Stark

Stark awoke Saturday morning suddenly no longer Stark-shaped. There was a minimal amount of flailing this time and only one small yell of dismay, quickly muffled. He was almost used to this. Almost, not quite. He would never really be used to it. The flailing and yell gave way very shortly to nothing more than a long-suffering sigh.

He was at least resigned to it by now. It would go away. It had always gone away before and so it always had to go away. There was no other option that Stark was willing to consider and if he started considering other options things were sure to end badly. So he was going to continue believing that this too would pass by tomorrow. Or Monday. Definitely before Tuesday. He hoped. It would, wouldn't it?

At least here there would be others to commiserate with. He hoped. What if it was just him? He didn't want it to be just him. Not that he wanted others to have to deal with this too. He just didn't want to have to be the only one. The only way to find out was to go out, he supposed.

[Establishy. Though if you've got a reason or desire to stop by the alien's room I'm not gonna stop you. Mostly I just love the Starkozu icons.]

When he woke yesterday, Stark had let out a few half-hearted "frell!"s, then sighed and gone about his usual routine. Not that he had much of a routine at this point, but there was always upkeep to be done on the transport pod and consulting of maps and starcharts, and the ever-important missing of cupcakes while unenthusiastically nibbling on the seemingly endless supply of food cubes he'd mistakenly purchased on the last commerce planet he'd stopped at.

When he woke on the second solar day to find he was still a girl and had not returned to his usual shape while he slept the "oh, frell" was far more heartfelt than the previous day's. The flailing was far more pronounced as well.

"It always went away after just one day before," he growled to the empty transport pod. The only answer was a soft echo of his currently higher pitched voice, which was growing annoyingly familiar by now.

"It will go away again, won't it? I don't like this." He was rather attached to his proper shape and found being the wrong shape very distressing. Especially when things did not go back to normal when they were supposed to.

Perhaps he could at least share the misery. Or find out if this was happening to anyone else. Still happening to anyone else. Shaking his head (which had too much hair!), he turned his attention to the comms system.


[Open for calls with a mildly flaily alien, should anyone so desire.]

Stark always missed Zhaan. This was a fundamental part of who he was, much like his tenous hold on his sanity or his tendency to babble. Sometimes he missed her more than others. Usually this was just something he accepted, something that bothered him on some level but not an immediate one. Usually it was a wistful sort of emotion, occasionally something stronger. Sometimes it was more immediate. Like today. Today it wasn't even just emotional. Today it was almost physical.

Staying cooped up his transport pod was not helping Stark in the least, which was why he'd landed on this small commerce planet. Doing something, even if it was just wandering through a marketplace looking for something more palatable than food cubes, had to be better than being left alone with his thoughts right now. Unfortunately for Stark, this particular commerce planet happened, at the moment, to be hosting more than a few Delvians.

Had Stark known about the influx of Delvians, he probably wouldn't have landed at all. Right now he wasn't in any shape to be running into blue people when all he wanted in the world was one particular, beloved blue person. One he'd been missing for far, far too long.

It had been merely an annoyance when he'd spotted the first Delvian woman. He'd simply turned and headed in a new direction. It had happened again, and he'd turned again, thinkin perhaps he should just head back to the pod.

And then he'd turned and crashed into two Delvian Pa'us. Having one eye, after all, led to a distinct lack of peripheral vision to one side. He stumbled backward, stared, paled, whispered "Goddess help me" in a tone barely audible even to himself and began stammering out an apology.

One of the priestesses had grabbed at his shoulder to steady him as he stumbled. She smiled, dismissing the apology as unnecessary, as did the other. "Are you all right?" one asked, "you look...unwell."

"Could we help?" offered the other. "Come, sit, before you fall over." She motioned to a recently vacated bench as she spoke. The first Delvian who had spoken nodded her agreement, gently pushing tugging Stark towards the bench. Part of Stark was having very happy thoughts at the idea of these two Delvians. The vast majority of him was appalled at that part and trying not to flail or run screaming.

"I..." Stark began, toying with the mask buckle at his neck in his effort not to flail. "I. No. No. This is. I...That is, you're...you're not. And I, no. You're not, even if you look...I need to go. Now. Need to go now. Need to be somewhere else. Alone." Leaving two confused Delvian priestesses behind him, Stark turned and fled in the opposite direction hoping he could manage to avoid anymore encounters with blue women on his way back to the transport pod. Perhaps being alone was his best option right now.

[I couldn't leave Stark entirely out of sex week even though just contemplating including him felt vaguely wrong somehow. Establishy unless you happen to be in the UTs or you're taking a break from your pollen-fueled sexcapades to call an alien. He'd enjoy that.]

Stark woke up, stumbled out of of bed, and was headed to the bathroom before he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the back of his door.

"Oh, frell!"

For one thing, he had hair. And that would be fine if it were the only difference. But there were also some anatomical additions and subtractions that he really wasn't comfortable with. Wait, was he still a he if he was shaped like a she? Did he have to be a she from now on until it went away and was it even going to go away because if it didn't go away...

"Frell, frell, frell!"

Stark decided he was going to stay a he, even if he was temporarily (oh how he hoped it was temporary) she-shaped.

"Frell!" he yelped again, because at this point there really were no other words. Well, actually there were a few. Like, "what the FRELL was in those brownies last night?" He might have to swear off brownies for life now.

And to think, he'd just been talking with Bridge last night about how people should just be themselves and not somebody else. At this point Stark was torn between an urge to flail wildly and an urge to maskpalm repeatedly. He went with the flailing, because he was Stark. He was going to keep the flailing to himself for now and not come out of his room until it was absolutely necessary.

[Yes, another waking up as a girl post. It's almost canon, couldn't resist! Mostly establishy, but feel free to come poke at the poor flaily alien.]