Laios's Heart Game

[myhungryass]

It's dark, and you are not quite conscious. You have the sense that you are climbing; that you have been climbing for a long time. You can feel the burn in your thighs, the ache in your calves. You're a little too hot, and what you're wearing is a little too heavy. You have the sense of taking a last weary, heaving step onto a plateau.



You find yourself in a dark, blank place, dominated by a huge, dead monster, building sized, as big as a tower. Each of its enormous heads that you can see laid out before you is easily the size of a ballroom. There is blood on its lips and nostrils, blood crusted around its empty eye-sockets, but there is a feeling of hollowness about it. On second thought, you're not quite sure if it's a corpse or a moult.

There is no sign of the stairs you vaguely remember climbing. You are standing on the surface of some opaque black liquid. It feels almost completely solid under your feet, springy, but your footsteps leave ripples spreading out in rings... all around you is a velvety, impenetrable darkness. The only thing you can see is the vast, lifeless beast in front of you, illuminated as if by spotlights, though no actual light-source can be found.

Its orifices are mostly clogged with blood, but somehow, as you stare at it, one vaulted nostril on the wolf's head begins to seem like an archway... the lolling tongue hanging out of the rhinoceros's head like an entry ramp... the exposed, hollow eye-socket on the eagle's head like a portal...

Of course, if you're not quite ready to step inside a monster, you could keep walking around its body and see what you find.

Comments

[girlsniktdoor]

[This will probably be better than walking around the front. She's going in.]

[myhungryass]

She climbs in... to a covered wagon? There are crates and sacks stacked neatly inside... clearly cargo.

A green book with many bookmarks sits on top of one of the crates.

It's a little too cold in here. Laura feels suddenly very tired.

The wagon is bumping along... there are sounds of horses and people calling outside.

[girlsniktdoor]

[Laura is going to try to make herself as unnoticeable in here as possible while she starts looking through the marked pages in the book]

[myhungryass]

It feels easy to make herself unnoticed. She has a nagging sense there might be consequences for it later, but... for now, she has the wagon and a quiet moment all to her lonesome.

Anyway, the book is full of descriptions of monsters! Sea serpents, slimes, walking mushrooms... it seems to be a guidebook for cooking and eating them. There are many notes on the bookmarks and in the margins, making corrections and posing theories.

At the back is a loose page. The monster on it seems to have been drawn by a child, albeit one who's pretty good at drawing monsters. It has one head fewer than the huge monster Laura recently walked inside, but... it does seem similar.

As she touches that page, a memory washes over her.

[girlsniktdoor]

[Very carefully she is going to poke her head out the wagon. Take a look at her surroundings. Maybe hoping to spot Falin, if she is in Laios' dream like she was Louis']

[myhungryass]

Does she peek out the back or the front?

[girlsniktdoor]

[Out the back. Let's try not to spook the driver.]

[myhungryass]

She immediately comes face-to-face with Laios, but a much scruffier and slightly younger version than she's used to. He's leading three horses on a string. They're all laden with packs, and Laios himself is wearing a heavy pack, too.

Even though he must be younger, he looks older. He's worryingly gaunt, and shuffles along, seeming listless. Although there's surprise on his face when Laura pops out, he barely seems interested. "Hey... what are you doing in there?"

[girlsniktdoor]

I am...[quick Laura think of a lie] running away from home.

[Bad lie, Laura.]

I have not stolen anything I swear. I just needed a place to rest.

[myhungryass]

He shrugs, apparently uncaring. "Just don't let the caravan master see you."

He looks away.

[girlsniktdoor]

Phoenix...are you doing okay? You look like you have not eaten recently.

[myhungryass]

He blinks a little at the name, but just shrugs again. "They feed us okay."

As Laios glances away again, a cold fog begins to rise, obscuring Laura's vision. She can still see Laios, but he seems murky, distant, indistinct. Who is this guy, anyway? He's nobody important. He's probably more trouble than he's worth. He looks like bad news. He's clearly an anti-social weirdo. Do you really want to waste your time talking to him...?

The thoughts that creep through her mind and the rising sense of disinterest aren't impossible to fight off—they don't erase her own feelings. But it would be so easy to simply not bother.

[girlsniktdoor]

[Laura frowns. Feeling some sense of psychic interference a deep embedded urge in her mind compels her to RESIST. This is Phoenix. Her friend and roommate.]

Hey. Is this your book?

[myhungryass]

That gets his head to jerk up a little in interest. The fog clears slightly. He pats himself down. "I dropped it?"

[girlsniktdoor]

Here.

[She hands it to him.]

Interesting stuff in there. Does that three headed monster actually exist?

[myhungryass]

"Thanks." He takes it and tucks it down the front of his shirt. "It's more like a thought experiment."

[girlsniktdoor]

What is the least amount of traits you would have to give to a human for them to be a monster, do you think?

[myhungryass]

He perks up a lot. The fog fades... "That's an interesting question! A lot of scholars debate where the line is betwee so-called demihumans and other monsters."

[girlsniktdoor]

[Speaking in a hushed tone]

If I show you something can you tell me if you think I am demihuman?

[myhungryass]

He seems more focused. He lowers his voice, too. "Do you mean your claws? It's Donna, right...?"

[girlsniktdoor]

[Smiling brightly.]

Yes. Exactly. You do remember me.

[myhungryass]

"I... I do remember you." He seems confused, but like he's actually thinking about it.

"This... was a long time ago."

[girlsniktdoor]

Before you met your friends. Where is Falin at this time?

[myhungryass]

"She's still at school."

[girlsniktdoor]

Where are you headed as part of the caravan?

[She's getting out now to walk beside him. It seems rude to be sitting while he walks.]