For a lack of Crunchables

This world was really truly awful. So bright. Too much light. And a terrible lack of food. Ndinn had come here for a bit of recreation, having heard that there was a certain bar on Cloud City that might still have things they didn't serve in other places, but so far all the plates he'd seen walking past his booth held soft tissue, organic greens, jelly-like substances, or worse. Nothing crunchable. Nothing .... good.

On the other hand, there was something that sounded all clicky and clacky at the next table over, but Ndinn wasn't certain what it was.

Sounded like good food.

Ndinn slowly stuck his head around the booth, trying to see what it was. When he saw it, his heart grew faster and he knew he had just struck the Sabacc Pot of all crunchable things. It was big. Very thin but big! And had such a lovely crunchy looking shell! And soft and big eyebulbs! Ohhhh it looked declicious!

Quickly he turned back around again and tried to get the attention of one of the servers.

Twitch.. Twitch.., went the antenae..

"Some servicks, here?! Snick-snick?" This was not good, warnings were going off, predator approaching! One couldn't even get a decent meal without becoming one!, thought Tixar'...

"Here you go, Tixar' !", a cheerful voice broke the silent struggle between predator and prey.

"One magenge smoothie.. I swear we don't get much call for these." Molly placed the rather green looking fungus smoothie down in front of the verpine regular known affectionately as Tix. Tix's antanae were twitching in an almost distressing manner when she arrive and her seeking blue gaze settled on the guy at the next table. He was looking.. ravenous, for lack of a better description.

Oh, here we go...

"Be right with you, sir.." Molly patted Tix on the shoulder consolingly and approached the next table.

"Care to here the specials, love..?"

Ndinn straightened the front of his vibrantly colored shirt and sat up. Crunchtime! He beamed up at the server, and held out his palm downwards - a sure sign to tell her he wasn't interested in any specials besides one.

"Na-a-a-a, gimme-e-e the-e-e sa-a-aim' a-a-as tha-a-at!"

And with that, he pointed over on the other table, smacking his lips as he did in anticipation.

She turned slightly, following the direction of his mouth watering gaze.

"That...? A magenge smoothie? Are you certain?" She's only ever served the likes to verpine customers, no one else had any inclination to drink chunky blended fungus in a cup.

Of course, Molly had a sinking suspiscion that he was talking about Tix and not his drink, but she was not about to serve one of her better tippers up to this guy on a plate..

"Knick-Knick, Check pleash, Molly..." came a quiet plea..

"Wha-a-a-a-a???" Nn', nn' ma-a-agwha-a-azzit sm'the-e-e, a-a-aI wa-a-ant the-e-e cr'nshhhthing!"

Why would he want something called magenge smoothie? He'd showed her what he wanted! He eyed the server - stupid human thing - with indignation, and pointed once again at the snackable bug, who just then did him the favor of making sounds.

"Thing tha-a-at spe-e-e-ks!"

He really hoped she would understand him now!

"I hate to dissapoint a valued customer, Sir..", She tried to keep the sass out of her voice, really she did..

"But there will be no eating of other customers, while you are a patron of the Cloud 9. If it is... crunchy that you want", she whipped up the menu and flipped through a few pages and then pointed to what she thought might tempt his palate.

"Try this!" It was a picture of an appetizer sampler that boasted crispy fried chips and several dipping sauces.

Out of apron, Molly slid Tix's bill from her notebook, discreetly passing it over to the verpine, who was looking ready to run out screaming..

He looked back at the snackbug, and his mouth watered some more. Back home he'd have stuck a knife down that lovely crunchy carapace already, slicing it open and using his snout to suck out the lovely lovely insides. But it seemed he wasn't allowed to get so lucky around here.

He tried one last time, sounding like a grumpy little child despite the cackling accent. "Ba-a-at the-e-e cr'nshhhthing l'ks s' ta-a-aste-e-e!"

He watched it as it hastily produced a credit chip, and ran out.

Ndinn sighed, and looked back at the serving girl with a wistful look. He supposed he could try other things. Maybe there were other crunchable things.

"Bring me-e-e 'the-e-er cr'nshhhthing the-e-en..."

The service in this joint seemed a bit on the bad side of things since he'd been sitting there for a while with his mouth watering at the thought of food to digest, but no food had surfaced.

He wasn't being unproductive though - no sirrah, his mind was busy pondering the possibilities. Now that he had a new object of affection, he wasn't going to let a simple waitress and a couple of cantina rules get in his way of making it his personal lunchbug. It just meant that he'd have to find it outside the cantina.

Trouble with that was that he didn't know what it was, and hadn't caught the snack's name. He didn't think it would be advisable to ask the serving girl, either, because that would probably get him thrown out.

So Ndinn's time was occupied observing the other clients of the cantina, to see if there was someone who looked like a trusty kind of adventurous type he could have a little chat with.

Molly had kept her blue eyes on the...whatever the heck he was, the whole time she'd been up at the counter. Sensing that he might cause her some trouble, she'd given the rest of her section over to someone coming on shift and opted to baby-sit the cretin.

Eat Tixar'? Over my dead body, she thought.

She had a blaster beneath the counter and was not afraid to use it!

When his order of 'crunchies' was up, she took the platter over to his tabel and slid it, unceremoniously in front of him. "Enjoy."

Creep...

With excitement he'd watched the dark-haired serving girl approach him with the plate of his intended crunchies, and the insides of his mouth had never felt as wet with saliva as just then. But he only needed to look at the unappetizing mush on that plate as she set it down in front of him to know that this was not, in fact, what he'd been hoping for.

It looked crunchy. But it was yellowish. And it smelled ... smelled.... oily. Not musky engine-oily, but different oily. And the things in pots around it had strange smells too - the only thing he knew that came served in pots were the slushy substances inside shells, and the stuff in these little pots might have some of the right colors but not the right smell, either.

He picked up one of the yellow crunchy things and found he could squeeze it. What bugcrunch was this?? He stuck it in his mouth, and it vanished down his gullet in a second, no resistance, no lovely crunchiness sounds, no spiky sensation at the back of his throat. Disappointing.

The serving girl seemed to be rooted to the spot next to him, waiting for something. He looked up at her with misgiving, but put off critique until he had tasted the other things. Maybe the combination...?

He picked up a few more of the yellow soft-crunches and stuffed them in his mouth, then stuck his snout into the first little pot and snorted the substance up like he would have done if this had been the usual innard-soup.

It stayed inside his mouth for the 5 seconds it took for the combined flavors to hit his brain, then he spat it all out again through mouth and snout and started retching violently.

"Whhhhhhhhhhrp!! WHRRRRP! Whhrrrrllllp! Hrrrrrrrnch! Hrrrrmch! WrrrrrrrrckrchhhhrrrukNGG!"

Wampo was sitting in a booth nearby, slowly ingesting his steamed grubbler-mash while letting his eyes roam around the place. Having four eyes really helped with that.

He had started taking an interest in the odd alien with the garish clothes when he'd noticed the waitress paying it some special attention. He was a semi-regular in this joint - meaning that he'd usually visit whenever one of his deals took him away from home to this place - and he knew that the girl's behavior meant she thought the creature was a problem in some way.

That sort of thing always peaked his interest. Rubbing his hands and throwing his napkin on the by now empty plate, he moved out of the booth and walked over to the bar, where he sat down on the chair closest to the booth, so he could overhear what was being said.

:: Varla turned to look at Wampo, smiling as he took the seat next to her ::

"Hello." she greeted.

Irritated, Wampo held up his hand to indicate he was busy - and indeed he was, because just then the weird creature was breaking out in the worst kind of throaty sounds while holding his snout and chest - but one set of eyes couldn't stop wandering off into the direction of his neighbor at the bar.

And immediately, the other pair set on the girl, too. Alien weird thing or not, this was a fine-looking broad.

"Herrrrllo gorrrgeous!" And with that, he winked at her with the left set of eyes.

:: Varla's smile grew bigger as she introduced herself, then glanced over to the Kubaz in curiosity ::

Now irritated with her for paying attention to anything other than him, he slid onto the side of his chair to get as close to her as he could, and breathed into her face.

Hot steamy breath hit her skin. What with the grubbler-mash having coated the insides of his mouth with a lingering layer of their glandular juices, his breath smelled fruity but not unpleasant. Some females liked that, as he well knew.

Still winking, he ogled her heavily and grunted: "Wourrrld you rrrlike to scrrratch ma tusks, babe?"

:: She took a deep breathe of the fruity aroma and sighed. Accepting the invitation, Varla stroked Wampo's tusks with her fingertips. She blushed slightly from the tingle she felt in her belly ::

"We can go back to my ship, if you'd like to do business." she purred.

Wampo groaned with pleasure - this girl knew what she was doing! But he wasn't quite ready to get down to business yet; there was some other business to do first. He was far too curious to let the opportunity pass.

He ran his hand over her back until it came to rest on her shapely behind, and gave that an appreciative squeeze.

"Yo know whadda ya want babe... but nodda sa fast! I have samm otherrr bisness."

:: Varla trilled at his touch, and nodded as she ordered a snack ::

"Alright." :D

:: She teased the Ualaq, eating a snail seductively as she waited for him. :yum If things went well, she intended to make him a regular client ::

The sound of retching caused Mu to stop taking inventory for a moment. Turning around she caught sight of goo spraying out of the snouted customer. It hit the table, ricocheted up and across towards the neighboring tables. Poor Molly was standing the closest to the fountain of gastric fluid.

Mu slapped a hand across her face and prayed that it wouldn't start a chain reaction. Quickly she pulled out her comm link. "We have a clean up on table 7, repeat a clean up on table 7."

Servers and protocol droids rushed to the area and began cleaning up the mess.

Smitty, had been sitting at a sabbacc table and as usual, spending more time eying the ladies than the cards. Especially one in particular with dark curly hair, blue eyes and a smile that made his heart go pitty pat a rat tat.

Said she was with someone. A disturbed brooding joker Smitty spotted once trashing a couple of idiots who made the mistake of pushing the little lady too hard too fast. They deserved it. Anyone with half a brain could see the way her smile changed when the joker walked in that night.

Nah, to finesse one such as Molly would take time and patience. The joker paid her far too little attention to Smitty's way of thinking. And so every night Smitty was here, waiting for an opportunity to make a move that would slide him in good with her.

He knew better than to think he could bump the joker out of the picture, in fact anything he did directly to help his case along that route would only drive the girl further away. Dames were silly about stuff like that, but guys like the joker never seemed to appreciate what they had. It would only be a matter of time... and when that time came Smitty was more than happy to be the rebound mat she bounced on.

And then the opportunity arrived in all it's putrid glory, he shot from his table and dived towards Molly trying his best to intercept the spray. A good chunk of the stuff hit the back of his jacket and began eating away at the threads.

His body connected with hers and they both hit the floor and slid away from the mess. He wrapped his arms around her head and pulled it towards his chest to protect her precious face. Then as the servers ran past to start cleaning up the mess he let go and smiled sweetly down at her lying beneath him, "Why hello again."