Starfish Scares (13) : Starfish live in the sea. They do not live in freshwater rivers, lakes, or reservoirs with no connection to the ocean. Starfish are also not social creatures. And yet, here they are–in hoards. They can be found near any water source–and far from it. These starfish seem to be a unique species that are eager to travel and don’t seem quite bound to water, though they will seek it out. The starfish will latch onto just about anything they can to hitch a ride, even though they’re fast. They secrete an itchy, oozy slime after they’ve latched onto something, and though it seems as though they can absorb nutrients from any living creature, these starfish have an odd penchant for blood. You might as well have a colorful leech stuck to you as soon as you think one of these things crawling your way. Their bites are sharp and will leave the nearby skin itchy and painful. They are a bit difficult to remove but they can be killed; as soon as they have perished, they will rapidly dry out and crumble. However, it’s far more likely that they’ll escape before you can get your hands on them. Be vigilant; these things are pests–and smart enough to cling to people and vehicles alike if it means getting to where they want to go.
Karakorum was having, one could say, a challenging month of July.
Dumped by her not-boyfriend before they could even really date properly. Multiple encounters with an evil homicidal chicken that reeked of rotten eggs. Having to take actual responsibility as a Knight (well, Squire, but still) and do things like visit her Wonder--all just absolutely terrible. Not at all the life she wanted to be about.
And, if it wasn't miserable and pathetic enough that she was crying over some stupid boy, even a boy that she really liked and had wanted to make something real with, having an awful cry while powered up had resulted in her not paying attention to where she was, tripping, and falling a**-first into a pond.
So, she was now covered in gross, dirty pond water. Strike one.
She had heard tell--or seen slash read tell on Instagram and TikTok--of the strange biting starfish that had somehow managed to infest this stupid, ridiculous, absolutely cursed city, but she hadn't encountered any; she'd been lucky enough to dodge any fangy starfish nonsense so far.
Except that they'd apparently made it into this pond, and they were also fast, and bitey. One of them had latched onto her shoulder and another onto her calf, and while the one on her shoulder was working its nasty starfish teeth (apparently?? she hadn't even known starfish HAD teeth???) on her robe, the one on her calf had clear skin, and it had sunk its teeth in. Strike two.
Worse, she still had not stopped crying, which meant that she looked so incredibly pathetic--sitting on her a** in gross pond water with two biting starfish going at her, sobbing like it was the end of the world. Strike ********, Karakorum wanted to go home.
Amor Remanet
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2025 3:12 am
Allegedly, wandering around town drunk and powered up was, like, a bad idea or something, but personally, Thalassa had found it quite enjoyable. A good way to find star charms, he guessed (tonight, he had managed to find a purple one).
Okay, sure, fine, he’d gotten into that scrap with the Negaverse Captain (the fight that he had started, without provocation and in spite of her telling him that he didn’t have to). Maybe the cut she’d left on his cheek could have given him pause about continuing with these behaviors? But also, like, how about “******** it” actually? Was “******** it” an option Thalassa was allowed to choose?
Well, “allowed to” or not, he’d chosen it anyway.
Drinking too much at home, after all, was dangerous. Huanxi Xin was at home, unless he was out as Helene at any given time—or, like, grocery shopping with Liánlí, or whatever else they did when they left the house together—and the longer Heibing drank at home, the harder it would be to sneak out without potentially putting himself in the human emergency room. Or worse, being caught by one of his gracious hosts and made to, like, explain himself or whatever.
At least things felt relatively chill and peaceful in whatever park Thalassa had managed to find his way to tonight. He didn’t ******** know which of these parks was what. Destiny City had so many of the ******** things, and all of them seemed more or less the same: full of magical bullshit, whether that meant youma and Negaverse freaks causing problems, or weirdos on Thalassa’s own side who assumed that being with Order meant he was supposed to not suggest ideas like “Have you tried murdering the tall, sexy, ill-tempered Negaverse person and sending their starseed back to the Galaxy Cauldron,” or rainbow colored meteor showers like the ones that had been going on all ******** month out here.
As he came up on the lake in the center of this particular park, he felt the aura of another Order person. Someone on Pyrrhus’s level of strength, and idly, Thalassa wondered if they would have his proficiency at………he didn’t know, literally anything. Probably not, he thought.
When he finally saw the person attached to said aura, it seemed he’d gotten that guess right.
Without waiting to be invited, he came over closer to her. So near the water, he could tell how disgusting it was, which raised the question—“Hey,” he called to the Squire. She wasn’t a senshi, so she had to be a Squire. Plus, her outfit had a lot of Cybele’s little bow and arrow symbol. “Are your legs broken or something? D’you need help?”
Whether or not he offered it………well. He’d decide that when he decided it.
Karakorum really, really didn't want to look pathetic in front of a cool alien from outer space. (All of the aliens were cool, by her definition; just by virtue of being a thousand years old and having made it to Earth after everything they'd presumably been through. Yes, even her brother's dumb not-yet-fiance, all of his trumpeting about duty aside.)
The thing was, she was soaking wet and sobbing in a gross pond, being chewed on by starfish, so all of her dignity was already out the window. Alas for everyone involved in this, especially her.
"M-my legs are fine," she said, "Except fort he starfish chewing on one, which really hurts, but I can probably stand, I just--" She whimpered, miserably. "I have been having the worst month, I fought the stupid evil chicken twice and then my boyfriend dumped me when I tried ot be all honest and romantic aobut wanting to be serious with him, and now I'm wet and smelly and getting chewed on by starfish which I didn't even know had teeth and it hurts." She reached for the one on her leg and grabbed it, and to her own surprise, managed to yank it off, so that was at least a mild improvement in her situation, but she was still in the water, and there was still the one on her shoulder.
Also, she was bleeding now.
"And I might need some help getting out of the water and then getting them off me, please." A plea that came out way more pathetic than she would have liked.
"I'm sorry, you totally don't care, just--can you maybe give me a quick hand and then I'll get out of your hair?"
Amor Remanet
Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2025 8:54 pm
Thalassa frowned, wrinkling his nose at the response that came out of the strange little Squire. Whatever all had inspired her to open up to a stranger so earnestly, something was clearly wrong with her outside of what she’d been going through tonight. And for the rest of the surrounding week. Part of Thalassa seriously considered teaching her a lesson about talking to strangers by leaving her there, but……
He sighed, thinking about Imnolu and his ******** “you’re better than this” face.
That horrible, unfair expression that he’d always weaponized against Pyrrhus, Thalassa, and Bernard-Tyndareus whenever they were being too much of whatever for him and his sense of personal ethics, and he wanted them to do things differently. Because he really did believe in them to be nicer to people, or less violent about how they handled situations, or whatever he was ******** talking about at any given moment because honestly, Imnolu really did ask so much of them……well, he had asked to much about Tyndareus, but Tyndareus was dead and Thalassa was not, and Imnolu still—
Doing it so soon after another one felt weird, but Thalassa let himself sigh again. He was too drunk for his imagined version of Imnolu to harass him in this way.
But imaginary-Imnolu was harassing him, so for the time being, Thalassa screwed the cap back on his bottle and stashed it back in his subspace. The pond water looked even worse as he slipped into it. Regardless of it being another world’s water, Thalassa moved as though the resistance it put up didn’t bother him.
“Taking those off before we get you out of the water is stupid,” he told the Squire, splashing up behind her. He hmmmm’d as he tried to decide the best angle at which to work here. “The water’s ******** filthy. You’re exposing yourself to ******** only knows what like that. And the human I’m staying with says tequila, vodka, and baijiu aren’t any good as antiseptic solutions.” Crouching down, he tapped her shoulder more or less gently. “Come on, gonna pick you up now. It’ll be easier if you help. Or at least don’t fight it any.”
Karakorum winced, when he splashed out to come get her. Honestly, this was really, really embarrassing. She was an adult, a Squire of Cybele, and someone who had to pretend online to have her life totally together, surely she could do better than this?
Alas, she couldn't.
"Okay, yeah," she said, in the most pathetic, defeated sort of way. "Yeah, I don't want to like...get an infection or whatever. Ugh. Just....just....go ahead and pick me up."
She was definitely not going to resist. She'd asked for help, after all, and he was providing it.
"I swear I'm not usually this much of a pathetic loser."
