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

[pocketlockpick]

Yeah.

[offers the book and the plush, and then afterwards, checks for the shiny gem.]

I'm not saying it probably isn't useful, but minimalism over maximalism.

[myhungryass]

There's no shiny gem to be seen. Laios takes the items!

He laughs a bit awkwardly. "Maybe I did get carried away? It feels—right, though. I feel comfortable like this."

[pocketlockpick]

[he nods, and just sits across from Laios]

... I guess you've always been curious about monsters, this is just the next step.

But you know, you probably could stand to appreciate your actual tall-man form more. We don't get to choose how we look like, but... everyone makes the most of it, ya know?

[myhungryass]

"Heh..." He nods back. "You're a really practical guy, Chilchuck. I should take your advice."

If he's in a bit of a heavy mood, he shrugs it off. "So, how about it? Should we see what we can learn from these memories?"

[pocketlockpick]

Sure. Were you not taking them because you were busy, or you were avoiding something?

[myhungryass]

"Actually... I'm pretty anxious to remember more, but somehow I got distracted last night learning how to make tortellini, and I didn't have time to take them before bed. I guess I was worried about getting behind, so maybe that's why I dreamed about it..."

[pocketlockpick]

... tortellini?

[myhungryass]

"They're a stuffed noodle. Or a mini dumpling? But the book says they're pasta. They're pretty good! I'll bring some over to Gloom House tomorrow. Mithrun was interested in learning to make noodles, so..."

[pocketlockpick]

You're helping him with a hobby?

Anyway, sorry... we're getting side tracked here.

[myhungryass]

"Apparently he helped us eat Falin, so..."

He shakes his head.

"Right. One more..."

He picks up the plush lion a bit dubiously.

[pocketlockpick]

It sort of looks like your sword. Probably a good thing, right?

[myhungryass]

He looks a little surprised. "But... I think Kensuke has wings because of the Winged Lion."

Wait a second. "...that's the demon that powers the dungeon. It eats people's desires...?"

He's definitely sweating a little as he realizes maybe no one filled Chilchuck in on the plot yet.

[pocketlockpick]

[... no one filled Chilchuck in on the plot yet.]

What do you mean...?

[myhungryass]

Oh boy. He puts the plush down for the moment. "Well—" Where to even start? He wishes he could make Kabru do it.

"So, remember how dungeons are full of mana, and lots of magic works better inside them? And how people in the dungeon can really consistently be resurrected?"

[pocketlockpick]

...




... Laios, just take the memory for now, and if you need explaining, do so when we're both awake.

[myhungryass]

"Right, okay." He put down the plush, but he's still holding the book, so he'll focus on that first.

A memory washes over them both.

It’s extensive, six years in one go, but a lot of it blurs into repetitive misery. The beginning stands out—Laios is twelve years old and leaving his home village for boarding school. It’s his own choice, born from outrage and disgust at how his sister is being treated… but also the desperate need to just get away from adults who would treat a child with such hostility and suspicion just because she has a talent for magic. She’s going to be sent away, too, to magic school… but as far as he knows, she doesn’t want to go. She cried about it so much! She’s basically being banished!! Sometimes he dreams about monsters swooping in and devouring everyone in the village except for the two of them.

He feels some guilt about leaving first, thus leaving her in their village alone with parents he doesn’t trust and neighbours who are malicious, but he comforts himself that by doing this, he’ll be able to find a way to make a living, so he can go get her, and the two of them can live in happiness.

It doesn’t work out that way, though…

School is awful. He can’t get along with the other students. He’s bullied, verbally and physically. He gets into fights. He exasperates the teachers by daydreaming and not paying attention. He’s trying. And then he’s trying to try—but it’s so hard to want to try when he feels set up for failure. Because of his interest in monsters, he produces some good scholarship in naturalism classes, and the teacher takes note. For awhile, there’s talk of how he could earn a chance to study in a university, and become a real researcher of monsters. But he falls too behind in his other classes, unable to make himself focus on the things that bore him and without support to help him through, and that talk dies down.

He writes to Falin faithfully. At first her life at magic school sounds as lonely as his own… but eventually she makes a friend, and then it begins to sound like she’s having fun every day. He’s so relieved for her…

…that’s the rhythm of his life until he finally scrapes through to graduate. He’s eighteen, now, but with a dismally undistinguished academic career behind him, there’s nothing left to do but join the army.

The memory fades…

[pocketlockpick]

Huh.


Guess the normal life was never meant for you.

[myhungryass]

He rubs a hand through his hair. "Hah... I guess that's not really a surprise, is it?"

[pocketlockpick]

No, but... do you know how many times you've probably saved our lives with your monster knowledge?

Sure it's really niche, but we all have our strengths, right?

[myhungryass]

He cheers up a bit. "Mm. And we can rely on each other to cover our weaknesses, too."

[pocketlockpick]

I bet we would have been starving and malnourished if we never met Senshi.

Or worse yet, dying from poison.

[myhungryass]

"We definitely would have. I don't think that book of mine was always very accurate. And if we hadn't had your skill with traps, or Marcille's magic..." He shakes his head. "Somehow, though, together, we managed to save Falin twice over, and even earn the help of the Western elves? I sure hope we remember how we did it, soon. It seems like we may have even managed to defeat the demon... right, but I'll explain all that when we wake up."

He picks up the plush again. "Maybe this will tell us more."

[pocketlockpick]

Right.

I have so many questions Like why is kabru naked but I definitely need a drink asking that.

[myhungryass]

"I-it's also fine if you never ask about that part."

[pocketlockpick]

... depends if it's more torturous for you or me.