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 Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 7:06 pm
Quote: Ice Bath (2) : Rainfall is rare in Destiny City during Winter; there have been a few light showers between the occasional snow but it’s never been enough to be significant. In some places, it’s just enough for a thin layer of ice to cover the ground and make it a little slippery, but ultimately it’s not enough to worry about. In an inconspicuous place in town, you step into one of these icy puddles and the thin layer of ice shatters. The hole itself seems maybe three feet wide and if you’ve ever been in the area before you know it’s just a pothole a few inches deep at most. Except, when the ice shatters, you fall, plummeting into it as if it were a lake of icy water. It’s pitch black around you and only pale blue lights shimmer above you. The darkness is never ending and you can’t make out the details of anything except the shrinking hole above you. Maybe you remember how to swim and pull yourself out, maybe you black out and feel someone else pulling you out--either way, your frozen, soaking body is pulled from the puddle. The chill is immense, but if you look at the hole after being pulled out, all you can see is the ground below. There’s no sign that what you just experienced is real--except for the fact that you’re still soaking wet. The frozen streets carried a particularly frustrating unfamiliarity this evening. Bacchus was used to the cold of course, but watching ice coat this alien landscape felt somehow wrong tonight. Earth was where he lived, but it was a struggle to think of this mass of concrete and glass as home. Light glinted from the glazed sidewalks as though to emphasize their foreign composition. Moving across ice was second nature to him and he barely glanced downward as he walked. Shifting and slight slipping was inevitable, but he could correct himself easily. At least, he usually could. The puddle hadn’t earned more than a millisecond of the senshi’s attention, mundane as it looked, but within moments he found himself plunging into the brutally cold depths of some frozen hole. He managed to grip the edge for a few seconds, trying and failing to haul himself out of the trap in which he’d landed himself. “Oh s**t. Oh ******** the ******** is wrong with this planet?
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 7:41 pm
Carterhaugh had intended to greet the Senshi he spotted, turning down the cold, empty street. It felt like the grimmer sort of winter day, not pleasant magical snow and more...cold and miserable. His little wisp friend had been with him for a while, but even it seemed to dislike the atmosphere and had vanished to wherever it went when it wasn't with him not long before.
He'd been out because it was better than being at home and lonely, but "at home and lonely" was starting to look better than "out in this weather and lonely," and so he'd started meandering closer to home, but there had been an aura, and he did like meeting new people, and so he'd meandered there instead, and it seemed he'd arrived at exactly the right time.
There was no time for polite greetings, not when the ground seemed to have opened up and attempted to swallow the poor man.
He raced over and bent down, offering his hands.
"Take my hands, let me get you out of there," he offered, a layer of urgency in his voice.
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 9:52 pm
Struggling to maintain his grip on the slippery edges, Bacchus made another failed attempt to pull himself from the unforgiving chill that seeped into his bones. “Spawn of a rootless ******** cesspit!”Even with the depth of his love for the cold this was too intense. Sank too deep into him. Choking on the freezing water, it took him several seconds to realize that someone was approaching him. A knight? Felt like a knight, looked like he had Earth’s symbols on his uniform. He reached for the unfamiliar man’s hands, trying to get his elbows onto the ledge. Wouldn’t do much good to pull a possible rescuer into the hole with him.
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 10:17 pm
Carterhaugh grabbed the offered arms, pulling as hard as he could, an effort to at least keep the poor man above water.
His curses were distinctly interesting, and though Carterhaugh could only get so much of a look, he did have a sort of inhuman edge. One of the alien Senshi, then? Not that it really mattered, when the point was keeping him from dying.
"Hang on, we'll get you out," he promised, like it was a sure thing, because it needed to be. He was not going to watch someone freeze when he could help.
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Posted: Fri Jan 02, 2026 11:44 pm
The knight’s efforts were enough to help Bacchus from that frozen pit, his own legs launching him forward. With all the grace of a sodden chicken, the deep space senshi flopped onto the ground and lay still for several seconds before rolling over to lie on his back, breaths coming hard and fast. “s**t, thank you. A few more minutes of that and I might have gotten a little worried.” The senshi managed a hint of a smirk despite the fact that he was fairly certain that his hair was freezing to the ground.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2026 1:11 am
It was a relief, to pull the sodden Senshi out of his impromptu ice bath and back onto solid ground. Carterhaugh's heart was racing, and as the adrenaline of rushing in to help wore off, he let go of the Senshi and sort of. Fell backwards, in a planned sort of way, and landed on his butt on the ground with a breath of relief.
"I'm glad you're okay," he said. "That was...did the ground just...open up under you?" That was sort of worrying. Apparently, puddles were now dangerous, and Carterhaugh really did not love that as a thing.
Now that he had a better look, the Senshi was definitely inhuman--pale skin, black sclera, and what looked like...antlers?
Fascinating. Also, handsome, but that felt a little more secondary, at the moment.
"Do you have anything to wrap up with? I carry a sort of shawl in my subspace for when it gets colder, but I'm not sure how much it'll help." He reached in, producing a folded green-plaid shawl, and offered hit to his wet, undoubtedly cold companion. "I'm Carterhaugh, by the way, and I would have much preferred to meet under better circumstances, but here we find ourselves."
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2026 1:13 pm
“Yeah, the ******** thing did. I thought it was just an ice patch. That’s not normal for this place?” He hoped it wasn’t, but he’d hardly been here long enough to have any idea what kinds of bullshit were common. Between that mud pit, the sticky sweet snow, and now this it seemed like there were plenty of absurd ways to get trapped around here. Not to mention that stupid ******** gameboard. “Seems like the sort of thing that would be.” Turning his head to the side he coughed, his throat’s irritation responding to the drops of icy water that had made it too far down the wrong side. That was going to be annoying. “Bacchus, very glad to meet you….and to not be in that ******** hole anymore.” Carefully separating his hair from the ice, the senshi managed to drag himself upright. “I’ve got a scarf my friend made me but I don’t think that’ll do much good when I’m ******** drenched like this.” He accepted the shawl gratefully, wrapping it tightly around himself. “Thanks, I needed that.” He omitted the fact that his nipples could cut glass at the moment, not to mention the other unpleasant sensations he intensely wanted to be rid of.
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2026 2:18 pm
"No, that is absolutely not normal," Carterhaugh promised. "We don't normally leave bottomless pits in our roads. People get really tetchy about it." If he made a joke, at least they were coping with the ridiculous situation they were in a little bit. "Not to say this city isn't a hotbed of weird things, but this one's new for me."
Maybe it wasn't new for other people, maybe it was the sort of magic that made Destiny City both a little blessed and a little cursed. Blursed, Carterhaugh was pretty sure the kids said.
He was not going to say that out loud.
"I recognize that this may sound like a come-on," Carterhaugh began, "but I was actually on my way home when I ran into you, and my townhouse isn't too far from here, if you want somewhere to sit and warm up? I get it if you'd rather not show someone you just met the person under the magic, as it were, but I wouldn't feel right not at least offering."
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2026 4:55 pm
The fact that deadly puddles weren’t normal came as a surprise, a relief, but still a surprise. Bacchus had only been on this planet long enough for two or three major human holidays but they seemed to attract all kinds of weird s**t. “These flowers stabbed me the other day too. I don’t know what kind of magic this place has.” “Heh, don’t worry about it sounding like a come-on. I’d definitely like a place to warm up.” He didn’t particularly care if that sounded like a come-on. Things could go however they went. With a sigh he dropped his henshin, his true self melting into that frustrating human disguise. “Well since I look like this, my name is Fin.”Noir Songbird I'm good wrapping this in a post or two if you are
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Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2026 5:22 pm
Carterhaugh smiled wryly. "As a Knight of Earth, I feel like I should take some responsibility for my world." But eprhaps inviting a stranger in from the cold was doing just that.
He stood up and let his fuku fall away, glad that he'd dressed for the weather when he stepped out.
"I'm Ashe. Let's get you somewhere warmer, Fin."
If nothing else, he had a new friend, and that was something to be glad for.
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