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

[lapinlazuli]

This is gonna sound weird, but I'm looking for memories. Your memories.

[myhungryass]

"You already found them, though."

He waves a hand at the stuff she's carrying.

[lapinlazuli]

I- I know, I just- I thought maybe there'd be... more?

[myhungryass]

"Oh. I think those are the only ones I haven't already seen, but there are more scattered around that I already know about... if you're just curious?"

[lapinlazuli]

I mean, a little? But, uh...

[She looks at the book and the lion plush.]

...These might be a bit more pressing though, so I'll go ahead and bring them back to you. The, uh, other you. The one in the rhino. God this is so fucking confusing.

[myhungryass]

"Sorry..." He does sound sheepish, though there's a slight not like I can do anything about it tone too.

[lapinlazuli]

It's fine. It is what it is.

So, uh, how do I get out of here?

[myhungryass]

"Oh, just go back in the wagon, but with your eyes tightly closed."

[lapinlazuli]

Huh, okay. Thanks. I’ll see you in a bit.

[She does just that! Back into the wagon.]

[myhungryass]

And back out the side of the snake! She can make the trek around to the rhino head and go in—she does have to experience being swallowed and watching Falin get eaten again, and then put up with shirtless Kabru for a sec, sorry about it—making a direct route past the weird floaty gem to the true heart!

Laios is still there hanging out on the hillside. "Harriet! You did it!"

[lapinlazuli]

[She holds up the book and the plush triumphantly]

I did it!

[myhungryass]

"Thanks a lot. Sorry to put you to the trouble."

[lapinlazuli]

Hey, it’s fine. I got to see some cool stuff while I was looking.

And, uh. Some stuff I don’t ever need to see or think about ever again.

[myhungryass]

"...you did? ...I guess that means I shouldn't ask about it."

[lapinlazuli]

PLEASE don't.

I- I also saw you were thinking a lot about how to help with my, uh. Situation. I really appreciate that. You're a good friend, Laios.

[myhungryass]

"It's not like I've found any answers yet, though. Have you talked about it with Falin? Something like an injury to the soul—I think she could really help."

[lapinlazuli]

She did take a look at my soul a couple days ago, and could tell it'd gotten fucked up, for lack of a better word. I filled Much in on it too. But as far as healing or fixing it... we're all still trying to figure that out.

[myhungryass]

"I see... I hope they can come up with something for you, soon."

[lapinlazuli]

I’m sure they will. I mean, I gotta keep my hope up, right?

…but anyway. Memory delivery! Which one do you want first?

[myhungryass]

He gives the lion plush a slightly dubious look. "Let's start with the book."

First, though, he's going to settle down properly with his back against the tree, and pat the ground for her to sit next to him.

[lapinlazuli]

[taking a seat!]

Probably a good idea to do this seated, yeah.

[myhungryass]

"Yeah... well, here goes."

When he opens the book, a memory washes over you.

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 fantasizes a lot about monsters coming in and eating all the other students in the school, too.

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…

[lapinlazuli]

[Oof. A lot of this hits home.]

...Man. Even in your world, school fucking blows.

[myhungryass]

...

[he glances over at her and then just puts his arm around her shoulders and gives her a little side-hug]

[lapinlazuli]

[We hugging]

At least it's in the past. You were way too cool for that school, anyway.