Zodiac War

Two Heads Are Better Than One

Talise ended by saying that she had fainted from exhaustion while saving others when they were drowning and now she looked at me to continue the story.  I started out by saying, “When you said ‘Are you just going to keep standing there and watching me? There’s still a lot of people that need saving and that would go a lot faster if you got in here with me and helped.’ I couldn’t help but feel sad.  I wanted to help. I really did. But you didn’t understand how bad my reaction would be if I did get in the water.” I thought back to how disappointed Talise had looked and how I couldn’t get that out of my mind. I had paced back and forth on the dock and kept watch.  That is, until she didn’t come up for a very long time. It was hard to see since the distance was so great, but I was pretty sure that she hadn’t come up for air in a very long time. I looked around frantically if there was anyone who could help her, but the sun was already going down and everyone had already left.  I couldn’t just let her drown.

I finally managed to spot a small pedal boat tied up on the other end of the dock and decided that this would be my best bet to help her.  I hopped in making sure not to touch the water and started pedaling out to where the cruise ship had gone down. I finally got nearer to the spot and still didn’t see her.  I pedaled around some more while looking down into the water when I finally spotted her tied to a piece of wreckage. She seemed to have fainted, so I made my way over carefully in case she got dislodged from the wreckage.  I reached over to her and tried dragging her onto the pedal boat without tipping it over. I finally managed and headed back to the dock, but not before noticing a watery tuna fish on her right forearm. I wondered if that was just some interesting tattoo she had gotten or if it was like my mark.  When I got to the dock, I picked her up and was surprised at how light she was. I was happy that she wasn’t any heavier or it would have been a pain to get her back to my apartment. She seemed to only be 5’4” though and slender as well.

When I got to my apartment, I immediately went in search of a waterproof bag.  If her mark meant that she was like me, then that meant she was dangerous to me.  I turned the waterproof bag inside out and tied it around her right hand. Hopefully this would stop her water powers if she had any.  I hoped she would wake up soon, so that I could ask her all about her mark.

The next few days, she still didn’t wake up, so I just spoon fed her and mostly tried taking care of her leg which she seemed to have gotten caught on something.  Finally, after three days she woke up and immediately tried getting up. I stopped her and she asked where she was. I told her how I had saved her and that I had been taking care of her the past few days.  She just said, “Do you want a medal or something?” I couldn’t believe how rude she was being after I had just saved her life. I just said, “If you knew how allergic I was to water, you’d understand.” I was about to turn away when she suddenly shrieked, “What did you do to me?”  I turned back and saw her looking at the tuna on her forearm. She started pulling at the ropes which bound her to the bed and I saw the waterproof bag filling with water. “What do you want? Why am I tied up? Am I your prisoner now?” She bombarded me with questions. The only thing I said in response was, “I was hoping you’d be able to tell me about your mark.  See, I have one too. But last time I checked, there wasn’t a tuna in the chinese zodiac nor the western one.”

She had calmed down a little since she could obviously tell that I was telling the truth, but she still said, “Would you mind untying me then?  We can figure this out better if we can actually talk without me being tied up.” I replied, “Do you think I’m crazy?! If I did that, you’d either just take off or kill me with your water powers.”   She didn’t say anything to that, so I assumed that I’d been right. “Fine. I’ll tell you what I think and then you can decide if you want to untie me or not.” She proceeded to tell me that she thought her chinese zodiac element was the chicken and her element water.  It made sense when she explained it to me in terms of the canned tuna from the store. Those cans are always labeled as chicken of the sea, so that might explain why she got a tuna on her arm instead of a water chicken. She also told me how she was allergic to pretty much anything on earth, so she preferred the water.  And then she told me that it wouldn’t make sense for her to kill me since I obviously knew more than her and two heads are better than one. If we wanted to get back to our normal lives, we’d have to work together to find out about these marks and how they impacted our lives. That was enough of a convincing argument that I untied her, but quickly ducked out the door in case she changed her mind.  She didn’t and the next couple of days were spent with us trying to figure out what to do next and what we knew.