[OPEN MINGLE: SEPT 8-16]

[oneandmikleonly]

[So what are you up to as we pass out of the first hectic week of September and into the second? Calm strolls with alien elephants or fast swims with alien sealife? Flashing your sunglasses at crime scenes? Dreaming and building dreams? Waking and building...buildings? There's always a lot to do here, whether it's formal missions or just shenanigans with friends.

Zenning out is fine too!]

Comments

[fistallday]

[ He hums in appreciation of the ocean's beauty; he never really did as much diving as he could have back in his port home town. Mostly his contact with the ocean was skinny dipping after a night at the tavern... again. And he wasn't a fisher like some of his company mates. So this felt like a small adventure to him, and he had this contented smile on his face as he dove down further. ]

Aye, these look like them fish apartments. See? They go hidin' in their 'omes. Nature's kinda funny like tha'.

[onethousen]

[ She settles down closer, letting her feet sink into the sands of the ocean bottom so she can better anchor herself. Chihiro leans forward, peering at the tiny faces of fish she can just barely make out between the three foot long reach of these anemone's tentacles. ]

I see them! Though... do you think they'll be upset with us moving their homes? It might be a little safer near the base, I guess, but I'm not sure how to say that to them out here.

[fistallday]

[ There's a "hmm," a rumbling sound of thought from the mountain of a man. He floats idly, before settling down in the sand nearby. A big plume of sea silt billows up around him. ]

I think... it may be safe fer 'em here. They be hidin' in these big anemones, ye see?

[onethousen]

I see.

[ She sounds quite serious about it, too. ]

Moving isn't the worst thing in the world. I don't want to kick any of them out... do you think they'd move with the anemones if the moving was going slow?

[fistallday]

Aye, they know where their homes are. If ye insist, I can move 'em - just depends on where and 'ow many. I'll make a plan of action from there. Deal?

[ He'd handled worse, and more dangerous, things. ]

[onethousen]

Deal.

[ She doesn't want anything being harmed. Home being wrecked is... nothing she can wish on anyone. ]

I'd been thinking just these three, and moving them to the base, near where it anchors to the bottom? On the side where things aren't being moved around so much anymore. That way it's stable. Their families shouldn't be disturbed.

[fistallday]

Gotcha. Just gotta give me sec, 'ere.

[ He perches carefully on the rocks above a cluster of giant anemones, and cracks his knuckles. It looks kind of awkward underwater, especially when he shakes his wrists out and rolls his shoulders. ]

Not too good at handlin' things w' care, lass, but let's 'ope fer the best.

[ He's a huge, built mountain of a man who specializes in close combat fistfighting. One would be foolish to think he doesn't have insane arm strength. He grasps around the base of an anemone firmly, big, crushing fingers grasping it and he pulls.

The fish swim out, startled, and the long tentacles of the anemone flail around; it's not exactly good at defending itself, but when it can hold onto a surface that firmly it shouldn't have to. ]

[onethousen]

[ When the anemone senses its hold being weakened, it abruptly pulls all its tentacles in, the fish that had swum out initially darting back in to huddle inside of their home as it goes into protective mode. To any interested predator, the slimy outside of the anemone would prove an unpleasant tasting treat, difficult to chew and painful on the tongue. To anyone clad in wetsuits like they were, it was just a strange sort of transformation more usually seen when poked by sticks in tidepools.

Chihiro finds it an odd display. ]

Woah.

[ Odd, but really interesting. ]

I don't think it's hurt... do you think it's hurt, or just protecting itself like a turtle or a clam might?

[ Pulling back into itself in the face of a potential dangerous predator. She steps back, glancing at him and his overlarge, vaguely rounded anemone. ]

[fistallday]

[ There's a fierce roar like the big bear he is, and he manages to remove it from the rock.

Not cleanly, though. He appears to have torn the top half of it off. ]

Halone's tits.

[onethousen]

[ there's a big mental gasp from Chihiro at that. OH NO? The anemone curls around itself. ]

We didn't kill it did we?!

[fistallday]

[ He's pretty sure he killed it. Like. Tore it in half. But he just doesn't say anything, awkwardly half-floating, holding this... mass. ]

Uhhh. Mission failed. Don' look, lass.

[onethousen]

[ Yeah, that is one heck of a dead anemone. STILL. ]

We're going to have to help all those fish move now... um.

[ She carefully sets down the coral she's been carrying, stepping gingerly over toward another anemone. She's not even sure moving works that easily. It's still worth trying. She tries telepathically apologising through an emotional sort of send-out directed at the fish and the... anemone... though she's not sure the anemone has a brain or way to even know what she's doing. Or if what she's doing works at all. She simply reaches out to brush at the tentacle arms of another of the organisms, taking light hold and counting numbers of fish swarming through. ]

There might be room here?

[ She glances back at him and the sad, trailing remains of the torn apart animal... ]

[fistallday]

[ He tosses it over his shoulder into the ocean, a trail of chunky mess following it. Nothing to see here. He's never had to re-home sea animals before, and he's already not doing too great on this side quest. ]

Room where? For what?

[onethousen]

[ She makes a startled mental noise as he tosses the broken half of the anemone away. ]

Wait! We still need that!

[fistallday]

Shiet.

[ He slowly, but with great power and precision - like a bear leaping in slow motion, if a bear could leap like a cheetah - launches himself backward and does a sick catch of the carcass before it floats away. ]

What, we gon' cook with this?

[onethousen]

There were still some fish in there! ... I wonder if it is edible, though...

[ The second thought wasn't meant to be 'spoken' out loud, but it was regardless. She gestures for him to bring the carcass back toward one of the intact anemones. ]

[fistallday]

[ There's a mental rumble of mild annoyance, but he does settle back onto the silt and sand floor of the ocean in a big cloud. Carefully, and turning his face from anemone guts floating out the severed bottom, he holds the anemone up to the still-attached ones and hopes the fish get the idea. ]

[onethousen]

[ Giant mountain of a man, you're helping a ten year old out. She appreciates it! Some of that appreciation will even leak over as a general feeling, something Chihiro isn't aware of as she crouches down by him and coaxes the fish out with gentle mental sounds and noises, reaching out to the living anemone to entice its living arms over. She makes herself part of a bridge for the small fish, ones who are scared enough that eventually, they even listen, darting close along the planes of her arms and chest to make it to the new space. The fish there dart at them, then away again, a confused sort of social political unrest and reshuffling happening just like that. ]

I think that's the last of them.