Lines | Guardians of the Galaxy |

Chapter Seven

Rocket, Drax, and Groot get drinks while Gamora and Quill run off to who knows where. Avenna doesn't get an alcoholic drink since her system tends to reject it quite violently if she overdoes it—and she had a history of overdoing it before being locked up in the Kyln—then watches from a shelf she climbed up to, crouched up in a dark corner. The only sign of her being there is the way her eyes seem to glow in the dark.

A huge amount of people of a large variety of race and gender are crowded around a table where some weird critters were running. A larger one chased several smaller ones until it caught them and snatched them up by the tail, throwing them up into the air before devouring them whole.

Avenna had to admit, if only to herself, that they looked quite delicious. That was just the animal side of her speaking, but she itched to give in to it.

The whole table is chaos, though. Fire shoots up from holes in it as the creatures run from one end to the other, chased by the larger one that looks like a blue and green pig with some kind of weird cockroach shell. Almost like a turtle. A combination of several animals that Avenna had learned belonged to several different planets.

Despite being entertained, along with the rest of them, she is wildly uncomfortable. She stays on her place on the shelf with her drink, feeling anxiety burning in her stomach. The noise of this place doesn't help.

I used to love these kind of places. What happened?

In truth, it was probably just because of her time at the Kyln. Although she felt guilty about blaming it rather than a personality change since it was likely both, she did so anyway. The Kyln never had events like this; the schedules were strict and punishment occurred if you disobeyed, unless you had bonds with the guards.

Also, it was never, never this loud, even when riots occurred. This was just flat out overwhelming, with the hundreds of voices, glass clinking, and squealing creatures. Not to mention the disgusting, overpowering scent of cigarettes, drinks, and things cooking.

"My Orloni has won, as I won at all things!" She hears Drax announce as the strange turtle creature eats the last ugly rat critter. "Now, let's put more of this liquid into our bodies."

"That's the first thing you said that wasn't bat-shit crazy!" Rocket shouts, spilling half of his drink onto the table as he gestures wildly. They're obviously drunk.

Avenna groans as she leans back, deciding that maybe stuffing herself atop this shelf isn't a very good idea. She doesn't like hunching over the way she is. The fox downs the rest of her drink and jumps down, setting her cup on a table where a few guys are standing. She snarls at them as they look at her, then walks away, sipping her drink, lifting her tail up so that nobody steps on it. She'd had that happen four times already and it hurts more than you'd expect.

She finds somewhere against a wall to lean, golden eyes narrowed as she resists the urge to clamp her paws over her ears and just curl up into a ball. Maybe run away and find somewhere else to be, take Drax with her. But she needs to be here.

Maybe not. She and Drax did have that conversation about leaving, and this would be a golden opportunity. But he seemed to be having fun.

. A solid ten minutes pass before there's an outroar and she hears Rocket and Drax faced head-on in an argument. She stands up straighter, downing the rest of her drink as she sets it down on the floor, suddenly concerned about where this was going.

"YOU KNOW NOTHING OF THAT," Drax thunders and Rocket shouts something back but she can't make it out over the noise.

Groot steps forward in front of Rocket, then Drax is throwing himself at the tree and Avenna is leaping into the fray, shouting at him to stop. She leaps up onto the table and screeches at them, narrowly avoiding getting crushed as they roll over the table and fall onto the other side. The red-tattooed man is repeatedly beating at Groot's face in a frenzy, ignoring every word that Avenna says as she screams at him to stop, watching in horror as tiny shards of beads of sap and bark spray through the air, likely the equivalent of blood.