Matte Doubts

Written by Septia.

“Gimmie a half baker-'s-dozen of dem lava loaves.”
“I'll take the button bread, oh wait, two button breads.”
“How much crisps’s left in stock?”
“Make that eight buttons.”
Met sought solace in the moments between requests at the counter. Lungs distended in his chest. “That is eight buttons, four lava loaves, an we've got a steady supply of crisps.” The taps of Met's hooves was the beat of a marching drum. They scurried to wrap up orders and, package the fresh sustenance for the animate crowd.
“Is there any left of those big ones? You know th-the ones on tv?”
“Only crumbs on the floor.”
The crowd was steady, demand had grown, and orders were being called, prepped and completed as smooth as oiled butter. With how many he had conversed with today, Met was breaking some kind of record. He even landed an interview about the 'planned stunt' from ereyesterday. Wherever he turned there was someone asking, or waiting for them.
“What gave you the idea to appear out of the bread like that? How long were you in there?”
“My, you are much more beautiful up close, dear.”
Met's rhythm came to a snag, fingers twitched, their arms retracted to close up his over his chest. “R-right, it, was, yes.” Met mumbled and tended to the orders, ducking under the counters to pull out another batch. Through the glass he saw a legion of legs, waiting. Wherever he looked, someone wanted them.

~ 1 ~

“Phffffuhr…” Met sighed so their ribs rattled.
“Any botherings, Deora?”
“Boss?” Met mumbled, seeing the behemoth of metal cower on behind the slide door to the baking chamber.
“It is fine. I'm just, tuckered out.”
Cofn waltzed through the door, joining them behind the counter. “Those Swotest deota require the calmest of rests. It is the cleanup hour by now.”
“That…,” Met mumbled, itching the base of their horns, then turning away, “sounds good.” He left the post to the oven golem, sliding into the depths of the bakery. Out… through the backdoor.

“Look who'se ditched the grindstone for the day. Come.” The man spoke. The man by the fountain two days ago. The stranger, lugging a covered grocerybag by his side, who now stood in the alley behind Cast-Dough Bakery.
“I'd have asked for longer notice on the meeting, had I known you'd be on me like rats on a wheel.” Met dusted off their apron, and walked straight past the stranger, deeper into the alley, shielded from the prying streets.
“Somebody has grown,” he said, following around the bend and resting against the brick wall -Crrssht- a scrape of terracotta against his trench coat, as he reclined himself comfortable.
“We established all that ereyesterday.” Met mumbled, and plonked down on an overturned box of nutritional-tofu -Ckrkthg- which buckled underneath her. She kept face in front of the stranger.
“Straight to business it is,” he said and eased off the grocery bag by his side. -Chglptsh- it creaked with a guttural squelch.
“I brought some, fine, practice fodder for today, some-.”
“Don't you,” Met interrupted, hoisting a small pouch of coins, “want the cut from ereyesterdays?” She jingled the pouch to and fro.
The stranger hesitated before retracting their arms from the bag. “Undoubtably,” he held out his palm.
Met eased it into his hand… letting her palm linger.
“Much obliged,” the stranger said, peeking into the pouch and picking up a bronze coin. He twirled it in his grasp, inspecting the intricate vistas etched into the surface. “Good.”
Met's pupils shifted to his direction.
“Good that the years have not diminished your craft.”
Met pouted. “Right, right. What have you got for me today then, Prachio?”
“Evidence.” Prachio responded, hoisting up a crumpled sack from the bag; full, sagging, weighty, though keeping form steady in his grasp. Looking at it, Met got the impression the contents therein would behave as a liquid, with how it laid sculpted and bloated so precisely. Yet, it refused.
“Evidence, huh.” Met said, and took the parcel, which matched her chest in volume. She weighed it between her palms. “This is what you needed me for?”
“Did I say I, needed you?” Prachio asked.
Met scrutinized the package, and held it towards them. “There's enough methods to make it disappear, what if I didn't want it? I don't doubt you've replaced me, time and again by now.”
“That is not true.” Prachio's shoulders shifted, locks of charcoal hair sailing back over his face. “With others, I wouldn't get to see you again. To watch just how much your, craft, has improved.”
Met felt her lungs fill… then she swallowed her retort. She twisted and turned the sealed package, the nufu crate beneath her creaking -Chhrs- and bending ever inwards.
“How's the city treating you?” Met asked, and with that question parting her lips. -Cththsowff- The parcel packed into the satyr's maw, caving in against the broad bulk, before she could inhale and adjust the sack. Its texture obscured by the wrapped felt, and what was there still to sense was smooth, buoyant, against the pressure of her clamping, enveloping lips. It lacked the supple resistance of flesh, the kind of pressure that blotted her skin, yet would bend as butter to the faintest force. A far cry from dunking a confused head down her maw. A sensation she that lingered with her, the taste within the shape of a cranium, whichever way it went through… It didn't rule out the 'evidence' being a body, merely instilling uncertainty.
“You mean Prosonull?” Prachio asked.
“Mfahampf mfmsfsh, mmwhhhf,” came Met’s muffles in response. Her arms wrapped around the sack in a choke holed, as she chugged it down, gullet displacing around the bulge of the package becoming padding down her throat.
“Come, you really don't see how it suits me?”
Met shook her head. -Shltpsh- -Chstrllsprlhs- Saliva squeaked against the dampened parcel. He was a stranger, one not of familiarity, but a stranger out of time, out of place. Even now, against that brick wall, he appeared as if cut out and puppeteered from her memory. Was he even wearing the same trench coat?
“I'd taken you for someone to make your acquaintance with the underground. Well, the coin slot I knew then, least. My new hotel has had clients for months already, and will open for business any day now.”
“Mmfpgh…” Met mmumbled with a nod, -Chgglprsht- -Bhglgptsh- swallowing around the folded corners and wrapping her lips further. Teeth gnawed a taut holds of the sack, meeting her with the resistance of roadside rubber.
“Many avenues back home went dyvors, kaput, not that it matters. Until the ones close to us buckled. Here, awaits a bredth of possibilities,” he extended his arms, staring up at the skies, held in a tint of teal. “And yet, it is a comfort seeing the same runt from back then, zertz down another batch of fodder.”
Met grumbled, chomping towards the bottom of thesack, cheeks swollen and gullet clogged, reaching up to-… but Prachio gave her a glare. Her digits twitched In place, as her nostrils flared keeping her supplied with air. Then -Chlspsthc- she slammed her fist into the package, -Shlglpthsts- compacting it through her maw, past her lips, through the maw, as the bloats migrated to cleave down as a bulwark of a bulge down her chest, -CGhbrgg- -Chrlrths- creaking as it stuffed her abdomen crescent. Prachio directed his gaze to the middle distance, sighing at her behavior.
“Pha… huha…” Met sighed, huffing, only relying on memories of having to processes something so, dense… Her apron -Chhssf- crinkling through its fabrics behind the engorged abdomen she sported. “I should have expected you would be on the look out for, can't imagine you wouldn't find me eventually, even as far as Prosonull.”
“Undoubtedly, hardly a neck in this wretched city my iron fist have not secured a choke hold on.”
Met paused, holding finger over her lips, cheeks inflated with -Ghrrlpgbsh- -Bhuraaahaaalp- a belch whih sprayed spittle in a mist through her trembling lips, joining the humidity of the alley. “W-what? Really?”
“Course not, coin slot,” he said with a grin you could weaponize, “I recognized you on the tv, that broadcast became quite a hit, bit of spectacle out of nowhere. On a story all eyes would follow, seeing the Tygla Fast coming.”
“Right…” Met's memories of ereyesterday were vague; emerging unscathed from the breaded prison, but knowing so many were watching. Were there, even more there today? “Story got around, then.”
“Must have passed that bakery twice a week, without seeing you.”
Met scoffed at this, rubbing into her swollen gut, busy with 'processing' the 'evidence'.
“And that is a strength,” Prachio continued, “you are not Met, the satyr with silver trickling out your ass. Oh no you, you are 'that satyr in the live stripper cake-bun stunt'.”
Met took in a deep breath. But then, the stranger moved up beside her, gesturing. She scooched aside, off of the nearly concaving crate, onto a much more stable overturned bin. Prachio sat down in her place, and laying a hand on her shoulder.
“Come, being discreet is quite a trait in our business.”
Met lingered on this. A trickle of shivers skittering against her side.
“Here.”
She was presented with a clear glass bottle, plumped to give a wide hipped physique, and… a piece of break bread. Oozing fresh steam and shining with a roasted copper coat.
“To wash down the meal.”
Met accepted them, twisting the cap of the bottle of Absolute-Clarity and chugging down, realizing how parse her throat had become from the shady dealing. She bit into the bread, her molars sinking through soft, spongy flesh, tearing out it a mouthful of the toasted cloud, grinding through it as a child demolishes spun cotton. “Mmg… this, is…” Met mumbled, thinking as she chewed. “Wait, this's boss's baking…”
“Where do you think I got I from?”
“But, I was there all day.”
Prachio nodded, leaning back, -Shczzhhrshtw- the box crumbling ever slightly underneath. “You packaged it in yourself before these weary eyes, staring right through me,” he assured, “I thought you were keeping face for the costumers.”
Met's head sloped turned away from them, their chewing slowed to a crawl. -Grchlst-… -Clhtwwslp-. She clasped over her head, bottle and bun bumping against her gnoggin. She groaned in frustration, gyrating her whole body on the spot.
“Phheeu…” She sighed once the strain head left her.
“You did good, coin slot, have your instincts working overtime.”
“Mmyeah…” Met mumbled, then rose “I'll be done in a few day.” Met informed them.
“I wouldn't doubt it.”
Without another word, Met stepped around the corner, thoughts drawn back to a time when-.
-Cjglptshts- a crumble and crash huffed out behind her.
“Dang tsfrrupid box…” Prachi grumbled.
She peeked around the corner, the box's stastructural stability had… imploded. With the bundle of trench coat and man wiggling to get free.
Met offered a hand.
He paused, then raised his brown eyes, to meet her yellow. Together they hoisted him out of back on his feet; gaze, unwavering.
“Much obliged.”
“Don't mention it.” Met hummed, considering Prachio, the stranger who stood above her. One she now could hold in eye level. “Don't make it a habit. Can't raise you out of every box you fall into, I'm busy with own life, ok?” Met assured, before turning off around the alley.
“I doubt that.”
The clatter of hooves came to a sharp halt. “What?”
“You were, quite eager to help. As you did long ago, despite the fact, that now,” he stood tall, staring into the back of her head, “I'm not paying you. You haven't even asked.”
Met felt something melt and then freze within her, as if her blood had been transfused with a blizzard.
“Keep your horns clear, I will see you soon.” Pracho said, before his steps echoed won the alley.
Met closed her eyes, and let her chest swell with warm air. When she opened her eyes, she noticed the break-bread hanging in front of her, pierced by her own horn. And the breath petered out in a grumble. “Phrrffngf… Pha...”