Freezing Wings

Chapter 32

{Riland's POV}

{Riland is a Kymari by the way. Just to make sure >.>]

As I studied the crushed remnants of a corpse in front of me, I found myself thinking back over my day. It had started out badly, to say the least. First, it was the shady merchant, then it was a funeral, now it was this. 'A bad day indeed....'

The merchant was one of the Trillip. The Trillip were a small furry race of moneymakers, that were notorious for their debatable moral compasses. Their ability to move products across the galaxy, whether it was legal or not, was unprecedented on this side of the star system, but also made them one of the least trusted people one would ever meet.

With the Trillip, there was always a fifty percent chance that, right next to the product you ordered, there would be a box full of weaponry, or drugs, or a cage filled with kidnapped and enslaved people... With them, there were two absolutes: Trillip were either criminals, or a saints, there was no in-between. 

Because of this, most were wanted dead or alive on multiple planets, or very successful businessmen. We usually didn't even bother taking the chance and just ignored them, and our relations were kept to a minimum. However, there were orders from up the political ladder, saying that Earth needed to be making more money than it was to fund our input, and that's when the shady furry gnomes came into play. 

I was supposed to be in a meeting with the little person at dawn, so that our staff would have enough time to move our product onto his ships and get them flying off to Resni #3 before noon. But, of course, the Trillip didn't show. 

The furry monkey waltzed into the embassy at near ten o'clock, ten empty ships floating in the air at the port behind it. At that point, I had been sitting behind my desk, waiting, for four hours. Although I wasn't bored in the slightest, I was a bit peeved. 

It was less that the Trillip was late, it was that it had no excuse. When I asked the small critter why it was so late it just looked at me, it's large black eyes staring blankly as it tried to think up a satisfactory answer.

After a long moment of tense silence, it just turned and walked away from me, going back to screaming at it's crew members. Apparently, it had no problem lying to me about what it's ship was holding, but struggled with thinking up a reason for it being late. 

My mood soured slightly, but I shrugged it off. There were more important things to do than pout over a fashionably late Trillip. I had guards following it's every step and monitoring the movement of every crew member, but even then, I was slightly worried. Who knew what sort of things the mini monkey stored on his ship, and neither I nor my bosses wanted to find out. However, it proved that I would find out anyway, no matter what I tried. 

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. 

All of this had happened before noon. Once the sun passed the center of the sky was when it really got bad. 

The first thing was the funeral. 

One of the Elders, a kindly old Kymari by the name of Krillin, had died from natural causes ten days prior, and today was the day we had to send his body off back to his family. He had been eight hundred and seventy, living a hundred and seventy years after the average lifespan, and kept very active, which might have been a factor in what killed him. 

Krillin always kept more busy than he should have, being that old, and he had a hand in every major political operation from here to Pikia #76. He had died in his sleep, three days after the death of his mate, Mazio, and had lived a nice life, touching the lives of many, including me. Although he wasn't as well known as some of the other Elders, or as popular, his death had hit the entire city hard. 

We had sent his body off at noon, the ship with his body and the body of Mazio on it's way back to their home planet to be buried side by side. Almost half of the city had shown up in mourning black, gathering in front of city hall. 

Just as their caskets had been carried onto the ship and it was about to take off, we heard the flap of wings and the whistling of the wind. The freezing air stalled for a moment and we all looked up, into the sky.

There was a large dragon, flying high in the firmament. It's scales were an inky black, a mourning color even darker than our own attire. It coasted over the city once and stared at us, a long croon reaching our ears. Then, it flew away, disappearing in the blink of an eye. 

It was an eerie experience that sent a shiver down my spine, and even through all my layers of warm clothing, I could feel the cold.

We dispersed after that, scattering until nightfall.