Karolina hadn’t had much time to explore the college campus where everyone had set up home since arriving. It was just her luck, she figured, to arrive in the middle of a massive bug battle—not that she really remembered anything about her luck, or knew about the battle raging on campus while she and Xavin had been fighting miles away. Still, it hadn’t been a great omen, and she’d only had a day before she was stationed on the outskirts, watching while the bodies burned in a ditch. Life moved fast here, apparently.
Now that the only thing left to do was clean up the aftermath, Karolina finally had time to explore her new home. She hadn’t slept more than an hour since she’d arrived, and she wanted to get the lay of the land, so to speak, before she figured out where she was going to live for the foreseeable future. There were more than a couple buildings damaged in the last few days, but there were plenty of places she could stay if she wanted. She wondered, idly, where Xavin was staying.
The visitor’s center was one of the first places she headed towards—maybe she could find an old map or something—but Karolina hadn’t expected it to already be occupied. She didn’t recognize the man inside, but that wasn’t surprising. She didn’t know anyone yet. But she did recognize the giant corpse just chilling out on the floor and made a pretty undignified squeaking sound at the sight, reverting to her rainbow-colored form instinctively. It took her a moment to realize that the bug was dead, and another to understand the fact that the guy was actually talking to it (and touching it, ew).
“You’re probably the only one here who’d apologize to that thing. Or call it ‘buddy.’” She hovered closer to it, reaching a colorful arm out cautiously but pulling it back before it could even make contact with the bug.