>>5299020SIDESTORY: AN ASSASSIN, A CIGARETTE, AND TWO BROTHERS ON THE BEAT
Solomon took a drag from the cigarette from his lips and immediately went into a coughing fit the moment the ash and tobacco smoke hit his tongue and lungs.
"Sol, enough with the cigarette." chided Yan. "You know you're gonna get an earful if mom catches you smoking again."
"Shut it Yan, this is the first in a long while since Mom allowed us the use of these heads and faces instead of the usual Ironwood combat helm. Let me try my hand at getting this 'smoking' thing right!"
Solomon looked hatefully at the slow smouldering creation of dried tobacco and cellulose before dropping it and crushing the roll underneath his foot.
"Gah, I don't get it." groused Solomon. "I just don't get how a good chunk of majority of humanity makes use of this. The fragmented memories that I have before mom made us tells me that smoking this thing supposedly eases stress. How does consuming this...poison provide a benefit?"
The two were "taking a break" from their usual duties, and were currently lounging against the town wall of Laoc. Solomon was the bespectacled man with stubbled goatee and shoulder length hair tied in a loose ponytail. Yan had a shaven look and short hair, his left ear pierced with two gold earrings. If one were to get an of Solomon and Yan at first glance, one would have easily gotten the impression of two relatively young men in suits hanging out together like old friends. This would have been seen as normal...were it not for the world setting these two "men" currently live in and "what" the two are.
For one, Solomon and Yan are constructs. Living automata created in service to their creator/mother/ward Sathriel, the Obsidian Arbiter. And for their self-assigned gender, their appearances would've still made sense in the context of society were it not for the fact that the world has turned into a bio-organic post-apocalypse with a skewed female-male gender ratio of 1000000 to 1.
"Excuse me." asked a passing daughter. The girl was short and in her pre-teens. Her mutations were bare minimal which indicated that she was a "newborn daughter". She was holding an an ornate knife sheathed in her hand. In a skinfold pouch on her body poked out another ornate looking relic that looked like an artistic walkie talkie of golden sinew and polished ivory.
"Is this the town of Laoc? I'm new here. I need to speak to the Mayor."
"Well you're in the right place." answered Solomon. "City Hall's near the center of town. Just follow the big roads and you'll be there in minutes. The Mayor usually hangs around there."
The girl's face brightened upon receiving directions and quickly scampered off without so much as a "Thank you" from her much to Yan and Solomon's dismay.
cont.
