An alarm sounded out on the landing pad, followed by red flashing lights barely visible through the gloom. "Now or never." she muttered and darted across to the ship they were loading, the large dark shape of Zaiaku in hot pursuit. It was a massive freight of some sort, not in good condition and not the kind of vessel she generally would have chosen to stow away on, but those men from the warehouse were after her. She'd killed one of them - or maybe she'd only hurt him badly. Maybe it had been Zaiaku, her strange if faithful companion. He certainly had been in an uproar. All she remembered about that hectic moment was the screams, the hands, the chains, the blood.

A palate of cargo was being hauled by the giant cranes up into the top loading deck. She leapt for it and clung to the lashings that held the plastic crates down, wedging herself carefully between them. The Sinu quickly followed and stood between her widely-spaced feet, his talons digging deeply into the sodden wood of the palate. There was a shout from above and the load suddenly shifted. The palate leaned hard to the left and the crates on the opposite end slid toward her. It was lucky she and Zaiaku were currently so thin or they might have been crushed between them. Still, she breathed a relieved sigh once the palate was set down in the blessedly dry cargo hold.

Then a horrible thought occurred to her. Some cheaper freighters didn't bother to seal their cargo from the outside atmosphere if it was crated up... such as those that occupied this hold. Not only would she be exposed to the heat of take-off, there would be no air in here once they entered space. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! When I make stupid decisions, I really make stupid decisions." She peered around the edge of the largest crate on her palate, pulling her hood tighter over her bright hair and scanned the hold. There were voices near the entryway. Men loading more crates, packing them in tight with what had already been loaded. If she didn't leave her hiding place now, there may not be room to leave it when the men were gone.

First she knelt and offered Zaiaku her back. He clambered on and clung tightly. Zaiaku was many things, but agile and quiet he was not. It had become standard procedure for him to hold on to her back when silence was needed, ever since he had very nearly gotten them all killed as they attempted to sneak onto what they had not known was a military vessel bound for a war front. The soldiers on board were understandably upset when he knocked over a rack of energy rifles, but they had been able to escape capture. He had actually saved their lives in that had they taken the vessel, they would have certainly been trapped in the middle of a full-on war. Although Athenai had never had as close a shave as that particular escape, she bore the scars on her right arm from rifle grazes to prove it. Thinking on it now still made her shiver and her heart race.

Stealthily, she clambered up to the top of the crate and sought the entrance into the vessel. It was located several feet away, an open airlock door left unguarded. It was a mad scramble across the tops of the crates, sticking to the tallest to avoid being seen. There was a tense moment when her tail brushed the head of a rather tall alien with four arms that was helping to heave the heaviest crates around. Fortunately he also proved to be very dense - or maybe just very incurious. He looked around for a moment, scratched the top of his head, then returned to lugging crates back and forth. She exhaled a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding and continued leaping from crate to crate, a bit more wary of where her tail was going.

Once at the door she stopped, wound her tail over a bare strut protruding from the ceiling, and hung so that she could just barely look over the door frame and see everything on the other side. It turned out that it wasn't an airlock, but the entrance into what looked like a mess hall or communal area of some sort. There were filthy couches with a menagerie of equally filthy beings doing a myriad of different things, only half of which looked legal. Leaning a little more gave her a view of the ceiling and the air vent conveniently located nearby. If she could just make it into the ventilation, she could find her way to the engine room and maybe a not-too-often-visited corner she could hole up in for a bit. Maybe have a look around for the mess hall if this wasn't it.

Here was where her ability to magically work metals came in handy. With only a few small flicks of her wrist and a minimal amount of concentration, the grating bent backwards enough to allow her small frame to slip inside. Zaiaku clambered from her back and into the duct first, quickly followed by Athenai. Only one quick movement of her hand was required to return the battered grate back to normal. She also had an innate sense of the strength of metals, and how much weight or punishment it could take before yielding. This is how she knew that it would be safe for her and the pipework if she crawled through, and where it wouldn't be able to bear her or Zaiaku's weight in other places. Only the main vent shaft was strong enough to hold them, and it was this they followed deeper into the vessel to search for a place they could hide in until the ship docked again, hopefully light years from this hellish place.

"Are you sure, Madam Solis? It seems awfully morbid to me..." The elderly woman settled across the table from her gazed down at the cards spread across the purple silk in worry. Her main concern was the Death card, showing the stooped, sickle-bearing skeleton reaping severed hands and heads from a wheat field. It was currently in it's reversed position. "Yes, Mrs. Drake. The Death card is not often the harbinger of actual death. In this position, it is merely a glimpse at your true self." The woman looked appalled and clutched her cybernetic cat-bot to her chest. It was patterned after a Siamese of some sort, complete with beautiful azure eyes, and mewled quietly. "Not in that way, Mrs. Drake. In the reversed position, Death describes you as..."

She trailed off, narrowing her eyes at the other woman. "Something tells me that the true meaning of a reversed Death would only serve to upset her more..." A soft whuff blew the dark, star-spangled curtains behind her, and Thea turned just in time to see a black nose retreating. Her mouth curved in a slight smile and she returned her attention to divining what old Mrs. Drake wanted to hear this time. She was in this shop at least once a week, preferring to let Thea and her Tarot cards or palm reading make the decisions in her life rather than depend on her own addling wits.

"...It says that you are a good shoulder to cry on, that you can be trusted with things best kept quiet. It also says that a friend will be in need of this attribute soon, so you should make yourself available to them at all times." She dealt a second card, lying it next to the first. This one bore a young man clad in armor astride a horse and holding a sword with the words "Cavalier d'Epee" underneath. She smiled, "How perfect." and continued the reading. "See? The Knight of Swords confirms it. This one says you know just what to say to friends to comfort them, and to help them solve their problems." That these two definitions were the farthest from what Death and the Knight of Swords indicated was beside the fact.

Mrs. Drake left with a smug grin on her face and a hefty tip on Thea's table. "You see? A little white lie never hurts when it's told in good faith." she said as she gathered the credits and placed them in her till. She'd made enough to knock off early tonight. Humph, so you say. I believe that old bat could do with a wake-up call. Esyscth had been the source of the unusual wind indoors earlier, and stepped from her bed behind the curtain. She dipped her head for a scratch from Thea. "Ah, but if I told her the truth one too many times, she might find a more compliant psychic to go to, and then what would we do for food and necessities?" A rumble sounded from inside the dragoness' chest as Thea obliged with scratches to her nose and crest. "You do like eating, don't you?"

Of course, Esyscth had no way to answer that and rolled her eyes as her bond locked the front door to their shop and returned her battered cards to their bag. So. We're closing early to go do something, I hope. As much as I love you, I spend too much time cooped up in this building as it is. She motioned with her wings how much she longed to stretch them. "I never said you had to hang around here with me all day. You could have gone to the flight deck and exercised, you certainly need it." Thea pinched a slight roll of pudge around her bond's middle. Hey! I happen to be quite healthy for a dragoness of my size and activity level, thank you very much! We can't all be hippy health-nuts like a certain someone I know... "Yes, yes, we're going somewhere. But only for a walk down by the docks." Once again, the gold rolled her eyes. The docks, the docks. I have a sneaking suspicion that you like someone down there and aren't telling me anything about it.

She made a pouty face. Well, as pouty a face as a dragon could. It made Thea laugh. "Oh dearheart, like I could - or would - keep something like that from you! No, I don't like anybody down by the docks." She shuddered at the very thought. Most inhabitants of the dock area were of the seedier sort, dirty and smelly from labor and reeking of stale alcohol and Gods-know-what-else. "I - really don't know why I keep wanting to walk down there. Something's just... drawing me to it, I guess." Her eyes became far-off and misty as she attempted to make use of her future-sight, but it was to no avail. Even on her best days, she couldn't will her visions to occur. They came and went as they pleased, giving her teasing snippets of others lives but never her own. It frustrated her.

Esyscth's soft coo broke into her melancholic thoughts. I wish you wouldn't worry so about your future. After all, I'm always here to take care of you. She nuzzled Thea's shoulder and looked into her with those soft, ice blue eyes. Ever since their bonding, Thea felt that Esyscth could to see down into her very soul with her cutting eyes. Sometimes she wondered if the gold wasn't keeping something from her when she caught herself following that familiar spiral to depression. What happened to that walk, eh? I'm dying to get out of this place for a bit. She squirmed comically, stretching her neck up so that her head disappeared into the cloth-draped ceiling. "All right, all right." Thea giggled, opening the door to her apartment behind the shop. "Give me a moment to change."