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Never trust a bar that feels it necessary to have an animal on the premises. It is a gimmick. It could be a snake in a tank. It might be an old, faithful, dog.
It might be a parrot. Parrots are the worst. To start with, they are loud. Unlike popular pirate culture, which pictures them as largely silent shoulder
decorations, who occasionally erupt with a cry of "pieces of eight", "beware the black spot", or "Please Mr. Silver, don't rape me
poor Jim-boy bottom again". They are loud, social birds, who will screech out, imitate or otherwise warble with the force, volume, and high pitch of a
four year old running around inhaling pixie sticks through both nostrils. If pirate parrots acted like real parrots the origin of bird-shot would be much more
obvious and the British Navy would have been prying beaks out of their hulls more often than Lady Hamilton knelt for something other than a passing monarch.

Derrick's Place had a parrot.

It was not a gimmick.

If was an affront to nature.

Thibor considered this. He considered this carefully. As a werewolf, his status as a affront to nature was already well established, but he wasn't sure
that he was entirely willing to share that status with the bird. No. The parrot was not an affront to nature. It was not even a red headed bastard step-child
of nature, to be occasionally slapped as the situation warranted. That was giving it far too much credit. Abomination. No. That didn't do it justice. It
was something far more horrible.

The parrot stared back at him, yellow and black eyes meeting his. It shuffled back and forth on its perch, lifted one avian leg, farted prodigiously, shook
itself, and then with a coughing noise, leaned forward and explosively vomited a mouse skull out onto the top of the bar. Derrick, if that was his name, snaked
an arm in gingerly, keeping as far away from the bird as possible and wiped up the skull and small pool of seed studded vomit. He drew back quickly.

The parrot was green. Well that was an oversimplification. Its wings were mostly green, with a few red highlights, the tail had some green and blue. The few
feathers that dotted the head were green. The neck and chest were bare and whitish pink, a few stubby feathers sticking out in viridian clumps. The beak was
black. It was far larger than any parrot had a right to be. Bigger than most macaws, but without the long tail to give a sense of balance. It smelled. Not
overwhelmingly so, but even without his lupine senses engaged, Thibor could pick up the hint of carrion about it.

Without warning the parrot exploded from its perch, wings spreading as it flapped across the room to where a large man was dealing with a jug of beer and a
plate of Derrick's highly questionable deep fried cheese sticks. The man froze as the parrot alit on the table. Not with the grace of a dove in a John Woo
film or a biblical parable. It alit with all the grace of a three pound stone being chucked over an overpass. The table shook and beer sloshed in the jug, the
patron having lowered the beer level enough that it did not spill. With deliberate graceless steps, the parrot stalked towards the man, who remained frozen in
place. It reached out with its beak and gently turned over the medical alert bracelet on the man's thick wrist. Then it turned its head to the side and
leaned in close, the yellow and black eye held a few scant millimeters over the writing. Satisfied, the bird turned, defecated hugely, and flapped back to its
perch. It landed heavily. Settled back down, scratched under one wing disinterestedly, but kept one yellow eye fixed on the large man. The long black tongue
reached out and explored the beak, as if licking its lips in anticipation.
... ok, the parrot scares me.

So does the bar.

I'm curious where this is going... (besides to a Bad Place, as all Thibor stories tend to do Big Grin )

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
The parrot does not scare me. I once went into a garden store in Hightstown NJ which had a mostly-bald parrot in a cage. You know how awful those shaved-cat
pictures look? This was worse. Featherless parrots are abominations. Parrots with only their head feathered save for a few diseased plumes hanging loosely from
a bumpy pinkish skin even more so.

That said, nicely done, Shayne, even though the title makes me want to break out singing like Steve Allen.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
"Whatcha want?" Derrick asked emotionlessly, rubbing at a glass in a grim parody of cleaning it. Thibor could not help but notice that Derrick was
several finger joints short of the full complement. He also noticed that Derrick had started with a half score more finger joints than the standard, so perhaps
there was some karmic force at work. A karmic force prone to assuming the fetal position, giggling happily to itself and engaging in double fisted onanism.

"Beer. In bottle." It was the safest option. "And information."

"Yes. Five bucks. No." Derrick slapped a bottle of Paragon macrobrew on the counter. Thibor considered the bottle and the response. This was a dance
that he was used to. He assumed his werewolf aspect. His frame stretched and expanded, muscles swelled, and his features drew out into a long lupine muzzle.
Derrick kept a bored expressed that was slightly undone by a single rivulet of sweat that chased down one side of his face and landed with an audible plop on
the bar top. The large man at the table, having been subjected to the parrot and now the presence of a werewolf, abandoned his beer and cheese sticks and fled
on suddenly shaky legs.

Thibor then ate the bottle of macrobrew, chewing the bottle to shards and swallowing the whole thing with a grating, throaty, gulp. He brushed foam from his
muzzle, then for good measure he punched the parrot. The thing let out a horrendous squawk of indignation as it was slammed off its perch and sent crashing
into a collection of tequila bottles. It regained its feet, shook itself, dipped its beak into one of the broken bottles, gargled heartily and then flew back
to its perch, unhurt by a punch that would have reduced a sixties era Volkswagen to so much Teutonic shrapnel. It lifted on foot and turning the claws upwards,
made a classic two fingered British gesture of defiance at Thibor.

Derrick nodded. Thibor handed him a fiver. Their professional relationship thus established Thibor slapped a photo on the counter.

"What dost thou want to know?" Derrick's voice had changed, becoming almost musical. His features had changed too, becoming less human, leaner
and more drawn.

"Sparkle vampire." The picture was of a pale, handsome, young man, his finely boned features seeming to glisten with an inner light. His lips were
slightly parted and long, curved canines were clearly visible. The sun was visible in the sky behind him.

"I know not of sparkle vampires." Derrick said. The parrot began laughing, a shrieking sound more akin the to the Wicked Witch of the West having a
screaming, flying monkey induced orgasm than anything even remotely associated with humour.

"Am not knowing either." Thibor said dryly. "And new kind of vampire is never good thing. Is simpler question, is knowing who this is?"
Ah. "Twilight" of the Gods.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
So I was in a bookstore today.
"Hey, there's Chinese Twilight."
"Wait, what?"
"Over here, see? Whole series, looks like."
"...I...guh...it's...it's Twilight...with Chinese words."
"Yeah. Wonder how good the translation is. Pity they're shrink-wrapped. What's Chinese for 'vampire'?"
"Uh, I think it's---nooo, I don't know. I don't want to know. WHY IS THERE TWILIGHT IN CHINESE?"
"Hmm...printed prices on the covers are in Taiwan and Hong Kong dollars. No Renmingbi, but I'd assume...and hell, they're over here. Chinese-speaking is a huge market, man."
"But I don't want there to be Twilight in Chinese."
"Everybody loves vampires."
"...very expensive vampires."
"Holy...is that price tag right?"
"They ARE imports."
"Apparently Edward Cullen is a pricey boytoy."
Moral of story: sparkle vampires are everywhere. Friend made me take pictures. I now have photographic evidence of China Twilight on my cell.
I would not pay for China Twilight, but I would pay to see Thibor punch sparkle vampire.
I would.
-- Acyl
"Yeah. Wonder how good the translation is. Pity they're shrink-wrapped. What's Chinese for 'vampire'?"

Jiang shi or gyonshee, I thought. Although Edward Cullen as a traditional Chinese hopping vampire , only
with sparkles, would be amusing.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
you are a sick man Rev, and we love you for it.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
The fat man was dying. Or rather the fat man was already dead, but his remaining biological functions just hadn't taken the hint yet. As Thibor emerged
from Derrick's Place, the EMTs were loading him into the back of an ambulance. Thibor could hear the man's heart, but there was an interrupted blood
flow to the brain; a stroke that had occluded flow to, well pretty much everything above the neck level. Behind him Thibor could hear the parrot continuing its
laughter. There was a pause. A horrific avian fart. Then the cackling continued.

Derrick had been forthcoming. Thibor had a name. Eddie Collins. The name meant nothing to Thibor. Or rather it meant the same things it had before he had; but
while sparkling vampiric douchebag did convey a certain amount of information, it did not increase his own knowledge. Chances were good that it was a
pseudonym; but depending on how entrenched it was, there might be a mark; Credit cards; Drivers license; library card. Library cards were sometimes overlooked,
but occasionally turned out to be very useful. The IRS might track you down; a dedicated librarian deeply upset at your failure to return a particularly
popular or rare book would follow you to the ends of the world like a bespectacled albatross. They were less likely to take a crap on your car, but did have
other, equally repulsive tricks to employ. He phoned it in.

"Operations. Go ahead Major." Simon Bitterbuck's voice came through the communicator.

"Is having a name. Eddie Collins." Thibor said. "Am not expecting miracles on this one."

"If you get one, do we get dinner?" Naoko's voice chimed in. The slight echo indicating she was leaning over Simon's shoulder. Officers were
responsible for the care and feeding of soldiers. This included junior officers. It just so happened that Naoko was the junior officer equivalent of a baby
bird; mouth agape and cheeping in a loud, demanding, tone. Any bird imagery was wholly unwelcome at this point in time. The parrot was still laughing. Would
Naoko actually eat the filthy thing. Possibly. But there would have to be a good wine and lots of expensive side dishes.

"Order pizza. On me." Thibor grated. "No special gourmet with fugu and Norewegian goat cheese. You get pepperoni. Give me intelligence, can
negotiate for proper dinner."

"Good Hunting Major." Simon signed off, as he did, Thibor could hear Naoko already on the phone to her favorite pizzeria.

The next step. Thibor considered it. Another beer, one without the glass fragment or presence of a deeply troubling bird. Tempting; but not necessarily useful.
He considered the picture again. Where would such a creature hunt? Who would he hunt?

Thibor nodded to himself. He phoned it in and asked Simon to make the arrangements. All he had to do was buy a set of coveralls. After another beer.
I don't think anyone would want to eat that old bird. It's sick, old, and produces it's own noxious gasses.

Then again, good wine can cover a variety mistakes in preparation.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy