Glitterstim Cowboys

[Markos Thrule]

A string of garbled jibberish escaped past a row of pointed teeth, starting low at first and rising in volume the more that he pulled the tired cobwebs from his brain. A Gotal with a blaster pointed at both him and Rocky was something that thankfully helped to speed up the process. Sadly, their situation was far less than ideal, and the young Lupine ended his unintelligible, throaty rambling with a huffed breath. How to even begin fixing this?

Where was a protocol droid when you needed on? Or hells, even that old vox translator that Rocky used to always tote around on his knapsack would've been welcomed.

Sadly that old thing was back on the King, no doubt in pieces atop the Wookiee's workbench.

Without options, Markos fell upon old habits he'd had growing up. After so many times being in trouble with his mother and father, he'd learned well enough to adopt the apologetic look and tone; it usually only work a quarter of the time, and more often than not it was a slam dunk with his father; not so much with his mother.

Ears drooping and tail falling still, the vornskr let his head hang low, eyes looking up at the Gotal in that universal anooba pup stare.

[Rocky]

Rocky rolled his eyes at the sappy display. Apparently Lupines were able to have an effect on humanoids that Wookiees did not. The Gotal seemed to give Markos the benefit of the doubt, at least. That gave them at least a little wiggle room. Rocky's eyes brightened as he stumbled upon an idea. Time to take advantage of the cute factor.

"Hwarrha aughrraww!"

Still with his hands up, he spoke mainly to his partner, hoping that Markos could get the necessary window to rummage through the rucksack for the datapad. Speaking by text would be annoying, but a lot less annoying than a smoking hole in your forehead.

[Markos Thrule]

Markos understood well enough, angling his head to the side as his body fluidly followed the motion, sending him down to his belly, then his side in a half-roll. His neck stretched, nose rooting into the rucksack's opening. His tail lazily slapped the snowpacked 'floor', as his teeth finally closed around the datapad that Rocky had asked for.

Only, as he pulled back up, snout leaving the sack with 'pad firmly held in his jaws, the Gotal let out a warning, his weapon shifting quickly to the Lupine in menacing fashion.

A whine at the motion, and Markos' ears fell, his body freezing lest their captor decide to pull the trigger.

Tawny eyes shifted sideways to Rocky then, unsure exactly where to go from here.

[Rocky]

Okay, so it was going to take a hard sell.

Rocky approached the situation with maximum gentleness. No sudden movements. He carefully pantomimed the act of typing on a datapad, then turning the imaginary pad around for the Gotal to read. There was a chance this could still end up being lost in translation. He did his best to appear non-threatening, which was hard to do when you were seven feet tall and...wookiee-ish.

There was a moment of dawning understanding behind the Gotal's eyes, and Rocky flashed an underbitten smile and a nod of his head.

"Hnaaurr."

Reluctantly, the Gotal tilted the barrel of his gun slightly off center. "Nee kuta."

Whew. The all-clear. Rocky turned to his Lupine buddy, now free to pull the pad from Markos's jaws. A swipe with a furry forearm across the screen cleared away a bit of drool, and he began to quickly peck out a message, turning it to the Gotal when finished.

"We aren't with Kanjiklub. We're freelance spacers."

[Markos Thrule]

A wide, toothy grin accompanied the message as it was turned to the Gotal, and Markos fixed his eyes up, never letting their intruder's trigger finger from his sight. Sitting up, the vornskr wrapped his long, bony tail around his massive front paws, and the Lupine cut a surprisingly regal figure. His blonde coat seemed almost white in their snowy surroundings, and afforded him a deceptively pristine appearance.

To the Gotal's credit, he glanced at the text long enough to read each word. Of course his gaze went back to Rocky, then shifted to Markos. The rifle seemed to lower a fraction of an inch, but it didn't sweep away entirely. There was curiosity in his eyes, and his head angled to the side as he rattled off another string of words.

"Ge haatu tu tahko jonaama, abowaana."