strangetrip | [GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

Entry tags:

[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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

River slid along the counter and opened one of the cabinets to see if she could locate the popcorn.

"Did they make you different? Or were you always different?" She's curious because even if she was always a bit different she'd been created not born as she was now.

"I was bit by this spider," he says. "I don't really know what was up with it, it just bit me and died and then I got super strong and super durable and started crawling up walls."

All of that had been utterly bizarre.

"I thought I should do something with it, so I became a superhero. Like the Avengers."

That sounded like a very unusual spider.

"They wanted to use me, but I don't want be what they were trying to make." She was sure they had succeeded, but she hadn't stuck around to see if she was good enough.

Peter hesitates for a moment before he finally asks her: "Who's they?"

"Alliance," she didn't know more. Or she did but she didn't like to think about them. Or the things they knew that she knew now.

"Wanted a weapon, not a girl. Didn't get either."

"Did they --" Peter opens another cabinet from the counter and peers inside, moving things around. He knows there's a box of popcorn somewhere around here. "-- did your parents send you to them?"

He glances over at River at that moment. He remembers her talking about her parents, how they were nobles and they wouldn't have thought much of her playing in the sand like a common person.

"Yes." Because, they had. But there was a pause and then, "No."

Another pause. Her parents were less than warm, but she didn't think they knowingly sent her off to be broken.

"It was a school. I wanted to go. So they sent me."

Peter nimbly jumps from one counter to the other, landing solidly on his two feet. He digs through another cabinet.

"Why'd you wanna go?"

"To learn," she thought that was the obvious point of a school. But maybe it wasn't. Maybe that had been her error.

"Had the best program."

"What kind of program?" Peter asks carefully. He opens a cabinet and this time locates the microwave popcorn. He pulls out the box, shakes it to get River's attention, then tosses it over to her.

She caught the box, scanned the instructions and then hopped her way to the microwave before answering. She was focused on removing the cellophane wrap and programming the machine rather than him as she spoke.

"It was comprehensive. Math, science, civics... the arts. I wanted to be a dancer." Her parents had been okay with that, but had harbored hopes that she would change her mind and study the law.

"You can still be a dancer," Peter points out. "There's a couple of people here that could show you how to dance. Kitty was a dancer. So was Star-Lo --" Peter stops and course-corrects; he's sure most people don't know him by that name -- or at least don't call him by it. "-- so is Quill."

He's not sure if River would be into Quill's style of dancing, though. Maybe.

"He saved the universe in a dance-off."

That seemed unlikely, but she didn't contradict Peter.

"I started dance lessons when I was three." She so sort of was a dancer, just not professionally. "But I will ask them if they would like to trade lessons."

The microwave beeped and she took the bag of popcorn out and shook it.

"I think Quill would be happy to have someone to teach." Peter was pretty sure Quill would just be excited to have someone ask because it meant they respected his skills. "He's from my universe. We're supposed to meet in my future."

Peter maneuvers over to where River is and sits down on the counter next to her.

"When the floor is no longer lava I will ask him." She pulled open the bag and the popcorny steam poured out with the scent, she offered it to Peter. "Did he tell you about your future?"

That seemed unwise.

"Yeah!" Peter's face brightens at the question. "Apparently Tony gives me a new suit and I become an Avenger and we go to another planet where we're fighting this really big bad guy named Thanos."

Yeah, see that seemed both cool and unwise.

"You will win." Because, well, she was going to put that idea in his head so that they did.

"Yeah, we have Quill's whole team, plus this space wizard --" Quill's words, not his. "-- named Dr. Strange and Iron Man. I'm really excited about it. It's my first big mission. My first mission as a real Avenger, period."

She crunched some popcorn and eyed him with critical concern, "Be careful."

She didn't know the other people he mentioned really at all so her concern was really all for her friend. And a little bit for the raccoon with human eyes.

"I will be," Peter says, reaching out to take some of the popcorn out of the bag. He might have been on the defensive a year ago -- reading concern as a certain skepticism as to his abilities, but things had changed. "I've been practicing a lot. Quill's also got this big plan he put together. I've been trying to get him to tell me more about it, but he's been pretty cagey."

"Cause and effect," she said after a moments consideration. Then she tossed a piece of popcorn into the lava to see what would happen. It sizzled and disappeared but when the lava was gone would popcorn be waiting on the floor? She tossed another piece so the first one had company.

"If you know what will happen, can you change it or does knowing make it true? Not knowing adds no limitations to variation in action."

"I don't know," Peter says. "I mean, Mr. Stark is pretty convinced we will remember things, but the me in the future doesn't remember Quill at all."

And he's pretty sure he'd tell Tony immediately about this place if he did remember. Which didn't happen because when Tony showed up, he knew nothing about the Madonna Inn or its inhabitants.

"I remember all kinds of things that I don't actually know I remember." WHich didn't make sense did it? But it was true weven though she didn't know how it was true.

"We forget. But we remember too."

Peter shoots River a puzzled look as he pops a kernel of popcorn into his mouth. "What do you mean?"

She wasn't sure she could explain very well but she tried.

"Memories hide. We file them away." She took a deep smell of the warm popcorn and popped a couple pieces in her mouth. "I remember my brother, and sitting by the hearth and popping corn in the fire but not until I smell popcorn. Until then it's there, the memory is in me but I don't know I know it."

That was very coherent of her Peter, be proud.

[GP/EP] THE FLOOR IS LAVA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA

Re: OTA