#shrayakal tremair

[theriu]

I was trolling through my discarded WIPs folder and found this snippet I wrote once for an old story. I really like how it turned out, upon rereading! But I really don't know how I would continue it; it sounds like a good intro, but it definitely takes place in medias res, as it were. 😅 I figured I'd just share it to you guys. Feel free to speculate in the comments! What do you think is happening/would happen next?

(The setting is the Old West, in case that isn't fully apparent! Also, Shray is an alien. Her species was manufactured by other aliens by blending human DNA with an alien reptile. Frank Hopkins is a human gunfighter/bounty hunter.)

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“You sure this thing’ll work?” Frank asked, fingering the revolver holstered at his side. He cast a twitchy glance out over the desert horizon.

Standing a few yards in front of him was the strangest contraption he had ever laid eyes on: all shiny silver metal and crooked antennae and beeping, lit-up panels. And standing next to the contraption was the strangest person he had ever laid eyes on: a dusky-skinned human woman, except that her arms, legs, and tail resembled some ancient green lizard’s. Not that this phased him anymore. Frank had always been good at adapting to his circumstances, and never in his life had that skill been more necessary than in the last few weeks.

Shrayakal Tremair—or “Shray,” as she preferred to be called—tapped at the buttons that lay beneath the outer panel she had removed from the strange machine. Her long, green tail, tipped at the end by a brush of shimmering white strands like opalescent horsehair, swung back and forth as she replied over her shoulder. “I am sure of very little in this situation, Frank. But if it does, I will be able to go home, and you will not be troubled further by my kin.”

Frank shifted uncomfortably. It wasn’t that he really wanted to see the back side of the young alien woman, but considering how her “kin” had been murdering cattle and almost killed a priest, he had to grudgingly admit that it was the best way.

(Here's a pic of Shray as drawn by Crystal Yates when I won a contest on her comic Earthsong :D She didn't have the tuft of opalescent hairy filaments on her tail at that time, and I always drew the scales as chunkier around where they merge with her skin (almost like a glove), but the coloring on this is boss.)