strangetrip | [GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

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[GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

It was arrival day, and therefore it was possible that there would be new inmates arriving at any time. Someone else might have delayed this until some other day, but for Loki the prospect of new people was simply a bonus. New arrivals tended to be confused and upset already, any consideration from him was unlikely to change that, so he didn't plan on displaying any. He'd already raided empty rooms and moved much of their furniture into the hallways, that was enough general consideration for one day.

Instead, he took a seat on the front desk (ignoring Darryl, who also ignored him) and wove a spell that would let him be heard by everyone in the Inn. "Good morning, fellow residents. It's been a quiet few weeks, hasn't it?" All the weeks, barring undead invasion, tended to be quiet here. It wasn't exactly maddening, but Loki had spent two months being quiet and exceptionally well-behaved, for him.

"To break the monotony, I give to all of you a rousing game of The Floor Is Lava. For those of you who may not know it, it's a descriptive name. When I call time, the floor will become lava. If you touch it, you will die. Metaphorically, at least, so take this seriously." Those who sincerely wished not to play would have no difficulty; the lava was an illusion, and any 'reality' to it depended on belief or buy-in. For those who sincerely didn't want to play, the floor would simply look odd. This was fun mischief, not viciousness. "Also, because I know some people need encouragement in order to engage with fun, the spell creating the lava has been broken and invested into several individual runes and hidden around the Inn, discoverable only by those playing the game. The lava ends when all of those runes are disrupted - you win - or when no one is left alive to disrupt them and I win." That was only sensible. There was no reason to continue playing a game when no one else was playing it.

"Furniture only, staircase railings are fine. No books, no bags, no cloth, the dead can't speak but if they wish to continue playing they may come back as a lava monster under my dominion." Even in games, there were fates worse than death. "Lava monsters may do as they please, including trying to pull the 'living' into the lava. Should there be a clear non-me winner somehow, I'll owe that person a favor of their choice, at some point in the future."

Did that cover everything? It seemed like it, but he could always make another announcement if he had to. "The floor becomes lava in ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two...." He spaced out the countdown enough to make sure that everyone who wanted to scramble for furniture high ground was easily able to do so.

"...One." Loki released the spell and the floors everywhere in the Inn (for those who believed it or at least bought in to the game) turned to churning hot lava.

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Thor continues traveling slightly below and to the right of her, Stormbreaker still firmly in his grasp.

"Yes," he says, confused. "Does he not take photographs with people in your shopping malls?"

"Yes, but you only get to have like two minutes with him because there's always a lot of kids waiting and you can't be greedy." She explained. "So you only really get to say hi and tell him what you want for Christmas and maybe tell him thank you for last years gift."

Thor lets out a low hum at this.

"You say I exist in your future, right?"

"I have a Thor doll on my bed back home!" She confirmed with a smile.

Annie wouldn't think about if Thor was alive or not. She didn't know what happened to Thor specifically except that most of the Avengers died when she was a baby.

That was confirmation enough for Thor.

"If your father knows me back home, have him introduce you to me and I'll take you to him myself."

Thor's confident that they're not from the same timeline and he's thankful for that. He's not as confident that other-Thor would be as willing to take a child to see Santa Clause, but hopefully whatever other Thors did exist out there were decent enough fellows.

Annie's expression fell and she pretended to need to pay attention to where she was crawling around a chandelier. She wasn't sure she could get her dad to introduce her to anyone.

"okay," She said with lack of enthusiasm.

Thor noted her lack of enthusiasm. Perhaps she didn't want to wait. He couldn't blame her; when he was her age, he didn't have much in the way of patience, either.

"When the portals open up, if there's a world where Santa Clause exists, I'll take you to see him myself."

He directs a finger at her.

"Consider it a promise."

She smiled to Thor as they made it into the lobby.

"Be right back!" She said as she disappeared into the bathroom.

She scoured the bathroom and then came back out.

"I didn't find any, did you?" She asked.

Thor, too, disappears into the men's facilities, only to return empty-handed.

"Nope, nothing," Thor says. "Maybe he wanted to be sure that they'd be in places accessible by everyone. We should keep searching."

"Loki is nice like that," She said. "He pretends he's a meanie grumpy gus, but he's not. He's really nice."

Annie liked Loki just as much as she liked Thor.

"He's been training me to be strong for when I go home," She added.

Thor smiles at that.

"Loki and I trained together sometimes when we were younger," he says. "We were raised as twins. We did almost everything together."

"Did you teach each other how to do cool things?" She asked. "Did he teach you how to balance on small ledges?"

"No, unfortunately," Thor says with an apologetic smile. "We have different skill sets. I've always been more about brute force, taking on things head-on; Loki is all about deception and finesse. We complemented one another very well when we fought alongside one another in battle."

Thor continues scanning for some sign of the other runes.

"Like the Hulk and Bruce Banner!" She said, smiling.

Annie spotted on the side of a lounge chair.

"There's one!" She said while pointing excitedly.

"You go get it," Thor says, using Stormbreaker to propel himself towards it; he pauses not very far from it, just in case Annie needs his help.

He'd always been headstrong as a child -- always wanting to do things himself. He could have just as easily asked her if she could do it, but he'd much rather allow her to try and be there to help if she so needed it.

"I'm friends with both Banner and Hulk," he says. "He and the Hulk helped me when my sister was trying to take over Asgard."

"they're one of my favorite, but I never met them," she said.

She eyed the location. She couldn't crawl to it, but she might be able to jump. Annie had been working on her jumps and landings.

She readied herself and then flung across the room. She hit the chair and it knocked over. Annie had to quickly crawl over to the side of the chair that was still 'above lava'.

She let out a breath and then crossed out a rune.

"Good work," Thor tells her once she's managed to cross it out.

"Bruce had been the Hulk for two years when I found him. He was fighting other competitors in a coliseum to entertain a madman. He had been the Grandmaster's champion since almost his arrival." When he says it like that, it sounds worse than it actually was. "He and I had to fight one another," he adds, as if this brings some levity to the scenario.

Annie was starting to learn that there were a lot of stories that her mother never let her dad tell her.

"The Hulk won, right?" She asked with a smile. "He's so strong."

She brought her arms up and pretended to flex her arms to show how strong he was. Her face crunched into a serious face to mimic The Hulk.

"That's an astonishing likeness," Thor says, directing a finger at her. "But no, he didn't win. I won. Easily."

Annie looked skeptical.

"But The Hulk is really strong." She said. "He's also big, big, big!"

"I'm also really strong," Thor argues. "And I have lightning powers. I'm also a god. Who can defeat a god? No one."

Something hit Annie in the way he said all that and her smile faltered. Being young, Annie did not have the skill to mask her emotions most of the time.

"We should keep looking," She said. "There can't be many left now."

Annie's faltering smile doesn't go unnoticed.

"You want to ride on my back?" he asks, not really sure what exactly you should do in these kinds of situations. He does know from Jane's nephews and nieces that kids did like piggy back rides. And they also liked riding on his back when he flew around with Mjolnir.

Jane and Jane's sister were less impressed, but he's sure Peter won't mind.

Right?

Annie smiled again genuinely and nodded.

"Okay." She said. "Mr. Stark gave me a piggyback once too! It's a lot of fun."

"Was it while he was in the Iron Man suit?" Thor asks. "I wish he'd give me a ride, too."

Thor maneuvers towards her so she can easily climb on at her leisure.

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