ORIGIN

The cat-sized hybrid looked up with a start, for once in his life seemingly surprised by the presence of a visitor. How silly of him, the shop was open after all! As eyes locked with the giant lizard Bremen couldn't help but tilt his head, thoughts immediately shifting from strategizing on how to make his bazaar better to wondering what kind of hybrid this new customer might be.

A couple seconds passed in silence as the shopkeeper racked his brain to try to come up with a good guess at their lineage. Perhaps a... dragon and an ostrich had a kid. Then that kid grew up and had a kid of their own with a gekko. That would explain why they were so big and why they stood on two legs but how they still looked mostly like a lizard of some kind.

Inquisitive expression gave way to silent pride as Bremen felt satisfied with this answer and hopped up off the stick pile. "Welcome to my bazaar, fellow hybrid." he piped up cheerfully, "My name is Bremen and I make sure that there's always useful stuff here. Are you looking for anything?"

Any thoughts Bremen may have had crowding his mind disappeared all at once as excitement took over. The visitor had no idea what he was doing here; it was a chance to explain what at this point had become his one major occupation in life!

"It's good to meet you then, Catalataleist!" he chirped out with head raised upwards at the larger creature. That was a long name though, hard to pronounce even for him. "Mind if I call you Catty?" Hopefully that would be fine, just rolled off the tongue.

"This is a place I bring all the cool things I find in the caves." not that he had been out exploring in a while, "Other gembound can come and show the cool things they find to and then we can trade cool things and talk and eat!"

With the last word the little creature turned and dashed at a full sprint to the pile of bananas reaching up to grab one with webbed paw. "This one is free, but if you want to trade I can give you lots more!"

Having no opposable thumbs Bremen would find it difficult to try to throw the banana to his new customer, but that didn't stop him from trying. With a twist of his body he wound up and threw the banana with all his might to try to reach up toward the ostrich-lizard's mouth.

Unfortunately his aim was too high. Much too high. Straight up in the air in fact. The fruit went sailing upwards before getting caught by gravity and falling straight back to its source. By the time the hybrid realized what direction the banana had actually gone it was already too late as he looked up and was smacked in the horn.

The store was now in possession of two banana-kabobs.

The little hybrid pawed up at his horn to try to get the banana off but his initial swats only succeeded in spinning the fruit in place. Obviously not the effect he intended, but it was enough to indicate that it would be able to slide off on its own with relative ease. This free sample was a dud anyways so Bremen flung his long neck like a whip over his shoulder and sent the destroyed banana over toward the wall. He'd have to pick that up later and add it to the composting pile- feed the mushrooms.

"Oh, you like the shiny gems? Those are my most popular items! I've been using them to mark the boundaries of my shop but the boundaries keep disappearing and I'm almost out." he rambled, his attention turned back toward Catty for the briefest of seconds before getting distracted in thoughts again. His eyes darted across B5 as an audible series of absentminded dolphin-like clicks sounded form his throat.

How to solve that problem? Perhaps if he had something else to mark the shop boundaries he wouldn't need the gems anymore? He did have the flowers but they weren't really obvious.

His mind racing a mile a minute as always, the little hybrid thought back to Orion and the structures there. There wasn't anything quite like that in Polaris for some reason, but perhaps they could start mimicking that over time?

Yes! That would be perfect. Much too much to ask just for a few baubles but just a start would be plenty! "Tell you what- you look big and strong. I bet you would be able to move rocks much larger than I could ever hope to. If you help me move big rocks in place to replace the little shiny rocks I'll let you keep some of the siny rocks that get replaced. How does that sound?"