with information such as the current price of water and real public opinion articles about various happenings throughout Mipedian lands.
Oddly enough, there's a section in that paper that's almost what The Chaotic Eye was. It's called Celebrity Snippets, and what sets it apart from its predecessor is that the stories it runs are only occasionally in poor taste. My name has popped up in that section a little more often than I would like it to, but at least the stories are true this time.
"Heh," Shasta snickers. "Have you seen this yet, Michael?" He turns the paper to face me and points at the Celebrity Snippets article. "'Michael's Mean Streak?' It's a story about how often you use your whip on the job."
I roll my eyes. "Only as often as people make me need to use it." I tip the rest of my kainekot brandy into my mouth and swallow.
Sett shakes his head with a sad laugh. "If they bothered to look at the other foremen, they'd realize that you're actually somewhat merciful with that whip. A better title would have been 'Michael the Mediator.'"
"That wouldn't sell," I shrug. "Shasta, I'd like a Coalition, please."
"Coming right up," Shasta says as he turns to the bottles.
"A hard one," I amend.
Shasta turns back around with a confused look on his face. "You never ask for a hard one."
"Today is the anniversary of the day Humans arrived in Perim," I say. "About time I relaxed a little."
Sett stands up. "I'll come back when you're done with it."
"Good job, Sett," Shasta praises as Sett leaves. Shasta turns back to the bottles. "One hard Coalition coming up," he says in a loud voice.
Before Shasta even picks up the first bottle, a crowd had gathered by the counter. They're here to watch the drink get mixed.
Shasta grabs one bottle, the kainekot brandy, by its neck and flips it into the air, catching it is his other hand as he grabs a bottle of parfkew juice with the first hand. He pours a quarter of a cup from each bottle into a tall metal thermos on the counters, then seals the thermos and spins it around in one hand. This gets repeated with a few more bottles.
The Coalition has a funny history. A month ago, I'd tried every single fresh drink Shasta's bar offered when I wanted to try something new. I decided to ask Shasta to mix me a drink with a bit of everything in it, and he obliged. Someone wrote to the Celebrity Snippets column about it, and suddenly everyone wanted to try it. Shasta eventually made it an official part of the menu and, by my suggestion, called it the Coalition.
Shasta pours a little from two more bottles into the thermos, seals it and juggles it. Then he undoes the cap and adds the last ingredient, water. He seals the thermos one last time and spins it on the back of his wrist before setting it in front of me.
The customers applaud his performance as I pay for the drink and open the thermos. Whew, I'd forgotten what alcohol smelled like. I take a sip. It tastes like liquified sour gummy worms mixed with grapefruit juice.
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Maaaybe I shouldn't have drunk the entire thermos. It hadn't occurred to me how much was in there. There's something attached to my chin. I give it a tug. Oh, right, that's my beard. I leave it alone.
"You're funny when you're drunk," Sett says from across the table, having sat back down when I was finished. "I keep expecting you to become fascinated with your hands."
"I'm not that tipsy, Sett," I grin. Then I mockingly raise my hands in front of my eyes and mutter, "Whoa... these things are awesome..."
Shasta claps a hand over his mouth as he holds back a snort. "You're too much sometimes. You know that, right?"
I nod with a wide grin.
"Hey," a voice somewhere in the bar says, "you wonder what kind of things Michael says when he's drunk?" Aw hell, it's a reporter.
Sett looks to his left. "You want me to scare them off?"
I shake my head slowly. "I can handle 'em..." I turn to the voices. "You guys had a question?"
There a man and a woman. The man take a crystal out of a pouch handing from his belt and holds it out to me. "Well, um..."
The woman raises a hand to quiet the man, then leans forward. "You're single, correct?"
"You asking 'cause you're interested?" I grin.
The woman laughs. "Well, my question is, what are you looking for in a partner?"
"I'm not really looking for anyone right now," I say as I lean back in my chair.
The woman scribbles something down in her clipboard. "And why do you say that?"
"It's only been a solan since that day," I elaborate. "I think I'd like to settle down for more 'n six months before I try to hook up with someone."
"I see," the woman says as she writes for in her clipboard-thingy.
"You know who is looking?" I smirk. "Maliph. Poor guy's too busy to spend time searching, though."
"Oh," the woman says, sounding only half interested.
"I'm telling all the ladies out there, Maliph would be a good find for you." I spread my hands a bit more than a foot apart. "He's got a penis about this big that he wants the share."
The woman's face turns bright red, and the man almost falls out of his chair laughing. "Th-thank you, Michael," the woman says as she stands up. "I wish you a good day."
"Michael..." Shasta says quietly while Sett howls with laughter, "did you really just say that?"
"Yup," I chuckle.
Shasta glances out of the door. "And are you aware who was just about to walk in?"
I turn to look at the door. The man who'd been talking to me earlier is laughing even harder at the woman, who's blushing even brighter as she walks by a large red Mipedian. The Mipedian, Maliph himself, is staring at me with a mortified expression.
I raise my empty thermos. "I'll see you in the news!" I turn to Shasta. "How drunk can you get me before he starts beating me up?"
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I'm taking a day off work today. My hangover is killing me, and Maliph's shoulder-punch greeting was a little harder than normal yesterday.
I head to the newspaper stands. I have to see what they put in Celebrity Snippets this time. I doubt they'll actually mention Maliph by name-
The headline on Mipedim Mailer is such a shock that I feel my lungs seize up. Emblazoned across the top of the page in capital letters are the words "Chaor Takes Leader of Underworld Humans as Wife."
I quickly pay three palms for the newspaper.
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Up next: The Uproar
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Like I said before, Chaotic belongs to TCDigital.
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