Alyssum sat in the shadows of the underground bunker, in the quietest corner she could find. Well, she would have been in the shadows if it hadn't been for her pets. Once they'd let students back into the dorms the first thing she did was go and get all her salamanders. The little amphibians all perched or clung to her, according to their natures. She was trying to hardest to keep the shy ones soothed. Kraken in particular was always shy, but some of her salamanders were more aggressive and didn't take well to being startled. Alyssum didn't want to be out in the crowds and have her salamanders freak out and start fires. It was a good thing she was inclined to stick to the sidelines anyway. Marimo, her little slime, was perfectly content to keep by her side, and needed less reassuring. The slime was even helping her out by distracting her more adventurous salamanders.
Alyssum was feeling...well, she didn't rightly know. She should probably be super scared, and somewhere deep down she was a bit. Maybe it was just that she hadn't actually seen anything spooky. Maybe it was having to look after all her salamanders and keep them calm. It probably would have been better to leave them back in her room, but when things started getting serious she just couldn't leave them behind. Even when survivors started trouping into the bunker with the rest of them, some covered in bandages and blood, Alyssum still felt....calm.
It was just how she was. People back home called her cold or emotionless. Even her own parents sometimes gave her looks when she didn't react a certain way. It wasn't like she could help it, she just tended suppress her emotions in times of stress and her world narrowed to what she observed. It made social interaction kind of hard because she never knew what to say. The few times she'd tried talking she generally couldn't figure out what people got all worked up over. She'd get weird looks and people would kind of avoid her. So Alyssum had stopped talking almost together. She'd been getting better since coming to the Academy, but her progress wasn't really all that great either.
"It'll be okay," she whispered to Kraken, lifting her hand to gently pet the nervous salamander with a finger. Hopefully she'd be able to keep that promise.
Geyser Eelborn
Sorry it took me a bit longer to start this one up! Figured the timeline could be kinda sorta around where the Meta currently is, though if you'd rather change the setting a bit I'll be happy to fiddle with my post!
