# Reeda And Stella Chapter 3

Reeda and Stella
Chapter 3 - Wrecked Mongolian Mosh Squad
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Reeda and Stella could almost hear smooth jazz in the air as a mini-cooker sizzled from the open back of the astrovan.
The morning air was chill. After those cops rolled by it was hard to sleep.
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Stella realized just how easy it was to wake up early when you didn’t have a house and saurs ticketed you for camping around for more than twenty-four hours at a time.
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And that’s if the neighborhood watch boomers and cops were generous.
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Reeda casually mentioned the thieves as well. She wasn’t trying to brag or scare the sheltered stego. It was just something she dealt with, so the truth came out as it was.
She took solace in being able to let her mask slip like that.
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“Is it okay if we talk about something else? You’re starting to bum me out,” Stella asked.
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Never mind.
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“Oh. Yeah. So how’s your grandma? Are you cool living with her?” Reeda asked. She hid her disappointment by staring into the broiling concoction of a diced vegetarian gas station burrito and several eggs.
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She licked her maw needily, but leaned against Stella’s broad shoulder.
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“She’s okay… She’s demanding sometimes. She’s used to people working hard for her. She was head of the Geology Department at RexU
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Her trepidation was apparent, and she stared off into the distance as if trying to avoid her own words.
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“We’re lucky she didn’t walk in you riding my head like a bicycle seat.” Reeda cracked the lewd analogy at her own expense.
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Stella’s beak clenched. Her cheeks pinkened.
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“Wheelchair,” she corrected.
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“Is that why there’s a single stair up to your room?” Reeda asked.
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Stella smirked.
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“Devilish, bro!” Reeda hollered.
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--
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Stella and Reeda continued their weekly flings for a while. They watched anime mainly on Stella’s recommendation, but after scoping some swap meets, Reeda snagged some factory sealed Mad House OVAs.
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They laughed their asses off at the Central Park Studio localizations; the VA work consisting of three chain-smoking Bostonians in a broom closet.
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But even with all this media -- all these high theatrics and hyberbolic, whacked out premises played straight, all this speculative fiction and smut and ultra-gore alike -- once their precious films ended they were left with a dark screen and empty reflections of themselves within.
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They could spend hours talking about anything as long as it circumnavigated the concepts of these shows, but Stella found Reeda overbearing when it came to breaching her privacy. And likewise, Reeda found Stella inhibited and unwilling to open up about her own problems, or listen to her's.
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Images of their last weekend still burned in their peripheries:
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“Why won’t you look at me right now? What are you thinking about? I-I’m losing patience, bro.” Reeda grunted.
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“I don’t want to talk about it, okay!? You think I want to live here? I can’t run off and have adventures like you do?” Stella shouted back.
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“Is that what you think I do?”
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“Just get on the bed.”
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“Hey! Uncool. Unlock the door!”
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THWUMP!
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In her crammed room, Stella’s giant tail gave Reeda no chance to dodge. It was just like that dream all over again…
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The weeb cried. She said it was an accident, that she was scared and didn’t want her to leave.
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Fuck, Reeda thought. Then why won’t you let me in.
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--
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Reeda winced as she brushed her abs. The welt was still as dark as the dirty background cels in Gundam Zeta.
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Camille was definitely a girl’s name, but that dude fulfilled a Freudian loop in the first four episodes. He killed his mom (accident) and dad (through duel), which is more development than most real people get.
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Reeda then realized what she was thinking about.
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Stella was rubbing off on her.
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She crunched the bead at the end of her menthol cigarette and purged her lungs with intoxicating mint smoke. She hid under the awning of the Forever 24/7 to evade a cloudless blast of piss yellow drenching the city in blazing sun.
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She didn’t feel up to band practice and her van was still out of gas… a block away from Stella’s apartment.
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Speak of the devil: the mint witch herself panted. Unused to running, her footsteps slapped the ground loudly.
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Reeda nearly put her cig out and walked away right then and there, but boy did the stego’s hips bounce. It kept her distracted just long enough to meet the meek smile of her… friend? Girlfriend?
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Somebody.
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Stella floundered immediately under Reeda’s harsh scowl. She never saw creases that stretched across her smooth, dainty, bubblegum muzzle like that before.
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She found her legs trembling again. Her skin tightened under more than one kind of heat.
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She peeped nervously, pulled a shirt from her bag, and knelt before the pissy pink dino.
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It was a bootleg Devilman t-shirt. The art was traced via pen but there was still some nice hatching to it. The eyes were off center on the portrait shot, creating an image both funny and uncanny simultaneously.
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Reeda couldn’t help but smile.
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“I’m not good at staying mad,” she sighed, and accepted the shirt right away.
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“I’ll tell you everything, if you want. I didn’t mean to hit you.” Stella murmured.
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“Yeah yeah. I know, no one can resist these guns~.” she cheered, and flexed her sizable biceps.
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Stella cooed and glomped Reeda against the wall of the convenience store with a loud thump.
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Their mouths met. Reeda cupped each of Stella’s buttocks and lifted her off the ground, angling her better to taste the mint nicotine off her tongue.
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Their tails coiled around each other and swayed in unison until their combined strength (and Stella’s dangerous spines) smashed the side of a video rental kiosk.
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That’s when they decided to run.
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--
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Reeda changed into her new shirt at the park overlooking the harbor. There, she told Stella the only way to make it up to her was to get outside her comfort zone, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
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“We’re gonna mosh at Patina’s Pub.” Reeda stated.
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“Are you sure? Those metalhead guys are huge. They’re really scary.” Stella asked wispily.
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“Nah. That’s just an appearance thing to filter out the softies. They’re pretty nice.
“Just don’t accept drinks from em’.” she added sharply.
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Stella didn’t know how small she was. The inner city burned into her with sights and sounds and scents: seven-way intersections designed by acidhead spiders, skyscrapers smeared with grime, the light cinnamon clouds off a churro vendor.
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If she didn’t take Reeda’s hand it’d suck her into its enormity like a vortex. Maybe she was an isekai character afterall, but a stranger in her own life.
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She couldn’t help but huddle against Reeda on one of the many bus lines. They did this partly to protect their bags, but Stella’s round nostrils flared to inhale Reeda’s sweat.
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She smelled like everything; the outside world the mysterious, downtrodden pink raptor had to face every day.
The world that molded her whether she wanted it or not.
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A hand gently caressed her hair, riding the straight strands down to her neck.
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“You doing alright down there? We’re almost there. I’ll take care of the sodas. Just don’t get boozed up. We’re here to battle, got it?” Reeda’s voice vibrated through her chest and into Stella’s ear.
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It tickled.
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“Yes. Thank you, Reeda.” Stella said, then clasped her hand.
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--
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Patina’s Pub bustled in the mid-afternoon, but it always seemed to bustle. Stella never saw anything like it before. It was obviously a historical landmark, a wooden, Victorian-styled building complete with sensual curves in its etchings and chair legs.
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The numerous hunting trophies, mainly head mounts of elk, vibrated from the constant harmonious screeching of a ptero band in the concert hall: a small back patio.
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The colorful couple, Reeda dressed in tatters and her gifted tee and Stella her shorts and OPPAI shirt, swaggered boldly passed the sizable bouncers and inside, where a wall of noise electrified their very bones.
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Reeda led Stella through the front end of the pub, the bar section. The men and women there looked like background goons in any number of anime. These guys had to be thirty, but they dressed like messier versions of Fang, and they wore patches all over themselves. They looked like scarecrows from a children’s story.
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Some of them cast glares at Reeda, who simply straightened her posture and ignored them.
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Stella felt the chill of tension from this exchange. She didn’t know Reeda used to brew their carfe with a chemist’s expertise unmatched by many, or that she had to stay at Trish’s house for over a month after they found her house.
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That was when her parents disowned her.
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Stella didn’t know this. She would never know.
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The moment passed, and the tension lifted as they entered a doorway like some Thelemic ritual. They stood in the eye of the storm now, where the shitty metal bands played loud enough to be loved by anyone, and directed rippling walls of flesh and denim to fill the cracks of the room and crash together.
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Stella was overwhelmed. She backed away from the noise and pressed into any wall she could. This took a while given the thrashing crowd, but none of them shoved or body checked her. She seemed to permeate through them until reaching safety.
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Meanwhile, a wild, pink mane bounced in the innermost eddying of violence. She was small, but threw herself into every passing body like a dancing star. Her face twisted into a demon’s smile, razor teeth clenched tight.
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But every body she displaced swelled back, sandwiching her between multiple guts until she gasped into the choking sound.
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Because there was no air here.
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Only electricity, bitch.
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Stella squealed from secondhand pain as an ankylosaur the size of Fang’s dad bodyslammed Reeda so hard she splayed against the wall like a sticker, and tumbled to the floor.
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The man’s expression was soft, and he peeled the raptor back onto her feet.
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Then, he bodyslammed her again in the very next swell.
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The green stego’s eyes still flitted across the room like a startled doe, her hands folded to her chest to protect herself. However, it finally started to make sense. Almost like the playground rules of elementary school or a skatepark, there was an unspoken conduct.
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It seemed fairly consistent, aside from the parasaurolophus plucking glass shards out of her face.
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It reminded her of Naomi, for some reason.
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Stella found herself riding the current of the mosh, from the safe corners of the room into the choppier, more visceral waves.
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She gently rode them back and forth, easing into the rush.
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Her soft, cute expression hardened as she neared the apex of this mosh. Her lips curled into a grin and eyes narrowed until knife-like creases formed against her round face.
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Her hefty hip checks were enough to floor many a potential foe, and while she accepted the occasional challenge of a comeback tackle or a repeat slammer, her sights were set on Reeda:
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The chill, pink raptor.
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Her only anime friend?
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Fuck pal.
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A peppy, spirited, intuitive sweetheart?
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A bitter power-bottom with a lascivious appetite.
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Reeda’s spirit glowed, but her body was raw and loose. The pain buzzing from her nerves were deadened by pure adrenaline. It was easy to tell she was working off years of anger after she performed a flying clothesline powerful enough to floor that ankylo.
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They both laughed, and then she strained to help him up.
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Then their eyes met: Reeda and Stella.
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Neither of them smiled as they picked up speed toward each other. Stella wore a confident grin while Reeda, battle hardened, only plunged toward her as a hunter with a spearlike snout.
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They didn’t have time to marvel at the pack intuition of the room: how the flailing limbs seemed to arc away from them or part just to give them space, or how the down-tuned dual guitars of the band screeched into a crescendo along with the vocalists’ voice:
“Whadd you mean my SSR-ID’s gone? The water bill’s come and I don’t gotta paper presence!”
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“I’ll show you to whack me you weeb bitch! Hot-and-cold brat! Homely, spoiled cunt!” Reeda roared.
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“You crusty punk! Bitter, aloof shit! You belong under my ass, butt slut!” Stella screamed.
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Everything that was Reeda and Stella -- a pair of blurs, pink and green -- threw themselves through the air at full speed. Their impact reverberated through the concert hall with a loud CRACK!
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Even the drummer groaned at the result.
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--
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“Hahaha. Raptor Jesus Christ, dude,” someone chuckled drunkenly.
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“Who let these fucking kids in here?” a hiss of a whisper called out.
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“Call their fucking parents or something,” another hiss.
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Reeda and Stella huddled in the corner of a piss soaked, sticker coated bathroom. They cried openly, but no one could blame them. It’d been a long time since anyone saw a snoot-on-snoot collision of that magnitude.
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“This is why you have to be careful. You’re lucky some of us have med skills.” The large ankylosaur from earlier spoke calmly. His expert hands wrapped the mangled, bulbous ends of their snouts in bandages. They were already soaking with blood from the plump tomatoes at the ends of their snouts: the impact site.
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“I got no idea how it didn’t turn out worse. We’d get closed down if some kids like you went to the hospital.” he said more sternly.
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Thick beams of bendy plastic slid around both sides of the length of their snouts. They were children’s medical equipment: purple and covered with stickers of twee saurs eating leaves. He wrapped them along with small cages at the end of their snouts to protect the injury sites.
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It’d be impossible to hide these snoot splints from their friends, and any pressure on even a human’s nose cartilage was enough to force one to tears.
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It was much, much worse for the dino women.
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--
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Naser enjoyed a quiet afternoon on the cafeteria patio, slowly conquering his calc assignments under a pink sunset at Volcano High with his even pinker girlfriend.
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Then, he got a call. There was shrill, hysterical screaming on the other end. It was Fang. Naser’s eyes’ narrowed, revealing bags that made him look a decade older than reality.
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He argued with Fang, then with Naomi until he got into the NasCar to drive to some less-than-colorful joint downtown.
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“Are they alright?” he asked, not knowing if he’d get an answer or another verbal lashing.
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“Yeah.” Fang huffs. She threw her long, silvery bangs to the side. “Just… when the hell did Reeda and Stella party together? I didn’t know Stella did anything.”
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“They better not be carfing it. If they stink, I’m not driving them. Dad’ll kill me if he thinks we’re doing drugs.”
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“Fuck off! Reeda quit that stuff.” She shot back, defending her friend and her own faith in her.
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By the time they arrived, several disgruntled punks and metalheads delivered the bent-snouted women to the car, then promptly told them to fuck off.
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Naser obliged, terrified at the very sight of them getting near his car.
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He didn’t have to ask why Fang’s friends looked like Bane. One good thing about having a sis- sibling like Fang is she can do all the talking for him:
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“I can’t believe you stupid dweebs. You had to off-put all this shit on me to come pick you guys up!?” Fang barely tapped a fingernail onto Reeda’s tomato-snout. It was enough to paralyze her with pain.
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“Auuugh! Maximally uncool!” the pink raptor whimpered.
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“You ditched practice! We had to play acoustically today. What’s your excuse?”
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‘I didn’t wanna go. I finally have my life back and I had some soul-searching to do. This involved watching dozens of hours of Japanese animation and getting sat on by a pear-bottomed sweetheart, who I also wanted to bodyslam through a brick wall.’
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It all made perfect sense in her head, but Fang already put the fear of pain in her, and she trembled out a faux chill, “I lost track of time. We were just… hanging out!”
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She tried to chuckle sweetly.
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Even Naser scoffed.
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Eyes then turned to Stella. She hadn’t made a peep this whole time and frankly, no one knew what she thought. She just stared into her bruised lap.
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“Stella? What happened?” Fang asked.
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“We had a fling for a while, but it’s over now. We worked everything out,” she said sweetly.
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Fang’s eyes opened wide enough to wrinkle her entire face. Her long, elegant snout fell into an open-mouthed gawk.
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The green stego’s face was a cherub’s smile, but her lips curled into a devilish grin as Fang turned to Reeda, who’s eyes nearly rolled out of their sockets.
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Reeda stammered illegibly for several seconds as her face glowed. The proverbial spaghetti shot from her pockets and all over the car like confetti.
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Stella's hand gently grasped Reeda’s.
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She then whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear:
“This is why I get to be dom.”
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Naser struggled to contain his huffy excitement, and nearly blew a stoplight.
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Fang pinched both Stella and Reeda by the snoots as punishment for making her hear that.
“J-just drop them off on the next corner.” She sighed.