Seven years ago today the first of the original TickTockStuck posts went into the world, and today, a year after the last shipbeast, a new beast makes its debut! The Trickey-Lime Piedra was one of two shipbeasts requests I had, specifically for the Jane/Calliope ship Key Lime Pie! Hopefully it won't take another year for the other request, even with tech problems. I've had to go old-fashioned for today's post, no color or even transparency, but this week's been rough for a number of reasons and sometimes it just be like that. Add it onto my to-do list of posts to fix up.
Some major points of reference when I was making this beast: Jane's trollsona (which Calliope helped her create), Trickster Jane (who exists largely due to Calliope giving her juju to Jane), cherubim anatomy, the only key lime in Homestuck that matters, and the rest came about due to where it fit best in the Verse.
The candy-strewn wilds of the Land of Sweets and Slime are populated by a wide array of hungry horrors and gluttonous ghouls who have evolved to take advantage of their decadent home, and one of the more beneficial of the lot is the Trickey-Lime Piedra, named for the distinctive lime glaze covering their underside. Piedras are serpentine burrowers who make their home in LOSAS' cake layer, tunneling through the fluffy foodstuff with the aid of their secondary heads.
A Piedra has three heads and only one brain's worth of brain cells to share between them. As such, its secondary heads act more as sensory nodes to relay information back to the central head. This is done largely through the Piedra's two long prehensile tongues, capable of acting independently of each other and easily able to restrain living prey. While digging, the tongues serve to easily consume cake en masse and relay it to a quickly-digesting second stomach, providing the Piedra additional energy undercake. Through this process it's able to spend days at a time without having to surface. When it does surface, the tongues serve additional roles helping the Piedra socialize.
Trickey-Lime Piedras are a highly social species who prefer to travel in pairs, mating or otherwise. Partnership is often decided by a Piedra's colorful facial markings (unique to each individual) and partner pairs engage in a regular ritual wherein they lather each other in native lime glaze and meringue. This creates a protective shell along their soft undersides which has the additional effect of making it easier to slide along the undercake, speeding up tunnel-digging by a considerable factor. One Piedra will go through a handful of partners in its lifetime and can become anxious and stressed when alone for extended periods of time.
During a period of stress, a Piedra may "adopt" an individual from another species. They will stick closely to their adoptee, often licking them as they would a member of their own species. If this makes their adoptee uncomfortable they'll stop, however, thanks to Piedra picking up quickly on other species' social cues. The local iguanas of LOSAS have taken advantage of this; iguanas that live in Piedra territory decorate themselves in the style of Piedra heads and have a designated "Piedra Pal" to become an adoptee. All this is done in the interest of collecting Piedra saliva for their own needs.
Along with their use as tools for manipulation, the tongues of a Tricky-Lime Piedra are coated in its drool, which has several beneficial properties. A digestive enzyme helps break down cake to digest it faster, but more importantly their drool includes an enzyme that helps boost natural healing abilities. Injured Piedra can be seen licking their wounds to recover quicker than they would otherwise, and the LOSAS iguanas have created a number of medicines using Piedra saliva as a key ingredient.
