Summary: A Reader walks into a bar looking for a Furyan

He saw everyone who came and went here. The environment could have been tailored to him it was so perfectly suited. Warm shadowed alcoves deep enough that it was real obvious when someone tried to see into the back of them. Tables made of wood not metal, chairs of the same wood, synth-leather covering the seats, mostly clean.

There might be an occasional louder voice at the bar, in the middle of the place, but on the outskirts where he liked it, people kept it quiet. Discreet. He'd call it subtle but he didn't find anything subtle about people in general. Loud, brash and idiotic yeah, subtle, hell no.

For all that they sought the shadows from which to do business, all of them were more at home in the light. They came here, did their business, and left again, relieved to get out into that brightness where they felt safe.

Out into the sun wasn't the only exit, there were others. A place like this wouldn't survive long, even on the Rim of the Alliance if it didn't have multiple places of egress. There was one two tables down from his, leading to the cellar and from the cellar to old smuggler's tunnels and the mines.

This planet was lucky, there were plenty that had unwelcome surprises lying in wait for some enterprising fool to terraform them and let all those ills out into the 'verse, like spherical atmospheric Pandora's boxes. Breathable air, sure, got it covered. How about some Bowden's Malady to go along with it? Mineral deposits to build a dozen cities, absolutely, with a dose of frostbite as a bonus.

All of them had some sort of problem, the Helion systems needed Helion Prime to direct sunlight towards their worlds, if anything broke those mirrors… There'd be a lot of dark worlds. Coalsack systems were interdependent. One needed fresh water brought in, another you couldn't make a weed grow and needed food shipped down to the surface. Two others, they'd grow anything and had an ocean full of fish but enough crazy electrical storms that everything might as well be thrown back to the eighteenth century for all the tech they could use.

The Aquila planets had produced more metas than three other systems combined, something caused mutations to the human DNA. Not always attractive either.

Then there was his world, Furya. Triple moons, burning mountains, carnivorous plants, and full of predators not of the common genseed. Furya mutated DNA too. Better than the Aquila system did. Furya's mark on an individual was in the image the planet chose, not random as the variations in DNA. All of them, every grave he'd found, had similar genetic markers as his own. If you could survive Furya you could survive anything. A case of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Literally in the case of a Furyan.

It had taken time, but he'd found his home world. Funnily enough people had settled on it. They were smart enough to not build anything too permanent. Not smart enough to leave when the planet proved almost sentient in its resistance to civilization though. Fields were as likely to swallow seed crops as they were to grow edible plants. The jungles had plenty of fallen trees that could be towed out and used for lumber, but it was more probable you'd end up a snack for one of the carnivorous plants or animals that lived there if you took the time to try and cut the trees down.

When he'd finally found Furya he had to admit to being surprised people had settled there. But not too surprised. People being stupidly opportunistic and optimistic wasn't exactly a shock. He'd taken his time, exploring his home world, enjoying the wide expanses of wilderness.

Maybe he'd been on the run too long, had wanderlust too bad, but he hadn't stayed. He'd go back, likely find a place he wanted to settle, get himself a ship so he could come and go as he pleased. In the meantime, he'd been on this rock for a couple weeks, working and listening to the rumors going around.

Rumors were the best way to distill truth from the lies he saw on the cortex. No matter what the Alliance thought, people weren't always content to swallow the garbage they were being spoon-fed. And they were still plenty mad about what they'd seen in the Miranda wave.

Movement from the center of the bar drew his attention. Sure there were always people milling around but this was movement, deliberate, striking. Like a knife cutting through butter or a shark through water.

He couldn't quite see who it was, someone short, much shorter than the rest of the people in the bar, men and women. Not really much of a feat, this moon had a lot of really big folk, Viking stock he'd heard someone joke. Some of them even met his height which wasn't inconsiderable.

There was something of a disturbance at the bar, a man's voice, irritated, the low tones of a female, and the man somehow 'fell' off his stool to the floor. Riddick chuckled to himself. There were some men who just never learned, if a woman didn't want the attention, pushing it on her would only get them a sore pì gu.

By a quirk of crowd movement he got a clear view to the bar area, just in time to see a slender woman with the palest skin he'd ever seen turn and lean against the bar, drink in her hand. She dressed… well like a merc if he was being honest. Not guild. One of the home grown mercs that shipped out as gun hands and muscle for semi-legal work. But the looks didn't match the clothes. Elegant features, dark hair, slightly angled dark eyes and a lush mouth screamed Core citizen. The clothes were the same as anyone else's in the bar. Rough denim cargo pants, a tight knit shirt under another short sleeve knit shirt, this one with a logo reading 呆若木雞.

The guns she wore were more Rim than Core, mismatched but clearly well-tended, with a custom weapon harness that held a sword and axe on her back, both of them wickedly curved and not at all as common as her firearms.

He couldn't see her feet but he'd bet real money that her boots were as strange a combination as the rest of her. And the crowd shifted again, hiding her from his sight.

A flash of white and he looked up to see her winding her way around the central bar area, walking the curved pathway in front of the alcoves and doors leading elsewhere. She stopped at a door, a thoughtful expression on her face before she continued on.

He watched as she passed his table, she moved like water, sipping her drink as she walked, slow and easy. Nothing lazy in that stride, nothing but strength in those legs, but those curves… "Yòng yí gè ā ěr dé wǎ kè cāo wǒ de liǎn," He muttered. Nothing he admired so much as strength and the way this woman walked… Pure strength and sex.

She didn't pause and he reminded himself that staring at her was a surefire way to draw attention to himself. The reason he was sitting in the shadowy alcove at the back of a table was to avoid attention. And hoping for a bar fight just so he'd get a chance to see her in action or get the chance to blow off some steam himself was counterproductive to the goal of going unnoticed.

She disappeared from his sight and he took a sip of his drink. Easy come easy go.

Author's Note: So we're seeing how Riddick met River in this 'Verse. This story is partially a prequel and part epilogue, the later chapters are set after the movie where as the first three are before. They're none of them long, and they're not meant to be. I'm working on another story, with scenes from Suicide Squad but it won't be up until I get more of it completed.

Hope you enjoy.

Chinese Translations:

pì gu (butt)

呆若木雞 (dumb as a wooden chicken)

Yòng yí gè ā ěr dé wǎ kè cāo wǒ de liǎn (fuck me in the face with an aardvark)