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

[aluminumfoil]

We're going to travel the world too, looking for all the secrets in the dungeons that are hidden from us. Maybe we'll run into each other.

[myhungryass]

He nods, thinking about that in silence for a long time.

He stares down at the reins, lost in thought.

Eventually, he says hesitantly, "Maybe you and your sister could be friends with me and my sister."

[aluminumfoil]

[... Kabru smiles gently at him, his chest aching.]

I'd like that a lot.

[myhungryass]

Small Laios gives him a tentative smile back that blossoms suddenly into a big, cocky grin. The sun is coming out from behind the clouds. It feels a lot warmer in here...

...Kabru feels a sudden weight in his pocket. A quiet chiming sound emanates from within.

[aluminumfoil]

[ohhh, his heart feels soooo --

--?? reaches into his pocket?]

[myhungryass]

There's a small compact mirror inside. It chimes again.

"What's that?"

[aluminumfoil]

I don't know.

[flips it open?]

[myhungryass]

Leonard Miller Caterpillar's little face is looking up at him from the surface of the mirror.

[applecar]

Um, hello, pizza party? Does this work?

[aluminumfoil]

Len?! Huh??

[myhungryass]

Kid Laios's face shoves in next to Kabru's. "Whoa! Who's that??"

[applecar]

Oh, it does work, pizza party! Thank you so much for the mirror!

[aluminumfoil]

Uh, this is Leonard Miller, Caterpillar, and our black magic mirror communicators. What do you need Len, were are you?

[applecar]

I'm in the next room, pizza party. I just wanted to make sure the mirror works.

[He doesn't really get that he's talking to a different Kabru than he was before.]

There's a big gem in here, pizza party. It looks... tasty.

[myhungryass]

The child is absolutely just babbling over top of their conversation. "He's so cool looking! Look at his protective coloration! Is he a beast-man??"

[aluminumfoil]

[next room??]

Yes, he is. How did you get there?? Which monster head did you go inside? Be careful, don't eat any gems.

[applecar]

I went in the rhino head. It was the only one that doesn't eat meat, so I thought it wouldn't swallow me, pizza party...

[He was Incorrect.]

Who're you talking to, pizza party? There was no one in there when I saw you before.

[myhungryass]

Laios shoves his face directly in front of Kabru's so that he takes up the whole mirror. "I'm Laios!"

He's ten years old or so.

[aluminumfoil]

[When he saw me before.................]

This is Laios. This is all about Laios. I have to get back there-- How about you talk to him for a while, okay Len?

[passes the mirror to little Laios and clasps his shoulder]

Laios, this is a present. (Never show it to anyone.) I promise we'll meet again.

[applecar]

It's all about Laios? Wait, why does he look like this? Kabru, pizza party?

[And then he just gets handed off to kid Laios.]

[myhungryass]

Kid Laios is holding the mirror in such a way that Leonard can see straight up his nostrils. "Why do I look like what?"

[aluminumfoil]

It's him as a kid! I'll be right there!

[he ruffles Laios' head, and then dives back into the cart. Stands there panicking for a second. Then grabs the book out of his shirt and opens the back of the wagon again.]

Hey!

[myhungryass]

The scruffy gaunt Laios looks at him incuriously, but... somehow with a bit more alertness than before, now that it's sunnier out.

"Hey...?"

[aluminumfoil]

[That was how he feels... he holds the book out.]

This is yours, right?

[myhungryass]

"Yeah! I must have dropped it." He takes it and tucks it down the front of his shirt. "Thanks, Kabru."