Mantalo [Ongoing Series]

L'Hiver

The hotel where "The Neptunes" were staying was within walking distance. Mantalo was glad of that, as his new found friend was not yet quite sober enough to be trusted behind the wheel and he knew from experience that cabs in Aquapulco couldn't be expected stop for him. Admittedly, he was grateful for the chance to simply talk with another sentient being, and a handsome one at that. Not that it mattered really.

 “So how long have you been playing for” She asked casually.

 “Well…since I was 7 or so…I guess” He replied, admiring the way that the artificial night lamps caromed off his company’s sleek mane.

 “Tss…Your poor parents!” Her laugh had a delightfully wicked tone to it.

 He was suddenly struck by the fact that his parents, if they were still alive, had never actually heard him play. She couldn’t have known, why burden her with that fact? No, his past was too tangled up, his memory too sparse, he wasn’t even sure he could fashion any sense from it.

 “Nyuk nyuk nyuk” He answered back in the well tread timber of his favoured Stooge, desperate to keep the humour of these moments with her light.

 For a few blithe minutes, she had afforded him the chance to shed his disfigurement and simply be. Unfortunately, it was a chance quickly snatched away by the approach of a shark ejector. The thing clunked and chugged its way from the lobby of a nearby hotel, rust laden arms extending towards him.

 Shelly placed herself between Mantalo and the clinking monolith. Upon encountering a human, it’s treads locked so hastily that the chassis of the thing rocked back and forth from the jar of it. There was a stand off for a smattering of seconds. The robotic interloper simply staring with what amounted in it’s tinker-toy mind to confusion. 

 With a savageness that Mantalo couldn’t help but find charming, Shelly kicked the thing over on its side. He watched as his clockwork assailant’s arms snapped, gears tumbling free and rolling down the street as if in celebration. With glorious vehemence,she launched several more brutish kicks at the thing, hair whipping back and forth, pleased by the crush of steel beneath her boot.

 “Miss LaMarine!” A frantic voice cried out.

 Mantalo looked up from the assault to see a primly dressed man, with a waxed moustache, scurrying out from the same hotel where the shark ejector had sprung.

 Shelly didn’t bother to afford him a glance.

 “Miss LaMarine, please stop! That’s hotel property!” He pleaded in a gratingly nasal voice.

 “So bill me!” She snorted, distilling one last kick and spitting on the snarl of cogs and bolts left in her wake.

 “Rest assured I will do just that.” The man said, gathering what he could of his composure.

 “Fine then.” She huffed, greeting this man’s challenge with the smuggest of smiles.

 “Come on Mantalo.” She urged, reaching out and grabbing her newly discovered drummer by a pectoral fin. To his dismay, he realized she was tugging him towards the glowing entrance of the very hotel, whose staff she’d so ingratiated herself to.

 He resisted for a moment, looking at the elegant streamlined curve of the door and the polished steel railings. This hotel was a far cry from Garito Del, and not the sort of establishment that was likely to welcome him with open arms. After a few moments of Shelly’s insistent wrenching, he finally relented to her tow.

 “Don’t you dare bring that creature indoors!” The moustachioed man shrieked, rushing in front of the pair and blockading the doorway with his own body.