^{This is a short snippet about a Lamia Mechanic that a friend prompted me to write. In Theory there will "One Day" be a collection of shorts like this set in the same city. In Theory. ;P}

Jaima slid back under the car.

"I don't know why people insist on waiting until these things are ready to fall apart before bringing them in," she muttered mostly to herself.

"And I don't understand why you don't use one of the perfectly good lifts we installed instead of your tail when you crawl up under these junk heaps," Myri responded as she slithered over to the tool rack.

She shifted the weight of the car so that she could get a better grip on the oil filter, "And let myself get out of shape, like…" she cleared her throat, "I used to be," she finished.

"Or like I am," Myri chuckled as she went back to her car, "It's okay, you can say it, I know what you think about keeping a 'Warrior Physique' thanks to grandpa and his Fairy Tales about ancient wars and all that."

"They're not Fairy Tales, they're history," she responded, and she could feel Myri rolling her eyes, "And anyway, I'm just saying that I like the workout," she added, scooting aside so that the oil could dump into the pan, "Besides," she set the car down as she slid out from under it, "Only one of us has got to be the pretty one," she continued with a chuckle, "and it doesn't have to be me."

"Not with all those missing scales from all that banging around you do," Myri frowned at her, "And it's called Marketing. Dad understood, and you know he was right about branding the shop the way we did."

"It's called pandering," she said, taking her turn at rolling her eyes as she slid to the front of the car to begin pulling the spark plugs, "and any business we get because we're 'Lamiachanics' is probably not the kinds of business we want, like we're some kind of Novelty shop or something."

"Hmph," her sister huffed, "Any business is good business as far as I'm concerned, Especially since you refuse to work on Custom vehicles."

"No," she responded, "I refuse to work on converted vehicles unless we do the conversion ourselves," she crouched under the hood, "those half bit specialty shops have No Idea what they're doing, and it's not worth the headache of trying to duct tape them back together when they bring them in here to fix what went wrong. Besides," she looked toward the front as the door chime went off, "we get enough work anyway."

"I'm just saying," her sister grumbled as she slithered toward the lobby, "it's money on the table."

"More like money in the gutter," she muttered as she pulled the rest of the plugs.

It's not like we're ever completely dead, she thought to herself. Sure, things could be busier at times, but that's the cost of being a mechanic when younger folks were starting to move towards enchanted carriages again now that the regulators had folded. It was completely ridiculous to see those things on the road as far as she was concerned.

She straightened up when she was done, setting the plugs in the tray and stretching as she looked around the shop, before absently wiping her hands on her hips. Three bays, all of them full today, enough tools to run a shop twice this size, and two new lifts for her sister and maybe occasionally herself. She heard the door chime go off again and waited for Myri to come back out.

"Just a drop off," her sister said as she came back into the shop, "their AC isn't working and they're hoping we can have it done today or tomorrow if possible."

It was a little late in the day to be dropping off for a same day, depending on what was wrong with it, "And you told them?" she asked.

"I told them I'd call them when we've had a chance to look at it," Myri answered with a huff, "I'm not the one who takes a car at closing and promises to have it ready in the morning," she said.

Jaima smiled, "Sometimes I like working late. Anyway," she gestured over to the car Myri was putting back together," when you're done over there, if you bring it in I'll give it a look and we'll see what we can do."

She knew Myri was perfectly capable of troubleshooting it herself, but she also knew she'd take twice as long, and if they wanted Any hope of getting it out today, she was going to need to do it herself. Besides, the other two cars weren't due out till tomorrow afternoon, and she'd probably be finished with her own car before Myri even got the new one in.

"Yeah, yeah," her sister said before getting back to work.

* * * * *

Changing into her flannel shirt and turning out the lights as she left the shop, Jaima debated on whether she was going home, or heading out for a drink. Picturing her sister's reaction to her wobbling in again later after a few rounds of drunken karaoke sold her. Drinking it was!

As she slithered down the block towards The Banshee (Myri didn't appreciate a club run by a minotaur being called "The Banshee", but she thought it was hilarious, and was glad that not everyone tried to be so "On the Nose" with their naming) she frowned at the carriages blowing through the traffic lights.

Enchanted for safety! the ads said Never be in a crash again! they promised, and because of that, all of a sudden little things like "Traffic Laws" didn't apply to them. Sure, "So Far" there hadn't been any crashes, but she still didn't like it, and figured it was only a matter of time before an enchantment wore off, or something futzed up the magic in one of those things while it went barreling down the freeway and BLAM! Then all of a sudden it would be "Who could have known?!"

She must have been glaring a bit too fiercely because she noticed a goblin couple giving her a little more space than she needed on the sidewalk. She tried to smile at them as the passed, but if anything it made them walk a little quicker. To be fair, she was quite a bit larger than them, and it wasn't completely unheard of for folks to get jumped at this time of night in this part of town. She sighed and continued down the road.

Nodding at Clemet as she went inside (The dwarven bouncer knew her well enough that he didn't need to see her ID), Jaima ordered herself a Hot Fizzler before settling down beside a table near the little stage at the corner of the bar.

It was a little busier than she'd have expected in the middle of the week, but then again, it wasn't like there were a lot of options if you wanted cheap beer and karaoke without all the tourists about. That was the nice thing about this part of town. It wasn't as fancy as the rest of the city, so most out of towners didn't wander around here.

Tony brought her drink over and chuckled, "You gonna serenade us with your uhh… what do you call it again?" he smirked as she smacked him with her tail.

"It's called singing, and if you weren't so shy you'd get up there yourself one of these nights," she said.

"Ohhhh… is that what you're calling it," he laughed, "well I wouldn't want to show you up, so I'll just keep making the drinks and leave the 'singing' to you," he continued to laugh as she swiped at him again before he went back to the bar.

Sipping her fizzler, they really did taste better with Natural roots she thought, she watched folks moving around the rest of the bar.

The dart boards in the back were occupied of course. A group of older humans and elves were taking turns drunkenly throwing darts everywhere but the boards.

A pair of unfamiliar Sylph boys were at the pool table, but they didn't look too focused on the game, instead appearing to be not so subtly checking out Tony as he delivered drinks to a nearby table. She smiled. He was pretty popular with new folks to his bar, friendly as he was, but she knew they'd be out of luck if they tried to flirt too aggressively with him. He didn't mind the attention, but he wasn't willing to mix work and pleasure… most of the time.

The one arcade machine was open, and she briefly considered playing a game of Tower Command… but decided against it. She was here to sing, so downing her drink she made her way to the song selection screen and scrolled through to find something she liked. Picking something off the new Sinken Forest album, she went up to the stage and belted it out to get the night started up tempo.

* * * * *

After six songs throughout the night, at least eight or eleven drinks, maybe a shot or three, she wasn't sure how many, and probably a little too much talking about lifting cars to work out to the pretty centaur who came in not that long ago, and Clemet was helping her outside.

"You want a cab?" he asked, knowing I never took one.

"Yeah, no," I answered, "I'm real good, I mean, close, it's okay," I chuckled, "Thank you Clem." He was so sweet. I liked him guarding the door like a watchman. He was good at it.

I took a deep breath of the cool evening air and started off towards home. After a minute I realized I was headed towards the shop, and turned around. I didn't need to go back there. I didn't think I needed to go back there. I looked back down the road to see if there was something down that way I needed. After a minute I decided it was fine, and started back towards home.

As I was slithering down the road, I waved at a passing carriage and shouted, "That's not a car!" at them as they passed, but I don't think they heard me. I don't think they were listening. I watched them rolling off down the road and wondered if they knew they weren't in a car. Maybe they thought it was a car. Whatever.

Eventually I made it to the house, and I tried to quietly open the door in case Myri was sleeping. Or at least I would have opened it quietly if my keys worked. Why did I have so many keys on my keychain. Nobody needed this many keys, it was like a little puzzle every time you wanted to open a door. I rested my head against the door for a moment to focus and suddenly I was falling forward as the door disappeared.

"Seriously Jaima," my sister said as I tried to figure out where the door had gone, picking myself up in the process, "you know you said you'd have that car ready in the morning."

"It's good," I told her, "I got it," I added, "I mean, I did it," I clarified, "I mean, it's working now," I finished. She knew what I meant.

"Whatever," she said, "just get in here so I can close the door."

I thought I was inside? I looked around and realized I was leaning against the door jam. I pulled myself all the way in and let her close the door. She was annoyed at me and I think she must have been annoyed at the door too, since she shut it pretty hard.

"I'm not dragging you up to your room," she said to me, "so you can get up there yourself or sleep down here," she added.

"That's not fair," I told her, "we've got a lot of stairs, and I don't need you to drag me," I told her, "I just need you to help me balance," I told her.

She didn't even listen and I could hear her shut her door a second later. She must have rushed upstairs, and I think she was annoyed at her door too. What was it with her and doors?

I looked at the stairs and decided I could make it just fine on my own. I don't know why she thought I needed her to help me anyway. Moving to the bottom of the stairs I looked up, and up, and up, to the top of the stairs. I was holding the railing. Maybe I should get some water first. I was kind of thirsty anyway. I went to the kitchen.

In the hall, I stopped to look at the family photos on the wall. We had an awesome family. Mom and Dad were awesome parents. We should…

I went into the living room and draped myself over the sofa. We had one of those circular ones so it was more comfortable to sleep on anyway. I didn't really need a drink, I just wanted to shut my eyes for a minute. I don't know what I was so sad about, it was really quiet down here and it's not like I really wanted to go upstairs anyway. I was perfectly happy to sleep on the couch. I don't know why I was so tired all of a sudden. My chest was heavy, and I think my tired was making me sad. I just wanted to shut my eyes for a minute. I'll feel better in a minute.

* * * * *

The sun came up the next day. She woke up and made some coffee before eating the breakfast her sister left sitting out for her. She knew better than to take any headache relief since that stuff never worked anyway. She wiped the bleariness from her eyes and headed out the door. Another day, another car. She had plenty enough to keep her busy. No need to worry about her dreams that she didn't even remember anyway.

^{And for other stuff I've cobbled together:} My DeviantArt | My Subreddit